THE BEDE GRIFFITHS SANGHA NEWSLETTER The Bede Griffiths Sangha Newsletter The Bede Griffiths Sangha is committed to the search for the truth at the heart of all religions Spring 2009 Volume 10 Issue 8 CONTENTS Preparations are under way for our celebration of the centenary of the birth of Swami Sangha Contacts 2 Abhishiktananda, who, together with Father Abhishiktananda Monchanin, inaugurated the ashram at in Brittany 2-3 Shantivanam in 1950. In anticipation of this event Birth of Christ we are including in this edition of the Newsletter in the Soul an account of Abhishiktananda’s early life in Kim Nataraja 4 Brittany and an extract from one of his books on the subject of advaita. The Sangha logo 5 Sanskrit Corner 6 The Challenge of Advaita 7 Abhishiktananda Mission without Conversion 8-12 Thomas Merton’s Kim Nataraja love of silence 12-13 News from The Bede Griffi ths The Sangha logo Charitable Trust 14 Sangha News, Thomas Merton Retreats and Resources 15 Regional Contacts Brother Martin Meditation Groups 16 The articles in this newsletter were collected by Tim Glazier and put together by members of the working group. Artistic designer Ricardo Insua-Cao www.bedegriffithssangha.org.uk 2 THE BEDE GRIFFITHS SANGHA NEWSLETTER Welcome to the Abhishiktananda in Britany Spring 2009 Bede Griffi ths Sangha As a curtain raiser to the meeting to celebrate Abhishiktananda’s Newsletter centenary in July 2010, here is a short account of his early This Newsletter is published life in Brittany. It is written by Shirley du Boulay and taken three times a year to provide a from her selection of his writings published by Orbis books. forum for articles and comment within the remit of the Sangha to We reprint it here with their kind permission. search for the truth at the heart wami Abhishiktananda would risk all in the search. A man caught in of all religions, to record Sangha activities and give details of future Shave been seen at any time as contradiction but ultimately fi nding events and resources available. a remarkable man, for he was one- reconciliation in the truth beyond the Correspondence and pointed, eloquent, uncompromising, opposites. contributions for inclusion in future bold, passionate and fearless. So what editions are welcome and will be puts this Breton born country boy He was born Henri Le Saux in 1910 in considered by the among the most signifi cant spiritual St Briac, a little town in the north of editorial team. fi gures of the twentieth century, France, in Brittany. His parents ran a To receive a printed copy of the deserving a place in a series called grocery shop and were devout Roman Newsletter, please send your details ‘Modern Spiritual Masters’? He has Catholics, very French - indeed very to Jane Lichnowski (see below) for inclusion on our data base. The earned it for the courage with which Breton. Henri was the eldest by seven Newsletter is free but an annual he endured the anguish of being torn years, thus becoming almost a second donation towards costs will be invited between two great religious traditions, father to his siblings and developing with the Spring edition. Copies, for for the radiance which emanated a special, very deep, relationship with friends or interested organisations, from him after his great ‘awakening’ his mother - after all he had her to can be provided. experience and for his legacy of himself for nearly eightyears. He was Current and back numbers of diaries, books and letters, which also a practical man, which somehow the Newsletter are available on confi rm that he was not only a pioneer one does not expect but which perhaps www.bedegriffi thssangha.org.uk in interfaith relations, but a mystic on owes something to his place in the All correspondence regarding the a par with Meister Eckhart, St John of family. newsletter please send to the Cross, Ramana Maharshi and the Assistant Editor John Careswell Dalai Lama. He was a brilliant student and in 1929 26 Mendip Drive, Frome, he became a Benedictine monk at Somerset, BA11 2HT tel - 01373 471317 The story of Abhishiktananda is a story the monastery of Kergonan in south [email protected] of transformation. It tells how Henri Brittany. He did this completely Le Saux, the eldest son of a large, wholeheartedly, writing very typically SANGHA CONTACTS devoutly Roman Catholic family, that ‘A monk cannot accept mediocrity Sangha Contact and Welcome became a Benedictine monk who was - only extremes are appropriate for Joan Walters, Church House, taken over by a passionate longing to him.’[i] He was not a man for half Steynton, Milford Haven, Pembs go to India. In 1948 he achieved his measures and already he felt that SA73 1AW 01646 692496 ambition, the monk became a sannyasi God asked for everything. He was, as contact@bedegriffi thssangha.org.uk and Dom Henri became Swami a great friend said of him, ‘madly in Sangha Working Group Abhishiktananda. He co-founded love with God.’ Jane Lichnowski, 82 Gloucester Shantivanam, an ashram in Tamil Road, Cirencester, GL7 2LJ 01285 651381 Nadu, and after many years of travel His monastic routine was interrupted [email protected] and exploration of India spent the last when he did his military service UK Contact with Shantivanam years of his life living as a hermit in and again in 1940 when general Michael Giddings a hut in the high Himalayas. So the mobilisation was decreed and he 07810 366860 devout Roman Catholic struggled served as a foot soldier. He was [email protected] with the enchantment of Hinduism captured in the Mayenne when his unit Bede Griffi ths Charitable Trust and the Benedictine monk, initially a was surrounded by German troops. He Jill Hemmings, Beech Tree Cottage, typical product of French Catholicism managed to escape before the names Gushmere, Selling Kent, ME13 9RH before the Second Vatican Council, were taken and he somehow contrived 01227 752871 found himself at the cutting edge of to borrow a bike and rode home to [email protected] twentieth century spirituality. It is St Briac: his practical streak proved For Regional Contacts and the story of a man searching for God, useful. details of Meditation Groups, prepared to give up everything and to THE BEDE GRIFFITHS SANGHA NEWSLETTER 3 1910-1948 On his return to the monastery he ambivalent. On the one hand he had by the determination he showed in was made Cérémonaire, the monk in taken a vow of stability, requiring him actually getting there at a time when charge of the liturgy, one of the most to remain in his monastery for the rest the passage to India was not the well- important jobs in the monastery. Even of his life; also he loved Kergonan, only worn route it has now become. His in those days when liturgy was strict, weeks before his death admitting that efforts started immediately after the he was considered an exceptionally Kergonan had been the background of death of his beloved mother - he would punctilious liturgist. When not have left France while we see how he developed she was alive. He went to in his long years in India see his Abbot, explaining this has a comic side to it that he wanted to go to - he himself would laugh India to establish the when he remembered contemplative monastic the way he insisted that life there in an Indian everything was done form; or if that was not ‘Just so. Spick and span.’ possible at least to live in Despite this fussiness and India as a hermit. strictness he was very popular with the monks For four years he wrote because he did everything letters to likely people in such a kind and friendly in India, endured way. He was also librarian disappointments, and taught Church History vacillations, hesitancy and Patristics. and the changing of ecclesiastical minds. He He was a good and persisted and at last, on devoted monk and it July 26, 1948, he left a must have been assumed sad monastic community that he would see out behind him, for he was a his days in the monastery popular monk, and set sail of Kergonan. However for India - the fulfi lment he had, unknown to of a dream that had had absolutely everyone, the monks, all that he had been able to do in later him in its grip for fourteen years. He his Abbot, even his devoted family, life. On the other hand there were was never to return to France. become obsessed with the idea that times when the negative side could he must go to India. This can be dated not be contained and he admitted [i] To Raymond Macé, October 27, 1929, Life, 6. [ii] Ibid, March 13, 1967, Life, 13. with some accuracy to 1934, when he to a distaste for the monastery and only 24 years old and even before he conceded that life in the monastery The anthology from which this is taken was ordained. How he acquired this did not fulfi ll him; indeed that ‘It was is one of the Modern Spiritual Masters passion to go to India has an intriguing in my deep dissatisfaction that my series, Swami Abhishiktananda: element of mystery in it, as it seems desire to come to India was born.’[ii] Essential Writings. There is also that a few articles in magazines sent a biography, written by Shirley du to Kergonan by a Belgian monastery There is no certainty as to what drew Boulay, The Cave of the Heart: The were the only possible source of his him to India, though there is the Life of Swami Abhishiktananda.