ALAN JACOBS BIOGRAPHY

ALAN JACOBS was born in 1929 in London. He was a wartime evacuee to the United States at the age of 10, and lived in New York State, attending the Irving School in Tarrytown. He returned to England in 1943 and went to Malvern College, and then served in the Royal Army Education Corps for National Service. He entered the family business and was trained in Management Studies and Clothing Manufacture at the Tailor and Cutter Academy. He was later appointed the Production Director of Willerby Tailoring.
When the family business was sold he became an art dealer and established a reputation as a specialist in Dutch and Flemish 17thC. Paintings, ending up with a Gallery in Duke Street St James’s. On retirement he attended poetry workshops at Morley College and the City Literary Institutewhere he was taught Prosody by the Poets Christopher Reid and the late Julia Casterton. He later became a Professional Life Coach (Coaching Academy), A Neuro Linguistic Programme Practitioner and then an author.
From an early age he has been interested in religion and mysticism. He commenced a personal search for truth, and studied comparative religion. He then entered the Gurdjieff Society in 1957 and remained there until the early seventies. He then met Jiddu Krishnamurti, and studied his teachings until 1979. Next, he discovered Ramana Maharshi and became familiar with his extensive literature and spiritual practice. He is currently President of the Ramana Maharshi Foundation UK.
His first book was Dutch And Flemish 17th C. Painters A Collectors Guide for McGraw Hill. he then compiled an Anthology the 'Element Book of Mystical Verse' for Element Books, now republished as 'Poetry For The Spirit', by Watkins Publishing and Barnes & Noble. As a Poet he has versified, for ‘O’ Books both the 'Bhagavad Gita', 'The Principal Upanishads', and 'The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius', as well as compiling a major prose anthology for them entitled 'The Ocean Of Wisdom'. For Watkins Publishing he edited 'Ramana- Shankara- And The Forty Verses', versified the 'Essential Gnostic Gospels' and compiled an Anthology, the 'Wisdom of Ramesh Balsekar'. XLibris have published a volume of his own poetry, 'Myrobalan of The Magi' and a History of London from a spiritual perspective entitled Mysterious London'. He has just completed an anthology 'The Wisdom Of The Native American Indians', 'Plato's Republic- An Abridgemnent and Modernisation' and 'When Jesus Lived In India' all for Watkins Publishing.
His first collection of Poetry, Mastering Music Walks The Sunlit Sea contains only sonnets and roundels. It is the first of a planned series of small collections of poetry for Matador Publishing. He has been regularly published by the Poetry Magazine 'Reflections', and compiled an anthology of their Poets for the Rowan Press. He has three children,Laura Jacobs Bsc.B.A., currently at Birbeck College, London University, working for her Phd. in Milton Studies, Dr.Keith Jacobs M.A.,Phd, Asst.Prof.of Sociology at the University of Tasmania, Graham Jacobs, A Senior Partner at St.James' Place, Investment Advisors, and five grandchildren.
He now lives in Edgware, Middlesex, and annually visits India.