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Hidayat teaching meditation at Beauvallon's school

In addition to Hidayat’s activity with the Lycée Musical in the company of some great musicians and his work in a pottery factory, he also taught meditation at Marguerite Soubeyran Beauvallon’s school.

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“It’s in Beauvallon that the spiritual atmosphere is most pronounced. This is certainly because of the importance that meditation received there. The couple Bernson, he as a psychologist, and she as a graphologist contributed to it since they were Jung’s fanatics. However, it seems that it was an Indian, dignitary of a Sufi lineage, who was a determinant influence. British subject, he is in forced residence in Dieulefit, It is he who initiated children to the meditative techniques. Anyway, this spiritual atmosphere was characteristic of the whole village. It was demonstrated by the young people getting together in the evening in a village townhouse: “Today, I am left of these passionate discussions with the memory of a spirituality that enveloped all of us.(51)”

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We did not even get into any of Hidayat’s activities in the active resistance. This shows already that he was very busy in this village and certainly contributing greatly to its daily life as a musician, working in a pottery factory and teaching meditation.

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We know through a comment in the Beauvallon School guest book that Hidayat was there April 29, 1942. This was three months before his son Fazal was born in Montelimar. He wrote:

            To our very dear Mrs. Soubeyran,

            With the most sincere and deep feeling, I take permission to express our greatest respect and gratefulness for you.

            In this holiday, we are hastening to offer all our compliments with the fervent prayer that God gives you His Grace and His Love.

            Hidayat Inayat Khan

            PS:         Good Health, Long Life

                           Right guidance from above

                           Prosperity, Success

                           Happiness and Love.  (Translated from a Sufi poem)

In 1929, Marguerite Soubeyran (April 29, 1894, to November 14, 1980) was the foundress of the “Ecole de Beauvallon” or Beauvallon’s school with Catherine Krafft (August 10, 1899 – June 29, 1982 and Simone Monnier (August 19, 1913 -    ) who, as co-director, arrived in 1936. They adopted five children (52). The school is two miles southeast of Du Bourg Street in the center of Dieulefit where Hidayat’s family lived.

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Marguerite Soubeyran was born in Dieulefit, April 29, 1894, in a protestant family and her father was an executive in Morin’s spinning factory. The main industry in Dieulefit. Marguerite studied nursing in Paris where she met Jeanne Rivard, Madeleine Arcens, Alice Beaumet, Blanche Reverchon who married Pierre-Jean Jouve, and, Claire Bertrand who married the painter Eisenschitz, who will remain friends for life. Back to Dieulefit, sick and penniless, she converted a farm into a rest home, La Pension des Tilleuls in Beauvallon. Her friend Jeanne Rivard came to join her who directed this rest home when Marguerite left to study in Geneva in 1927. She studied child education at Jean-Jacques Rousseau institute.

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Jeanne Rivard married Emile Dourson in 1927, Lorrain exiled, and he will play a big role during the war.

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In Geneva, Marguerite met Catherine Krafft and they developed the idea to create a school in Dieulefit. Marguerite adopted two children Fernand “Dadou” and Claudine Soubeyran.

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The “new school” educational vision at Jean Jacques Rousseau institute created in 1912, will open the way for “Casa dei Bambini” by Maria Montessori in Rome and “L’Ecole pour la vie, par la vie” by Ovide Décroly in Brussel. This new form of education manifested the concept that said: “A child is not a recipient to be filled but a fire to be lit.” The teaching is full of modern and innovative ideas that became the New School.

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In retrospect, no one will be surprised that not only Hidayat might have been influenced by such school where he taught meditation but also his daughter Inayat who became director and established many Montessori schools in Canada and the USA.

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Hidayat’s daughter, Inayat who was 2 to 6 years old in Dieulefit during her stay there, wrote on her website (53):

My calling began shortly after obtaining a superb Montessori training in Paris, France in 1962, and it was to unite children from all aspects of life in the United States, Canada, as well as Mexico through the Montessori way of education. All of my educational training has led me to understand that I inherited my passion for children by way of my aunt, Noor Unissa. In 1962, I took part in assisting Tom Laughlin (an actor and director in the movie, Billy Jack) to start the first Montessori in Southern California. It was named the Sophia Montessori of Santa Monica. In 1964, I opened the first Montessori in Costa Mesa, California, known as the Montessori Centre. Throughout the years, I have trained numerous teachers using Montessori methodologies and have opened many Montessori's throughout the Orange County area in Southern California. In 1982, I launched the International Christian Montessori Academies for the expressed purpose of celebrating among children to have them learn to appreciate and to understand the importance of having a tolerance of different religions united with an attitude of Love, Harmony, and Beauty.

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Inayat might have accompanied her father to Beauvallon’s school and her parents were certainly positively influenced by it to encourage her in a Montessori training in Paris when she was 22 years old in 1962.

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Ernest Jablonsky “Jouhy” directed the Odenwaldschule School in Germany and supported strongly the OSE (54). He experimented with the New Education at the Chateau de la Guette in 1939 from which came three children saved by Marguerite Soubeyran in 1942 through La Bourboule. After the war, he worked at the Beauvallon School.

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Many schools following this new education precept will open around the world; however, the Beauvallon School will be the first in France in 1929 offering a mixed new education and accepting children considered difficult.

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All these new schools networked with each other. With this common ideas of new applied pedagogy including a loving environment; trust; security; mutual respect, global vision; self-management; empowerment; free air; nature; no barrier; mixed boarding school; social diversity; family sphere; familiarity in France means to use the more familiar “tu” instead of “vous”; emphasizing sport, intellectual and artistic activities, and its two pillars, assembly as operational body and morning meeting for meditation and contemplation.

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Anyone familiar with Sufi principles about philosophy and education will recognize that Hidayat Inayat Khan and Leny could not be any more pleased to find such a school in Dieulefit. This was practically a perfect match.