The first problem to face is that for so many Christians the feast of Christmas is number one on the calendar. Not surprising if we look only at the secular calendar and the secular celebration–a plethora of good feeling, sentimentality, good cheer, lots of buying and selling, a time of relaxation and perhaps reunion, a time of donating food to the poor and hungry, a time of soft, vague religious messages–don’t want to get too carried away because the poor and hungry will have to go back to their starving lives after Christmas, etc. From the liturgical/theological/spiritual angle, this centrality of Christmas is a pointer, albeit a small one, of how really lost we are. From the Christian perspective the Paschal Mystery celebrated at Easter, or to be more precise, during the Triduum, the time of Holy Thursday to Easter Sunday, this is the number one feast on the calendar. Now what might surprise even more people is that Christmas, according to the ancient tradition of the Church, is not even the second most important feast. Let us look at a bit of history.

For the first few centuries of Christianity there were three major liturgical moments in the life of the faith-filled community: first, Easter, the celebration of the Paschal Mystery, the death and resurrection of Jesus; secondly, the time of preparation for this celebration and for initiation of new members, now called Lent; and thirdly a feast on January 6th called Epiphany or in the Eastern Church, the Theophany–primarily this included the visitation by the Magi, and the birth of Jesus, and even the baptism of Jesus as an adult by John the Baptist in the river Jordan. There was no “Christmas”; no focus on the “Baby Jesus” and so forth. It was about four centuries later that the feast of Christmas emerged, the celebration of the birth of Jesus, and it took the place of a pagan Roman feast on December 25th. And in fact the feast always kept a kind of lowly “3rd place” in the list of feasts involving Jesus. So far, so good! But with the split of the Church into East and West, the Western Church, in both its Roman Catholic and Protestant versions, started elevating Christmas higher and higher. One might add that this was done with the help of some outstanding saints too! In any case, Christmas seems to be the very top feast today, and especially from the secular standpoint as that has modified the meaning of this feast with all kinds of secular rituals. Easter, by contrast, hardly gets a squeak from secular society.

Now returning back to the Eastern Church, Orthodoxy, we find that it has kept very faithfully the oldest traditions. Of course it celebrates Christmas jubilantly as the feast has separated itself out from the celebration of January 6th, but in terms of solemnity and importance, the Theophany ranks higher. This is the second most important feast in the Orthodox calendar. And it has a different focus than this same day in the Western Church. “Theophany” means the “appearance of God,” the manifestation of God. The Eastern Church, following the tradition of the early church originally included the birth of Jesus in this feast but saw the first great moment of that “theophany” primarily in the Baptism of Jesus by John at the Jordan–the first manifestation of the Triune relationships within God, but also at the same time it kept one eye as it were on the visitation of the Three Magi. The feast kind of blended these moments into “the Theophany.” Later on as we said the birth got its own feast, but it was never considered as important as The Theophany. In the West what was left got separated out into two distinct and different feasts: the Epiphany, and the Baptism of the Lord; and neither of these feasts has any kind of stature within Western Christianity compared to Christmas. So things went in another direction.

With various liturgical reform movements, especially with Vatican II, there was an attempt made to bring these feasts into a kind of liturgical/theological coherence–with the addition of another very quiet feast that is simply a “Sunday in Ordinary Time” but which has great significance(and yes, again, in the Orthodox Church!)–The Wedding at Cana. So in the Catholic calendar, at least, there is this theological unity from Christmas to about the 3rd or 4th Sunday in January which comprises then Christmas, Epiphany, the Baptism of the Lord, and the Wedding at Cana. The unity consists in this dimension of Theophany. Here is how one online authoritative source puts it:

“The Baptism of the Lord has historically been associated with the celebration of Epiphany. Even today, the Eastern Christian feast of Theophany, celebrated on January 6 as a counterpart to the Western feast of Epiphany, focuses primarily on the Baptism of the Lord as the revelation of God to man.
After the Nativity of Christ (Christmas) was separated out from Epiphany, the Church in the West continued the process and dedicated a celebration to each of the major epiphanies (revelations) or theophanies (the revelation of God to man): the Birth of Christ at Christmas, which revealed Christ to Israel; the revelation of Christ to the Gentiles, in the visit of the Wise Men at Epiphany; the Baptism of the Lord, which revealed the Trinity; and the miracle at the wedding at Cana, which revealed Christ’s transformation of the world. ”

Ok. That’s not bad. However, if you look, this year you will not find any celebration of the Baptism of Lord on any Sunday in the Catholic liturgical calendar. They actually regard it as so inessential that if it doesn’t fit their manipulation of calendar feasts, it simply gets dropped to an almost invisible weekday celebration–this year on January 9th.

I protest!! Ok, you may be asking yourself, why is he getting so worked up about this?! Truly it is not a big deal, but there is something important at stake in all this. Here I am with Abhishiktananda in “placing on a pedestal” this feast. He actually considered the baptism of Jesus the central and signature moment of the Gospels while the death and resurrection of Jesus become only somewhat secondary in his Christology. I am not quite ready to go THAT far with Abhishiktananda; and his Christology, especially as articulated in his last years, may be seriously critiqued from the standpoint of Christian tradition. I mean there is a legitimate question: is he breaking with something core to Christianity or is he profoundly and radically reinterpreting it? We will discuss that at another time.

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of Abhishiktananda’s understanding of the Baptism episode, let us look at least at some scriptural descriptions:

“In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.'” (Mark 1: 9-11)
Matthew’s account is similar but less spare and more wordy, but finally he gets to the same moment: “And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.'” (Mt 3: 16-17)

Just one note: when in Mark’s account it says that the heavens were “torn apart,” that is correct—some translations wanting to even it out with the other versions make it the more mellow, “opened.” But Mark is more emphatic, more dramatic, more intense.

Now look at what one semi-official source says about this episode:

“At first glance, the Baptism of the Lord might seem an odd feast. Since the Catholic Church teaches that the Sacrament of Baptism is necessary for the remission of sins, particularly Original Sin, why was Christ baptized? After all, He was born without Original Sin, and He lived His entire life without sinning. Therefore, He had no need of the sacrament, as we do.
In submitting Himself humbly to the baptism of St. John the Baptist, however, Christ provided the example for the rest of us. If even He should be baptized, though He had no need of it, how much more should the rest of us be thankful for this sacrament, which frees us from the darkness of sin and incorporates us into the Church, the life of Christ on earth! His Baptism, therefore, was necessary–not for Him, but for us.”

This is awfully lame stuff, and I wish I could put it more strongly! But so much of Catholic catechetical and pious literature has this kind of language. It’s as if Jesus is “play-acting,” going along and doing various things, setting us “examples,” and inventing these things called “sacraments.” Jesus shows up at a wedding at Cana, and whammo, you have the sacrament of marriage. Jesus touches the water and the water becomes holy. Hey, Jesus pees in the Jordan, does that make it a sacred river? And he poops behind a bush—is there a sacred bush out there, certainly more than one….? Sorry for these absurd statements, but this kind of catechetical language does not take the humanity of Jesus seriously, and it needs to be exposed for what it is, official or not. It does not take seriously the all-important proclamation of John 1:14: kai ho logos sarx egeneto, and the word became flesh. And this means the full depths of the human condition, its samsaric condition, if you will, always vulnerable to maya—thus the temptation in the desert. We can readily admit that Jesus was “sinless” if Church teaching calls for that, but “sarx” here implies also anxiety, fear, doubt, uncertainty, the pull toward screwed-up human identities, etc., etc. Jesus is truly one of us in our basic condition and struggle, and most importantly and most controversially, the need to discover who he is, his true identity.

Given all that, Abhishiktananda’s interpretation of the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan as depicted in the Gospels is, I think, a very profound intuition of the very deep mystery that is being revealed there. Let us quote some from his writings:

“Jesus experienced such a closeness to God–probably the very same as is revealed in the advaitic experience–that he exploded the biblical idea of ‘Father’ and of ‘Son of God’ to the extent of calling God ‘Abba’, i.e., the name which in Aramaic only the one who is ‘born from’ him can say to anyone. But the term ‘Son’ is only imagery, and I fear the theologians have treated this image too much as an absolute, to an extent that becomes simply mythical. In Johannine terms Jesus discovered that the I AM of Yahweh belonged to himself; or rather, putting it the other way round, it was in the brilliant light of his own I AM that he discovered the true meaning, total and unimaginable, of the name of Yahweh. To call God ‘Abba’ is an equivalent in Semitic terms of advaita, the fundamental experience…. It seems that in his Baptism he had an overwhelming experience; he felt himself to be Son, not in a notional, Greek, fashion, but that he had a commission given by Yahweh to fulfil; and in this commisssion he felt his nearness to Yahweh….”

“Jesus’ experience at the Jordan impresses me more and more. And in the concept of Father/Son I now see not so much the relationship of derivation (which even so is not denied) as the relationship of ekatvam [oneness]….”

“The baptism of Jesus was for him the fundamental experience on which his whole life depended. He had the experience of being possessed by the Spirit of God, this Spirit of Yahweh that the Old Testament had announced (Isaiah 11,2). ‘On him the spirit of Yahweh rests.’ He had the experience in the same time of being the Son of God and the expereicne of God the Father. The baptism gives nothing to Jesus, yet it reveals to him who He is.”

“Jesus recognized himself as Son of God, beyond all the devas, beyond his being and beyond the universe—and beyond his religion also. And in this re-cognizing he recognized Yahweh in his real greatness.”

“Jesus is a person who has totally discovered, realized his mystery…. His name is ‘I AM,’…. Jesus is savior by virtue of having realized his NAME. He has shown and has opened the way out of samsara, the phenomenal world, and has reached the guha, the padamk beyond the heavens—which is the mystery of the Father. In discovering the Father, he has not found an ‘Other’: I and the Father are one. In the only spirit, he has discovered his non-duality with Yahweh; it is the Spirit that is the link, the non-duality.”

And then from Shail Mayaram commenting on Abhishiktananda:

“There is a profound intertextuality and interculturality to the life and work of Abhishiktananda. He clearly universalizes the discourse of advaitic spirituality and sanyasa or renunciation. He uses it to understand, as he states, the deepest truth of Jesus’ baptism as the moment of ‘awakening’ to the recognition of the non-duality of being. Abhishiktananda notes that in Mark’s Gospel, when Jesus came up out of the waters, he saw the heavens ‘rent asunder’–thus indicating that the separation between heaven and earth, between man and God, was abolished–while the Spirit ‘descended’ filling the whole of space. Jesus then heard a voice that said: ‘Thou art my Son,’ and he responded: ‘Abba (Father)’.”

“As Abhishiktananda prepares for his disciple Marc’s diksa, he refers to Jesus’ ‘awakening at his Baptism,…, and the need to celebrate the awakening of everyone to aham asmi, ego eimi, I am.’ Baptism is the recognition of ‘advaita with Abba-Yahweh that he shares with everyone.’ He writes of Jesus as ‘I Am,’ as one with the Father: ‘In the only Spirit, he has discovered his non-duality withYahweh; it is the Spirit that is the link, the non-duality.’ He also mentions that when Jesus sees the heavens torn open, hears a voice and sees the dove, the voice reveals to him that he is the child of Yahweh.”

So much for the quotes—there is an awful lot in them! But just to summarize the main point: the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan by John the Baptist is to be interpreted as THE AWAKENING, and the paradigm for all awakening to the deepest mystery within one. Jesus awakens to a realization of an unimaginable intimacy with the one that his culture called “Yahweh”–and here you have to recall how absolutely transcendent this Yahweh was in the Old Testament, how absolutely “other,” how supreme and utterly “beyond” he was, how “unnameable” he was, etc., etc. And so the unspeakably radical and revolutionary nature of Jesus’ ability after this to speak of this Yahweh as “Abba,” points us, as Abhishiktananda indicates, in the direction of a Semitic-Christian version of advaita, of non-duality with the Ultimate Reality. What this means for each of us, then, needs theological and spiritual-mystical elaboration and unfolding that may take us into unexpected places, may scare us, may leave us dangling on the edge of a religious precipice so to speak, may lead us into controversial and paradoxical realms, etc. More about that in forthcoming posts, but let us conclude with just one more note: Abhishiktananda’s laser-like focus on the Holy Spirit as the “sign” and instrument of Christian advaita. This coheres well with the fact that in Western Christianity the Holy Spirit was less and less in focus as time went on; and so Western Christianity became more and more dualistic, preoccupied with externals, institutions, authority, laws, rules, morality, seeing Jesus as this exemplar, a model for imitation, God as someone “out there” to please, etc., etc. Interestingly enough, one of the greatest of the modern saints of Eastern Christianity, St. Seraphim of Russia, said, in contrast, that the whole point of the spiritual life, the whole point of it all is to “acquire the Holy Spirit.” Indeed. “To have the Holy Spirit” is to hear within one’s heart the call of your true identity: “thou art my child.” It is to stand now within the advaita of the Divine Trinity.

All this is at stake in this feast that is now relegated to an uneventful weekday Mass where in most churches there were only be a few devout persons, most of them little old ladies who come to Mass every day; and in other churches the doors were simply closed and no Mass was celebrated. Interesting.

Lets face it—religion has its problem people. Lots and lots of them. I don’t think we know what to make of this phenomenon. It is so prevalent that it is shocking if looked at closely. Many would rather not talk about it; even ignore it. Recent disclosures about child sexual abuse at Penn State and Syracuse has some religious people breathing easier–“At least it’s not us!”–but that’s an unfortunate view. One lesson from these scandals is the need not to hide the reality; not to cover it up in order to “protect the institution” or the image at stake. Nor, and this is really the worst, to think that the problem is really a small thing, a “wrinkle on the surface of religion,” a few “rotten apples” in the bushel.

No, really the problem is quite enormous and puzzling and disturbing for a number of reasons. In a posting a long time ago I had addressed a bit of this by way of looking at a particular scandal at the Zen Center in San Francisco. This was just one incident, but it opens a window on a whole range of issues. It’s time to revisit this whole mess just a bit. And not only because there’s so many issues to be aware of, but especially since I have started this series on “Fundamentals & Foundations” with all that “spiritual talk”—it’s necessary to keep one’s feet on the ground and deal with the actual messy religious situation of our time.

Now the first interesting thing to emphasize is that every major religious tradition is afflicted. There is no one immune from these problems. And the second thing is that “the problem” can be broken down into perhaps three parts:

1. There is the problem simply of the fake or fraudulent spiritual person–the one who acts a role that is traditionally identifiable, like pastor or guru, and who is actually a fake, living a lie, etc. Like raising money for a worthy cause and then siphoning off a good chunk of that for a cushy lifestyle. TV evangelists in the US and Catholic priests have been notorious in that regard.

2. There is the problem of a segment of a whole tradition being vitiated because of its compromises with the culture in which it lives. Zen in Japan, for example—how many of its “enlightened” teachers either looked the other way or even approved of the Japanese massacre of the Chinese people in the 1930s. They performed the tea ceremony impeccably as others were being butchered. Some even called for the killing of Chinese. Frauds, everyone of them!

3. Finally, we have the simple, straightforward sexual predator, and a real lot of these have turned up over the years and these are the ones who have been getting the headlines and rightly so! As a matter of fact, all three parts of the above can be and usually are wrapped up in one individual. It is not often that they actually separate out as distinct parts. Let us consider just three major traditions and see how this has unfolded in recent years:

Christianity

In Catholicism, the stereotype of the priest who lives a lavish lifestyle at the expense of his people is almost age-old. I guess this is something that will never go away, but there is something about the way the priest is looked at that almost creates the conditions for such behavior, a kind of veneration of “specialness” that needs to be questioned. And today you have a new variant of that–not just the parish priest siphoning off a bit from the Sunday collection for his own luxuries, but priests who champion religious causes, like anti-abortion movements, raising a lot of money then siphoning off millions perhaps. Protestant TV evangelists have been bilking people for years with their pseudo-miracles and their impassioned rhetoric and their turning of Christianity into a “gospel of success.” But it is not just money that is at stake here, but misleading people about the very nature of Christianity and religion itself.

Then, of course, there are the sex problems, and there certainly have been a lot of those. Not just your standard sex problems, again age-old, of a priest having a mistress or a minister visiting a prostitute, but much worse in child predation, in the sexual abuse of young people. In the Catholic community, where this hit like the proverbial ton of bricks, the official line is that yes, this was really bad and “we are very sorry” and so on, but really “it involved a very, very small number of priests.” The actual number of priests involved in sexual abuse of all kinds in the last few decades probably is not too large, maybe somewhere around 5% of the total priest population. A large number, indeed too large a number everyone will say, but alas, that still leaves the overwhelming majority as basically sound. Only if that were true!! Because, as horrific as this abuse was, as evil and sick as it was, it actually was NOT the final worst thing about this whole episode so that now we can “move on.” The whole institution of the church has been revealed as wrapped in darkness and sickness. Yes, I do mean exactly what I am saying! From the get-go the Catholic Church has been: • A. first denying the charges; • B. then covering-up the problems, trying to “sweep them under the ecclesial rug; • C. fighting real compensation to the victims.

You will read in the newspapers about bishops and pope saying how sorry they are for what happened to the victims, but at the same time they have hired high-priced lawyers to make it as difficult as possible for victims to get compensation for their suffering AND to keep all knowledge of these incidents locked up and in secret–so that people would not know how really bad it was. Fortunately some of the victims got good lawyers of their own, and the Church has to begin to pay at least something; and fortunately there has been some good investigative journalism done. But the church fought it every step of the way. So this “We are sorry” stuff is so hypocritical it staggers the imagination. So many bishops and the last two popes at the very least have been trying to hide the problem in order to “protect the Church” from looking bad. One more thing: the culture of secrecy within the church is part of the problem. One reason why the child predators were often hidden within the church is that there was already an antecedent culture of secrecy, and it has to do with the very large number of gay clergy and religious. Now, let me be very clear about this: Gay people are NOT a problem or even close to being part of this problem. But the fact is that such a large number and such a large proportion of clergy are gay that a kind of secrecy culture developed—after all the church’s official policy was and is very negative about gays. Then a priest who openly admitted he was a gay risked problem with his bishop (who probably by the way was himself gay) and with his parishioners. So a culture of secrecy of gays, by gays, for gays developed within the church. Then on top of that, only a small proportion of priests, gay or straight, lived out a life of celibacy as called for. This created the need for more secrecy. So the child predators could hide in the midst of all this and feel quite secure in that secrecy. In addition they had “authority,” image, status, etc. If you want to get a more complete picture of this, don’t read the official documents, which are the instruments of a cover-up, but read an authority like Richard Sipe, a former Benedictine priest and licensed psychologist who has been studying the sex problems of priests for decades:

http://www.richardsipe.com/Miscl/2011-10-15-mother_church.htm

Hinduism

Onward to another very sad story. India is rightly seen as a culture rich in religious traditions and spirituality. From the legendary rishis of old who gave us the Upanishads to contemporary holy men who still dwell within that fast-changing culture. Usually when you mention “problem people” in Hinduism this refers to a number of fake gurus who came to the United States and Europe and made a big splash. The interesting thing here is how so many so-called sophisticated modern Americans and Europeans got taken by these people–both money-wise and sexually and as so-called “teachers.” Even today you will see all kinds of ads in “spiritual” magazines where “Asian teachers” of all kinds are hustling this or that. In a materialistic, superficial culture as ours, where Christianity itself seems to live on a superficial level also, these fake gurus and swamis appeared to fill a need. What made them seem “spiritual” and with “authority” was that they very cleverly brought the trappings of India with them. Then their top disciples took up the mantle as it were and took on an Asian appearance. “Look like a guru,” well, you just might be a guru then! “Sound like a guru,” and heck yes, you really are a guru! (Actually some of the lamas and Zen masters, speaking of another tradition, were quite knowledgeable about Buddhism and could impart some real knowledge of its spirituality, but they were still fakes and frauds in the end–just like some priests who had a serious and deep theological education but who were sexual predators.)

What enabled this fakery to flourish is something that was in the culture of India itself. It’s not that just “some bad apples” came over here, but that the Mother Country has a real problem with lots and lots of these people and some of them have migrated here. This is only speculation, but it may have something to do with the confluence of modernity and India’s rich religious culture because the problem seems to be growing in India. Beginning in the 19th Century and exploding with an amazing force and rapidity in recent decades modernity continues to have deeper and deeper influence on Indian society and its effects are truly mixed to say the least. Something for someone to investigate. In any case, Indians themselves have begun to realize they have a problem in their own backyard.

Here are just a couple of examples: The first is from a blog by a former member of the controversial and now notorious Sai Baba community: http://robertpriddy.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/sex-scandal-in-indian-media-nityananda-and-forerunners/

The next one is from an IBN(India’s CNN) program: http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/111129/ftn–indias-blind-faith-in-godmen.html?from=tn

Or take a look at this strange story of an Indian swami who had great success in the US:

http://scene-india.blogspot.com/2010/05/swami-rama-enlightenment-and-alleged.html

And this is only a very small sample. Google “fake godmen” and you will get a ton of websites from India lamenting the presence of fake spiritual figures. What’s almost funny is that a few sites are actually by frauds themselves who pretend that they are against “fake godmen”! The situation is that bad. In India itself, the various media (print, TV and internet) no longer ignore or hide the problem the culture has. As an IBN newsman put it: “The fundamental question is why has there been such a huge increase in cases related to the holy men in our country.” Then he begins to question the whole mythology of the guru. In this case perhaps modernity is shedding a bit of light on the situation. Now whether modernity itself is also an enabler of the problem is something that needs to be investigated.

Finally, let us consider Buddhism.

I won’t go over ground that I covered in reflecting on the SF Zen Center scandal and on the scandals of so, so many so-called zen masters and Tibetan lamas in the US. Some of them were/are very knowledgeable about the contents of their tradition and lineage, but there was/is a tremendous disconnect between that and their actual lives. At the risk of sounding very arrogant, one can only say that they missed the essence of Buddhism by the width of the universe!

At this time let us take a brief focus on what is probably the most Buddhist country in the world today: Thailand. Buddhism is the state religion, and there are thousands of monasteries and temples and thousands upon thousands of monks and nuns. Oddly enough, it is also one of the most corrupt places on earth. Granted, such a statement smacks of rhetoric more than hard fact—because how can you measure “most corrupt”—but I do mean to point to a “tiny problem,” if you will. So for a starter, Thailand has a flourishing, thriving, bustling sex trade. Whole plane loads of men fly in from all kinds of countries, like Japan for example, paying group rates, cheaper that way, for a week or weekend of unlimited sex, no questions asked. But that’s just a starter. If someone wants to have sex with an underage girl OR boy, hey come on over to Thailand—it is all-available, no questions asked. Oh, yes, it is officially “not allowed,” against the law, etc. but business is business and it’s really big in Thailand. Also if you got the money and the resources, if you want to buy a boy or girl and take them home, well, that can be worked out also. I remember reading about one of the predator priests, that he would take vacations in Thailand….verrrrrry interesting as they say….. Somehow I don’t think he was going to study meditation over there.

So what do all those Buddhists in Thailand say about all this. Well, not very much. In fact, a few of them, alas, participate in “the trade.” To end this depressing account, here are two websites. The first one is from a blogger who has collected a sampling of news stories about the problems in Thai Buddhism from Pacific Rim sources:

http://www.strippingthegurus.com/stgsamplechapters/thai.asp

And the next one is from someone who has lived and worked in Thailand, and has written sympathetic articles and books about Buddhism in Thailand:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/justin-mcdaniel/thai-buddhism-magic-money-murder_b_1016115.html

So what’s the point of all that depressing stuff above? Human weakness is human weakness, and perhaps one just wants to say that this is simply the human condition–we should not be surprised. That is true. But we still should seek to deal with these problems, and that doesn’t mean ignoring them or pretending they are minor. Also, those of us “in religion” want to avoid being judgmental at all costs. However, to allow fraudulent religiosity to flourish and to look the other way is not only naïve and simplistic, but it leads to people getting really hurt. Let us recall that the only people Jesus was unrelentingly tough with, the only people he was really hard on were those who had abused religion for their own gain, whatever that gain consisted in. For his own disciples he called for a completely different mode of presence. No need to tell me it hasn’t worked out quite that way!!

In a real sense there is no actual solution except the practice of authentic religion in the truest way possible. But we can point to some things that might help in “disarming” false religiosity. For one thing, we should consider “deconstructing” spiritual/religious leadership. By that I don’t mean getting rid of it. It simply needs to be “re-visioned”—actually Jesus does that in the Gospels. Various kinds of leadership roles in any religious community or tradition are real and necessary, but they have been endowed with such specialness that this opens up a world of problems and gives power to people who become entangled with it in unhealthy ways.

Priests, monks, ministers, spiritual practitioners, have a strong inclination to attach themselves to this “specialness” label. And this gets really big if the person is a spiritual father/abbot/ guru/ master/teacher/spiritual director, etc. That “specialness” can be very intoxicating and particularly hypnotic. One can almost begin to believe that one is “special.” And the person coming to spirituality perhaps for the first time becomes mesmerized by this “specialness aura.” As I suggested when I discussed the SF Zen Center problem, why not put a moratorium on all these “special labels and titles.” I realize that this presents peculiar difficulties for those in the Hindu tradition because the guru and one’s relationship to the guru is such an integral part of that tradition. Don’t quite know how to address that one, but I think as modernity goes deeper and deeper into the Indian psyche and heart, this thing will evolve to where the guru will become more like a spiritual friend—which is really all we ever need. Not an object of veneration, but a friend who may have more experience on the journey we are on, but still someone to whom we listen to without sacrificing our critical faculties. Even within Christianity the real “Father Zosimas” of the world are truly rare and so it would be more real and sane and more healthy if you called no one your master, your teacher, your father, but every one is your brother, your sister—no more, no less. Incidentally, the Desert Fathers are a perfect lesson in this. Among those who are eager for mysticism and the deep things of God, these figures seem to hold little interest—they are dry as dust and ordinary as dirt. In fact they seem to speak very little of God or ultimate reality or anything of that sort–more likely about humility, anger, poverty, silence, patience, how to treat others, etc. That’s what makes them our paradigmatic teachers, our very best teachers. They did have a title, “Abba,” father, but this was merely a place marker and distributed widely, primarily an indicator and a sign of experience in the desert. If anyone attempted to “cash in” that title for prestige or gain, he would immediately be recognized as a fraud.

As a further step in “disarming” the spiritual way, why not dress in utter simplicity—ordinary clothes. Do away with “special clothes” no matter what your tradition has used in the past. Everyone just wears simple ordinary clothes–nothing special about your appearance. I think you would be amazed how effective that would be in emptying out that “special image” people carry within themselves once they start being “spiritual.” In other words, don’t try to stand out as someone special. The special clothes work as a kind of gimmick at first. I mean when you begin you put on these different clothes, and it’s a sign of a new life, a new way, etc. It kind of reinforces the feeling that you are up to something different! Ok, but how quickly this goes haywire! It becomes another uniform and maybe soon you are thanking God that you are not like those other folk!! A small point perhaps, but every little bit helps!

There are two principles which underlie the dynamic I am pointing to. They are in an intense paradoxical relationship to each other, seemingly almost canceling each other out. The first principle is that the spiritual life is utterly and radically simple. Its simplicity is beyond description. You have everything you need in your heart for the whole journey. Doing the dishes is as holy a moment and as close to God as hours of meditation in the solitude of a cave or as the most sacred of rites. You need not go to any special place or any special person or find some special conditions. It is all there in your heart and in front of your nose. Waiting for you as it were. The “treasure buried in the field.” If you accept that, then no “spiritual teacher” will be able to mislead you or abuse you or gain power over you. You have treasure that no thief can steal; no rust or moth can eat away. On the other hand, the second principle is that the spiritual life is truly very, very hard. Very simple; but also exceedingly hard. After all Jesus spoke about some kind of “death” and “dying”–very vexing metaphors for some process within oneself indeed! Doesn’t sound like fun! Doesn’t sound like something you can buy. A true Sufi teacher said that of all the people that come to him who are on the spiritual journey maybe only one in a thousand “go all the way.” But that’s ok because however far you go, it will be much better for you and benefit you more than not having taken the journey. As a matter of fact we all finally “go all the way,” except then it’s called death! Maybe this is where we begin to want some guidance. Maybe a wise word from a spiritual friend; maybe a bit of “handholding” during a crisis; maybe all we should be are spiritual friends to each other. In an environment like that the one who wants to wield power over us will be readily manifest for what he is. A radical education reformer used to say that the main purpose of education should be to develop within the student a finely tuned “crap detector.” In other words he can recognize BS no matter how “authoritatively” it comes dressed. Such I would say is also the key to a healthy religious/spiritual culture. In such a culture, the spiritual seeker will become empowered with a “spiritual crap detector.” It’s obvious that we are not quite there yet!

Preliminary Remarks:  We will begin a long series of reflections on what could be termed as the “foundations and fundamentals” of the spiritual life.  These will be spread out over a series of postings during several years—there will certainly be other postings of other material interspersed throughout, so things will not proceed in a rigorous sequence, but I will number the parts as we go along.  Furthermore, once a posting has been made and some “Part” has been established, it doesn’t mean that we can’t return to that Part and posting to add some more material as we go along.

Some cautions:  My commitment and orientation is to the Christian mystical tradition, but I have learned much and have benefited greatly from my exposure to all the other great religious traditions, and it will be readily apparent that my approach to “foundations & fundamentals” has been thoroughly influenced by Sufism, Buddhism, Taoism, and even certain forms of Hinduism.  I do not believe that it is any longer possible for anyone to truly and deeply understand his/her spiritual tradition in isolation from all the others.  This I take as one of the major “signs of the times,” of where we are as a human family right now and which sets us apart a bit from our ancestors–maybe.   Furthermore, I believe that the one I call God is revealed and is accessible in and through every authentic spiritual tradition.  As a methodological principle all this certainly can be debated, but that is a question for another time and another posting!

These postings will be nothing more than reflections, notes, pointers, indicators, “road signs,” etc.  They are definitely not meant as a “recipe,” formula, program, map, agenda, a “to-do” list, etc. Nor a final definitive statement.  There ain’t no such animal in the zoo–as far as the spiritual life goes!!  Nor are these reflections meant to be just more words to add to all the other words that already are in your mind.  Hopefully they may help in the unveiling of a deeper significance to what you already know in your heart.

Another point:  there seem to be real differences in spiritual experiences.  Not too many spiritual writers acknowledge that fact.  The usual thing is to say that all differences are in “words,” “language,” “ways,” etc., but the core experience of the core reality is the same.  So they say, but I don’t think it’s that simple.  And here I am referring to not only the spiritual paths of the great world traditions, but actually even within one and the same tradition, there can be people with quite different spiritual experiences.  Thus even within Christian mysticism we can find some very different looking “mysticisms.”  Our “foundations & fundamentals” is not meant as a kind of reduction to “one flavor” for all, nor is it meant as a kind of evaluation of a particular approach to mysticism as being “higher” or “lower.”  There is an irreducible uniqueness to each person’s life with God, but we may find some common notions that may be helpful to those who feel the call to go beyond just living a “good life.”

Final Prelim:  Mostly in the spiritual life we get lost, and what is important is what we do with that lostness.  When someone hands you a flashlight on a dark moonless night, that may be helpful but it doesn’t mean “we have made it home.”  Merton is one of those “flashlights”– let us conclude this section by listening to him a bit:

“One of the most important things in the spiritual life and in the life of prayer is to let a great deal go on without knowing quite what is going on, and without messing with it, without interfering with it.

“You can’t be helped in the best parts of the spiritual life.  If you could be helped it wouldn’t be worth it.  There is a great deal of the spiritual life where God alone helps you, and you don’t know that He’s helping you and you can’t tell that He’s helping you…but you have to believe this.  Learning to trust when you don’t see what’s happening.

“You make a breakthrough, and what you do is you break through into a deeper level of yourself…. You find a deeper truth that’s really there, in you, but it’s not yours, it’s God’s, and it’s not something that you have accounted for, it’s something that He has accounted for.”

So let us begin:

Part I   The Real

“Lead me from the unreal to the Real….”  So runs a prayer in the Upanishads.  This is a prayer that anyone in any of the great spiritual traditions of the world would be able to pray.  This may be the most fundamental prayer that anyone can make.  For those of us in the theistic traditions, there may be a surprising connection with some other equally ancient and fundamental words:  the so-called 1^st Commandment.  Let us recall its several wordings:

from Exodus 20:  “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.  You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.  You shall not bow down to them or worship them….”

from Deuteronomy 5:  “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.”

from Deuteronomy 6:  “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”

And then there is the restatement in the New Testament.

from Mark 12:  “Jesus answered, ‘The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart….”

And from the Quran we have this critical clue to the meaning of all of the above.  These are the most important words in Islam and actually they hold for us also if rightly understood:

“La ilaha illa’Llah”   There is no god but God

This is the most fundamental affirmation a Moslem and a Sufi can make, and there is a second part to this to which we shall soon come.  As with almost all religious truths, we can understand all of the above, including the line from the Upanishads, in a kind of surface, superficial way or maybe in a very literal sense, or yet again in the true deeper sense that reveals a whole new world of meaning.  This would hold for the rishis of the Upanishads, the Sufis of Islam and the Christian mystics.  What we shall do now is quote extensively concerning that fundamental Islamic statement of faith which will then illuminate the profound connection between Christian mysticism and that wonderful prayer from the Upanishads.  Our quotes will be from a lecture by Thomas Merton to his fellow monks and novices, and from an essay by a Sufi scholar by the name of Reza Shah-Kazemi.

Let us begin with Merton:  “The whole religion of Islam is extremely simple.  And it is all contained in one or two basic formulas, real basic formulas.  And the most basic one is a thing called the shahadah–La ilaha illa ‘Llah–Muhammadan Rasulu ‘Llah–which is the famous statement, There is no god but God,   (there is no god but Allah) and (Muhammad is the one who is really sent), Muhammad is His Prophet.’  The way this is usually translated is ‘There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is His Prophet.’  Now, of course the way that is usually interpreted is in terms of a kind of orthodoxy, but that’s not the way the Sufis look at it…. It is not confined to that…if that was all they were saying, they wouldn’t have got very far….  Actually, what you’ve got in the two parts of the shahadah, you’ve got tanzih and tashbih.  The first part is tanzih and the second part is tashbih.  The first part…begins, as some of these Sufi commentators say, with a denial.  The first part says, ‘There is no god.’  It starts with that, ‘There is no god,’ and then it says, ‘but there is, and He is Allah.’  So what this statement is, then, is a negative and then an assertion.  That there is no god and it also means there is no reality, so what this is saying is nothing is real…except Allah.  He alone is Real.  And then, and this is your tanzih statement, there is this infinite hidden reality, and this is The Reality, but then comes up the question, What about everything else?  Well, it’s real too insofar as it comes from Him….  How do you get that out of ‘Muhammad is His Prophet’?  Well, as the Sufis interpret this, the first part is about God, the second part is about the world.  And the world is that which has come forth from God…and into which He has sent the prophets, and especially Muhammad….  Muhammad doesn’t just simply mean this one particular prophet.  He stands in a certain sense for man, insofar as he is considered by Muslims the perfect man.  Muhammad was the one who ‘made it.’  Everybody else should seek to some extent to approach the knowedge of God which Muhammad had.  Everybody should try to be to some  extent a kind of prophet…and what man ought to be is a person who knows that Allah is the One Reality and that everything else is a manifestation of God.”

And now from the Sufi scholar Reza Shah-Kazemi:  “What is meant by the phrase ‘metaphysics of oneness’ is the metaphysical interpretation given by the Sufis to the fundamental message of the Quran, the principle of tawhid, expressed in the credal formula: La ilaha illa’Llah—no god but God.  Whereas theologically the statement is a relatively straightforward affirmation of the uniqueness of the Divinity and the negation of other ‘gods’, metaphysically  the formula is read as an affirmation of the true nature of being: no reality but the one Reality.  Kashani comments as follows on one of the many verses affirming the central principle of tawhid, namely, 20:8: ‘Allah, there is no god but Him’: ‘His unique essence does not become multiple, and the reality of His identity derives therefrom, and does not become manifold; so He is He in endless eternity as He was in beginningless eternity.  There is no He but Him, and no existent apart from Him.’  We have here not only an affirmation of the oneness of God to the exclusion of other gods, but also, and more fundamentally, the affirmation of a unique reality which is exclusive of all otherness, or rather in relation to which all otherness is unreal….

“The shift from ‘theological’ tawhid to ‘ontological’ tawhid is one of the hallmarks of another great representative of the school of Ibn Arabi, Sayyid Haydar Amoli, in whose works one observes a remarkable synthesis between Shi’ite gnosis and Sufi metaphysics.  He refers to the ‘folk of the exterior’ who pronounce the formula La ilaha…. in the sense conveyed by the following Quranic verse, an exclamation by the polytheists of the strangeness of the idea of affirming one deity: ‘Does he make the gods one God? This is a strange thing.’  This monotheistic affirmation is, for Amoli, the essence of the tawhid professed by the folk of the exterior, and is called ‘theological’ tawhid.  In contrast, the ‘folk of the interior’ negate the multiplicity of existences, and affirm the sole reality of divine being; their formula is: ‘There is nothing in existence apart from God’….

“…in the Quranic perspective, every single thing, by dint of its very existence, ‘praises’ and ‘glorifies’ its Creator; its existence constitutes its praise.  Every created thing bears witness to, and thus ‘praises’, its Creator; the existence of every existent ‘glorifies’ the bestower of existence.  But, more fundamentally, the existence of every existing thing is not its own; this existence ‘belongs’ exclusively to that reality for which it serves as a locus of theophany; there is no ‘sharing’, ‘partnership’, or ‘association’ in being…. Thus we return to the metaphysics of oneness; nothing is real but God.  Each thing in existence has two incommensurable dimensions: in and of itself a pure nothingness; but in respect of that which is manifested to it, through it, by means of it–it is real.”

So, these two lenghty quotes point us in the right direction concerning the first principle of the spiritual life.  Both the fundamental Islamic creedal affirmation and the 1^st Commandment of the Judaeo-Christian Scriptures admonish us against idolatry.  But both with the Christian mystics and with the Sufis we are to understand this in a much deeper way than simply making an image of some critter and worshipping it.  Idolatry means making some existent into an independent reality existing “alongside” God as it were.  This has enormous implications.  For example, popular piety might hold that there you are and here I am and then there is God.  It is as if God were the “third” element in a series of existing things.  But that is to misunderstand grossly the reality of God and our own reality.  This not only puts God somewhere “out there” but it also makes my reality and your reality kind of independent self-existing realities.  It also creates this illusion of a distance between oneself and the one we call God, THE REAL.  This is truly the beginning of idolatry.

First of all, every single thing exists only because God calls it into existence and His call is also His very presence.  In other words, every single entity is connected to and related to God or else it does not have existence. Reality is from God; reality manifests God. Whatever “realness” any entity has, comes directly and depends directly on the Reality of God—apart from that there is nothing.  Look into the eyes of your pet and you will see the Presence–the “catness” of the cat, the “dogness” of the dog are on fire with the reality of God, manifesting the One Reality.  Every blade of grass, every little ant, every galaxy, every human being, every single thing is the Burning Bush filled with the Presence of God or else it doesn’t exist.  That’s why everything is truly “holy ground.”  Apart from God, everything, absolutely everything is pure nothingness.  But precisely so, it is impossible “to be” and “to be apart from God.”  To view things this way is to enter a state of delusion.  However, our state of blindness or delusion can be so serious that we can actually consider ourselves and our world independent of the reality of God.  This was the view, for example, of the 18^th Century deists in the West—God as the Great Clockmaker, creation as a great clock which God winds up and puts down and it runs on its own.  This was never the view of the mystics.  If we look at the world that way, we will be entering idolatry–attributing being to things that have no being of their own– and affirming that nothingness as a something.  The roots of nihilism and despair and delusion.

The story is told that one day a very devout Sufi came to the great Rabia, a Sufi woman mystic in Iraq, and said to her, “I have never sinned before God.”  And she answered him, “Your very existence is the greatest sin there is.”  And of course she is cutting through the crap of this piety by getting to the root problem, which is not really pride or hypocrisy or some other words like that–a superficial way of approaching the problem which Jesus noted also.  The fact is that underneath all our so-called “sins” lies that fundamental idolatry of self, that view of ourselves as something substantial and not dependent, something  more than nothingness and independent of God, possessors of our own being, our own reality and then negotiating with God, pleasing God, placating God, etc. as if we could stand independently “outside” God.

In the Gospel, in Luke 18, it says:  “A certain ruler asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’  Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good?  No one is good but God alone.'”  Here Jesus addresses the same problem as Rabia, but from a slightly different angle.  Yes, there are commandments to carry out and virtues to practice but none of this “goodness” has any reality apart from THE REALITY—they simply manifest this Reality.  However, if we look on these as something  WE “achieve,” “accomplish,” “do,” etc., as if this “goodness” had its own independent reality, which we then bring before God for “reward,” and “approbation,” then we are slipping into idolatry and making the nothingness into something–even with our piety– and in effect “consorting with Satan”–recall, “Get behind me, Satan! to Peter’s proposal, and to the tempter in the desert a firm rebuke as Jesus is offered a seeming reality(a seeming good) that is independent of God, apart from God.  And that was Eve’s problem in the Garden also…etc.

Another look at this:  Recall this parable from Luke 18 also:  “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax-collector.  The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector.  I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’  But the tax-collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner.”  We know what Jesus said, and we can guess what Rabia would have said, but another thing here is that the tax-collector is the paradigmatic figure for the Jesus Prayer tradition.  And if we get at the root meaning of the word “sin” as “separation from God,” then we meet this paradox.  The one who is proclaiming and admitting that he has been acting and living his daily life as if he were separate from God, as if his being had its own reality, this one is “justified” because he can only acknowledge that fact if he already recognizes his own nothingness and the “Allness” of God–in other words, that very acknowledgment, when it is sincere and true, is only possible when someone recognizes his own nothingness and God’s Presence in all that is.  On the other hand, the guy who brings forward “his own virtuous life” is doomed to delusion and idolatry, the land of the unreal,  because “only God is good” and he does not recognize the real meaning of a “good deed.”

Somewhere in his diary Abhishiktananda writes:  “Perhaps there is only God!”  One can almost see the twinkle in his eyes as one reads these words!  They are sentiments that usually upset the orthodox devout, make others nervous, and leave some purzzled.  To say that only God is Real and that we and all else have even less substantiality than a wisp of fog, a trace of morning dew seems outlandish, even heretical, etc.  Accusations of pantheism will arise; accusations that one is importing alien non-Christian ideas, etc.  A lot of this is a problem in language and as long as this is presented in an abstract academic fashion as it were, then serious misunderstandings can take place.  However, the moment one begins to “taste” God(as the Sufis would say), with even just a glimmer of the reality of the Divine, then one begins to easily proclaim one’s nothingness.  Such has been the unbroken witness of countless Christian mystics also.  Too often their language has been taken as being “negative,” “morose,” “self-rejecting,” or just plain metaphorical, a manner of speaking, etc.  But the deeper the experience of God a person has, the more zealous he/she is about proclaiming their “nothingness.”  For the reality of God is such that all else truly fades into emptiness and there is only the Divine Fullness.  And so with the rishis of the Upanishads we can pray:   Lead me from the unreal to the Real….  More and more so.  Deeper and deeper.  Beyond and still beyond….  To the Furthest Shore….    With the great Sufi mystic, Mansur al-Hallaj, we will then say:

“I saw my Lord with the eyes of my heart;

I asked Him, Who art Thou?  He said, Thou.”

Amen.

These are the reported last words of Steve Jobs.  His sister said that he repeated this phrase three times while staring into space just before he closed his eyes and stopped breathing.  Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow.  I repeat this phrase not out of sarcasm or irony, though I was no fan of Jobs as my oblique reference to him in the last posting shows–but now quite the opposite, I am not sure any mystic could have done any better, except for an improved vocabulary maybe!  To be frank, we of course cannot know for sure what his meaning was, but the moment seems to lean in this direction:  he was beginning to recognize the infinite and absolute Love that was surrounding and filling his life and him and all those who had gathered in his room.  The pop vocabulary of this pop icon is almost touching.  But the gist of this is definitely not “pop”.

Oh wow, some people said, when they first saw the now-classic MacIntosh computer almost 2 decades ago.  Oh wow, others said, when they saw Apple outsource its production force to China and all that implied.  Oh wow, still others said about the man’s 9-figure fortune by the time he was 30 years old.  He could have gotten a much greater “oh wow” if he had given away most of that money and alleviated the misery of at least some people.  It seems the Gospel calls for that.  I mean, really, I don’t see how you can ever justify a great fortune with the Gospel—and those of you from other traditions can use your own yardsticks—it simply calls for a divesting, no excuses, compromises, “ifs,” “buts,” “ands,” “ors,” etc., etc.  But where Steve Jobs was at in that moment it was too late for all that, and the infinite absolute Love, which is a totally unimaginable and incomprehensible mystery to us in our samsaric existence, took Steve by the hand and took him “through the eye of the needle”.  We sometimes call it “death”!  And Steve had to let go of Apple, of the 9-figure fortune, of even his identity as Steve Jobs, genius.  As he realized that, there was only one response, “oh, wow.”  Not bad.

Abhishiktananda (Henri Le Saux) is one of the most important and most interesting religious figures of our time and maybe the most profound Christian mystic since Eckhart and John of the Cross.  I say this fully aware that there may be some serious questions about some of his spiritual/theological proposals and claims, and at a later date I hope to go over in some detail the essentials of his spiritual/mystical teaching with all its “wrinkles.”  But here we will just look at the humanity of this great mystic—something which ought to be done with all our other historical holy figures who tend to become “unreal icons” of an unreal perfection.  When we lose sight of their humanity, we also begin to see their teachings at a further distance from ourselves than needs be.  Also, when we see the mystic in his true humanity we then begin to interpret his teaching in a truer, deeper way and avoid the pitfalls of becoming a “groupie” or a “fan club member” who simply does not question anything the mystic says.  As that bumper sticker proposes:  “Question All Authority”—even the mystic’s!

The first thing that hit me about Abhishiktananda is a comparison of him with Thomas Merton.  And here we have to add that one of the truly sad things, indeed even tragic things, is that the two never met. Merton does mention in his Asian Journal Diary that he had an intention of trying to find Abhishiktananda and visit him if he had the time, but then he tragically died.  But even with that, most mysterious is that both of them, being such incredible correspondents with so many contacts and tons of letters written all over the place, never communicated with each other via letter.  Something to ponder.

Both monks were filled “to the gills” with engaging contradictions that would endear them to their friends.  And both men were to a large extent self-aware of these contradictions and could poke fun at themselves.  For example, both rhapsodized about solitude and silence yet they both had a “gift for gab” and immensely enjoyed conversation with like-minded souls and both had a real need for human contacts and human affirmation.  One cannot picture either of these men sitting in a cave somewhere alone for years on end in total silence–yet they both idealized such folk. One of the key characteristics of Merton’s writings is that he could seemingly contradict himself so readily.  I mean if you consulted his published works, his journals, his letters and his class notes, you could pretty much quote Merton “against Merton.”  That is also the case with Abhishiktananda, though not to the same extent or the same degree.  But recall Emerson’s famous remark concerning contradictions in Thoreau:  “Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”  (Here we need to add that the contradictions spoken of here are not the same kind as in the case of Heidegger, for example, who had such profound intuitions about human reality and yet consorted for years with the Nazis; or consider even the recent case of Steve Jobs who just died and was lionized for being a “deep Zen practioner”—however, Apple under his leadership outsourced thousands of jobs to China and then allowed his Chinese producers and sources to pollute the environment and run practically slave-like work conditions.  One of the factories where Apple computers were made had so many worker suicides that people there were forced to sign “no-suicide oaths”—very bizarre, I mean what could they do to you if you broke the oath!!!?  But we are getting too far afield!  In any case, these are contradictions that open an enormous moral chasm that cannot be affirmed.  These are not just personal quirks or the desire to hold on to “both ends” of a paradox as one wrestles with a mystery.)

Take a look at this picture of Abhishiktananda:

It is cold in winter where he has his hermit’s hut in Northern India.  So he has a large overcoat and a sweater on top of his sannyasi garb. (Kind of symbolic I thought!)  At a certain point he has a stove, and an electric immersion heater to make hot chocolate and hot tea.  He is surrounded by books, papers, a typewriter.  Now this is not your typical sadhu!  And he often good-humoredly (and sometimes sadly) points that out.  He knows his physical limitations and humbly accepts them.

Another thing:  he owns the land on which he sits!!  Actually Panikkar bought it for him and put it in both their names.  Very untypical for a sadhu!!  The plot of land was large enough for a garden.  And at one point he puts up barbed wire around the garden to preserve his vegetables.  Now that’s a picture that has to make one smile–a sadhu stringing barbed wire around HIS property!!  He also has a small endowment of money given to him by a donor, which allows him to roam freely until that money runs out, and then he shows some real signs of insecurity when he has to live only on the royalties from his few published items.  Then another rich donor steps forward—again, very unusual for a sadhu!!  He is very endearing when he confesses that he feels  totally unable to go from door to door begging for his food(he only does that a few times during his time in India–not easy to do for a European from an upper middle class family or an American for that matter!

Actually he never stays for too long in his hermit’s hut—never more than a few months at a time, and then he is on the road again.  At first he had to shuttle back and forth between Shantivanam, the original ashram, and his hermit’s lair in the foothills of the Himalayas.  Quite a journey and quite taxing.  Eventually he develops friendships and contacts all over India, and his reputation as a teacher and spiritual resource pulls him here and there all over India.  He writes to one of his sisters who is a cloistered nun that his enclosure is all of India!!

He is a man of great humor–his friends say he is full of jokes, telling “even wicked jokes”–more often his humor is aimed at himself but he is not afraid to tweek even his close friends.  But the humor is never for its own sake, but it is always for the sake of that awakening toward which he always focused.  In writing to his closest disciple, Marc, when the latter first proposed that he wanted to take sannyasa, Abhishiktananda good-naturedly takes him to task:  “You need sannyasa in order to be recognized.  And why do you want to be recognized, except with a view to being accepted when you do something?  It is not the ten years of silence which are calling for the diksha, but the time afterwards when you feel that something awaits you; a need for an apostolate under a different name!  I am not blaming you, but I am the witness who smiles….  A small damper for you and for me, who are at times living a little too much in a dream….  I smile when I see you now so interested in giving a form to the formless.  That is just what cults, myths, theologies have been doing from the beginning…  You need a sign in order to possess your freedom!  Oh, the infinitely free man, who needs a sign that he is beyond signs!  Get away with you—you are still steeped in your University Seminary, and deserve to go back to it!”  Of course, at a later date, Marc does become a sannyasi in a beautifully documented ceremony.  But this shows Abhishiktananda as teacher, not afraid to tweek even his closest associate.

Abhishiktananda is a man who exudes humor, liveliness, warmth through every pore of his body and spirit, but he is also very capable of being gruff, abrasive and cold to those who seem to him to be wasting his time or misleading people or are pompous.  Although he had extensive communal living in France, here in India he seems to show a certain inability to live in close quarters with other people.  Mainly because he is set and determined by a certain vision and experience and he simply does not have time for anything else.  Although he had great fondness for Monchanin, Bede Griffiths and Father Francis–the other 3 important figures in India’s Catholicism at that time–and although he respected and valued each of their talents, for all practical purposes he could not live with any of them in any community setting.  They all in fact had a very different vision of what their role in India was, and there were moments of friction(at one time Abhishiktananda called Fr. Bede, “the fog of the Thames”!)   Abhishiktananda also had very strong and sensitive feelings, and in one gathering of Christian religious figures in the early 60s someone whom he respected not only disagreed with some of his ideas but personally called into question his integrity.  This really hurt Abhishiktananda and he practically never got over it.  For a long time he avoided this particular group of theological scholars, and one wonders if some of his harsh statements about theology in his later life does not stem from that wound.  Anyway, it is interesting that this man who spoke so much about “going beyond” the peripheral ego to the great I Am, still felt the hurt that ego experienced and more importantly still was not free of it.  In light of this one can see how some of those Desert Father stories take on an enormous importance and how they also in a very, very quiet way point to that Beyond in a very existential way without any “lofty mystical language.” More about that in a later posting.

Abhishiktananda’s vision of the monastic journey, so profoundly influenced by Hindu sannyasa, seems at times to “leave this earth.”  The word is “acosmic.”  At times the vision he articulates of sannyasa and the monastic charism leaves one seemingly outside all human concerns and human history—the sufferings, injustices, travails that so many people undergo.  It’s as if the mystical life and the pursuit of justice are two paths with almost nothing in common.  Now Merton was much more into a unified vision of the two and so today he still is the more useful spiritual guide for many people.  However, Abhishiktananda, in his real life showed a great sensitivity and a truly compassionate heart to those who suffered.  Something like Dostoyevsky’s Father Zosima he intuited that it is very “cheap and easy” to love humanity in the abstract, but very, very difficult to truly love concrete persons with all their shortcomings. That will take real sacrifice, and if you do it in a way that nobody sees it, so much the better.  Early on in his life in India he practically adopted this wretchedly poor Tamil family and regularly sent them money, a share of whatever he got, even when he was almost penniless at some times in his life.  He never forgot them.  His heart was in the right place, but somehow he could never articulate a truly “unified vision” of spirituality and mysticism and the pursuit of justice.  In a letter to his sister, this is about as good as he could get:  “The Church  is a life conformed to the Gospel.  Christians are those who love their brothers and seek to transform a civilization based on profit and egoism, which therefore is contrary to the Gospel.  Priests and religious are those who take seriously the instructions given by Jesus to the seventy-two disciples when sending them out on mission.  That is how the Church ought to appear.” (And there are other similar quotes from him.)

In light of the above, it is important to point out that Abhishiktananda never did show any grasp of the “Brahmin bias” of his advaita spirituality—advaita was upper caste spirituality in India, and although Abhishiktananda himself related to all kinds of people with the same openness, he somehow never showed any self-critical awareness in this regard(of which self-criticism he showed much in other regards!).  He fixed an almost laser-beam focus on advaita and never let go, even as there were so many other religious paths in India.  In his defense, one could say that he saw advaita as liberated from the limitations even of Indian culture.  More about this in a later posting.

Abhishiktananda had some interesting preferences in regard to Catholic religious life–most of his friends there were either Carmelites or Jesuits.  He seems not to have cared a hoot for either Trappists or Carthusians(too regimented, too organized, too external oriented), and he had little hope for his own Benedictines–he himself saw them as providing “cover” for him in India, but that was about it.  Jesuits he had a lot of dealings with because it was they who would shape the ethos of the Indian Church.  The Carmelites he really loved because they were simply and totally oriented to contemplative prayer, nothing else, not even the liturgy.  He thought the nuns’ grill was ridiculous but he found the Carmelite nuns the most receptive to his spiritual teachings.

Food wise he ate as far as he could what the poorest in India ate.  However, he recognized many times that he badly needed some “European food.”  At one point he says that after 60 you almost cannot survive in India without some “European food.”  Here again he shows discretion, common sense, and a humble acceptance of his limitations.  Speaking of which, “common sense” is very evident in a lot of his spiritual direction and guidance in letters to various people. Here he is in the great tradition of the Elders of Optina in Russia during the 19^th Century: spiritual direction characterized by a lot of common sense. To a housewife in Bombay who wrote to him with some questions, he responds to her real situation, her real vocation from God, not some dream or fantasy of some unrealizable situation:  “I would not know how to give a good answer to the question whether Christ is necessary for Hindus.  I only know that plenty of people who do not know his person have access to his ‘mystery'(not to his ‘concept’) in their inner deepening and also in transcending themselves in the love of their brothers.  The mystery of the Heart of Christ is present in the mystery of every human heart.  You have found fulfilment through music, through painting.  Art is also a way of access to the mystery, and perhaps–in poety, painting, music–it reveals him better than any technical formula.  And in the end it is this mystery–at once of oneself and of each person, of Christ and of God–that alone counts.  The Awakening of the Resurrection is the awakening to this mystery!…Joy to you, to your husband, to your children.  May it shed its rays on all!  And don’t worry about those who love the esoteric, who run around to ashrams and ‘saints’.  The discovery of the mystery is so much simpler than that.  It is right beside you in the opening of a flower, the song of a bird, the smile of a child.”  This is a TRUE spiritual master speaking, but, alas, poor Abhishiktananda does seem to get a bit lost with his close disciple, Marc!   (Recently I listened to a talk by a Sufi teacher, and he also stressed the importance of common sense in spiritual guidance. )

Prayer and meditation:  at some gathering on the theme of prayer and meditation various participants got into a discussion of  “how much” time to give to such “practices.”  Very often the various individuals pointed out how much time they were able to allot to this each day.  Abhishiktananda was greatly amused to relate that he spent less time on “such periods” than any of them.  The point is that he did not believe in cutting up the day into “spiritual practics” and then the “other stuff.”  He saw this as making that fatal mistake of superimposing spirituality on the rest of life–it was kind of another layer that you put on your life.  Rather,  even as periods of silent prayer are good and important but what is really important is that pervasive and constant silent attentiveness to the Presence in all you do and in all that happens.  Here we are getting much closer to what the old Hesychast Fathers meant by “continual prayer,” “pure prayer,” “prayer of the Heart,” etc.

Finally, we have to confront the dark, swirling rumors around the possibility of a homoerotic relationship between Abhishiktananda and his closest disciple Marc.  Of course no one really knows, and it is very easy to mistakenly evaluate certain language. (It is alarming and very disappointing that Marc apparently recopied the last years of Abhishiktananda’s diary and threw away the originals—so we really can’t be too sure how much of Abhishiktananda’s own thoughts we have in that diary for about the last 5 years.  And then Marc’s own diary became totally inaccessible to all, even scholars–a close friend of Abhishiktananda’s kept this diary locked up, but she recently died, so maybe this might become available, but I doubt it.  And then, Marc’s mysterious disappearance—was he killed by some fanatic fundamentalist Hindus; did he just disappear in some cave in the mountains and die there or is he still there!; or did he commit suicide in the Ganges, like this Hindu guru did whom he had admired deeply.  Looking at it from outside one can say that there is not too many “good vibes” there!) There is an emotional flavor to their discourse in that last  year of his life that is much more than just the usual guru-disciple relationship.  However, like I said above, Abhishiktananda  was a very affective and sensitive person and he would respond with much feeling when he was connecting with someone.  It is possible that Marc was the one person who most alleviated him of a great loneliness in not being able to share his deepest and most profound insights/intuitions/teachings/understandings, etc.  He often mentions how little people seem to understand him.  However be the case, I frankly don’t care even if he did have a homoerotic relationship with Marc.  In a sense it may have been very innocent–like Merton’s experience of human love with the student-nurse, and he may have gone beyond it like Merton did if  he had lived longer.   No matter,the ultimate thing is that there was power in his words and behind his words, power to open up the depths of people’s heart to the Ultimate and Absolute Mystery.   But he is also still, “the witness who smiles” at all our foibles and preoccupations.  Amen!

Our culture proclaims that it values the individual, individuality, and uniqueness.  However, like so much else about us, this is totally illusory.  What it really promotes is a kind of atomized individualism and a frenzied kind of self-centeredness, self-assertiveness.   It believes that by crying out “I am different,” that you establish your own individuality–or like that old pop song by Frank Sinatra, “I Did It My Way.”  However, true uniqueness is a deeply spiritual reality and cannot be had or found by simply asserting one’s own illusory ego identity in contrast to all other such assertions, etc.  It will inevitably require a “death” of that ego-centeredness—like the Gospel tells us: “Unless a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it will remain alone, but if it dies it will bear much fruit….”  And one of those fruits will be one’s true uniqueness and individuality.  The spiritual life is totally marked by paradox at every step of the way, and this is one such instance–one has to transcend one’s ego identity in order to find one’s true uniqueness.  And the still deeper paradox will be that this “individuality” will also be a communion with all others so that you will know their pain and their joy as your own.

In Jewish mysticism, among the Hasidim, there is the story of a very holy rabbi by the name of Zusya.  There are several variants of the story, but basically it goes something like this:  Zusya has a dream in which he has died and finds himself waiting near the throne of God for his final interrogation as it were.  He is really sweating it out as he worries that God will ask him why he was not Abraham or Moses or Joshua, doing the great and holy things they did.    He tries to prepare an answer, but God surprises him with the question:  “Why were you not Zusya?”  Indeed!  That may be THE only important question we need to consider!  But to be truly “Zusya,” to be truly “me,” means that I cannot live by any superficial social identity or even take on a copy-identity of a holy person.  You have to plunge into the gift of your own uniquness which is nothing what society or culture or even Church  tells you it is.   One of the problems even a spiritual seeker may have is thinking that God is more present somewhere else, in someone else’s life, in some other “better” conditions for a spiritual life, wishing that he were in Abhishiktanada’s shoes or Merton’s for example(!).  But it is you, in your totally and infinitely unique, irrepalaceable, non-interchangeable reality in which God has placed Himself.  No matter how many twists and turns your life has taken, no matter how many mistakes, your Heart is truly Paradise, the Abode of the Absolute, and there you walk with God as with a Friend.  He calls you by a name that you alone have from Him–no one else, and your spiritual task is to recognize that name and respond to it—because only you can do that—no one else will be able to respond to that name.  And furthermore, God has planted His secret name in your heart that you alone have and by which He wants you to call Him, and by which no one else can call him.  And the amazing thing is that these two names may very well be the same.  This is the true source of your uniqueness and the uniqueness of every man, woman and child that exists.  Your life is the field spoken of in the Gospel in which a treasure is buried and a man buys that field with all he has and claims the treasure.

Consider three very unique holy men from three very different spiritual traditions:

A. Benedict Joseph LaBre.  1748-1783.  Born into a well-to-do family in France before the Revolution.  He grows up during a period of great decadence and the peak of the enlightenment.  Right from his youth he shows a strong proclivity to prayer and living a life oriented totally to God.  He attempts to join both the Trappists and the Carthusians, but both groups reject him.  He strikes them as an “oddball” and perhaps a “mental case.”  Catholic religiosity at this time is very rigid, very formulaic, very external oriented, very institutional, very progam oriented, by the book kind of thing.  So you would think he was finished with that kind of rejection by those kind of folk!  Not in the least.  Benedict takes up a life hardly ever seen in modern Western Christianity:  the wandering beggar.  He lives a life of total poverty and total pilgrimage.  Officially he is nobody.  He spends his time mostly in silence and in continual prayer and in wandering from one church and one holy place to another.  He begs for his food, and he has only the clothes on his back.  In Eastern Christianity they would recognize him as a “fool for Christ”; among Hindus he might be considered as a kind of sannyasi, but where he was, there was no one like him!  Eventually he ends up in Rome where he sleeps in the ruins of the Colosseum and spends his days in the Churches.  He dies in Rome, and about a 100 years later he is canonized by Pope Leo.

B. Kabir  1440-1518  One of the greatest poets in Hindi and a mystic revered by Sikhs, Sufis, and Hindus.  Born in India near Varanasi, born into the lowest caste, he never learns Sanskrit, so all his poetry is in Hindi.  He is left parentless as a little child, and though coming from a Hindu family, he is adopted and raised by a family of Muslims.  He is another one of these people who is totally intoxicated with the reality of God.  You would think that such a one would take up being a sadhu, taking sannyasa, having a guru, etc.  However, he never goes beyond being a householder, marries, and is a weaver by trade.  His religious/mystical poetry is marked by intense experience, and even though he grew up in Moslem home his poetry   is replete with Hindu spiritual concepts, especially within the bhakti vein.  But he also spurned the Hindu caste system, and Sufi ideas can be found in all his poetry.  Considering how violent the Hindu-Islam encounter has been from time to time, Kabir is that unique expression of another way.  Legend has it when he died that Hindus and Moslems were arguing about how to properly deal with his body.  When they lifted the covering, there were only rose petals there.  So the Hindus cremated part of the petals as they are accustomed and the Moslems entombed another part of the rose petals according to their custom.  So today you will find both shrines to Kabir.

C. Han-shan  Chinese hermit. Taoist, Buddhist, Zen figure.  Lived during the great Tang period, around 650 AD.  He was a contemporary of China’s greatest poet, Tu Fu.  Not much is known about him, but he did leave behind a bunch of scribbled poems.  He also was not an “official monk” but more like a hobo.  A contemporary official who had heard of him from some early Zen master sought Han-shan out.  He discovered him living in a place called Cold Mountain, which is also the meaning of the name, “Han-shan.”  There was a major temple in a nearby town where Han-shan would come down to often.  He befriended the kitchen master who was also something of a spiritual adept.  Anyway Han-shan would get food leftovers from his friend and together they would often sing and laugh and joke around.  When the official first found him, Han-shan was with his friend in the kitchen, and the official came in and bowed to them.  Han-shan laughed and shouted, “Why has a big official bowed to a pair of clowns?”  The town people called him a “mountain mad man”—he was always singing, laughing, talking to himself, but the official commented that “everything he said had a feeling of the Tao.”  After Han-shan’s death several hundred of his short poems were gathered together, and very quickly he became one of the great legendary figures of early Chinese Zen.  In an earlier posting I had quoted from this poetry, and here is another sample–and it would be good to point out that “Cold Mountain”  refers simultaneously to his place of residence, to himself, and to his state of mind: (Gary Snyder’s translation)

Borrowers don’t bother me

In the cold I build a little fire

When I’m hungry I boil up some greens.

I’ve got no use for the kulak

With his big barn and pasture–

He just sets up a prison for himself.

Once in he can’t get out.

Think it over–

You know it might happen to you.

In a tangle of cliffs I chose a place–

Bird–paths, but no trails for men.

What’s beyond the yard?

White clouds clinging to vague rocks.

Now I’ve lived here–how many years–

Again and again, spring and winter pass.

Go tell families with silverware and cars

‘What’s the use of all that noise and money?’

Men ask the way to Cold Mountain

Cold Mountain: there’s no through trail.

In summer, ice doesn’t melt

The rising sun blurs in swirling fog.

How did I make it?

My heart’s not the same as yours.

If your heart was like mine

You’d get it and be right here.

When men see Han-shan

They all say he’s crazy

And not much to look at

Dressed in rags and hides.

They don’t get what I say

& I don’t talk their language.

All I can say to those I meet:

‘Try and make it to Cold Mountain.’

A. The anniversary of 9/11 is upon us.  Ten years ago, yet who can forget that horrifying and tragic day?  The sadness and darkness of that day is not only in all the lives that were lost in that attack, but actually even more in the truly tragic and insane response it provoked from us.  Right after the attack, the next day, most of the  world was actually with us in sympathy and in solidarity.  There were actually huge demonstrations, for example, in Tehran in support of the U.S.  There was a moment, an opportunity when we could have transcended the usual “eye for an eye” approach to policy and foeign relations, and we could have called the world together and said, “Ok, what can we do, what should we do to make sure this doesn’t happen again?”   Trust the goodness of people, of all people, to help us find a way to bring reparation, restoral, healing  and peace.  Instead we began to bomb.  Incidentally, we call ourselves a “Christian nation,” or some people do, but after 9/11 the spirit of  revenge and retaliation was stalking through the land—NOT the Spirit of Christ.  Consider this:  Jesus was tortured and murdered, but on the cross he seeks forgiveness for his killers.  More importantly, in the Resurrection, his first words are, “Peace be with you, MY peace…..”  The Risen Christ does not speak the language of revenge, retaliation, “pay back,” etc.  Who can sanely claim that we are a “Christian nation”?  On September 12, 2001, the Gospel for the day was Jesus’s command to “love your enemy”!

But there was also another deep wound inflicted that day—a deep wounding of Muslim/non-Muslim relations, in particular Western Christian/Muslim relations, understanding, respect for one another, and even a nourishing of each other.  Not that there was great mutual understanding or interest in each other before 9/11, but now  the  distinterest on  the part of  so many Western Christians has a tinge of hostility or at least suspicion of everything Muslim.  Ignorance, irresponsible mass media, and even more irresponsible politicians and leaders have all contributed to this.

Fifty years ago Thomas Merton wrote to a Pakistani Sufi friend of his:  “It seems to me that mutual comprehension between Christianity and Moslems is something of very real importance today, and unfortunately it is rare and uncertain, or else subjected to the vagaries of politics.”  Alas, that statement is even more true today.  But if we look at the deep past there are some flickers of hope. St. Francis with the Sultan–a well-known story.  Then, in the 14^th Century, before the fall of Constantinople, the great Orthodox spiritual theologian St. Gregory Palamas was captured by the Turks and held prisoner for quite a while.  During that time Palamas had many discussions with the Emir and his son.  The Emir had a great respect for this Christian theologian and mystic, and Palamas himself  became good friends with the Emir’s son.  Later when he was released, he wrote a letter to the Emir’s son and said that he hoped that “a day will soon come when we shall be able to understand each other.”  Indeed.  Then, the anonymous Christian classic, The Way of a Pilgrim, is quite explicit in teaching that in the absence of a starets or spiritual father, the Christian seeker may receive spiritual instruction “even from a Saracen.”  The reverse relationship can be found in  the spiritual friendship of the Sufi Ibrahim ibn Adham and the Orthodox monk Symeon.  All this points us in the right direction.  Finally there is this iconic image: the oldest continuously existing Christian monastery in the world, St. Catherine’s on Mt. Sinai, contains a mosque within its precincts.  This was built by the monks for their workers who are Muslim Bedouins.  This should remind us if we have a dominant role in a given society to give our minority brethren the freedom and ability to worship as they feel called.

B. Merton wrote this about one of the great Sufi holy men of our time,            Shaikh  Ahmad al-‘Alawi of Morocco:  “With Shaikh Ahmad, I speak the

same language and indeed have a great deal more in common than I do with the majority of my contemporaries in this country.  In listening to him I seem to be hearing a familiar voice from my ‘own country’ so to speak.  I regret that the Muslim world is so distant from where I am, and wish I had more contact with people who think along these lines.”

C. Speaking of Sufis, their connection to the events going on in Libya are not well known.  It appears that the rebels have overthrown Gaddafi, and this is another one of those events that is percolating in the Arab world.  No one knows for sure the outcome of this revolution or the exact make-up of these rebels, but something very interesting about them:  they are fighting under the old Libyan flag, the flag of  the pre-Gaddafi state of King Idris who was Libya’s king from 1951, when Libya gained its independence from colonial rule, until 1969 when he was overthrown by Gaddafi.  What is especially interesting is that King Idris was a Sufi, in fact he was head of the Senussi Sufi Order—he was in fact a “Sufi king,” like Plato’s “philosopher king.”  He governed a constitutional state that was  aligned with the West.  He built a modern Western-style university in Libya.  There was also a very good religious university run by the Senussi Sufis which Gaddafi closed in 1984.  Gaddafi rose to power in the 1960s when it was very “in” and popular in the Third World to be anti-Western, and so he was against the Sufis who were able to get along with Westerners who would not exploit their country.

Libya had been a hotbed of Sufi life for centuries, as in fact a lot of North Africa.  King Idris’s  grandfather was a founder of the Senussi Sufi Order as a branch of the Idrisi Sufis founded by the Moroccan Sufi Ahmad ibn Idris(1760-1837).  This religious leader was noted for his reforming concepts.  He called for the abandonment of the traditional sharia schools of Islamic law, and he was a critic of the ultra-fundamentalist Wahhibi movement(from which Al-Qaeda and the 9/11 terrorists spring and whose roots are actually in Saudi Arabia, from where we get so much oil and with whom we are such good friends!)  What is not generally known is that while Sufis are very peaceful they are not pacifists in the strict sense—they will fight against someone who invades their home.  Thus Libyan Sufis were prominent in the fight against the colonialism of France and Italy.  Many were executed by Mussolini.  Let us see if the present Libyan freedom fighters live up to the high standards of their distinguished ancestors.  For more information about these Sufis in Lbya here are a few websites:

http://www.islamicpluralism.eu/WP/?tag=senussi-sufi-order

http://sufinews.blogspot.com/2011/05/people-of-heart.html

http://fiercereason.com/2011/08/stephen-schwartz-the-sufi-foundation-of-libyas-revolution/

D. India.  What can you say?  There are so many different Indias!  Let us consider some examples.  First there is the India which has been in the international news lately because of a hunger strike conducted by a Gandhi-like figure, Anna Hazare, against widespread government corruption.  Sounds pretty straightforward, and how could you not support that!  But things are never simple in India(or here either!).  Consider this op-ed piece in a major Indian newspaer by Arundhati Roy:

   http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article2379704.ece?homepage=true

Roy is a major novelist, a social activist, and what we would call a “progressive.”  Reading her piece as an outsider, it is almost impossible to follow in its myriad details, but you get a sense of the complexity and enormity of India’s social problems.  But there is another India, the India of sannyasis and sadhus, the India of our Abhishiktananda.  Here is an amazing story illustrating the fact that this India is still there—barely maybe—but still there:

http://indrus.in/articles/2011/02/27/russian_hermit_to_be_expelled_after_15_years_in_india_12207.html

Now in what other country could this story have unfolded?  I think only in India.  However modernity is eating away at India’s body and soul and heart, and what of this India will survive remains to be seen.  It is really ironic that Catholic Indian monasteries and ashrams used to want to “do it in an Indian way” when now young Indians want to live like this:

http://www.vgnprojects.com/Brixton.aspx

Just a sample of tons of such housing developments going up in India all over the place.  With “six lane highways” close by!!    It looks just like here!  Exactly.    That’s one of the effects of modernity:  homogenization

And a final note on this:  a real physical symbol of what is taking place in India—the greatest and most holy river in India, the River Ganga, is dying.  Not only from the human corpses which have been dumped there for ages, but more from the sewage and industrial effluents going into the river now in unprecedented amounts.  Around Karpur over 200 tanneries discharge chromium-rich effluents and 80% of the city’s sewage is dumped untreated into the river.  Around Kolkata some 150 factories pour untreated waste into the brown water of the Hugli, a tributary of the Ganga.  Fish die and river water laced with toxins irrigates farmland, eventually seeping into food and village borewells to cause untold diseases.  Once the only liquid thought fit for an orthodox Brahmin, now is undrinkable.  But a radical “solution” of sorts is in store.  The Gangotri Glacier, which feeds the Ganga is melting and retreating at a pace of about 600-700 meters per year.  Eventually the Ganga will be waterless.  Will India be thoroughly modern then?

E.   One more note about 9/11.  The New York firemen who were the first responders to the attacked buildings had a Catholic chaplain.  His name:  Fr. Mychal Judge.  He was a Franciscan priest of many years.  He went into the buildings with his firemen to minister to anyone in need and to be “with his parishioners.”  He died with them when the buildings collapsed.  One more thing about Fr. Mychal: he was a gay priest.  He was a gay Franciscan priest who lived faithful to his vows and his calling.  Many New York firemen were later surprised to find out that their chaplain had been gay.

Father Francis Tiso has written a very interesting and thought-provoking essay in Dilatato Corde:  “Raimundo Panikkar on the Monk as Archetype.'”

The essay actually covers three different topics, which kind of converge within his own personal experience:  a. Panikkar’s ideas; b.  interreligious dialogue; c. the emergence of so-called “new monks.”  The emphasis is on the interreligious dialogue, but underlying all this is the question of monastic identity in our time.  What I would like to do is throw out some thoughts,  some varied reflections bouncing off his ideas but heading in a different direction, and some divergent opinions and evaluations of the current monastic phenomenon.

1. Right off the bat I should say that I do not hold the same positive view of Panikkar’s ideas in this regard that Fr. Tiso does.  I respect Panikkar for what he was trying to do–and that is actually more important than the results he achieves–but I do not think that his notions about monasticism are convincing–in fact they may be misleading.  The so-called “monastic archetype” is an intellectual construct which helps one, more or less, to deal with what is and has always been a “messy reality”–an attempt to find some kind of unity within very diverse examples of monkhood and to push the boundaries of our understanding of monastic identity.  Good enough.  But it is a construct; there “ain’t no such animal in the zoo.”

And a “zoo” it is with all kinds of “animals” in it, exotic and ordinary, large and small, attractive and very unattractive, dominant and very shy, etc., etc.  If you want to “extract” some archetype from this bewildering array, ok, but really there is no need of that intellectual exercise and it can be very, very misleading.  What is slightly more pertinent is to observe the amazing variety of monks, the remarkable diversity of life-styles of monks over the ages—simply as an empirical phenomenon.  From that standpoint we can see that always there were “new monks.”  And always there was tension, even hostility, between the so-called established monks of the large orders and the perennial so-called new monks who lived on some fringe or other.  This also always lead to a preoccupation about monastic identity:  who is a monk, what makes one a monk, what does it mean to be a monk, etc.  A big mistake, but alas, inevitable.  Because what is really needed, especially now, is the affirmation of the human being as mystic, as  someone with a fundamental orientation to/participation in the reality of God or however one wants to name that Absolute Reality–and a very strong focus on that.   Every person that you see at the supermarket is really a mystic at heart if we understand this term properly–yet they are thoroughly and completely distracted and diverted from this reality. Strangely enough, paradoxically enough, a preoccupation with monastic identity can also distract us from that most fundamental reality.  Fr. Tiso points out that for Panikkar, in the last stages of his thought, “the archetype of the mystic converges with that of the monk”–the mystic is constitutive of the human. Again Fr. Tiso on Panikkar:  “…it is clear that the real ‘universal archetype’ towards which his thought progressed is that of the mystic, conceived as a human person engaged in a deep inquiry with reality as a whole.”  This is a much more welcome line of thought.  Also, Fr. Tiso refers to the monastic archetype as “grounded and experienced as an opening to the ineffable divine milieu.”  I think I see what he is getting at, but what I want to avoid in an emphatic way is any conflation, confusion, or convergence between the two terms: “monk” and “mystic.”    The emphasis always has to be on “being a mystic” rather than on some monastic identity or vague unifying concept like “archetype”(and I unashamedly use the word “mystic” trying to rescue it from the claptrap of pop new ageism!).  When you grow up don’t you want to be a mystic?!  Ok, if that term grates on your ears, try this phrase by Abhishiktananda:  “the absolute surrender of the peripheral ego to the Inner Mystery.”  So maybe you’re a monk; maybe you’re not—does it really matter in light of THAT?

1b.  Panikkar defines monk: “By monk, monachos, I understand that person who aspires to reach the ultimate goal of life with all his being by renouncing all that is not necessary to it, i.e., by concentrating on this one single and unique goal.  Precisely this single-mindedness (ekagrata), or rather the exclusivity of the goal that shuns all subordinate though legitimate goals, distinguishes the monastic way from other spiritual endeavors toward perfection or salvation…. If, in a certain sense, everybody is suppose to strive for the ultimate goal of life, the monk is radical and exclusive in this quest.”

Not bad, but a close analysis would bring out a number of problems.  Just one example:  “all that is not necessary to it”—who or what determines what is or is not necessary to reach the ultimate goal?  If it is a monk or monastic tradition, they will give one answer; if it is a non-monk, they might give a slightly different answer.  And from what perspective do we determine this “not necessary”?  And even what does the word “necessary” mean anyway?  Many, too many, there are in monasteries who, strange to say, get lost in their monasticism–and there are so many “not necessary” things even there, in their practices and observances, chant, liturgy, etc.,  in their “seeking of an identity.”  They are good, decent, devout, religious people, and they are official monks but, depending on how you interpret Panikkar’s words,  they may fail to fit his definition.  Jesus tells Martha: “Only one thing is necessary.”  Indeed.  And this pericope has been used as a kind of monastic/contemplative paradigm.  However, paradoxically enough, it is the monk who can get just as easily lost in the multiplicity of his “monastic stuff”–while at the same time believing that he/she is focused on the “one thing necessary.”  One can see that the hermit may have a great advantage here in this regard—less “monastic stuff”!!

More Panikkar:  “The thesis I am defending is that the monk is the expression of an archetype which is a constitutive dimension of human life….”

So there is a “monk” within each person?  Again, sounds attractive, but there are a lot of problems with that.  Official monks like this schematization(and his definition above) because it inevitably puts them on top of a pyramid.   Some lay people accept that and become “monastic groupies”—hanging out on the fringes of monastic life, providing the needed affirmation for the official monks that they are “special” while the lay people are a kind of “watered down” version of monastic life, a partial realization of that archetype of which they are a “full realization.”  Obviously no one puts it that way, but I have seen it with my own eyes.   This is not what Panikkar means, but it is where that leads to.  Others simply walk away from this scheme.

1c.  Consider the Sufis.  They may be the best model of what I am talking about and what we may badly need.  First of all, there is no organized monastic tradition in Islam.  And neither do they easily fit any of Panikkar’s definitions or criteria concerning monastic life/the monastic archetype.  Much simpler just to look at their empirical reality–they come in such an amazing variety, all kinds of “sizes and shapes and colors”!  Some live in solitude, some live in various kinds of brotherhoods, some are wanderers, some are married, some are celibate, some are scholars, some are artists, some are businessmen, some are lowly workers, etc., etc., etc.  What makes them Sufis is that total orientation toward the Divine Reality within the parameters of Islam.  To call them “inner monks” or “hidden monks” or something like that, to say that they are actualizing the monastic archetype is simply importing and overlaying an unneeded category.  The Sufi is the human being as actualized mystic par excellance(though there are Sufis who would object to the use of the term “mystic”)!   If you want to say that the Sufi is also some kind of actualization of the monastic archetype, then in fact you have converged and conflated the terms “mystic” and “monk” and in my opinion that leads to a serious confusion.  Anyway, the evolution (shrinking!!) of Christian monastic life may yet lead us in the direction of the Sufis.  I can forsee a time when we will have “Christian Sufis”(with apologies to our Islamic friends for borrowing their word!), living an incredible diversity of lifestyles, but all with one focus to be “on the Straight Path,” toward “the total surrender of the peripheral ego to the Inner Mystery.”  All else, everything, absolutely everything else is negotiable except the Glory of God.

2. Let us recall that famous saying of Karl Rahner(long before Panikkar):  The Christian of the future will be a mystic or he will not be.

Indeed.  The monk of the future will be a mystic or he/she will not be.  The human being of the future will be a mystic or he/she will not be.  I think we are heading(if not already there) where the stakes are that high, and the outlook is not positive.

3. Between 1887 and 1890 Vincent Van Gogh painted 30 self-portraits before his suicide, almost one per month for each of the last 3 years of his life.  This was a very troubled person who was desperately seeking to get some kind of handle on his own self.  I fear that Catholic religious, including monastics, have been doing something like this since Vatican II.  Who are we?  What makes us, “us”?  “Back to the charism of the founder.”  Etc.  Ok, the sclerosis of Tridentine religious life had to be broken up, but unfortunately so many seem to have become fixated on that identity.  And when that happens, lines/boundaries begin to be drawn where there is no need of drawing such things.

4. Let us recall a famous Desert Father saying:  “It was revealed to Abba Anthony in his desert that there was one who was his equal in the city.  He was a doctor by profession and whatever he had beyond his needs he gave to the poor, and everyday he sang the Sanctus with the angels.”

What a remarkable account!  Every single word is of utmost importance in understanding what this is saying. First of all, this is something “revealed” to Anthony–not something that he figured out, or just a kind, benevolent sentiment.  No, this has the “authority of heaven” behind it.  Furthermore, it is revealed TO Anthony, the father of Christian monasticism.  So this account also has the authority of Anthony attached to it—a double dose of authority; I should say that it’s making a very serious point!  Now we come to the most important word: “equal”.  What does this mean?  The doctor is “equal” to Anthony in what sense?  Following Panikkar, is it the case that the doctor and Anthony are manifesting the monastic archetype each in his own way?  A possible interpretation, but I don’t think so.  Is this doctor the first “new monk”?!  Perhaps! Is he the first “Christian Sufi”?!  Probably. Note something very interesting: none of the major monastic “observances” or practices are attributed to this doctor.  He is not even a particularly intense ascetic—it says he took care of his basic needs, then what was left over he gave to the poor.  Granted some of the desert monks did something like that, but this is certainly not one of their signature works.  There are so many other stories and sayings that emphasize what are the distinguishing marks of the desert monks and the doctor is not given any of them.  Now the story brings us to the conclusion and the key insight—this doctor “sang the Sanctus with the angels.”  In other words, he lives in the living Presence of the Divine, he is in communion with God.  He and Anthony are both “equal” in the sense that both are mystics in the Rahnerian sense of the word.  How the doctor got “there” we are not told because it really does not matter.  There is no program for this kind of thing!  Not even monasticism!  Official monks are not privileged people with regard to religious experience.

As Monty Python would say, And now for something completely different, or rather from a different tradition—Jack Kornfield writing:  “Dipama Barua of Calcutta, one of my teachers and a revered Buddhist elder, exemplified this spirit for me.  She was both a meditation master at the highest level and a loving grandmother.  When I visited her apartment she would teach in a practical and modest way.  Around her was a palpable sense of stillness and profound well-being.  It was not the well-being of outer security–she lived in a tiny apartment in one of Calcutta’s poor neighborhoods.  Nor was it the well-being of rank and position—she was mostly uncelebrated and unknown.  Though she was a remarkably skilled teacher, her selflessness bloomed in her smile, in her care for others, in her openness to whatever was needed .  She was both empty and radiantly present.  Dipama’s heart seemed to pervade her whole body, the whole room, all who came into her orbit.  Her presence had a big impact on others.  Those who lived nearby said the whole apartment block became harmonious after she moved in.  One day a student complained that ordinarily his mind was filled with thoughts and plans, judgments and regrets.  He wondered what it was like to live more selflessly.  So he asked Dipama  directly about the alternative, ‘What is in your mind.?’  She smiled and said, ‘In my mind   are only three things: loving-kindness, concentration, and peace.’  These are the fruits of selflessness.  With selflessness there is less of us and yet presence, connectedness and freedom come alive.  Selflessness is not a pathological detached state, disconnected from the world.  Nor is it a state where we are caught in a new spiritual identity, ‘See how selfless I am.’  Selflessness is always here.  In any moment we can let go and experience life without calling it ‘me’ or ‘mine.'”

What would be most interesting would be the interreligious dialogue between Anthony’s doctor and Dipama—but now we are dreaming…..

5. Let us follow up with another Desert Father story, one of the greatest of them all:  “Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, ‘Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts.  What else can I do?’  Then the old man stood up and stretched out his hands towards heaven.  His fingers became like ten lamps of fire, and he said to him, ‘If you will, you can become all fire.'”

Lot has his monastic observances, his practices, his monastic lifestyle, his sadhana, but he is fortunate in that he has not settled into that as a “comfort zone” and anchor for a kind of identity:  “I am a monk, and I do this and that.”  Rather, he feels that marvelous “gravitational pull” toward the divine mystery that confronted Moses in the Burning Bush:  “I am who am.”  Abba Joseph invites him to participate in that ineffable divine identity which has no boundary.

5b. Speaking of the Desert Fathers, we have this from Merton:  “If we were to seek their like in twentieth-century America, we would have to look in strange out of the way places.  Such beings are tragically rare….  With the Desert Fathers, you have the characteristic of a clean break with a conventional, accepted social context in order to swim for one’s life into an apparently irrational void.  Though I might be expected to claim that men like this could be found in some of our monasteries of contemplatives, I will not be so bold.  With us it is often rather a case of men leaving the society of the ‘world’ in order to fit themselves into another kind of society, that of the religious family which they enter.  They exchange the values, concepts and rites of the one for those of the other….  The social ‘norms’ of a monastic family are also apt to be conventional, and to live by them does not involve a leap into the void–only a radical change of customs and standards.”

6. Father Paisios of Mt. Athos, one of the great Orthodox spiritual fathers of our time, gave this piece of advice to Western monks:  “Disorganize!”

This reminds me of one of Will Rogers’ quips:  “I don’t belong to any organized political party.  I am a Democrat!”  I think we can steal that one from Rogers:  I don’t belong to any organized religious life.  I am a monk!

If you want a monastic identity statement, well, that’s one.  Did anyone ever think that organization is actually bad for the real monastic charism?  Merton seems to have given some such hints, but gosh….  The relative flourishing of the hermit life in our time points in this direction.

7. Historical examples of people who proved “problematical” in terms of “official” monastic identity:

Ramana Maharshi in Hinduism—never had a guru, never took sannyasa, never a part of any monastic group, etc—yet one of the great Advaita mystics of our time.

Milarepa, Tibetan Buddhism, yes, a hermit, but never part of any official monastery or monastic group.  It is very clear that some monks of his time felt hostility to him.  And the tradition later tries to tame him into an “official figure.”  Marpa, his teacher, was a married layman.

Hui-neng, one of the greatest of Chinese Zen Buddhists, was a lay worker in a granary associated with a monastery and not allowed to mix with the monks–until he is discovered as a Master, and has to flee for his life because there are monks who would kill him!

Francis of Assisi–yes he can be called a monk!  He was adamant about not being a Benedictine, the dominant group of his time,  because it meant being pinned down in a cultural form that went against his spiritual vision.  So he went his own way; later we have the Franciscans, about which he was not so approving either.  Francis has to be liberated from the Franciscan image of him!

And there are so many others.

8. Official Catholic monastic life is shrinking, slowly but surely.  There is an interesting analogy with global warming.  There are “deniers” in both camps.  But the glaciers are melting, and monasteries have smaller numbers of people.  Yes, people can point to huge snowfalls here or there, and ultraconservative groups drawing large numbers of candidates, but the overall pattern points in one direction.  Just as the snowfall in some areas has increased precisely because of the overall warming, so have these ultraconservative groups flourished because of a very critical change in the cultural and intellectual atmosphere that is not good.

People, and in some cases it looks like “lots of people,” come to monasteries and tell the monks how good and important they are and what a great place the monastery is.  That’s ok—hospitality is an important aspect of monastic life.  But if monks take that as some sign that a spiritual renewal is right around the corner, they are greatly mistaken.  Just playing the numbers game:  more people come into one average Walmart SuperCenter in one 24 hr period than come to all the Trappist retreathouses in the US during an entire year.

We live in very perilous times, and I don’t mean physically(though that too in some cases).  We live immersed in a culture of narcissism.  We live in an era of enormous electronic communication, yet our capacity to communicate about life in depth seems diminishing. (Just as an exercise read the letters of people during the American Civil War and you might be astonished how even very ordinary people could express themselves with such eloquence and depth.) All signifiers now partake of the mode of advertising and marketing–Merton saw this coming in the 60s.  For homo consumerus only that which is bought and sold can be called real.  It is not a climate which is going to be hospitable to monastic values or monastic presence.  On top of it all, the deep incoherence, the genuine insanity, and the rampant greed concealed within our social and economic matrix is finally bubbling to the surface in many ways, and we are in for quite a ride in the near future.  To say that the monk/monasticism is an unambiguous “sign” “pointing” to the “transcendent” is untenable.  Even spirituality and “contemplation” have become commodified, religious hucksterism is rampant, and what’s most important, “the sign,” “the signifier” only points to itself or to another sign.  Recall that old Chinese curse: May you live in an interesting age!  Well, this is an interesting age and it is going to get even more interesting, but maybe we can amend that curse:  May you live in an age of hermits!  The hermit is the “refusenik” par excellance to this kind of degradation of human life.  Maybe only the hermit will flourish in this coming age.

9. Within his essay Fr. Tiso refers to Merton’s final talk in Asia.  He mentions in passing Merton’s comment where he positively evaluates what some young revolutionaries said to him:  “We are the true monks.”  Fr. Tiso mentions that the participants, mostly senior monks, monastic leaders, reacted negatively to Merton’s positivity.  That I am not surprised about, but I am surprised that maybe Fr. Tiso misunderstood what Merton was getting at.  He does not naively accept what they say—he simply says he accepts their challenge because it points in an important direction: every monk is or should be in a dialectical/critical relationship to the culture in which his monkhood evolves.  According to Merton this is an important credential for being a monk, and these young people put their finger on it.  This is not something peripheral or tangential to monastic identity but an essential ingredient, though it may be expressed in very different terms in different eras and cultures.  Unfortunately too many monastics are in a compromised position with the “dark side” of their society no matter how “rigorous” their spiritual practices are.  Wealth, power corrupt, surprise, surprise—sometime it’s not even that, just a comfy life with a bit of adulation!

10.Suggestions: (more or less whimsical)

1. Try a kind of “apophatic” approach to monastic identity.  Lay off definitions and trying to get at the essence of it.  You know it when you meet it–wherever that may be.  In some special cases you might find yourself in a kind of spiritual Catch-22 situation:  you will need to be already “enlightened” in order to see this monk in order to learn from him/her.  In fact this person may not even recognize themselves as a monk!  He/she is like one of the ‘hidden zaddikim” of Hasidic legend.  When God conceals you, you are REALLY CONCEALED!
2. Put a moratorium on all conferences, gatherings, lectures, etc.  Let everyone go back to their caves or wherever and for 10 years chop wood, carry water and sit facing a wall.   Nothing but silence.  Not even Twitter or Facebook.  Then we all get together at an appointed spot and the first person to say “archetype” gets whacked by a stick-wielding zen monk.  Then we all laugh.
3. To borrow from Chuang Tzu:  what we need now more than ever is “the true monk with no title.”  The No-monk monk.  You might find this person almost anywhere, even in a large organized monastery with lots of initials after his name!
4. For the next 10 years drop all titles of “guru,” “spiritual father,” “teacher,” “master,” etc.  All spiritual guidance or advice is for free from “a friend.”  See where that takes us.  This is specifically an antidote to the religious hucksterism of our time.

11.  From Merton:

“The contemplative is one who is, like the servant of Yahweh, ‘acquainted with infirmity,’ not only with his own sin, but with the sin of the whole world, which he takes upon himself because he is a man among men and cannot dissociate himself from the works of other men.  The contemplative life in our time is therefore necessarily modified by the sins of our age.  They bring down upon us a cloud of darkness far more terrible than the innocent night of unknowing.  It is the dark night of the soul which has descended on the whole world.  Contemplation in the age of Auschwitz and Dachau, Solovky and Karaganda is something darker and more fearsome than contemplation in the age of the Church Fathers.  For that very reason, the urge to seek a path of spiritual light can be a subtle temptation to sin.  It certainly is sin if it means a frank rejection of the burden of our age, an escape into unreallity and spiritual illusion, so as not to share the misery of other men.  The contemplative life today must be a life of deep sorrow and contrition, but a pure sorrow, a healing and life-giving repentance such as we find in some of the characters of Dostoyevsky.”

Merton wrote this about 1960, and there has been much speculation how he would have revised that after he came back from Asia.  Whatever be the case, and however it may reflect the mindset of the early 60s, we are still very much in the same boat.  The mystic of our time will be a person marked with infirmity, perhaps having struggled with addiction, with failed relationships, with loneliness, with great economic stress, etc. etc.  A person like that may not even recognize themselves as being on the very doorstep of a profound mysticism.  Perhaps they need just a little nudge!

12. And the final word is from Ryokan:   “What is this life of mine?

…………………………

Neither layman, nor monk.”