Some final thoughts

In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength. Isaiah  30:15

As we began our sabbatical it was this verse from Isaiah that served us as our guiding light.  Now that we are at the tail end of our sabbatical, we can clearly testify to the benefits of returning, resting, being still and trusting.

Fr. Raimond conducting mass like a pujari(Hindu priest) doing puja 

One of the stained-glass windows of the cave church 

In many ways spending our sabbatical time in India was a kind of returning. It was a returning to our home, loved-ones, church we grew up in, the country, its culture and its religions.  Though our returning was only for a short period of time, it served the purpose of giving us a sense of our moorings and a frame of reference.  We were able to renew our relationships with family and friends and reawaken that spirituality which had given me the initial stirring for sacred ministry when I was a teenager. 

Koshy and Fr. Vinith sitting for evening meditation

It was also a returning in a metaphysical sense.  The daily practice of yoga and meditation is intended to bring our wandering mind from its exile back to the divine who is within us. I believe our stays at the ashrams gave us a good beginning in this journey back to the center of our being.  Spiritual journey is the journey of the soul back to be with its maker.  This was what both the Desert Fathers of the Christian East and the Forest Sages of Hindu East were on. When one cultivates awareness by sitting restfully in stillness and quietness and working with breath, it is called meditation.  It has its roots in the ancient wisdoms of both the East and the West.

Clearly this contemplative path requires trust and surrender.  Reason and logic of the modern-day mind will not serve us in this journey to the depth.  It calls for a radical openness and child-like trust.  See how quickly Mary, the mother of our Lord, placed her trust in God and let God to use her as the vehicle to bring salvation to the world. And like mother, Jesus, her son, allowed God to do God’s will and not his own will. This kind of absolute and unquestioning trust is necessary to journey deeper into the recesses of our soul, into our inner silence. Our travels to and visits of many of pilgrim centers in India
helped us understand the depth and urgency of human longing for God.  And our ashram experiences with their yoga and meditation disciplines led us to the realization that the God we long for is neither in Rishikesh nor in Jerusalem.  God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. John 4:24.  It reads in Deuteronomy, The Word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.

Koshy reading the morning prayer after meditation

Early churches had this kind of cross made of stone at the front

The Indian church can grow in India only if it takes genuinely indigenous path.  Just as the church underwent western enculturation as it was introduced in the west, a similar incarnational process should have happened to the church when it first came to the Indian shores.  My travels and research in Kerala gave me the impression that the ancient Church of St. Thomas Christians in Kerala was an exception. In following indigenous socio-cultural customs and practices, they were not different from their 

Hindu neighbors.  It was too bad and tragic that this enculturation process fell victim to the 

arrogance of Western Christian approach and 

attitude of ‘my way or high way’ of the 

Mother Mary in Indian sari on a lotus flower 

An artist's portrayal of Coonan Kurishu Sathyam, a significant event
Kerala Church history 

missionaries during the colonial times.

Today, Christian Ashrams in India serve to bring back the long-lost Indian-ness to the Indian Christianity.  What D. T. Niles said of Indian Christianity is very apt here.

The Gospel is like a seed and we have to sow it.  When we sow the seed of the Gospel in Palestine, a plant that can be called Palestinian Christianity grows.  The seed of the Gospel is later brought to India and a plant grows as that of Indian Christianity.  But, when missionaries came to our land they brought not only the seed of the Gospel, but their plant of Christianity, flower pot included! So, what we have to do is to break the flower pot, take out the seed of the Gospel and sow it in own cultural soil, and let our own version of Christianity grow.  I am happy that I was able to get a glimpse of the reemergence of a Christian spirituality that can be called truly Indian during my sabbatical in India: it is soul bound as opposed to body bound, mystical as opposed to rational, contemplative as opposed to calculative, inward as opposed to outward, prone to rest as opposed to work, and surrendering as opposed to be domineering.

Jesus in yoga pose

My dear blog followers, I thank you for journeying with Susan and me during our sabbatical stint in India.  My thanks to Manju for her technical support and help in setting up the blog, and to Ranjit and Johanna for their timely proofing of weekly blogs. I was encouraged to see your interest and enthusiasm, and am amazed to see number of hits on the blog.
Blessings, Koshy and Susan.

New Delhi

This post should have been published earlier.  Susan and I came to New Delhi, the capital of India, in a train from Dehra Dun.  My brother, Mr. Jacob Mathews, who had arrived Delhi earlier from Ahmedabad for business related to his work, met us at the train station, and together we went to stay at the YMCA hostel. Most of the sites we visited in Delhi were of historical and national importance: India Gate, Red Fort, Kutab Minar, Rajghat (Gandhi's site of cremation), Humayun's tomb, and Indira Gandhi Museum.
On the last day we visited the Baha' i  House of Worship, called the Lotus Temple.  This temple made of marble is spectacular and beautiful.  This faith was originated in Iran and based on the view that all humanity is one race.  The visitors, formed in groups, were welcomed into its large auditorium for few minutes of silent meditation.  It was very tranquil and peaceful.  While in Delhi, we visited three of my cousins also. On the last day of February, we took an early flight out of Delhi and arrived Bangalore just in time to see Jonu, our daughter-in-law, off to the US.  Next day, I took a taxi and went to the Christian Ashram about which I had already written in my previous blog.

Qutb Minar, built in 1193. Inside the complex is an iron pillar  built in 4th Century

Jacob and Susan in front of India Gate, a memorial to soldiers who died in wars

Red sandstone gateway to the Red Fort built in 1639

Rajghat, Site of Mahatma Gandhi's cremation 

The Lotus Temple: Baha' i House of Worship 

 
       

Vidyavanam Ashram

Located in Bannerughatta, a suburb of the City of Bangalore, this ashram is unique in many ways. Here, one would see how Christianity is lived in a simple Indian way, incorporating the age-old wisdoms of Hindu spirituality with the message of Christian faith devoid of its western trappings.  Opening such an ashram has been the life-long aspiration of the Rev. Dr V. Francis Vinneth, of CMI (Carmalite of Mary Immaculate) of India. He believes that our knowledge of Jesus Christ will be at its best, when we realize Christ in us and become another Christ as the ancient Christian dictum goes, “Every Christian is another Christ.” In his autobiography, Fr. Vinneth states that founding an ashram, that would resemble the ways of both the Christian ascetic Fathers who lived in the deserts and the Hindu mystics who lived in the forests, is what God has been preparing him for. 

 

The day after coming to Bangalore after spending considerable time in a Hindu ashram in the north, I came to Vidyavanam, the forest of wisdom.  I was warmly received by Guru Vineeth, a very humble and unassuming man in his mid seventies with a double doctorate from Rome and Oxford and well versed in both Indian and Western Philosophies and fluent in Sanskrit, Latin, German, Italian, English and Malayalam. For me it was a dream comes true.  Immediately I felt a spiritual connection with him.

Perhaps you may remember from one of my earlier blogs my ranting on why Christianity failed to make deeper roots in India even after 2000 years.  For anything to flourish in a new place, it has to take on and adjust to its new surrounding, which was what the ancient Thomas Christians in India did.  However this Indianization of Christianity suffered major blow once western colonial powers began to arrive its shores beginning with the Portuguese in1498.  They turned the nascent Indian Christianity into the shape and form of a western religion, and today it is considered to be a foreign religion.  The Christianity brought here by the apostle Thomas was not a western one. However, today, by and large, the Indian church is sadly regarded as an outpost of western influence and culture.  For some Christians anything Indian is not good and they disparage other religions and philosophies of India.  So, I think this ashram’s embrace of yoga spirituality and its emphasis on interiority in experiencing God provide us not only with an alternative to being a Christian in a genuinely Indian way but also give Hindus an Indian lens to see Christ in a fresh way.

The Cottage I stayed

Jesus depicted as a yogi

A Fresco of Jesus in the Garden

A Statue of Jesus on the top of the Chapel

The Cave Chapel in the center of the Ashram

Artwork resembling the familiar anthills in the area

Sitting for meditation with Fr. Vinneth

Fr. Vineeth and Fr. Anto in addition to celebrating masses in the morning and leading prayers in the evening daily, give classes in yoga, meditation, and Indian spirituality to the ashramites.  They also provide spiritual direction and listen to confessions.  The chapel, central to the campus and where the mass and evening prayers are held, is designed to resemble a forest cave. Rooms where people lodge during their stay are very Spartan. Food is very simple and strictly vegetarian. Since the ashram campus is located on a hill, the sunset is especially beautiful and a great place to sit for meditation. Away from the din of the city and embraced in the coolness of the evening, I sat with Fr. Vineeth for meditation daily at dusk, my mind was at peace and it felt as if I were experiencing the Ineffable.             

Dehra Dun and Buddhist Temple

Susan next to the Stupa

 After two weeks in Rishikesh, we took a taxi to Dehra Dun, about 50 kilometers away, the capital city of Uttranchal State, which used to be part of Uttar Pradesh State.  It has many places to go to and visit, however, almost all of them are from the place we stayed at – Aketa, a three-star hotel. Dehra Dun and the nearby places like Musoorie, are more developed and modernized, partly due to being a military training site, government offices and many academic institutions of international fame.  Because of its moderate climate, the British used this area for their getaways during the colonial period.   Our main goal in coming here was to visit the Buddhist temple.  Since our original plan of going to Dharmasala, the center of Tibetan Buddhism, didn’t work out due to traveling difficulties, visiting this temple was important.

The Buddha Stupa in the middle of the complex

White Tara

A Prayer Wheel

We were immediately drawn into its peaceful atmosphere.  Unlike some of the other holy places we had visited, this temple and its surroundings are kept clean. We were awed by the beauty of all the structures here, especially the stupa of Buddha.  Though there were hundreds of visitors and Tibetan exiles and pilgrims, the place didn’t seem crowded.  We saw men and women walking the trail around the stupa complex and chanting mantras using japamala – a rosary-like chain - with 108 beads.  To learn more about the Buddhist practice of chanting and the use of japamala, google “Buddhist rosary” or visit the site: www.dailybuddhism.com/archives/365.  We were at the site around noontime and saw hundreds of kids coming out of the dining hall after having their lunch.  These are young boys living and studying at the monastery attached to the temple. 

Koshy with two Tibetan Buddhists

One of many advices by Dalai Lama

Buddhism originated in India, it is perhaps more widely practiced in neighboring countries like Sri Lanka, Tibet, Myanmar, and in the far eastern countries such as Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Japan.  Buddhism began some 500 years before Christ as a reawakening of Hinduism.  Buddha means ‘the awakened one.’ It is interesting to note that around this time there were other religious re-awakenings happening in other places and cultures of antiquity: Confucius in China, Socrates in Greece, and the completion of manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible of 39 books, etc. Unlike Hinduism, Buddhism does not discriminate people based on caste.  As many of Buddhism’s tenets were incorporated into Hinduism and as Buddha was considered as one of the ten avatars of Hinduism, Buddhism continued to lose its strength in India while it prospered elsewhere.

On our way to Musoorie, situated at an elevation 7,000 feet, we stopped at another temple, Shiv Mandir, famous among the locals as well as international visitors.  I didn’t find anything striking other than that it is located in a beautiful village on a slope.  As we continued our climb to the top, on a narrow road zigzagging, we were giddy in enjoying the nature in all its beauty spread out as far as eye could see. The constant movement, side to side, in the car made us car sick, causing us to not to stay at the top much longer.  After getting back to Dehra Dun, we took rest staying at the hotel and enjoying a walk in the street.  The following morning we took a train to Delhi.  My brother who had arrived a few hours earlier by train from Ahmedabad met us at the station and together we went to the YMCA hostel, the base of our Delhi exploration.