The book “A Luminous Encounter” is based on the life and teachings of Neville Jayaweera. The book combines inspirational biography with personal testimony and vibrant scriptural teaching. It offers practical insights to help you to experience and to live in the flow of your union with God in Christ. The author, Ann Shakespeare, was Neville’s pupil and close friend for almost four decades. He entrusted to Ann his collection of teachings and writings, with the request that she share them publicly through publications and other media.

Welcome

This website makes available the writings of Neville Jayaweera, and you will find a wealth of spiritual treasure among its pages.

The title “From the unreal to the Real” refers to Neville’s transition away from his glittering career in the world and into his vastly different life in the Spirit.

Neville’s career path in his native Sri Lanka, and internationally, was nothing less than meteoric. At just 29 years of age, he was overseeing a huge development project that covered one quarter of the entire country. He held decisive peacemaking roles in areas of extreme ethnic conflict, became director-general of what is now the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation, and served as ambassador to the Scandinavian countries – Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. 

Although by conventional criteria, Neville excelled in his achievements, he considers all these as mere chaff when compared with an experience of Jesus Christ in his early 40s that completely transformed his values and the ultimate purpose of his life.

Through this experience, he had discovered an alternative reality – one of profound meaning and substance – that can be accessed here and now by anyone who is prepared to “let go” and diligently seek it.

Neville likens his high-profile life in the world to a squirrel whirring away furiously inside his cage, unaware that it was in fact going nowhere, until in midlife he was awakened to the futility of his exertions.

Through these writings, Neville shares the foundational truths that enabled him to escape from his squirrel cage. However, he emphasizes that escaping from the cage does not mean hiding from the problems and sorrows of the world. Rather, it means being better equipped to help bring radical transformation in the lives of individuals and societies.

He sees himself as the beggar who, upon being healed of his blindness by Jesus of Nazareth, ran through town shouting: "I was once blind, but now I see" (John 9:25).

How Neville was healed of his inner blindness by Jesus Christ, and the ensuing turnaround of his life, is the message underlying this website. Hence its title:  "From the unreal to the Real".