The One Light - (Introduction, Part 6)

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THE GIFTS FROM THE EAST

 

(p.21) Let us single out some of Bede Griffiths' main contributions to the

rebirth of a Christian wisdom in our time. First of all is wisdom itself: his

quest of the 'golden string.' It is his conviction - and his ability to

communicate that conviction - that there is another way of knowing, which is

deeper than the ordinary way that we think in the contemporary West. There is a

fuller spectrum of consciousness and you recognize its music in his voice as he

speaks or writes. It is this fullness of voice which is to be recovered in

Christianity.

 

Bede's second contribution, intrinsic to his conception of wisdom, is the

principle of nonduality, or 'advaita', and of a unitive absolute, the One. When

Bede immerses himself in the world of the Indian scriptures - particularly in

the 'Upanishads' - he discovers a perspective in which everything is one rather

than multiple, in which all things are embraced within a single, ultimate

reality. (p.22) When Bede speaks of the 'perennial philosophy' or the

'primordial wisdom' or the 'universal wisdom', he can include within each of

these expressions several levels of meaning - or several concentric spheres of

meaning. The core meaning, however, is that unitive reality, or unitive

absolute. Generally, when Bede speaks of the perennial wisdom in his later

years, he means the principle of 'advaita', or a single nondual reality,

'brahman-atman'. That absolute Reality, or unitive principle - which lies at the

core not only of Hinduism but of Buddhism and Taoism - becomes the heart of

Bede's vision. Identified with 'God' or 'Father,' the first divine Person, it

becomes a key to a new Christian vision. There remains the further work of

re-interpreting the mystery of Christ from this perspective of nonduality.

 

His third contribution is the unitive self, or atman. As soon as Bede has

written about the nondual Absolute, he usually moves to the atman, because it is

through the Self that the unitive ground of all reality is experienced. The

search for the Self, Bede writes repeatedly, is the heart of the Vedantan way.

In this focus upon the Self, Bede joins Thomas Merton and Abhishiktananda. The

critical further step that is needed here from the Christian theological

perspective is the correlation of this nondual self with baptismal initiation.

 

Bede Griffiths' fourth step towards a recovery of wisdom is his recognition of

the divine dimension of the feminine. Repeatedly he identifies the Holy Spirit

with the 'feminine side' of God. This is a very important point. This 'feminine'

Spirit is the divine energy which is the mother of creation, which brings forth

all life, which moves the process of evolution. It also is " that divine life

latent in the universe from the beginning, latent in nature, and becoming

conscious in us....The Spirit is this energy of love in us, the power of the

divine. It is the Source of our real being, by which we become conscious of the

divine life in us and know ourselves as sons [and daughters] of God... " [27] This

concept of a unitive 'divine feminine,' however, requires further

differentiation from the archetype of the Mother.

 

Bede's fifth gift is something we observed early in our study: the vision of

total integration which Bede conceives in terms of the three levels of being:

spirit, soul (or mind) and matter (or body) - or, roughly speaking, God,

humanity and the universe. (p.23) Here too we can look toward a further

differentiation: a differentiation of the 'masculine' and 'feminine' poles of

this intermediate human level of mind-soul. The tripartite vision of cosmos and

human person may thus open laterally into a further fullness which corresponds

to the cruciform mystery of Christ as it is found in the New Testament.[28]

Corresponding to what we have called Bede Griffiths' basic myth, we can see his

contribution towards a new wisdom in terms of the realization of a 'Christian

advaita'. Bede brings together Hinduism and Christianity within the vital energy

field of his own spirit. Within this creative matrix there gradually occurs a

quasi-fusion of unitive Absolute and Christ-event, giving birth to a vision of a

Christian nonduality in two stages. Firstly, Bede tells us that participation in

God, the nondual Absolute, is realized in the 'communion of love' which is

Christian life and relationship. Secondly, the One is known in the great event

of incarnation which is the 'Cosmic Person', gradually emerging as the center of

Bede's synthesis.

 

With Abhishiktananda, we may imagine a further - or rather prior - moment of

Christian advaita which is rooted in 'baptismal initiation' as the moment of

identity, a pure unitive participation in the One, as if before differentiation

into Word and Spirit, knowledge and love. This simple and primordial unitive

participation, the moment of identity, may be understood in Jesus'

self-identification in John's gospel, " I AM. " In his last years, Abhishiktananda

came to see the baptism of Jesus as the realization of the divine " I AM " in the

human person at the very outset of the gospel. From this point, 'Christian

wisdom' may be regenerated today.

 

Abhishiktananda apparently lost himself into this moment of identity, this pure

'East' of the beginning. Bede, on the other hand,[29] followed the way of

relationship and synthesis rather than that of primal identity, and returned

westward to integrate that which he had earlier left behind - and indeed the

whole of reality - into an expansive cosmic vision. The eastern keys which Bede

and Abhishiktananda have put in our hands have now to be brought to bear upon

the New Testament and upon the experience and thought of the Christian

tradition.

 

The One Light - Bede Griffiths' Principal Writings

Introduction, p. 21-23

Edited and with Commentary by Bruno Barnhart

Templegate Publishers, Springfield, Illinois

ISBN 0-87243-254-8

 

Notes:

 

[27] Bede Griffiths, 'Return to the Center', 129-130.

 

[28] See Bruno Barnhart, 'Second Simplicity', New York, Paulist, 1999, 4,

229-232.

 

[29] See Judson B. Trapnell, " Two Models of Christian Dialogue with Hinduism:

Bede Griffiths and Abhishiktananda, " 'Vidyajyoti', 60 (1996), (I) 101-110, (II)

183-191, (III) 243-254.

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