The One Light - (Introduction, Part 5)

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The One Light - (Introduction, Part 5)

 

STEPS TOWARD THE MARRIAGE

 

Bede presents himself with the problem of the 'marriage of East and West' at an

early point,[23] and continues to grapple with it until the end of his life. The

two words - East and West - themselves have some of the vague comprehensiveness

of myth. It is in 'The Marriage of East and West' that Bede presents the

encounter of Hinduism and Christianity as that of " the two most powerful myths

in the world today. " [24] 'Myth,' in that book, is his preferred word for the

truths of the religious traditions. While myth must be clarified today, he

insists that this clarification must come about through the recovery of mystical

experience and through experience of the contemporary world, rather than through

the work of 'reason,' of learning and scholarship.[25]

 

The problem of the 'marriage' is confronted on different levels: first, as the

confrontation of two modes of consciousness and thought: the rational-analytical

and the intuitive-holistic-mythical, or 'masculine' and 'feminine' dimensions of

mind that Bede attributes to the West and to the East.[26] On this level, the

'marriage' does not present an enormous challenge. Bede works towards its

resolution in his own thought and writing - as have many twentieth century

western thinkers.

 

On a second level, it is a question of bridging the gap between Christianity and

the 'perennial philosophy': more concretely, between Christianity and the

Vedanta. This is the form in which Bede struggles with the problem from the time

of his going to India until the end of his life: what is the relationship

between the mystery of Christ and the nonduality of the 'Upanishads'? (p.20) In

'The Marriage of East and West', he finds the two revelations to be

complementary manifestations of the one ultimate and ineffable Mystery.

 

We can distinguish three further stages in Bede's progress towards a resolution

of his problem of the 'marriage of East and West,' (now understood as the

integration of Hinduism and Christianity) at three successive moments of his

life.

 

I - In 'River of Compassion', Bede examines a development within Hinduism - the

movement from 'Upanishads' to 'Bhagavad Gita' - which brings the Indian

tradition very close to Christianity. With the emergence of a divine Person in

the supreme position, there is a new centering of spirituality within the human

person living in the world. The ways of devotion and of active service develop,

and a new balance between interiority and life in the world which resembles that

of the New Testament. In Bede's vision, at this point, Hinduism and Christianity

are on intimate speaking terms. Person and world are taking their place in the

theological picture. Myth and the reality of personal experience in this world

are coming into a less unequal balance.

 

II - In 'A New Vision of Reality', Bede has found a development within western

science which brings it into relationship with the East. This is the 'new

paradigm' science of Fritjof Capra, with its organic-holistic-romantic model (or

myth) of the universe. An evolutionary cosmology enters as mediator into the

developing relationship between Hinduism and Christianity, bringing the

relationship further into the world. This is a world known also through a

'western' scientific reason which has now been joined with unitive intuition,

the 'feminine' dimension of consciousness. Cosmos and evolution join with a

Christian conception of salvation history in a picture which is now centered in

the 'cosmic Person.' This emergent figure - still 'mythical' but becoming more

concrete and historical - not only brings together Christianity and the other

religions, but integrates Bede's 'three worlds' within itself. The nondual

Absolute of Hinduism has become a supreme Person, incarnate in all of humanity

and in the matter of the universe. This grand intellectual synthesis is the

final form of Bede's unitive myth.

 

III - In 'Bede's physical crisis' - his first stroke and the changes which

follow upon it - the convergent development is in Bede himself. It takes place

not, first of all, in Bede's mind, but in his body and psyche. Intellectual

synthesis gives way to personal integration. Myth comes to more equitable terms

with human reality. At this final point, the elements which have until now been

hidden in the shadows seem to come forward to be acknowledged and gathered

together in the single light of his consciousness. Bede's powerful rationality

falls humbly into place within the flux of feeling and intuition, however, and

the ongoing process hardly rises to the level of clear articulation. 'Eastern'

nonduality has become less and less myth or idea, and more and more the basic

quality of Bede's own consciousness. The mystery of Christ, too, is now

primarily something that is taking place in his own flesh and blood.

 

A fourth development remains to be considered: that is, the evolution of

Christianity itself which is taking place throughout Bede's labor of mediation

between his own tradition and the wisdom of Hinduism.

 

The One Light - Bede Griffiths' Principal Writings

Introduction, p. 19-21

Edited and with Commentary by Bruno Barnhart

Templegate Publishers, Springfield, Illinois

ISBN 0-87243-254-8

 

Notes:

 

[23] See 'The Golden String', 171-174.

 

[24] 'The Marriage of East and West', 172.

 

[25] 'The Marriage of East and West', 174-175.

 

[26] See, e.g., 'The Marriage of East and West', 8.