this morning about yoga and asceticism, and the question of Christian asceticism, and
especially the relation of the mind and the body, which is so central in yoga. And I think
a real problem which arises in our Christian tradition is that we have emphasized the mind
and the will so much, and tend to neglect the body and the senses. And I think this
is one of the aspects in which the Oriental tradition has much to give us, that is why
there is such an attraction all over the world today for yoga, also for certain meditative
practices in Buddhism which emphasize this bodily aspect of man.
Now in the New Testament we have really a wonderful basis for a genuine acceptance of
the body. In St. Paul you have, of course, your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit,
you can't say anything more than that really. And then even more wonderfully in the letter
of the Corinthians there is that saying, the body is not for fornication but for the Lord.
I think that's very remarkable. The body is not for fornication, but that very same
body with its sexual powers and all its energies is for the Lord. The body is for the Lord.
And so our Christian asceticism of course is, and St. Paul has another beautiful phrase
when he says, I beseech you, offer your bodies as a sacrifice acceptable to God, making it
holy. The body is something which has to be made holy, consecrated to the Lord. So there's
a wonderful base there. And St. Paul's anthropology, if you like to call it that, I find very important
of body, soul and spirit, that man is a threefold body, soul and spirit. The body is the physical
organism which is related with the whole organism of nature. The soul is the psychic organism,
senses, feeling, imagination, reason, will, all this is a psychic organism. But beyond
the body, beyond the soul, in St. Paul there is the new mother, it's the spirit. And the
spirit is the point of our communion with God. He says in one place, the spirit of God bears
witness with our spirit that we are children of God. It's at that point of the spirit that
we know ourselves as children of God, we're in this living relationship to God. And the
spirit of God, he makes a very clear distinction between the spirit of man and the spirit of
God. No one knows what is in man, in God, no one knows what is in man but the spirit of
man that is in him. No one knows what is in God but the spirit of God, and we have received
the spirit of God, you see. So at that point of the spirit, that is our center, our personal
center where we become fully personal human beings, and at the same time it's the point
of our communion, our openness, our reception of the Holy Spirit. So I find in that marvelous
Christian anthropology and a whole basis for Christian asceticism. But unfortunately when
the church came out into the Greco-Roman world, it was exposed to all the currents of thought
there, particularly Stoicism and Platonism, and there the emphasis was very strongly on
the mind as opposed to the body. Plato has the idea of the body being the tomb, and Platonism
of course very strongly asserts that the soul is the real person and it's not the body.
And Stoicism emphasized very much that man is a rational being, and to live as a rational
being was the whole aim of the Stoic, and to keep the body under, mustn't disturb the rational
mind. And that had a big influence on the whole Christian tradition, and so that we
have emphasized the bodily aspect and the aspect of the senses, the imagination was
very much neglected, sometimes actually despised, and on the other hand the intellect and the
will, the spiritual paths were emphasized, were given almost a monopoly, that was what
Christian asceticism was in concentrating on the mind and the will. And in the Fathers
of the Desert of course this is taken very far, this whole idea that you overcome the
body. And there is in St. Paul that passage where he says, I buffet my body and keep it
under, there is a certain balance there, but nevertheless the balance is very great I feel
in St. Paul. But in the Fathers of the Desert obviously there was among many a real antagonism
to the body, the body was the enemy which had to be subdued. And of course with the body
goes the senses, you must not indulge your senses in any way, and so also with the imagination
which depends on the senses, so concentration on the mind and the will. And so all our tendency
is in that direction, so that our Christian prayer is so much a prayer of the mind and
the will, and scarcely involves the body in a very conscious sense at all. On the other
hand of course there have been moderating influences in the Fathers of the Desert, you
had the great conference of St. Anthony on discretion, it's very interesting and all
these experiments were being made and people went to all extremes. Remember they met together
to ask what was the end of monastic life, and some people said the Kingdom of God and
so on, wonderful. Sorry no, what is the end is the Kingdom of God and so on, but what
is the essential means, and St. Anthony said it's discretion, without that you cannot succeed.
So that had a very, very sobering influence on the Christian tradition, and Cassian of
course was the book of Christian asceticism for centuries. And then St. Benedict himself
of course took Cassian as one of his guides, and had a very great moderating influence,
discretion is one of the great characteristics of the rule, so that the Benedictine tradition
had a real moderation in it, but there was not still a real acceptance of the body. For
instance it always strikes me, St. Benedict when he speaks of manual work says, idleness
is the enemy of the soul, therefore the mind should be occupied with work. But the idea
that work is creative, that by the body exercising these powers is creative, that it's a means
of union with God, that doesn't really come into the tradition. I think in practice probably
it did, but in theory, in the rule, it's not a part of it at all. So we have suffered
I think from that neglect. And then when we come to the sort of the central Christian
traditions and Augustine to St. Thomas, the whole concentration really is on intellect
and the will. See if it's Augustine with his strong platonic influence and St. Thomas with
the Aristotelian, for both of them the perfection of man is the perfection of the intellect
and the will. Of course in the Christian tradition the intellect is illumined by faith,
and then the will in charity influence the intellect so that you grow into wisdom, and
of course the will is filled with the charity with the love of God himself. So there is
a fundamental transformation of the person, but it concentrates on the intellect and the
will and the body, the senses, the imagination are an appendage really. St. Thomas never
separated them as Descartes did, and Aristotle kept that, so is the form of the body. So
there is again a certain balance in St. Thomas, but all the emphasis is always on the intellect
and the will, and the total subordination of the body, the senses, and the imagination.
And that has been I think a basic tradition. I was brought up in that from the beginning
as a Benedictine monk. It was all the prayer life, contemplation, meditation was the exercise
of the intellect and the will and their transformation by grace. And of course it's a
marvelous doctrine, and there have been many saints, and John of the Cross is typical really
of that tradition, and I think it still goes on to the present day. But it neglects, you see,
one half of human nature, and the results of it can be disastrous. And I think the reason is this,
you know, that if you have a strong body, and if you have an integrated, a healthy psyche,
then this kind of asceticism can be very effective, and that is why many saints have been made by this
method of concentrating on the intellect and the will in prayer. But on the contrary,
if you have a weak body or a weak psyche, and most people today have very weak psyches,
they're all mixed up, it can be absolutely disastrous, you see. It simply leads to neurosis
and psychosis. If you concentrate on your intellect and your will and you neglect your body and your
feelings and your senses and your imagination, then you'll get a real split that takes place,
you see. And that, I think, is what we're suffering from today. That's why Christian asceticism
is under a cloud to a large extent, and why yoga and Zen and Vipassana and so on, the Buddhist and
the Hindu methods are appealing to so many people, because they are the opposite, they start with the
body, you see. And this, I feel, is really something we have to learn. It doesn't oppose the other,
obviously, the intellect and the will and the transformation by grace is always valid. But
the intellect is not separate from the will, from the body, from the senses, from the imagination.
We are a total whole, and we have to recover our wholeness as human beings. And we often say that
we lack this human dimension. And in our monastic life, it's often happened, the human dimension has
been lacking. I must say, in my experience, you know, and I think it's very common in Benedictine
communities, it was extremely well balanced. We had the manual work, which meant you met with other
brothers and you were sharing together and digging in the garden and gathering in the harvest from
potatoes or doing all this kind of work. And that created a marvelous balance in our lives. And then
we had three hours always every afternoon, and I couldn't have lived without that, I don't think.
And we did every kind of work. And in the later time, we were always building, building cowshed at
one time. And then we started building a new monastery, and I was mixing concrete for years.
First of all, by hand, and then we had a machine. So I learned that aspect of life. And the other
thing is that we had a very warm community. I know when I first went there, I was overwhelmed
with the love I experienced. And all through the 20 years and more that I lived there,
I always found this tremendous support in a warm human community. But that's not always so, you see.
And if you neglect that, it can be very harmful. So I do feel that very often in the Benedictine
tradition, that we have preserved a certain harmony. But we've not given the proper,
theoretically, you see, we were never taught that the body is important in manual work. It was
simply something you had to do, not the living of the monastery, but part of the rule. But you
were never taught the real value of the body and bodily activity and artistic activity. You see,
we made vestments, we made stained glass, and some of them did some beautiful sculpture. But
it was not part of the theory of the monastic life. And even this question of friendships,
it was always a question, you know, of particular friendships. And we were all very delighted when
we came across St. Albert's book on Christian friendship, which was very remarkable. You know,
he had this extraordinary love for his brethren. It was really astounding. And that was a very real
element, I think, in the Middle Ages. But of course, it practiced. But in theory,
we were always being directed above the senses, beyond the emotions, beyond all that aspect of
life. So that, I feel, is the problem, you see. And this is where I feel the Oriental tradition
is of real value to us. And in my perspective, I have to say continually, you know, I do believe
the Church is at this point in history where she needs the Oriental tradition. She came into the
Roman Empire and she absorbed this Greco-Roman tradition, you see, into the Semitic. And that
built up the Church on this Greco-Roman tradition with its asceticism, with its intellectualism,
and with its Christian context, with the charity of the will. But it neglected this other side,
the body, the sex, the senses, and the imagination. Now, when we turn to yoga in India,
we find the opposite, really, you see, that you begin with the body. When you learn to meditate,
the first thing to do is to learn how to sit. And we were never taught that, were we? I mean,
kneeling was considered the normal attitude in prayer. Well, that's the worst attitude for
meditation. It's an attitude of tension. It's good for petition, for penance, and so on. But
for meditation, for contemplation, for experiencing the presence of God, it's the most difficult way
you can do, and most, for many people, impossible. And on the other hand, to sit is a great art,
you see. To be able to sit in total harmony, that is the aim of yoga, to bring the whole body into
total harmony. There are, of course, innumerable exercises which you can do, all of these asanas,
which are very effective, and many people find them extremely helpful. Some find them essential.
Many get their balance in their lives through practicing simply the yoga exercises.
But they're all helped towards getting a great asana, a great position. And here, I would say,
it's not necessary to sit on the floor and to be crossed-legged. That's supposed to be the
ideal position, Paramahasana. The body is supposed to be in the most perfect harmony,
everything is integrated, and you should be able to sit for three hours in Paramahasana without
moving, and then you're really stabilized in yoga, you see. But not everybody can do that.
But in practice, if you sit on a chair upright, it's a perfectly good yogic position, you see,
to sit with your hands on the knees and be totally relaxed and firm, you see, is the point. But the
body must be relaxed, and you should become aware of the body, aware of your hands and your thighs,
where I'm always tending to arch the shoulders like that, you have to learn how to put the
shoulders down, and so on. You learn so much from your body, and the body influences the mind,
you see. Again, we're learning today about medicine, that all disease is psychosomatic,
and half the disease, or more than that, all the diseases people have are due to a disharmony
between body and soul, you see. And what goes on in the mind produces its effects in the body,
even cancer, you see, is often simply an effect of some psychological problem,
and people have been totally cured of cancer through psychological release. So the body
is affecting the mind all the time, and the mind is affecting the body. And if we learn to sit
in this basic position, relaxed and firm, and they do say the head, the neck, and the spine
should be upright, you know, it gives one a proper balance of the body, and they say it also
harmonizes you with the cosmos. They say the spine, you see, in man is like the pillar of the universe,
we're all related to the whole cosmos, and when we're upright like that, we're centered,
centered in the whole cosmos, and all these energies in the cosmos are being received in
a harmonious way, and not coming and disrupting us, you see. So that is the first thing, this
asana, this sitting. And I would never dream, for years and years and years now that's been
my practice, to sit in that way. And then the next thing is the breathing. Now we've never,
never had any teaching about breathing, though in the Orthodox Church, you see, you did have the
connecting the breathing with the Jesus prayer, but it wasn't very much developed.
But again, in yoga this is absolutely fundamental, that you must connect your breathing
with the whole rhythm of the body, and that again is going to affect your mind. As the breathing
becomes calm and regular, so the mind becomes calm. And again, pranayama, the control of the
breathing, is a tremendous art, and there are innumerable ways of using it, some of which are
very dangerous, always emphasize that. You see, when you begin to breathe in particular ways,
and for a long time, you open up the whole of your unconscious, you know. You see Stan Grof at
Essendon now, he is using this method simply of breathing for two and a half hours, and it's
extraordinary the effects on it. The whole of the unconscious opens up, all people's past comes up,
and all their problems, but also tremendous creative forces come up from there. So this
breathing is for the Oriental tradition a key thing there, you see. And for us, a very simple way,
simply to sit, and then to breathe from the abdomen, they always say, from the base of your
lungs, you see. They say most people only breathe from the chest, and you only use half your lungs.
And if you breathe through the base, and you can put your hand on your abdomen and feel it coming
out as you begin to breathe, you see, from there, and then from the chest, and then from the upper
chest, you see, the breath from the upper lung. The whole lung should be filled, you see. Physically
that means you're filled with oxygen, and you get rid, when you breathe out, you get rid of all the
carbon dioxide. Otherwise you leave the poisonous gas inside, you see. So from the physical level,
this is important. From the psychological level, it's incalculable really, the effects of breathing.
And this is really something we're just beginning to learn. Stan Grove gave me some of his papers
and his books, and he's doing a tremendous work on this down there, you know. People are learning
how this breathing can transform your personality, and so do you. So even on the most simple level,
when you learn to breathe quietly and regularly, then this harmony of the body and the harmony of
the mind, and yoga is harmony, you see. It's the root is yoj, to unite, to yoke, and it means
harmonizing the body and harmonizing the soul, a psychosomatic organism. So all that split is
removed, you see. You're not an intellect and a will attached to a body or a body attached to a
soul like that, but you are an integrated whole. Your body is yourself, it's such, you see. Your
body is yourself. And this is the Christian doctrine, it's so strange that we neglected it,
you see. For us, the human person is the body's soul, it's not the self, apart from the body or
the body, it's the body's soul. And so as you sit and as you breathe, you begin to experience this
inner harmony. And then the next thing which we always use is the mantra. And as you say some
words, we use the Jesus prayer, you see. And for me, that is the focus. You sit, you breathe,
and with the breathing, you repeat the Jesus prayer. In any form, the word name of Jesus,
or what Brother Hamlet does, and Arasham does, is Yesu Abba. And many find that very good,
Yesu as you breathe in, Abba, Father, as you breathe out. And that creates, and you try to
realize that you're breathing in the Holy Spirit. See, the Holy Spirit is present everywhere,
in the air and everything. You breathe in the Holy Spirit, and you offer everything through
Jesus to the Father. So it creates that kind of rhythm out there. So this is, you see,
a prayer which engages the whole person. And I should be total in that way. So those are the
three basic things. Now, this teaching all comes through what's called the Tantra. And after the
Vedas, you had a very creative period. The Vedas and the Upanishads are still somewhat,
their focus is always on realizing yourself. And here is a point, though, actually, you see,
even in the Upanishads, it's not the intellect and the will. It is that which, it's the Atman,
the spirit, in which the intellect and the will are centered. It's the center beyond.
They are the faculties, and this is the center. And in the tradition of the Vedas, you're trying
to find, you can use your, find your center, but you use not only your intellect and your will,
but your body, your senses, your whole person, you see, to integrate the person at that point
of the spirit. And that is what medieval theologians call the substance of the soul.
Beyond these faculties is the substance. And in meditation, in contemplation, we have to
discover the substance, the ground, where we are open, which is the spirit, the nirvana, the Atman,
where we're open to the Holy Spirit, to the Atman. So that is the, now that was the method, you see,
in the early times. And yoga was the practical discipline, how to integrate the body, integrate
the mind, and be open to the Atman, to discover your inner center yourself. But after, in the
period from about 500 A.D. to 1500 A.D., the tantra came in, and it was really a balance.
The Hindu was rather ascetic. It was rather rejecting and neglecting the body, as the
it made use of yogic methods, no doubt, but it didn't give it full importance to the body.
And with the tantra, they made the body basic to their whole discipline, you see. The saying was,
that by which we fall is that by which we also rise. As the body leads you to passion and desires
and so on, so through the body you can be restored. That is the basic tantra. And so you start with
the body and with the energy which is in the body. Now this is again something which is gaining
ground all over the world today. Swami Muktananda, you know, was a great exponent of this, this
Shaktipat. The Shakti, the energy is called the Shakti. And the idea is that there is this Shakti,
this energy, is in the whole universe around us. We're all exposed to vibrations of energy as we
know, electrical and magnetic and all the rest. And secondly, that there is psychic energy. We're
all exposed to psychic forces around us. When people are very hostile, we feel the vibrations
of that hostility. When they're very loving, we feel the vibrations of love. So we're all exposed
to psychic forces all the time. And these are forces of energy, you see. And the tantra sees
the transformation of man through the transformation of this energy. And Kundalini Yoga, the idea is
that this energy is centered at the base of the spine. It's partly physical, but it's more
psychological, the base of our nature, the Mooladhara, it's called, where we're grounded, you see.
And that energy has to rise up through the chakras, as they're called, these centers of energy.
The life chakra, the sex energy, the Manipura, the emotional center,
the heart center, the throat center, the intellect here, and then finally the Sahasrara, the
thousand petal lotus, the crown of the head. And the idea is as that energy rises through the chakras,
the whole person is integrated and Shakti energy and Shiva consciousness unite in the marriage,
you see, and that whole person is restored. And that is a marvelous idea and very practical,
because you see, now we'll be talking about the body, but involved in the body is the sex energy.
And now in our Christian tradition, as far as I know, certainly in my education and training,
you've never mentioned this question of sex. You seem to have left it behind when you entered the
monastery and you were supposed to have gone beyond it, concentrating on the intellect and the will.
And no doubt there are many ways in which the sex energy is sublimated. Manual work is excellent,
creative work of any kind, human communities, all these are ways, and it no doubt worked itself out
in many ways. But there was no theory about it, you know. I don't know whether it's with you,
but there was no theory about it. But the theory of the tantra is, you see, that this energy is in
the base of your spine and it's centered also in the sex organs. And that energy has to be transformed,
that energy has to rise up through the chakras. If you let it out at any particular level,
then the energy is wasted. And you've got to learn to turn it back. It's about turning back
on the energy, not letting it go out. Say the Mooladhara, if you go out and dig in the garden
a lot, you're releasing your physical energy, you see. And if you indulge in sex, you're releasing
your sex energy. If you get a very emotional attachment to somebody, you're releasing your
emotional energy. And if you get a great affection for somebody, you're having your heart
energy. And if you give great, give long talks and write poetry and things like that, then you're
releasing the photo energy. And if you concentrate on this point, the Ajna chakra,
then you release your energy through intellect, through writing books and studying and all the
rest, you see. So all these are ways in which we normally release our energy. But in yoga,
the aim is to gather the energy together, to bring it and transform the person, you see.
As the energy rises, instead of going out through your physical energy, through your sex energy,
through your emotions, through your imagination, through your reason, you concentrate them all,
you gather them all till they come to a head, the Sahasrara, you see. And then you're open to the
divine, you see, the transcendent. You're trying to turn back the energy to open it totally to God,
you see. That is the goal of this tantric yoga. And of course it's extremely difficult, you know,
and yet I feel it's most important and most practical, because that, you see, answers this
whole problem of why do we become celibates, you see. Because we don't want to exercise the sex
energy in marriage in the normal way, but we have to turn it back, it has to be transformed. Unless
it's transformed, it's going to disturb us in some way all the time. And if it's suppressed,
of course, it's going to be a serious problem. So the energy has to be transformed. As I said,
there are many ways of transforming the energy through art and music and poetry, and actually
the liturgy, you know, is one way when we sing and when we use all the gestures of the liturgy,
that is a way in which we can offer ourselves to God. But it should be scientific, you see. Yoga
is a scientific method of transforming the energy in your body, your base, and your sex, and your
emotions, your imagination, your affections, your imagination, your mind, and your will, as the
total transformation has to take place. So this is a tremendously creative science and art, you see.
And as I say today, you know, this is modern. Swami Muktananda had a huge following, you know.
People would come over in a jet plane, 500 at a time to his ashram, because he was teaching them
how to transform their energy. And one of the methods they used, you know, which is one of his
chief methods, I believe, is simply chanting. They would sit for hours going on chanting,
you see, and that creates a tremendous vibration of energy, but a transformed energy. You're
bringing all these energies into this chant, which is a sacred chant, open yourself to the divine,
and it creates tremendous vibration of energy. Somebody told me they had, sir, they were
suffering serious psychological problems and great difficulties, and they came to the ashram,
and simply by sitting and taking part in the chant, the whole thing was harmonized
and changed, you see. And these are things which modern Americans are experiencing, you see.
Another method is Vipassana, the Buddhist Vipassana, and that is also very effective,
and many Catholics, priests, and sisters and others have taken courses in Vipassana. And there,
the Buddhist doesn't try to transform in that way. His method is to observe yourself.
And in Vipassana, you observe your breathing. You don't try to control it in any way,
you simply observe it. And for two days, you do nothing but observe your breath as it comes out
of the nostrils around here. It sounds absurd in a way, but what it means is that you're
calming all your thoughts, your thoughts are going all over the place, and you keep bringing them
back to this, and then they go off again, you bring them back to this, and so gradually you
get harmonized again. You see, the thoughts are the problem today. In the ancient world,
it was much more the physical part which bothered them, but for us, we're all educated
in the head all the time, and our minds are active the whole time. How to calm the mind?
And you know, the first sloka of the paternalist yoga sutras is,
Yoga is the citta-vritti-nirodha, the cessation of the movements of the mind, how to stop the mind.
And when the mind stops, then the deeper center of the spirit is open, you see. As long as your
mind is agitated like this, you can't experience that presence of the Holy Spirit, we would call it
the awareness of God. So, with Vipassana, they concentrate first on the breathing, and then on
your sensations. You start with your head, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and you go down, becoming aware
simply of your body. And many Catholics have told me it was wonderful, because we never do that,
you know. We're not aware of our bodies usually, but you become aware of all the sensations in your
body. You can do it for hours and hours, ten hours a day, you see, you do this. And gradually, you become
aware of the body, and aware of an inner harmony in the body. You see, when you're not aware, the body
and the energies are all going in all directions, and you get upset, you see, tension arises.
And when you learn to observe it, all these tensions are calmed and controlled, and then you get an
inner harmony. And then the last two days, it's rather nice, they have what they call Metta, where
you allow feelings of love to go out to the whole creation, or humanity. And especially, I don't know if it's
in the Vipassana, but in the Tibetan tradition, to your enemies. You put all your friends on one side,
and let love go out to them. Then you put your enemies on the other side, and let love go out to them.
And so that is the conclusion of it. But again, you know, it's an energy of love going out. It's not
just a thought, it's a vibration, the power of love to go out to everything. So that's another method,
you see. And you see thousands and thousands of people are being attracted to these methods, and most,
half of them are Catholics, you see, who have not found this in the Church, and have found it in Hindu,
Vyasramas, or Buddhist monasteries. That is the thing there. And as I say, they're really very practical
for us to become aware of the body, aware of its energies, and how to transform those energies,
and how to... The other method, I say, one is to transform the energies by this practice, and
particularly by breathing. And the other, as I say, is to observe oneself. And many find as a
method of meditation, there is nothing better than simply to observe oneself. Observe one's thoughts,
observe one's feelings, feelings of anger, of suffering, of resentment, and so on. And as you
observe, you get detached. You see, if you give way to your feelings, then you're carried off,
of course. But if you learn to observe and to detach from them, and observe them, gradually you get
possibly you become a silent witness of God, and you get an inner calm coming, you see. And that
is a wonderful method, that is simply always to detach from whatever you're feeling, whatever
you're thinking. Thoughts can come and thoughts can go, and you shouldn't try to stop the thoughts,
but don't attach to them, don't follow them up, and make a business of it, you see, but let them
come and let them go. And then gradually you get beyond your body, you get beyond your psyche,
and you become aware of this deep center of your person, you see, which has so many names. But
that is what they're seeking. And this, you see, is universal. You don't have to name God so far
at all. You're finding your inner self. But for a Christian, and for those Hindus, and in a sense
for some Buddhists, when you reach that point, you have reached the point where, for all really,
you're open to the infinite, you see. You go beyond your limited body, your limited psyche,
and you're open to the transcendent One, the power and the grace. For a Christian,
you're open to the Holy Spirit, you see. And that is why we use the Jesus Prayer, because that
focuses you on Jesus and takes you through him, through God, you see, so you're open to the Holy
Spirit. So this is a very practical method which I feel as Christians we can adopt without any
difficulty, you see. And it's a big tragedy, really, that so many Catholics go and become
Buddhists or become Hindus because they can't find this in the church. If they find it in the church,
then they have no reason. You can practice all in our ashram, you see. Many, many people come
using all these methods, and they can integrate it into their Christian life. They come to the mass,
if you read the Bible, and they rediscover Christianity. But it has to be in the context
of this kind of meditation and yoga and experience, you see. And I've seen no wonderful conversions
take place, you know. People have left the church for years and years. This is the first time they've
been in communion for 18 years or something like that. And they simply left it and looked for this
how to meditate, how to harmonize your nature, you see. Everybody's out of harmony. America's
worse than anywhere. All over the world, people are out of harmony. Tremendous tensions, personal
conflicts, and so on. And they're seeking a way of harmonizing these. And these are methods,
you see, of harmonizing all these tensions. And on the other hand, when you reach that point,
of course, then you're open to the Spirit. And if you're living in a Christian context,
in the mass meditation of life and so on, then you can integrate the whole of this experience.
You know, Father Panica once said, I was a Christian, I became a Hindu, and then a Buddhist,
I'm remaining a Christian all the time. And I think that's perfectly valid. You can take,
you see, actually the council said, Catholics should recognize, preserve, and promote the
spiritual and moral values of these other religions. When you try to integrate the
spiritual values, you see, of Hinduism, Buddhism, and their moral values into your life as a
Christian, then you can integrate your whole person. And this is a way of bringing the body,
and the senses, and the feelings, and the imagination, integrated into the intellectual,
into the total person, you see. So, now, there's another aspect of this, which is very interesting.
We've got this tradition in the New Testament, as I say, of St. Paul, the temple of the Holy
Spirit. And for Kundalini, you see, my brother Owen, now, has developed this Kundalini yoga a
great deal, and he sees the Shakti as the Holy Spirit, really. Or rather, the Shakti, if you
like, is the natural energy, but the Holy Spirit works through the Shakti. So, it's the Holy Spirit
which transforms all these chakras, opens up all your energy, and brings it up to God, you see.
So, the Holy Spirit, and you see, again and again, we think the Holy Spirit works through the
intellect, through the will, in faith, in charity, but not that it works through the body, through
the senses, through the feelings, you see, but the Holy Spirit is at work. And Keshe, you know, in
this question of sex, I don't know whether you realize that the Christian tradition, from St.
Augustine onwards, certainly was that all sexual pleasure is sinful. It disturbs your mind, you see,
that was the idea, which is a very stoic idea. And even in marriage, St. Augustine and St. Gregory
and St. Thomas Aquinas all said that even in marriage, there would be a disturbance of the
mind, and therefore, a certain element of sin in intercourse, even in marriage. Now, there's been
an interesting Catholic tradition, and we've got beyond that now, we've not got much beyond it, and I
don't think we've ever yet admitted that intercourse in marriage is a sacrament, it is a means by which
the man and the woman are united in Christ, you see, and realize their unity in Christ. It's a
sacramental union. And of course, people today, we've got this sexual revolution, of course, we've
got sexual promiscuity and so on, but there's a serious search to discover the place of sex
in human life, you see. And the Church has to recognize it, that it's given by God, it's a
sacred thing, you see. And that is what was realized in the Tantra. Again, it's always problematic,
you see, when you deal with sex. In the Tantra, the idea was the sex energy can be transformed,
can be a means of transformation. And in its essential doctrine, it's perfectly sound, but of
course, it's very dangerous, and it got a very bad name, because it did lead to a lot of promiscuity
and so on. But the essential doctrine is there, and it's thoroughly Christian, you see, that the
body is holy, and the sex is a gift of God, and marriage is a sacrament, and it's in the union of
the man and the woman in marriage, that they are united with Christ, they grow in the spirit.
The spirit is a word, in sex, you see. It's possibly a lower thing to tolerate, and which is part of your
nature, but it's one of the instruments of the Holy Spirit in the consecration of man, really.
And now all this, you see, it's so interesting, it's all in the Christian tradition, this idea of
the resurrection of the body, you see. And again, St. Thomas Aquinas and all the other Fathers, really,
they all think that it's primarily the soul which is going to be sanctified and so on, and then there
will be an added pleasure, you would say, the body will give something added to it, which is not really
integral to it. But really, the Holy Spirit works through the body, through sex, through the senses,
through every part of the being, and transforms the whole person, and the resurrection of the body
is the total transformation of the human person, you see, body and soul. And the resurrection of Jesus is
the transformation of the body, of the matter, you see. It's not, he didn't say, we got the skies,
the body was transformed, and the soul was transformed, the psyche with its limitations,
the psyche of a Jew was transformed and became, and the body and the soul were totally integrated
by the Spirit in Godhead, you see, and that human nature is taken up into the Godhead.
And all of us are called to this transformation of the body, you see. And it's not a remote thing,
a sort of, we shouldn't simply leave it for the next life, I mean, even now the body has been
transformed. It's very interesting that St. Irenaeus, you know, in the second century, who had the most
marvelous theology of their day, one of the most comprehensive, he said that the spiritual body
has been formed through communion. You see, we have a gross body, and in the Hindu tradition, and the
Buddhist, and I think it's perfectly Christian, there's also a subtle body. The gross body is the
physical organism we all may experience, and the subtle body is the body of the senses, the feelings,
the imagination, all this is part of the subtle body. And that subtle body can develop extraordinary
powers, you get all these psychic powers that develop through the subtle body. So you have
your gross and subtle body, but then you have what's called the spiritual body, and that is your
true body, your eternal body. But it's a body, you see, it's not just the Spirit. It's the Spirit
take possession of a human body, of a human being, and totally transforming that person. So the body
is transformed, and the soul is transformed, and the Spirit takes total possession, and then we're
united, and that's the perfect yoga, you are totally integrated, you see, in our person, and integrated
with others. And we must never forget that as we integrate ourselves, we open ourselves to others.
And that is another danger. Many people think that solitary life or ascetic life is very selfish,
you're only seeking your own good and so on. But more and more it is realized that the more you
enter the deep center of your being, the more open you are to others, so that you cannot
experience God in the depths of your being without affecting other people. And that is our
grief, of course, that prayer has this great power to influence the depths of the world, the people as a whole.
And at that center, we're integrated with others. In the body, we're all separated. In the psyche,
we're more open to one another, and we can open more and more, but we're still limited. But only in the
human, in the Spirit, are we totally open to one another, totally transparent, you see. And that is
heaven, when each person is totally transparent to every other, and all reflect one divine light.
One and yet many, that is the final goal. But it's the total human being,
the body and soul, which is transformed in this way. Now, as I say, I feel this is something
very important for monastic life, and we all experience the need, and very important for the
Church as a whole, you see. I think until we really have a theology of the body, of sex, and of the senses,
and of the whole of this aspect, our whole teaching is very inadequate. And it's not only a theory,
it's a practice, you see. Take a seminary education, you see, it's all in the mind, isn't it? All these
classes, these lectures, all in the mind, so on. And then there is spiritual direction in prayer and so on,
and the will, but the transformation of the person doesn't really begin there, you know.
So this is something which I feel the Church today is learning, this is growing, and we're open to
this whole world, and I think a wonderful transformation will take place really once we really
accept this. And we needn't be afraid of all these Zen centers in Tibet, and I didn't mention the
Tibetan Buddhists, of course. They are more and more influential today, you know, because they have the
most integrated view, because they incorporate the whole of the tantra into Tibetan. In fact, it's not
certain where the tantra began. The origins are obscure, probably the 2nd or 3rd century, and
maybe in Buddhism. I think it's more probable that it was a general movement which infiltrated both
Hinduism and Buddhism. But whatever, the Tibetan Buddhism has integrated the whole of this art, you
see, of tantra, of bodily change, of psychic change, and they've developed it to an incredible extent,
you see. They can gain amazing control over their bodies. You know this thing, what do you call it,
Dumong, is it? When you practice breathing, very strong breathing, you generate heat,
even at a modest scale, you discover it, but that heat can be generated to such a force that you can
boil things, and one of their practices is to sit in the snow with a wet towel at night and see how
many towels you can dry by the heat of your body, and they can live up in the mountains there naked
without feeling the cold because of this Dumong, this heat. So this power to change the body, you see,
through changing these energies, it's simply developed these practices. So Tibetan Buddhism today is
spreading very fast in America and all over the world because it's got such an integrated view,
you see, of the human person, the body and the senses, the breathing, the senses, the feelings,
the whole person to be transformed and integrated. So as I say, I feel this is the core of the church
today, just as she opened herself to Greek philosophy and Roman law and the whole European
culture, you see, it was assimilated by the church, created the Middle Ages, and has gone on to the
present day, so now we're being called to open ourselves to the Oriental tradition, which we've
not touched, you see. We've never touched this tradition so far, except a few people here and
there. So the church herself has to be open to all that the Oriental tradition gives to assimilate
all of this, and then we would have a really universal, if I were to be Catholic, in the
deepest sense, you see, it would be really universal.
You were saying, you know, how even though you didn't get any of this real theoretical instruction
about the body, the senses and so forth, it came in through the back door by way of the Benedictine
Rhythm of Life instruction, I know they were artistic and crafty, that sort of thing, and
that's pretty good. You know, you mentioned about breathing, and there's one thing I think, you know,
that aside from, you know, the problem of Latin language, you know, and then maybe the
salient interpretation of Reverend Chapman, but Reverend Chapman, the training that you got from
Reverend Chapman, you know, because, you know, you were taught how to breathe, to sing long
phrases, to feel this rhythm, the twos and the threes, that all makes for freedom, you know,
the two rhythm of the heart, the three rhythm of the breath, you know, it's broadening and
kind of rounding out, you know. You were taught how to sit, because, you know, or how to stand,
seeing what you're saying, and that's physically possible,
if you don't sing well when you sit. You're taught how to stand, you know, how to make the
head really vertical, you know, that's the only way the breath will flow, and without tensing up
these muscles in the throat, you know, and strengthening the voice. So a lot of that training,
you know, that was given in view of the liturgy, and Reverend Chapman kind of challenged, you know,
there was no theory about it, but I wonder if it wasn't a kind of instinctive yoga practice.
I never got the theory like that, but I must say that Jay Chowdhury was one of the greatest
forces in the, and Johnson has got to say, right from the beginning, and day after day,
seven times a day for 20 years, and at never time, not one time did I ever feel
anything but joy in the liturgy. But as you say, there really was a kind of yoga in it.
And then the liturgy itself, you know, all those ceremonies with the genuflections and whatnot,
it was a certain training of the body, wasn't it? You had to do your benedictine monastery,
you had to do your genuflection properly, you couldn't just skip it, it was a rhythmical pattern
of liturgies. So I think I would add, for one subject,
but it's something important, it wasn't theoretically what we learned.
Father, may I ask about two things? How do we go about transforming those energies?
You spoke of the spirit soul, and how does she met, and secondly, how do we release,
as celibates, the sensual energies? In the case of the transformation,
I sort of mentally visualized of almost like I was holding my breath and pushing it,
like squeezing a toothpaste to get it up to the next level through the chakras.
Wasn't clear to me what practically my head does to accomplish or facilitate
that transformation. And then in the area of release of sexual energy, obviously,
you gave us examples in all the other areas where you do release, you are speaking, you do write,
you do have close friendships, you do laugh, you are warming. How do we, as celibates, exercise?
Yes, that's important. The squeezing would be out of place, there should never be any violence.
And in yoga, it's most interesting, you never use violence. If you're trying, for instance,
a very simple thing to touch your toes, some people can't get to know their knees.
But if you exercise a gentle pressure, day after day, in a few days, you suddenly find you're
touching your toes, but you don't strain, you don't force it ever. And it's true, isn't it,
in all the practice of yoga, it's a gentle pressure, the minimum of effort and the maximum
effect, they say. It's extraordinarily interesting, you never do violence. So here,
it's not squeezing it out, but it is, it's the breathing is the main thing, you know,
to harmonize the breathing. And what Amal Das teaches, and what I rather practice, is to
visualize the breath going from the base of the spine up to the crown of the head,
and then returning again. So you've got a rhythm established like that, you see,
as you're sitting upright and breathing. And then you can visualize it going through the different
chakras, you see, passing up through. There are some dangers in that, if you concentrate on the
lower chakras, it can, the energies are very powerful, it can be too powerful. So in a sense,
I mentioned in Kansas City, when we were talking, that it's, I feel in many ways,
it's better to think of the descent of the Holy Spirit, you see, descending through all the chakras.
So you establish yourself at this level, and then you can control all the others. But basically,
this is the rhythm, you see, you have to establish. And it is in the breathing, that's the main thing,
really. And it does need a good deal of, I could do a lot for myself, but they all say,
really, a guided breathing, you see. There's a story of an Englishman who became a Buddhist,
and he went out to India during the war as a signal or something. He had a lot of free time,
and he started doing a lot of yogic practice. And he did this breathing, and it's a very simple one.
You breathe in, and then hold your breath, and then breathe out. And the rhythm is 4, 16, 8.
You breathe in for 4, you hold for 16, and breathe out for 8. And then you can increase it 8, 32,
16, or then 16, 64, 32. But it's very dangerous, because it generates terrific energy. And he found
after a time, he would wake up in the night, and a terrific force coming down upon him. He thought
he was going mad. And so he stopped it, and he went to see his guru afterwards, and he said,
it serves you right. You should never do anything like that without the guidance of a guru.
So you should never do any radical exercises. But the basic symbol in breathing is open to
everybody, and he gained tremendous love through that. What was the other point you made?
The release of the sexual energy for a celibate. How was he created?
Yes. Well, that is a very difficult problem, you know, and it is true that, as I say,
you could try and let the breathing come like that, and for some, that transformation would
take place. But personally, I do feel that it's better to visualize it like that. It spends the
center of the Holy Spirit through the chakras stabilizing you at these levels, you see,
so that then you're able to control at that level. Because, you see, for many people,
that energy is too powerful. And if you encourage it in any way, and even many Hindu gurus,
in a very advanced state, they get that problem. The energy comes out at that level.
It's a real problem. But you have outlets in the other areas.
You have. Yeah.
But you have no outlet sexually. No sexually, no outlet, no. That is it.
That has to be transformed, you see. But as we said, I mean, it's transformed in so many ways,
isn't it, in the external world, but here... And to me, the prayer of Jesus, you see,
bringing that prayer into one's being, into the body, and letting the Holy Spirit,
visualize the Holy Spirit working through all the chakras, you see, through the crucifix.
All these are very important, you see, all of these things.
So one has to learn for oneself about them, you know. It's a natural practice.
Well, you mentioned, Father, that through the practice of yoga,
that the body does calm down, to a certain extent, so that it doesn't become such a problem,
I would imagine, for a lot of people.
What I wanted to say was that, when you speak about chakras, you seem very esoteric,
and there are very few people that you can even mention those words to,
especially within the church. But many people have practiced Kriya Yoga for many,
many years, in groups of people here and there, and they've actually experienced these centers,
you know, on its own. And they're experiential, I mean, they're something you can't deny.
And then that person, perhaps, is brought into a dialogue with the Catholic.
Well, where do you place this kind of experience in the Catholic experience?
I think this transformation of the body by the Holy Spirit, you see,
that the Holy Spirit has to take possession of the whole person,
and work through all those energies, you see. That's the Christian idea.
And with the prayer of Jesus, we invoke the Holy Spirit.
And Brother Amaldous always considers the air, and in Hindu, it's not merely air,
it's the vital force, you see, that the Holy Spirit is present in the air.
Here's a very interesting, you see, all through the Bible,
the Spirit is connected with the breath.
God breathed into his nostrils, and man became a living soul, you see, in the Garden of Eden.
And there are many instances at the Resurrection, Jesus breathed on the disciple,
and said, receive the Holy Spirit, you see. So the connection between the breath and the Spirit,
and again, in St. John's Gospel, which we read,
where the wind blows where it wills, you know, not where it comes, where it goes.
So is everyone who is born with the Spirit.
And so Amaldous always says, try to realize, as you breathe in,
you're not really breathing in the air, or in some psychic force,
but breathing in the Holy Spirit, you see, a transforming power into your body, you see.
You see, we've not thought of that way.
It's the body, the Holy Spirit is in the body.
Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, you see.
It's tremendous, and so it can be easily integrated in the Catholic Christian.
And you see, many Catholics leave the Church because they have these experiences,
and nobody can tell them how to relate it to the Spirit.
You see, that is the problem.
They feel this is something very valuable, which is transforming them,
but it doesn't seem to fit into any Catholic scheme, you see.
It's a very bad thing.
Any further questions, sir?
Just coming back to this about the expression,
you said the breathing is very important,
but I think the Tibetans used tremendously also,
while he was doing visualization,
and he perhaps used a crude system of the two,
but if you squeeze it gently, it doesn't have to be.
The image which, I was thinking of the Ojas now,
the image which they say,
how do you give expression to that sexual energy?
Instead of the sexual energy being released at the physical level,
in the form of an orgasm,
what they understand is that that energy is transformed,
is drawn up the spine as a subtle kind of a liquid,
which they call Ojas,
and that it comes and collects at the base of the skull here,
and that the mandala of the orgasm floats in this liquid,
which causes them wisdom.
Or another image which is used,
is that the energy in the form of light,
instead of being released at the physical level,
is drawn up the spine,
and there's a kind of an orgasm
in the form of a phantom of light at the top of the head.
And if you do that with breathing,
each time you breathe out,
you breathe out this phantom of light,
that really does draw that energy,
and throw it to another level.
And then when you breathe in again,
when you breathe in that Holy Spirit,
which descends and purifies all the way down,
and then you take that sexual energy
and you breathe them out at the top of the head,
it's not a technique, but...
But visualization is very important,
required by this vision,
as I say, the Holy Spirit of the soul,
it's very, very important.
And there's another, in Chinese tradition,
we have the circulation of the light,
which is very nice.
And you see, we're realizing more and more
that our bodies are fields of energy,
we think of them, fingers, arms,
all this substance like this,
but really it's a field of energies.
And in Chinese medicine, you know,
you're trying to...
They've mapped out all these channels of energy
through the body,
and you try to harmonize,
where some block,
you then try to release that block.
So it's the whole bodily energy, you see,
and I think that visualization,
that your body is this field of energies,
and the Holy Spirit is working through that,
that can help.
You see?
I'm sorry.
You know, the problem of the visualization,
the kind of image we use,
perhaps one of the difficulties,
and one of the wounds in our contemporary psyche,
contemporary body consciousness,
is precisely that we have perceived the body
in a way as a closed system,
a body in isolation from the cosmos.
We think of the Mahayana, too,
with the cap on,
and so we feel this terrible pressure
by holding the sexual part.
When sex is visualized as something that,
you need to keep that cap on tight,
because there's, you know, there's a seam.
Whereas there are a lot of other images
in human culture,
and in the Western,
as well as the Eastern,
which relate the reproductive,
generated energies to the cosmos
through many different images,
just the fact, you know,
that the chakras are also components,
they're flowers,
you know,
the concept of the blossom of the flower.
There you don't get the idea of a pressure system,
a hydraulic kind of,
I mean, Freud, for instance,
one of his problems was,
he was really stuck with that hydraulic concept.
What was it?
Freud.
Freud, yeah.
Hydraulic concept of the psyche,
of the body, of the sex,
of energy,
that everything was within this seam.
Freud upset everything, really,
didn't he?
Yeah, he closed it into his kind of concept.
Where is he?
We are in this network of energy,
of the cosmos,
our bodies are not this skin-enclosed,
skin-encapsulated ego, is that better?
So that gives that expression.
We're not that.
And, of course, the great change today
is the influence of Jung.
You see, Freud is almost useless for this,
but Jung had developed all these ideas,
not fully,
but it certainly helped me, I think,
for the integration of all these aspects
of the personality.
One of the things which you say
which really fascinates me the most
is this idea of the church as being the focal,
as being able to become the focal point
for all these different oriental traditions
which are so current in America at the moment.
I wonder if you could just elaborate on that
a little bit more,
how you see what role the church could play exactly,
or in what relation she would stand to those
who are not officially belonging to the church
and yet coordinate them in some way.
I think it's largely a matter of being open,
like in Esalen, for instance, you see,
to go down there to see what they're doing,
to see the values of it and so on,
then relate it to our own life.
I think it's being open to these communities,
sharing with them where we can,
and then they also come to share with us.
It's always a give and take, isn't it?
A flow, really, that has to take place.
But if we're afraid of them all
or we're dismissing them all,
then of course we stand isolated, you see,
and at once we recognize.
And again, there's a rather saying of the council
that the spiritual and moral values,
whatever we find, we should be ready to accept,
you see, that is the thing.
And it's so interesting, you see,
and so it's typical.
It's all from the body level they're working,
and from the feelings, you see,
and the senses, they're building up from that,
but they're wanting to come to the point of the spirit,
you see, they're totally open to it,
but many haven't any way of getting there.
That's why Buddhism appeals so much.
You know, Buddhism has no God, really,
and nothing, or even a soul,
and so it's a very practical psychological method,
and they find that very,
but there's no reason why that
shouldn't be carried further, you see.
There's one person doing Vipassana,
where you just breathe like this,
and so on, and he was interested in the Jesus Prayer,
and I suggested integrating the Jesus Prayer
with Vipassana, and he found it went extremely well,
actually, so those sort of things can be done, you see.
But it's the openness, I think,
that recognizing values, you see,
that is the real need,
and many Catholics are very defensive.
They feel that this is a danger to the Church, you see,
which it is, of course.
If you, like any positive thing like that,
if you oppose it, then it can become dangerous,
but if you frankly realize its values,
then it can become something positive.
You know what I mean?
Father, I'd like to ask a question
that's in my own experience,
in view of countercultures and people like that.
For me, as a Catholic,
my model is the way Jesus was always hanging out
with the bad guys, you know.
He was always with the discouraging society
of the real out there people,
and these are the people he seemed to prefer.
And for me, that model is very important,
because it represents real security
in the knowledge that there's nothing
that can really take away our relationship with Christ,
and it can be tested, you know, very thoroughly,
if we're not afraid,
if we're very comfortable with our relationship
with Jesus Christ.
And that, for me, has been the model.
Christ's actions at that time,
and in these times,
we have the same kind of parallels that he did,
and we have the same kind of fringes of society around us
that we can reach out to and go into
without any fear in our hearts.
And the only question that comes up is that,
what is our way, what is our procedure?
Is it going to be one of,
when we interact in this way,
is it going to be one of silence?
Is it going to be one of preaching?
Is it going to be, what is our,
what are we going to represent?
How are we going to represent the church
in these kind of encounters?
Yes, I always feel like you're trying to help a person
to follow his own path, you see,
that his spirit is present in people.
And it's very evident,
these people come to India,
and they have no idea what they're looking for.
Some are looking for drugs or something,
or enjoy themselves and whatnot.
And then they begin to feel some meaning
coming into their lives.
They need somebody here and somebody there,
and they begin to get a direction in their lives.
And many come to Russia,
where they're beginning to feel that,
they won't call it God, perhaps,
but this is a direction,
a meaning is coming into their lives,
and that something creative is taking place.
And one must just help people
to follow their guidance, you see,
where they are.
It's no good trying to push a person beyond where he is,
to open him so that he's ready to,
he's open to whatever may come.
And only when a person is ready
should one speak of Christ or the church or anything.
Otherwise, you simply put people off, okay?
There's a terrible, among Hindus, you know,
but among Western people too,
there's tremendous, what do you call it, antagonism,
hatred of the church, of proselytism in any way.
And the moment they think you're trying to proselytize,
they will absolutely close up, you see.
But if you, they see that you're totally open
and you're not pressing anything,
but they know you are a Christian, they're Catholic,
and that has signified something to them, you see.
And allow it to grow.
I don't want you to ever speak until the time,
the moment of grace comes, you see.
That's what I do with Hindus always.
And it's, I mean, they will become interested,
you see, in time.
But God has his own way with each person
and one can't sort of try to force it in any way.
I think any kind of evangelization
which just sort of preaches Jesus Christ indiscriminately
is counterproductive always.
For one person, again, you lose 99, you know.
It's extraordinary in India
how they hate the church from that point of view
and they're open to Christ, you see.
But any sort of this, like, get people into your system,
you know that, they'll hate this.
Thank God.
It's interesting in the way
that Islam spread into North Africa.
Apparently, it would always be the Dervishes
who were kind of very non-Orthodox Muslims
who would go into the tribes and make friends with the people
and live with them as they were.
And then the people would say to them,
but what is the source of this tremendous inspiration
and learning that you have?
They would say, oh, you should really ask a Mullah.
You should ask a priest about that.
And then 50 years later or 20 years later
after the Dervishes had been there and made their impact,
then the teaching of Muslims would come.
Now, when the interest was already there,
when the actual living experience
of these transformed beings had touched the other people,
then they would be inquisitive to know more about Islam,
and then they would be sent to the mosques
and then be sent to learn.
That is very interesting.
It relates to what Father Robert Hale said
about this Nigerian priest who said
that he wants to be Christ rather than teach Christ.
And it's that, you know, it has to glow.
That's what I feel in India, you know.
We have to be a Christian presence, you see.
If you're in an ashram or a community,
you live your life and you live in a very Indian style
and people are all welcome, they come.
That is preaching the gospel, you see.
And only when the moment comes
when they want to learn more, then you can respond.
But just be totally open to them and give them what you have.
You see, you have your prayer,
you have your, you know, the whole routine of life, you see.
And many feel that this would be,
you see, India is un-evangelized at present, you see, practically.
The whole of the mass center of India
is solidly Hindu, you know.
One Catholic in a million, maybe.
And somewhere they've not even heard of Christ, you know, in the past.
It's extraordinary.
And we don't make any advance.
We simply form little groups of Catholics
and people come from Canada and elsewhere
and form a little Catholic group there.
But the rest of the people are not affected at all.
And we all, many feel now, you see,
that you simply go and live among them as one of them,
share with them and so on and live your life
and let them see it,
and then let things happen, you see, like that.
That's the truth.
One thing I'd have to admit, too,
and it might get me in trouble,
but I can't, at the same time,
feel as if I have something superior,
or some superior knowledge, you know.
It's hard to reconcile that,
but I'm just holding back this vast, wonderful thing from you.
Until the right time,
and I'm going to impart this great thing to you
that you don't have at this time,
I don't really feel that.
I just feel that I'm equal, or I'm the same boat that they're in,
that there's something indescribable
in my relationship with Christ
that is so transparent that I can't even hold it
as a separate thing, you see.
Yeah, that's very important.
You see, if you've got the idea,
you've got to impart it.
It's so something you possess and which you pass on,
but it's nothing of a sort.
You are open to that place
and you're trying to help other people
to be open to the same grace
that you're receiving, you see.
This whole idea that we're giving something,
it's very tempting,
because it's true in a sense, of course,
which is a fact,
but the ego gets into it, you know,
that you are imposing this on the other,
and that they resent, you see.
I always recall a meeting we had in Trivandrum
with Hindus and Christians.
We tried to organize a meeting
and it was quite a problem.
They were very suspicious.
They thought we were just trying to get them, you know,
the Ramakrishna ashram there.
But eventually they agreed,
and a group of us, mostly Catholics,
one or two Orthodox, I think, and Protestant,
and we met there,
and as soon as we put it that we'd come for dialogue
to share with one another,
they're totally open.
I've always noticed that.
We come to, Monsignor Rossano, when he came,
we had a Hindu-Christian meeting
in our ashram some years ago,
Monsignor Rossano came from Rome,
and that was one of the things he said,
I never forgot,
we come to share one another's spiritual riches.
Then the Hindu is totally open, you see,
but if you say we've come to give you the gospel,
and they're not interested, you see,
that's the thing.
You do get some, I mean,
people like St. Francis Xavier,
you get people who have magnetic power and so on,
who can convert people,
but it's normally the uneducated.
You see, all St. Francis Xaviers were fisher people,
uneducated,
and the educated, you have to approach him this path.
And even I wonder now,
if Jesus is the example,
he said, I came not to be served,
but to serve.
If we come and actually put ourselves beneath that,
aren't we being more like Christ, really?
And the way our Bishop Armando and others put it,
we come to meet Christ in the hour of Christ,
it's already there, you see,
there is a grace of Christ's presence already,
and to meet that grace, you see,
and sometimes, you know,
they're far better than we are.
It's amazing how good a Hindu can be, you know,
and how devoted to Christ you can be
whilst still remaining a Hindu, you know.
A follower of us shared the example
of marital missionaries in this country
who have come,
who have experienced a massive conversion
in the last 20 years,
much to the consternation, really,
of the American missionaries,
and will, you can't understand,
they no longer go out to baptize the pagan babies.
Anything that moves that is not Christian or Catholic,
but to learn from these illiterate, simple folk
to what we used to call superstition.
They are finding our high forms of spirituality.
And they thought that almost,
I think of the American Indian,
the native experience of a different language,
different ritual,
and that the Marymoles talk about very much,
but they go to learn,
they go to sit at the feet of what we would,
what we used to call superstition,
to learn the majesty of the power of the magic.
But Sister Rosemary was telling us
a very interesting thing about a community in Africa
and apparently, when they started,
the African girls were rather westernized, many of them.
You see, they've had a Western education
and they didn't really know their own traditions.
And they got the old grandmothers to come along
and tell them all the old traditions
and the songs and the stories and so on,
and they absorbed all that, you see.
I think that's beautiful.
It's not the same with us, you know.
I think, take Brother Amundas.
You see, he was a parallel Catholic
and they're very traditional Catholics,
Ray Rosary and Benediction, all of these things,
completely typical traditional Catholics.
And he came to the monastery and he began to learn yoga
and began to get into the Indian tradition.
It's totally absorbed, the whole Indian tradition now,
you see, it's marvelous.
Once they're open to it,
that they can keep from terrorism.
Forgive me if I add a very similar anecdote,
very close to home.
One, an Indian joined this community
at this foundation in 1958,
Father Pedro, who then returned to India in 1970
and died there accidentally.
When he came here, he had been a Jesuit,
novice master of provincial.
He was a Mangalore, the high family of Mangalore,
one of the few Brahmin families
that was converted by Francis Xavier.
So his Christianity went back to the 16th century,
his family, the high family of Mangalore.
And he came here and was here
that he read for the first time
the advice that's in Hindu scriptures
and for the first time practiced a little yoga.
And everyone told him that,
I said to him, it's beautiful,
you know, but he didn't believe it.
He was 60 or 55, something like that.
No, he was 50 at least when he joined, yes.
Yeah, and he had never been here
because he had been told, hey, it's dangerous.
And then seeing one of his fellow novices
who had gotten permission, you know,
very, you know, it just so happened
that he left.
So this was just closed the door
and absolutely no more of this.
And so, you know.
Yeah, the Mangalore Catholics
and I are very strong with that,
totally raised to that.
And then he came and we just got in there.
You see the Portuguese,
they didn't want really to make them Catholics.
They wanted to make them Portuguese Catholics
and they gave them all Portuguese names,
you know, half the priests in India
who got Portuguese names too.
And you know Fernandes and all these things.
They all came up for baptism
and they were all given Portuguese names.
And they had to wear Portuguese lace
at their chin, you know.
Really?
They had to wear these lace shirts
and proper shoes and so on.
Ah, yes.
And the costume was Portuguese
and the language was Portuguese
and the names and the forms,
because all of a sudden it was Portuguese.
There's a famous story,
I don't know if I told you about,
Mahatma Gandhi wrote,
I think you see the book,
sort of biography that in one town where he was,
a Hindu was to be received into the Catholic church
and everybody knew that this would mean
that this Hindu gentleman
would now begin to wear Western clothes
and eat meat and drink alcohol.
He's a part of this generation.
So.
My question, I was listening to the table
which you talked about the tantra
and the Jantas.
There were two different traditions in India,
one from the North,
which is very connected with the Vedanta,
as I understood,
and another from the South,
which is connected with the Tantra,
and these represent two poles in Hinduism.
Would you like to say anything?
Yes.
I think that's very, very important.
You know, the modern Hinduism
is a union of opposites.
You see, so often you've got to unite the opposites.
And the Aryan tradition of Sanskrit
was much more akin to our Western tradition
in many ways, you know,
and the language, of course, is very close.
And they came in from the North into the Punjab
and then began to spread through North India
and then right down into the South.
And as they spread,
they came in contact with the indigenous people,
basically, the Dravidians.
See, Brother Raymond is Tamil
and this is a holy Dravidian tantra there.
I'm not arguing at all.
The language is completely different.
And so these two began to meet.
And the tantra, you see,
undoubtedly came up from the indigenous people.
And the devotion to the mother
and this tantra, the Bodhi and so on,
all that came from it.
The Upanishads came more from the North?
From the North, yes, yes.
What's interesting to me here is that
you seem to have a different focus in Upanishads.
You have this focus on the Atma,
the spiritual center of the world.
And the tantric focus is quite different.
It's quite different.
And it really came to balance it.
I think the Vedic tradition
began more and more to find the Brahmins, you know,
and became a sort of elite, really.
It's very much like the Greeks then,
like the Hindus, you know.
Yes.
But the Atman is very close to the Greek Gnus.
Yes.
But we never got the tantric element
to counterbalance the Christian tradition.
Yes, that's just it, yes.
That's just it.
Though we must admit, you see,
in the Middle Ages,
a tremendous lot of folk religion,
folk devotion came into the church
and into the cathedrals
and all that sort of thing.
There was something very vital there.
But theoretically, we're not quite there yet.
Well, so maybe the Syrians had more, do you think?
Well...
And the Syriac tradition,
do you think, had more of that?
Yes, yes.
Yes, it had.
And the Oriental Church,
which had more of it.
Yes.
Thank you.