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Summary: A Christian Sannyasi
Review: When I think of the great Christian spiritual masters of the last 100 years, the names that come to mind belong to those folks who dared to leave behind the comfortable and familiar and venture out into the unknown spiritual wilderness. In so doing, they stumbled across new insights and rediscovered forgotten truths that vitalize all of us.Bede Griffiths, the British born and bred Benedictine monk who traveled to India at the age of fifty and lived there for almost 35 years, is one of these intrepid sojourners. Griffiths reanimated a sometimes wilting Christianity by helping Christians to discover its deep contemplative core, and he did this by recognizing the shared patterns between Christian and Hindu contemplation. Living as a Christian sannyasi (a seeker of God in the Hindu tradition) for almost half of his life, Griffiths' experiences and writings help the rest of us to see and appreciate our Christian tradition with fresh eyes while at the same time celebrating the spiritual truths in other faith traditions.
Thomas Matus' well-chosen anthology offers a wonderful introduction to those unfamiliar with Bede Griffiths and a convenient resource for those who know and love him. The selections represent Griffiths' autobiographical writings, his reflections on reason and intuition ("masculine" and "feminine"), his conviction that Hinduism and Christianity can complement and enrich one another, and his ultimate certainty that advaita, or nondualism, is the heart of all great religious traditions. The selections are prefaced by an introductory essay that highlights some of the central themes in Griffiths' work. Reading Griffiths and reflecting on his insight that there is a central unity, a nondualism, that ties all creation together, gives new meaning to familiar Christian categories such as the Mystical Body or the Vine and the Branch.
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