In this dialogue with the Dalai Lama, Fr Laurence Freeman discusses the evolution of our relationship to Jesus as our teacher, and the challenges of discipleship. Speaking from personal experience, he describes three levels of relationship. The first level sees Jesus as a fellow human being, no doubt extraordinary, awakening to enlightenment on the spiritual journey. He is the exemplary model for one's life in his integrity, his transcendence beyond cultural conditioning, and his renunciation of self. At the second level, Jesus is experienced as part of one's identity, one's centre of gravity in whom the disciple can take refuge. This develops into the third level in an experience of the "Inner Christ" in which Jesus is still alive and present to us in a different form, in spirit, transforming us as we awake to his divinising presence within us and in others.

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When he was still living in the palace, Arsenius (a well-educated citizen of Rome of Senatorial rank) prayed to God in these words, 'Lord, lead me in the way of salvation.' And a voice came saying to him, 'Arsenius, flee from men and you will be saved.' * Arsenius left the palace in 394 AD for the deserts of Scetis in lower Egypt. and became an anchorite; ultimately renowned for his austerity and silence. Wandering off into exile seems somehow to be connected with the spiritual life. When St. Anthony first received his calling to dedicate his life to God *, he went to the edge of his village to meet and converse with a holy hermit already living in solitude there. Anthony may have become 'Great', but he was not the first person to remove himself from the comforts of civilisation and the companionship of other men in pursuit of God. There may have been many such anchorites or solitary and wandering monks in these times.

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