In the autumn of 1970 Sangharakshita gave another key series of lectures. This time his theme was ‘The Higher Evolution of the Individual’. The concluding lecture – whose notes are displayed here – was a thought-provoking exploration of a crucial question: ‘Is a Guru Necessary?’

‘Several members of the audience were on occasion in a state of evident shock, having only now realised that the light-hearted spirit in which they had taken up Buddhism, or the spiritual life, or the Higher Evolution, was in no way justified by the seriousness of the enterprise. It was as if they had awakened from a dream and now saw, for the first time, how precipitous was the ascent, how lofty the peaks they proposed to scale, and how terrifying the abysses that yawned on every side.’

Sangharakshita, 1970 – A Retrospect, (CW23), p.463