| CHRIST IN KAVI |
Stevan Orescan
Along the banks of the sacred river Cauvery, a few miles west of Tiruchirapalli, in South India,
lies nestled in a mango grove Saccidananda Ashram, or Shantivanam, the ashram of the Holy
Trinity.
Shantinavam – abode of peace – was the dream of a French Benedictine priest and scholar, who
came to India in 1940 with the idea of founding a Christian-Hindu contemplative hermitage
dedicated to the adoration of the Trinity. after much
struggle and hardship, ha and another priest installed themselves in their small hermitage of a few
palm-thatched shacks near the ‘Ganges of the South’.
Father Bede Griffiths, former monk of Prinknash Abhey in England, came to Shantivanam in
1968 to carry on the work of its founders after their death.
Tall and gaunt, with flowing white hair and beard and dressed in the saffron kavi habit of the
Hindu sannyasi, Father Bede was the perfect picture of the western ascetic. His deep-set, blue-
grey eyes twinkle strength and intelligence and the simplicity and charm of his manner immediately
puts one at ease.
I had come to Shantivanam to spend some time with this wise man for it was said that he was a
truly religious man with a special way of communicating the concepts of the Divine and that he was
free of that dogmatic rigidity that typifies the Christian theologian or scholar. It was also a smoothly
running spiritual community, not exactly a monastery and not exactly an ashram and after our
Hawaiian experience I was keen to study how a well run and successful community operated.
A U-shaped, brick building with thatched roof contains about twenty sparsely but adequately
furnished, small cells. This housed the residents of the ashram along with the continuous stream of
visitors that come from all over the world. The permanent residents include several brothers
studying for the priesthood who were in various stages of religious commitment. The brothers, in
keeping with monastic tradition, earned their daily bread with the labor of their hands and it is they
who were responsible for most of the work and upkeep of the ashram.
Of the five acres that the community owns, one was under paddy and yielded three crops a year.
Together with coconuts and other fruits and vegetables grown on the land, enough was produced to
provide for their essential needs. One acre of the land was donated by the government and its
cultivation and produce were shared with a neighboring Harijan village. The community had also
helped to establish a dispensary and two nursery schools in the surrounding villages, thus sharing
with them not only the Word, but food, medicine and funds as well.
On the south side of the grounds was a large, open-air structure which housed the several cows
that provided the ashram with fresh milk, and next to it stood a large building that served as the
kitchen and dining area. The food is vegetarian and meals are taken sitting on the floor. ‘Hari
Christos’ is chanted while food is being served by the brothers and the meal is usually accompanied
by readings from the life of Ramakrishna or other spiritual texts, and closes with a short prayer in
Sanskrit.
In the center of the compound is a circular library designed by Father Bede. In it are not only
books on Christian philosophy and theology, but on all the religious traditions, including Theosophy,
and studies in comparative religion. A few yards beyond the library under cluster of tall Palmyra
trees Father Bede sat on his straw mat every afternoon and, within sight of the calm flowing
Cauvery River, discourses on the Gita. The ancient ‘Song of God’ comes to life; and I was
transported into another space and time as I rode the golden chariot with Krishna and Arjuna, as
well as Christ..
AN AFTERNOON DISCOURSE
‘God comes into the world in the form of an avatara when righteousness declines. The
Hindu idea of an avatara is a descent of God and it is usually said that the difference
between an avatar and an incarnation – ordinary human being – is that an ordinary human
being is born out of karma. Christians might call it original sin – that we inherit the deeds
of the past. An avatar is one who becomes incarnate of his own free will to help humanity.
The Hindus believe that the first avatar was in the form of a fish, which marks the stage
when the waters covered the earth. The tortoise is the second stage when the earth was
appearing out of the water, the boar when the earth was fully established, the man-lion
when the animals were emerging into man, the dwarf when man was beginning and had not
yet reached maturity. The hero or warrior marked the stage of human growth by the
supreme avatars Rama and Krishna, who represent humanity reaching its full
development. Of course the Hindus believe that avatars continue up to this day and many
say that Sai Baba is the avatar of this age as Ramakrishna was of the last age. This is a
beautiful idea and not to be rejected altogether- that God is assisting the growth of
humanity and that there are special people who help in its evolution. But how do we
distinguish between an avatar and an incarnation? I think that the whole difference lies in
the two different religious traditions. The Hindu tradition belongs to the cosmic covenant;
it is based on God’s manifestation in the cosmos; the universe is a whole and the cosmic
order is cyclic, based on the sun rising and setting, the moon waxing and waning, spring,
summer, autumn, winter, birth, death, and marriage. It is a cyclic movement and most of
the ancient peoples- the American Indians, Australian Aborigines, ancient Greeks, and
African tribal pygmies-all belong to this cosmic religion. It is God’s first revelation. St.
Paul said the invisible nature of God is made known through the visible things that He
made. God is manifest in the cosmos- that is the first way man comes to know. So all
ancient religion is cosmic and it tends to have this cyclic character and therefore there is
no finality in time; it is samsara- a wheel- and liberation consists in getting out of time,
getting off the wheel- moksha is freedom from the whole cycle.
Now the Hebrew religion brought an altogether different concept and I think this is what
is peculiar to the Christian revelation- the idea that time is not cyclic but linear- a
movement towards an end. The whole Bible is this revelation of a final point. Christ comes
at the end of time to fulfill a few things. God in the cosmic religion reveals himself in
nature and in the Hebrew, He reveals himself in history, the history of a people. He chose
Abraham, they go down to Egypt, He delivers the people, He gives them a king, they build
a temple, He sends prophets to guide and eventually He promises them a messiah- then
comes Jesus as the messiah to bring the whole of this historic and human process to
fulfillment- to bring all things to a head in Christ: And this is the great difference. An
avatar can take place again and again, whereas an incarnation, in the Hebrew
perspective, is that which closes the whole movement of time and brings it to a
consummation. I think what we need today is to bring the two traditions together. The
cosmic revelation is immensely important and I think the weakness of Christianity is we
have not enough relation to the cosmic order; we don’t relate ourselves to the whole
rhythm of nature. On the other hand Hinduism is caught up in the cyclic time and has no
sense of history. Now, the thing which combines the two, is the spiral. You go around in
circles but you are going toward an end. That is what life is like; you always seem to be
going back, but actually, if your life is properly guided, you are advancing at each point;
sometimes you seem to be going back, but actually you’re not. That is the history of
humanity too; a growing, an advancing in a circuitous way. We have to bring the two
traditions together; the cyclic and the progressive. In today’s world it’s very evident.
Ramakrishna keeps saying, ‘Brahman is everything, everything else is unreal’. The householder’s
whole object is to be devoted to God, wife, children and business; that has been given him as his
duty but his real business is to love God, to pray, to worship and to give thanks. But there is no
purpose ultimately in the wife and family and business or in anything else he is doing. As a result
India has had very little sense of human progress at all- and now the Western view is coming and
that is where the modern India- Gandhi, Vivekananda, have this sense of human progress. This has
come from the West and ultimately from Christianity; and India needs this sense that human life in
itself has a value in this world and is not something that one has to be freed from.
On the other hand the western people have lost this sense of cosmic order and you have this
terrific problem of ecology. We just think of history, how man can make progress and dominate
nature and do everything for his advancement and we have thrown ourselves completely out of
harmony with nature and therefore we have to learn this cosmic creation, this veneration for the
whole cosmic order and everything else that Hinduism stands for. Then we can integrate the whole
historic process within the cosmic process and then in a sense I think you go beyond both. God
manifests Himself in the cosmos- that is His first revelation- and that was hundreds of thousands of
years ago, don’t forget, and only with Abraham- 2000 B.C.- does this historic revelation begin and
therefore has to be related to and inserted within this cosmic revelation. But then beyond the cosmic
and historic, God reveals himself in the heart of man and both are leading to the realization of God
in the heart which is the ultimate goal.
For a Christian why does God become man, why does He found the Church and present the
sacrament except that He may enter into human life, transform that human life within by the
presence of the Spirit and gradually bring mankind into communion with Himself? So it’s the inner
transformation that is the purpose of both the cosmic and historical revelation and that is where both
religions can meet, at the goal. This I regard as one of the key points. This is where Hindus don’t
see any difference. They will say Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, etc., all are equally good and equal
ways of reaching God. Each has its unique character and the unique character of the Hebrew-
Christian revelation is this historic dimension coming to a head in time and looking to a fulfillment
beyond. And that must be preserved in any meeting of religion for ultimately each will contribute.
All of these religions spring from a common root, ground, or center and the more you go deeply
into any religious tradition, the more you converge. It’s on the exterior that we’re all divided and it
seems an unbridgeable gulf. But as you go down into the depths of any tradition you converge on
this center and there the truth of each tradition will be fulfilled. There really is no other goal and
there is no use thinking we can convert everyone to any one religion.
After the discourse everyone goes to their individual cells for meditation. At 7 p.m. the gong rings
calling them to the chapel for mass. The chapel, where so much of the daily activity takes place, is
built in the style of a South Indian temple. At the entrance is a gopuram, or gateway, on which there
is an image of the Holy Trinity in the form of a Trimurti, a three-headed figure of Brahma Vishnu
and Shiva which, according to Hindu tradition, represents the godhead as Creator, Preserver, and
Destroyer of the universe. The figure is shown emerging from a cross to show that the mystery of
the Trinity is revealed through the cross of Christ. In the outer court of the temple is a cross
enclosed in a circle which represents the cosmic mystery; the wheel of samsara with the cross of
Christ at the center signifies that the cross is the center of the universe and of human existence. At
the center of the cross is the sacred word OM.
In the inner sanctuary there is a stone altar with a tabernacle in which the Blessed Sacrament is
reserved; the Mystery of the Death and Resurrection of Christ. Through the resurrection an ascent
is made to the ‘new creation’ which is represented by the vimana above the sanctuary. At the base
are figures of the lion, ox, man, and eagle which represent the whole creation redeemed by Christ.
Above them are four figures of Saints and Christ in different yoga postures; as King in the royal
posture, as Priest in the abhaya mudra, as Prophet in the guru posture, and as contemplative in the
dhyana or lotus posture. Above the figures of Christ is the throne of God represented by the dome
covered with peacock feathers and the lotus, symbol of purity, supporting the kalasam, the ancient
symbol of the four elements pointing upwards to the akasa, the infinite space in which God dwells.
As peacocks wander about the outer courtyard and butterflies flutter in silent prayer, Father Bede
conducted Mass three times a day. The service started with the chanting of the Gayatri mantra
followed by the singing of bhajans in Sanskrit or Tamil to the accompaniment of tambura, cymbals,
tambourine and gourd instruments. The psalms and verses from the Dammapada were read in
English and the arathi was performed in the traditional Hindu way with the passing of the sacred
flame and the application of ash or sandalwood, paste to the forehead. It is a liturgy of the people
and a means for all to express their faith together and realize how much all have in common,
irrespective of the labels employed to identify our particular set of beliefs.
After the evening meal everyone gathers on the open air porch and with the fireflies and gentle
breeze from the river setting the mood, people offer their thoughts and questions and Father Bede
responds. Assembled here were a British shipping executive; a wild-eyed western, hippy sadhu; a
wandering Jewish intellectual; an ayurvedic doctor; one French and two American teachers; an
Australian social worker; a Roman Catholic Brother from the ‘streets of death’ in Calcutta; two
Brahmin householders; visiting nuns from all over the world, and a theosophist from America. A
few of the questions the good father answered are as follows:
Q. Are we naïve to think the world can ever be united?
A. It depends on what we mean by united- we always have to see two sides. I think the world
today is becoming more and more materialistic in many ways and more and more divided. At the
same time there is another movement, a new culture, a new awareness of unity which is world wide.
Q. All over the world this spiritual regeneration is happening.
A. Yes, this ashram is a good illustration. It’s a small place but here we’ve had people from every
part of the world and they all have the same ideas, the same desires and are speaking about the
same things, and from all different points of view, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist, Agnostic.
Q. Prayer and meditation: are they necessary to become one with God?
A. Prayer in the Christian tradition is often understood in terms of petition, you ask God for
something or you offer thanks, worship and praise. Prayer involves this dual relationship between
you and God. Meditation is different. It is the awakening of an inner awareness; of the body, the
mind- and of something beyond the body and mind. Prayer and meditation are ways to
contemplate. Contemplation is the experience of oneness with God or the infinite, however each
one perceives it.
Q. That raises the whole question of drugs.
A. Yes, a very large percentage of those who come here have been through drugs and many say
their first awakening came as a result. I find this is rather logical because this awareness is a
psychological experience and our greatest obstacle is the mental consciousness. People in the West
are trapped in this closed system; the rational and scientific mind. And a drug like marijuana or LSD
releases you from that control. That’s why it’s dangerous, because you can loose control
altogether, but it can also open up the power of the soul. So for many people perhaps it is the only
way they can get out of the system of mental consciousness and discover. And the majority I’ve
spoken to say they realized after a time that drugs can open it up but can’t keep you there and so
they start to meditate and practice some discipline. A drug works more or less mechanically,
whereas meditation is a constant effort which changes the whole physical and mental makeup. But
ultimately you’ve got to get beyond meditation, to the experience of reality.
Q. Is Christianity a religion of suffering?
A. Well, it is a very important aspect of it. For the Christian, suffering actually paves the road to
God. When you recognize your need and helplessness in this chaos, the grace is able to penetrate
and awakening can take place. But I find also that it’s a great obstacle because many Christians
seem to get stuck in the suffering and never go further. That can lead to a sort of masochism; where
you cultivate the suffering.
Q. What is the duty of prayer versus spontaneous desire?
A. St. Augustine said ‘Love and do what you will’. If you have perfect love then you are perfectly
free and spontaneous and your prayer comes spontaneously. But most people are not in that state
and therefore we must use some discipline. So we set aside certain times of the day in which we
seek to pray and bring ourselves into that state. But if you force yourself to pray it becomes a duty
and not spontaneous and meaningful union with God, and I think many religions today are
discovering that: That’s why we have prayer only three times a day in this ashram. That might seem
like a lot to some people but I was used to 6 or 7 a day. You have to find a balance: One that on
the one hand enables you to advance and gives you a firm growth but at the same time doesn’t
confine or limit you to duty. Duty is on the level of the manas - the reason. We must also remember
there are three levels, the physical, psychological and spiritual, and on the psychological level there’
s always this conflict. We want to pray and at the same time we don’t want to get up in the
morning. We need a balance and a disciplined control over the mind and the will.
Q. You said in your autobiography, ‘I realized that it was not I who was seeking God but that God
was seeking me. I had made myself the center of my own existence and had my back turned to
God’.
A. It is shattering when you realize it. That to me is the key. As long as you think you are doing
some thing, that you are the doer, you are on the wrong track and when you discover that you are
being led and guided it is incredible really. It gives you such confidence- you don’t worry about
your failures and your weaknesses. Take this ashram- I’m not running this ashram, something else is
guiding it, and I’m simply an instrument through which it is working. I might mess it up myself.
Q. What is the difference between a monastery and an ashram?
A. Good question and one that we still ask ourselves.
A monastery is like an organized community, Christian monasticism began with solitaries; hermits-
like St. Anthony- and then the hermits used to meet together from time to time. Now opposed to
that is the common life which was started by St. Pocomas in Egypt and fixed by St. Benedict as the
rule for coenobitic life. A monastery has come to be essentially a community organized for prayer,
study and work.
Now an ashram is essentially a group of disciples gathered around a master, the guru, the
sannyasi. He sits down somewhere and meditates and a group of disciples gather around him and
the ashram springs up; each disciple is related directly to the master and only incidentally to the
other members. But in a monastery this interrelationship with the members is primary- they form a
community. In our ashram we are very much trying to work that out. A monastery can get stuck in
relationships. We want to keep Shantivanam a free community where people can come and stay for
a year or two and then move on somewhere else. We want to keep it related and open. In the
monastery you try to keep people out- you make your closure, but an ashram is open to
everybody. Which means of course you have to create an interior - the spirit of prayer has to be
there.
Q. How does the ashram support itself?
A. Well, we have had help from friends abroad but we get little now. Actually we are almost
supporting ourselves through the guests and visitors. We have become a prayer center and people
come from all over the world - we don’t charge - some come and stay without giving anything but
others give and some give generously. That, together with the paddy, coconuts, vegetables, fruit
and milk, gives us the basic support. We have no fixed income; we live from month to month,
sometimes from week to week, we don’t know where our money is coming from. And that is the
way it should be.
Q. C. S. Lewis said ‘Security is mortals’ greatest enemy’.
A. That is the problem and that has been the ruin of the religious life. Many monasteries and
religious houses are such. They are well established and secure. If you join the monastery you are
secure for life, everything you need will be provided. It was done with a good intention but it’s
become a disaster. The young people feel this represents the entrenched capitalist power. They do
a lot of good, it’s true, but on the other hand it’s bad for the people because you give them a false
way of life when you give them that security.
Q. Westerners have much difficulty with obedience.
A. The essential obedience is obedience to the spirit of God. In that sense many people today are
justified in trying to change something- an institution or organization- because ultimately you have to
obey this spirit, this call. This call of the spirit can come through many different channels- your own
thoughts and feelings but also through other people. When you find somebody or an institution in
whom you feel the spirit is present and you are being called to follow, then this question of
obedience comes in. My own experience was very revealing. I was one to go my own way until I
found this monastery in England. I was completely overwhelmed by the spirit of it, the prayer and
fraternal life, and I realized that I had to obey. There was only a very small amount that I didn’t like
but the sense that I was getting what I was really seeking was so strong that I never regret the
almost twenty years I spent there. It helped to free me from myself. The great danger is that your
own self will become so powerful that you can’t control it and it misleads you. On the other hand
you cannot just surrender your will to another.
So with both faith and reason you have to achieve that balance- there is a point where you ought
to obey what the teacher or institution requires, but there is also that point where you have to
decide for yourself and make your own choices with discernment. And it’s when we don’t approve
of something that it’s really difficult. But God very often comes through the bad, and if you are
willing to accept the bad with the intention of working for the good, you can often make changes
that you otherwise could not.
In the religious life you make a commitment to God for life, you have a particular person in charge
and you belong to a group. It is very important to find the right group. If I had not found my
particular monastery I doubt if I would have become a monk- but then that was the grace of God.
A very real problem in the monasteries today is that they are too conditioned by old traditions and
customs. New ideas are coming in and in many ways it’s very promising, but they are still-
especially with the older members- rather tight, and most of the younger generation find it difficult.
They want monastic life, they want to make the commitment, but they come up against this old
conventional, bourgeois outlook on life which they cannot accept.
Q. ‘Contemplation in a world of action’ as Thomas Merton said, is difficult for many when there is
so much chaos in the world.
A. I think the Gita has the answer to that. As long as you are working on the level of the
body, soul and mind, then you feel the urge to do something, to help change people’s lives.
But when you get to the level of Spirit and realize that is your goal in life, then you try to
realize God in the depths of your being and all of your activity is directed from within. You
get a spiritual discernment and you realize that it is not you that is doing anything but the
Spirit within calls you to do this or that. You may get a call to go to the Himalayas and live
there for ten years in solitude and you could have a call to go to Calcutta and work with
Mother Teresa. You learn to respond to the Spirit within which is the spirit of the whole
universe. It isn’t you deciding because God wants you for His purpose, not yours. Now in
meditation, they say anyone that meditates or realizes God in any way, is actually
changing humanity. You might not notice it but the level of creative existence is being
raised at that point because we are all interlinked in this extraordinary way. And if God is
calling you to do that, it’s disastrous to go to something else. Sometimes it’s difficult for a
westerner to realize that God wants him to be here, and silent, and do nothing.
Q. What can we do to help the burden of the world?
You look around you and sometimes feel that Christ’s martyrdom did little good.
A. That ‘s where I think the sense of belonging to a community is very important. When
you’re isolated the burden is too much and you don’t have a sense of solidarity with the
world and other people. When you are together in a community you are a member of a
whole working for the same goal and the burden does not seem so heavy. You might play
a very humble part in that whole but that’s not important. That’s what they mean when
they talk about the mystical body of Christ. That everyone is a cell in this organism and
everyone is a part of this whole and He is working through you. As you say, if we take
Christ alone He seems to have done very little but if you see Him as the nucleus of a
group that has gone through the whole creation of humanity, and that we are all a part of
that group, then we can see that He has done much good.
lies nestled in a mango grove Saccidananda Ashram, or Shantivanam, the ashram of the Holy
Trinity.
Shantinavam – abode of peace – was the dream of a French Benedictine priest and scholar, who
came to India in 1940 with the idea of founding a Christian-Hindu contemplative hermitage
dedicated to the adoration of the Trinity. after much
struggle and hardship, ha and another priest installed themselves in their small hermitage of a few
palm-thatched shacks near the ‘Ganges of the South’.
Father Bede Griffiths, former monk of Prinknash Abhey in England, came to Shantivanam in
1968 to carry on the work of its founders after their death.
Tall and gaunt, with flowing white hair and beard and dressed in the saffron kavi habit of the
Hindu sannyasi, Father Bede was the perfect picture of the western ascetic. His deep-set, blue-
grey eyes twinkle strength and intelligence and the simplicity and charm of his manner immediately
puts one at ease.
I had come to Shantivanam to spend some time with this wise man for it was said that he was a
truly religious man with a special way of communicating the concepts of the Divine and that he was
free of that dogmatic rigidity that typifies the Christian theologian or scholar. It was also a smoothly
running spiritual community, not exactly a monastery and not exactly an ashram and after our
Hawaiian experience I was keen to study how a well run and successful community operated.
A U-shaped, brick building with thatched roof contains about twenty sparsely but adequately
furnished, small cells. This housed the residents of the ashram along with the continuous stream of
visitors that come from all over the world. The permanent residents include several brothers
studying for the priesthood who were in various stages of religious commitment. The brothers, in
keeping with monastic tradition, earned their daily bread with the labor of their hands and it is they
who were responsible for most of the work and upkeep of the ashram.
Of the five acres that the community owns, one was under paddy and yielded three crops a year.
Together with coconuts and other fruits and vegetables grown on the land, enough was produced to
provide for their essential needs. One acre of the land was donated by the government and its
cultivation and produce were shared with a neighboring Harijan village. The community had also
helped to establish a dispensary and two nursery schools in the surrounding villages, thus sharing
with them not only the Word, but food, medicine and funds as well.
On the south side of the grounds was a large, open-air structure which housed the several cows
that provided the ashram with fresh milk, and next to it stood a large building that served as the
kitchen and dining area. The food is vegetarian and meals are taken sitting on the floor. ‘Hari
Christos’ is chanted while food is being served by the brothers and the meal is usually accompanied
by readings from the life of Ramakrishna or other spiritual texts, and closes with a short prayer in
Sanskrit.
In the center of the compound is a circular library designed by Father Bede. In it are not only
books on Christian philosophy and theology, but on all the religious traditions, including Theosophy,
and studies in comparative religion. A few yards beyond the library under cluster of tall Palmyra
trees Father Bede sat on his straw mat every afternoon and, within sight of the calm flowing
Cauvery River, discourses on the Gita. The ancient ‘Song of God’ comes to life; and I was
transported into another space and time as I rode the golden chariot with Krishna and Arjuna, as
well as Christ..
AN AFTERNOON DISCOURSE
‘God comes into the world in the form of an avatara when righteousness declines. The
Hindu idea of an avatara is a descent of God and it is usually said that the difference
between an avatar and an incarnation – ordinary human being – is that an ordinary human
being is born out of karma. Christians might call it original sin – that we inherit the deeds
of the past. An avatar is one who becomes incarnate of his own free will to help humanity.
The Hindus believe that the first avatar was in the form of a fish, which marks the stage
when the waters covered the earth. The tortoise is the second stage when the earth was
appearing out of the water, the boar when the earth was fully established, the man-lion
when the animals were emerging into man, the dwarf when man was beginning and had not
yet reached maturity. The hero or warrior marked the stage of human growth by the
supreme avatars Rama and Krishna, who represent humanity reaching its full
development. Of course the Hindus believe that avatars continue up to this day and many
say that Sai Baba is the avatar of this age as Ramakrishna was of the last age. This is a
beautiful idea and not to be rejected altogether- that God is assisting the growth of
humanity and that there are special people who help in its evolution. But how do we
distinguish between an avatar and an incarnation? I think that the whole difference lies in
the two different religious traditions. The Hindu tradition belongs to the cosmic covenant;
it is based on God’s manifestation in the cosmos; the universe is a whole and the cosmic
order is cyclic, based on the sun rising and setting, the moon waxing and waning, spring,
summer, autumn, winter, birth, death, and marriage. It is a cyclic movement and most of
the ancient peoples- the American Indians, Australian Aborigines, ancient Greeks, and
African tribal pygmies-all belong to this cosmic religion. It is God’s first revelation. St.
Paul said the invisible nature of God is made known through the visible things that He
made. God is manifest in the cosmos- that is the first way man comes to know. So all
ancient religion is cosmic and it tends to have this cyclic character and therefore there is
no finality in time; it is samsara- a wheel- and liberation consists in getting out of time,
getting off the wheel- moksha is freedom from the whole cycle.
Now the Hebrew religion brought an altogether different concept and I think this is what
is peculiar to the Christian revelation- the idea that time is not cyclic but linear- a
movement towards an end. The whole Bible is this revelation of a final point. Christ comes
at the end of time to fulfill a few things. God in the cosmic religion reveals himself in
nature and in the Hebrew, He reveals himself in history, the history of a people. He chose
Abraham, they go down to Egypt, He delivers the people, He gives them a king, they build
a temple, He sends prophets to guide and eventually He promises them a messiah- then
comes Jesus as the messiah to bring the whole of this historic and human process to
fulfillment- to bring all things to a head in Christ: And this is the great difference. An
avatar can take place again and again, whereas an incarnation, in the Hebrew
perspective, is that which closes the whole movement of time and brings it to a
consummation. I think what we need today is to bring the two traditions together. The
cosmic revelation is immensely important and I think the weakness of Christianity is we
have not enough relation to the cosmic order; we don’t relate ourselves to the whole
rhythm of nature. On the other hand Hinduism is caught up in the cyclic time and has no
sense of history. Now, the thing which combines the two, is the spiral. You go around in
circles but you are going toward an end. That is what life is like; you always seem to be
going back, but actually, if your life is properly guided, you are advancing at each point;
sometimes you seem to be going back, but actually you’re not. That is the history of
humanity too; a growing, an advancing in a circuitous way. We have to bring the two
traditions together; the cyclic and the progressive. In today’s world it’s very evident.
Ramakrishna keeps saying, ‘Brahman is everything, everything else is unreal’. The householder’s
whole object is to be devoted to God, wife, children and business; that has been given him as his
duty but his real business is to love God, to pray, to worship and to give thanks. But there is no
purpose ultimately in the wife and family and business or in anything else he is doing. As a result
India has had very little sense of human progress at all- and now the Western view is coming and
that is where the modern India- Gandhi, Vivekananda, have this sense of human progress. This has
come from the West and ultimately from Christianity; and India needs this sense that human life in
itself has a value in this world and is not something that one has to be freed from.
On the other hand the western people have lost this sense of cosmic order and you have this
terrific problem of ecology. We just think of history, how man can make progress and dominate
nature and do everything for his advancement and we have thrown ourselves completely out of
harmony with nature and therefore we have to learn this cosmic creation, this veneration for the
whole cosmic order and everything else that Hinduism stands for. Then we can integrate the whole
historic process within the cosmic process and then in a sense I think you go beyond both. God
manifests Himself in the cosmos- that is His first revelation- and that was hundreds of thousands of
years ago, don’t forget, and only with Abraham- 2000 B.C.- does this historic revelation begin and
therefore has to be related to and inserted within this cosmic revelation. But then beyond the cosmic
and historic, God reveals himself in the heart of man and both are leading to the realization of God
in the heart which is the ultimate goal.
For a Christian why does God become man, why does He found the Church and present the
sacrament except that He may enter into human life, transform that human life within by the
presence of the Spirit and gradually bring mankind into communion with Himself? So it’s the inner
transformation that is the purpose of both the cosmic and historical revelation and that is where both
religions can meet, at the goal. This I regard as one of the key points. This is where Hindus don’t
see any difference. They will say Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, etc., all are equally good and equal
ways of reaching God. Each has its unique character and the unique character of the Hebrew-
Christian revelation is this historic dimension coming to a head in time and looking to a fulfillment
beyond. And that must be preserved in any meeting of religion for ultimately each will contribute.
All of these religions spring from a common root, ground, or center and the more you go deeply
into any religious tradition, the more you converge. It’s on the exterior that we’re all divided and it
seems an unbridgeable gulf. But as you go down into the depths of any tradition you converge on
this center and there the truth of each tradition will be fulfilled. There really is no other goal and
there is no use thinking we can convert everyone to any one religion.
After the discourse everyone goes to their individual cells for meditation. At 7 p.m. the gong rings
calling them to the chapel for mass. The chapel, where so much of the daily activity takes place, is
built in the style of a South Indian temple. At the entrance is a gopuram, or gateway, on which there
is an image of the Holy Trinity in the form of a Trimurti, a three-headed figure of Brahma Vishnu
and Shiva which, according to Hindu tradition, represents the godhead as Creator, Preserver, and
Destroyer of the universe. The figure is shown emerging from a cross to show that the mystery of
the Trinity is revealed through the cross of Christ. In the outer court of the temple is a cross
enclosed in a circle which represents the cosmic mystery; the wheel of samsara with the cross of
Christ at the center signifies that the cross is the center of the universe and of human existence. At
the center of the cross is the sacred word OM.
In the inner sanctuary there is a stone altar with a tabernacle in which the Blessed Sacrament is
reserved; the Mystery of the Death and Resurrection of Christ. Through the resurrection an ascent
is made to the ‘new creation’ which is represented by the vimana above the sanctuary. At the base
are figures of the lion, ox, man, and eagle which represent the whole creation redeemed by Christ.
Above them are four figures of Saints and Christ in different yoga postures; as King in the royal
posture, as Priest in the abhaya mudra, as Prophet in the guru posture, and as contemplative in the
dhyana or lotus posture. Above the figures of Christ is the throne of God represented by the dome
covered with peacock feathers and the lotus, symbol of purity, supporting the kalasam, the ancient
symbol of the four elements pointing upwards to the akasa, the infinite space in which God dwells.
As peacocks wander about the outer courtyard and butterflies flutter in silent prayer, Father Bede
conducted Mass three times a day. The service started with the chanting of the Gayatri mantra
followed by the singing of bhajans in Sanskrit or Tamil to the accompaniment of tambura, cymbals,
tambourine and gourd instruments. The psalms and verses from the Dammapada were read in
English and the arathi was performed in the traditional Hindu way with the passing of the sacred
flame and the application of ash or sandalwood, paste to the forehead. It is a liturgy of the people
and a means for all to express their faith together and realize how much all have in common,
irrespective of the labels employed to identify our particular set of beliefs.
After the evening meal everyone gathers on the open air porch and with the fireflies and gentle
breeze from the river setting the mood, people offer their thoughts and questions and Father Bede
responds. Assembled here were a British shipping executive; a wild-eyed western, hippy sadhu; a
wandering Jewish intellectual; an ayurvedic doctor; one French and two American teachers; an
Australian social worker; a Roman Catholic Brother from the ‘streets of death’ in Calcutta; two
Brahmin householders; visiting nuns from all over the world, and a theosophist from America. A
few of the questions the good father answered are as follows:
Q. Are we naïve to think the world can ever be united?
A. It depends on what we mean by united- we always have to see two sides. I think the world
today is becoming more and more materialistic in many ways and more and more divided. At the
same time there is another movement, a new culture, a new awareness of unity which is world wide.
Q. All over the world this spiritual regeneration is happening.
A. Yes, this ashram is a good illustration. It’s a small place but here we’ve had people from every
part of the world and they all have the same ideas, the same desires and are speaking about the
same things, and from all different points of view, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist, Agnostic.
Q. Prayer and meditation: are they necessary to become one with God?
A. Prayer in the Christian tradition is often understood in terms of petition, you ask God for
something or you offer thanks, worship and praise. Prayer involves this dual relationship between
you and God. Meditation is different. It is the awakening of an inner awareness; of the body, the
mind- and of something beyond the body and mind. Prayer and meditation are ways to
contemplate. Contemplation is the experience of oneness with God or the infinite, however each
one perceives it.
Q. That raises the whole question of drugs.
A. Yes, a very large percentage of those who come here have been through drugs and many say
their first awakening came as a result. I find this is rather logical because this awareness is a
psychological experience and our greatest obstacle is the mental consciousness. People in the West
are trapped in this closed system; the rational and scientific mind. And a drug like marijuana or LSD
releases you from that control. That’s why it’s dangerous, because you can loose control
altogether, but it can also open up the power of the soul. So for many people perhaps it is the only
way they can get out of the system of mental consciousness and discover. And the majority I’ve
spoken to say they realized after a time that drugs can open it up but can’t keep you there and so
they start to meditate and practice some discipline. A drug works more or less mechanically,
whereas meditation is a constant effort which changes the whole physical and mental makeup. But
ultimately you’ve got to get beyond meditation, to the experience of reality.
Q. Is Christianity a religion of suffering?
A. Well, it is a very important aspect of it. For the Christian, suffering actually paves the road to
God. When you recognize your need and helplessness in this chaos, the grace is able to penetrate
and awakening can take place. But I find also that it’s a great obstacle because many Christians
seem to get stuck in the suffering and never go further. That can lead to a sort of masochism; where
you cultivate the suffering.
Q. What is the duty of prayer versus spontaneous desire?
A. St. Augustine said ‘Love and do what you will’. If you have perfect love then you are perfectly
free and spontaneous and your prayer comes spontaneously. But most people are not in that state
and therefore we must use some discipline. So we set aside certain times of the day in which we
seek to pray and bring ourselves into that state. But if you force yourself to pray it becomes a duty
and not spontaneous and meaningful union with God, and I think many religions today are
discovering that: That’s why we have prayer only three times a day in this ashram. That might seem
like a lot to some people but I was used to 6 or 7 a day. You have to find a balance: One that on
the one hand enables you to advance and gives you a firm growth but at the same time doesn’t
confine or limit you to duty. Duty is on the level of the manas - the reason. We must also remember
there are three levels, the physical, psychological and spiritual, and on the psychological level there’
s always this conflict. We want to pray and at the same time we don’t want to get up in the
morning. We need a balance and a disciplined control over the mind and the will.
Q. You said in your autobiography, ‘I realized that it was not I who was seeking God but that God
was seeking me. I had made myself the center of my own existence and had my back turned to
God’.
A. It is shattering when you realize it. That to me is the key. As long as you think you are doing
some thing, that you are the doer, you are on the wrong track and when you discover that you are
being led and guided it is incredible really. It gives you such confidence- you don’t worry about
your failures and your weaknesses. Take this ashram- I’m not running this ashram, something else is
guiding it, and I’m simply an instrument through which it is working. I might mess it up myself.
Q. What is the difference between a monastery and an ashram?
A. Good question and one that we still ask ourselves.
A monastery is like an organized community, Christian monasticism began with solitaries; hermits-
like St. Anthony- and then the hermits used to meet together from time to time. Now opposed to
that is the common life which was started by St. Pocomas in Egypt and fixed by St. Benedict as the
rule for coenobitic life. A monastery has come to be essentially a community organized for prayer,
study and work.
Now an ashram is essentially a group of disciples gathered around a master, the guru, the
sannyasi. He sits down somewhere and meditates and a group of disciples gather around him and
the ashram springs up; each disciple is related directly to the master and only incidentally to the
other members. But in a monastery this interrelationship with the members is primary- they form a
community. In our ashram we are very much trying to work that out. A monastery can get stuck in
relationships. We want to keep Shantivanam a free community where people can come and stay for
a year or two and then move on somewhere else. We want to keep it related and open. In the
monastery you try to keep people out- you make your closure, but an ashram is open to
everybody. Which means of course you have to create an interior - the spirit of prayer has to be
there.
Q. How does the ashram support itself?
A. Well, we have had help from friends abroad but we get little now. Actually we are almost
supporting ourselves through the guests and visitors. We have become a prayer center and people
come from all over the world - we don’t charge - some come and stay without giving anything but
others give and some give generously. That, together with the paddy, coconuts, vegetables, fruit
and milk, gives us the basic support. We have no fixed income; we live from month to month,
sometimes from week to week, we don’t know where our money is coming from. And that is the
way it should be.
Q. C. S. Lewis said ‘Security is mortals’ greatest enemy’.
A. That is the problem and that has been the ruin of the religious life. Many monasteries and
religious houses are such. They are well established and secure. If you join the monastery you are
secure for life, everything you need will be provided. It was done with a good intention but it’s
become a disaster. The young people feel this represents the entrenched capitalist power. They do
a lot of good, it’s true, but on the other hand it’s bad for the people because you give them a false
way of life when you give them that security.
Q. Westerners have much difficulty with obedience.
A. The essential obedience is obedience to the spirit of God. In that sense many people today are
justified in trying to change something- an institution or organization- because ultimately you have to
obey this spirit, this call. This call of the spirit can come through many different channels- your own
thoughts and feelings but also through other people. When you find somebody or an institution in
whom you feel the spirit is present and you are being called to follow, then this question of
obedience comes in. My own experience was very revealing. I was one to go my own way until I
found this monastery in England. I was completely overwhelmed by the spirit of it, the prayer and
fraternal life, and I realized that I had to obey. There was only a very small amount that I didn’t like
but the sense that I was getting what I was really seeking was so strong that I never regret the
almost twenty years I spent there. It helped to free me from myself. The great danger is that your
own self will become so powerful that you can’t control it and it misleads you. On the other hand
you cannot just surrender your will to another.
So with both faith and reason you have to achieve that balance- there is a point where you ought
to obey what the teacher or institution requires, but there is also that point where you have to
decide for yourself and make your own choices with discernment. And it’s when we don’t approve
of something that it’s really difficult. But God very often comes through the bad, and if you are
willing to accept the bad with the intention of working for the good, you can often make changes
that you otherwise could not.
In the religious life you make a commitment to God for life, you have a particular person in charge
and you belong to a group. It is very important to find the right group. If I had not found my
particular monastery I doubt if I would have become a monk- but then that was the grace of God.
A very real problem in the monasteries today is that they are too conditioned by old traditions and
customs. New ideas are coming in and in many ways it’s very promising, but they are still-
especially with the older members- rather tight, and most of the younger generation find it difficult.
They want monastic life, they want to make the commitment, but they come up against this old
conventional, bourgeois outlook on life which they cannot accept.
Q. ‘Contemplation in a world of action’ as Thomas Merton said, is difficult for many when there is
so much chaos in the world.
A. I think the Gita has the answer to that. As long as you are working on the level of the
body, soul and mind, then you feel the urge to do something, to help change people’s lives.
But when you get to the level of Spirit and realize that is your goal in life, then you try to
realize God in the depths of your being and all of your activity is directed from within. You
get a spiritual discernment and you realize that it is not you that is doing anything but the
Spirit within calls you to do this or that. You may get a call to go to the Himalayas and live
there for ten years in solitude and you could have a call to go to Calcutta and work with
Mother Teresa. You learn to respond to the Spirit within which is the spirit of the whole
universe. It isn’t you deciding because God wants you for His purpose, not yours. Now in
meditation, they say anyone that meditates or realizes God in any way, is actually
changing humanity. You might not notice it but the level of creative existence is being
raised at that point because we are all interlinked in this extraordinary way. And if God is
calling you to do that, it’s disastrous to go to something else. Sometimes it’s difficult for a
westerner to realize that God wants him to be here, and silent, and do nothing.
Q. What can we do to help the burden of the world?
You look around you and sometimes feel that Christ’s martyrdom did little good.
A. That ‘s where I think the sense of belonging to a community is very important. When
you’re isolated the burden is too much and you don’t have a sense of solidarity with the
world and other people. When you are together in a community you are a member of a
whole working for the same goal and the burden does not seem so heavy. You might play
a very humble part in that whole but that’s not important. That’s what they mean when
they talk about the mystical body of Christ. That everyone is a cell in this organism and
everyone is a part of this whole and He is working through you. As you say, if we take
Christ alone He seems to have done very little but if you see Him as the nucleus of a
group that has gone through the whole creation of humanity, and that we are all a part of
that group, then we can see that He has done much good.
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