From Prayer by Abhishiktananda (Henri Le Saux):
"To pray is an act of faith. This does not mean that, in order to pray, we must first confess our faith in more or less abstract terms. No indeed; true prayer is based on the faith, the conviction that God is here, that he is everywhere, that he is in everything, that he is the source from which everything comes and the end (at once immanent and transcendent) to which everything is on the move.
"To pray is to take for granted that we live in the mystery of God, that we are immersed in it, and that this mystery envelops us and at the same time extends beyond us on every side--'In him we live and move and have our being' (Acts 17:28)."
Abhishiktananda. Prayer. Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2006. 12.
This prayer thought is also posted at A Place for Prayer today. Please visit this ministry blog of RevGalBlogPals.
"If God is hidden, it is because he is in himself beyond all we can perceive, even with our minds. If this were not so, he would simply be one of the possible objects that can be known, just like everything else in the universe. . . ." (17-18)
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Showing posts with label Abhishiktananda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Abhishiktananda. Show all posts
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Friday, April 29, 2011
Swami Abhishiktananda
Abhishiktananda(Fr. Henri Le Saux)
1910-1973
Henri Le Saux grew up in Brittany, France and excelled in his studies, which continued after he joined the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Anne of Kergonan when he was 19 years old. He felt particularly drawn to the Greek Fathers, especially Gregory Nazianzen’s Hymn to God Beyond All Names:
You who are beyond all, what other name befits you?
No words suffice to hymn you. Alone you are ineffable.
Of all beings you are the End, you are One, you are all, you are none.
Yet not one thing, nor all things. . . . You alone are the Unnameable.
Such Emptiness was a prelude to his call to India, which became an obsession around 1934, when he was only 24 years old, before his ordination. It took 14 more years of persistent asking, writing, and waiting before Henri was sent to India (in 1948), which he never left. He traveled in India and struggled with his Christian faith and the mystical experience of advaita (non-duality).
"He remained a priest, and he remained a Benedictine monk but he was a long way from the average expectations of a Catholic priest. He was beyond all structures, yet he remained a disciple of Jesus. As far as the church is concerned, he never left it but he did become distanced from it. He came to see more and more clearly the false duality of the church, for instance, in regarding people as active or contemplative. In the end even the Mass became unimportant: he could celebrate or not. Everything was divine, so it didn't really matter. But when he did say Mass, it was a momentous occasion, for he was at the level of knowing beyond any words." (38)
De Boulay, Shirley. Swami Abhishiktananda: Essential Writings. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2007.
The other night when I could not sleep, I found an old used copy of Abhishiktananda's book "Saccidananda: A Christian Approach to Advaitic Experience." I am currently reading it again (for the "first" time) and then re-discovered Shirley Du Boulay's book on my shelves, too. So I am newly intrigued by this amazing mystic who experienced Christ from the depth of Hindu spirituality.
Google ABHISHIKTANANDA to find out more about him. A good resource is here, with a collection of articles by him here.
And what prompted me to start writing about him was this quote that I boldly highlighted in Du Boulay's book:
"Only to the extent that you are not attached to any thought, to any point of view, to anything at all, that you do not desire or fear anything, that you do not feel delight or sorrow in anything--only so can the void be created in your intellect. If I am worried about what will happen tomorrow, about what I will have to decide tomorrow, I will not be able to reach this void. I must have absolute faith in this mystery of the beyond into which I throw myself. Whether I call it Christ, Shiva, Parama-atman does not matter. Total acceptance that someone is there to receive me, to take complete charge of me, or rather that in the end I will find myself set free from all my present limitations."
~~July 27, 1955, Diary
De Boulay, Shirley. Swami Abhishiktananda: Essential Writings. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2007.
That's detachment.
You who are beyond all, what other name befits you?
No words suffice to hymn you. Alone you are ineffable.
Of all beings you are the End, you are One, you are all, you are none.
Yet not one thing, nor all things. . . . You alone are the Unnameable.
Such Emptiness was a prelude to his call to India, which became an obsession around 1934, when he was only 24 years old, before his ordination. It took 14 more years of persistent asking, writing, and waiting before Henri was sent to India (in 1948), which he never left. He traveled in India and struggled with his Christian faith and the mystical experience of advaita (non-duality).
"He remained a priest, and he remained a Benedictine monk but he was a long way from the average expectations of a Catholic priest. He was beyond all structures, yet he remained a disciple of Jesus. As far as the church is concerned, he never left it but he did become distanced from it. He came to see more and more clearly the false duality of the church, for instance, in regarding people as active or contemplative. In the end even the Mass became unimportant: he could celebrate or not. Everything was divine, so it didn't really matter. But when he did say Mass, it was a momentous occasion, for he was at the level of knowing beyond any words." (38)
De Boulay, Shirley. Swami Abhishiktananda: Essential Writings. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2007.
The other night when I could not sleep, I found an old used copy of Abhishiktananda's book "Saccidananda: A Christian Approach to Advaitic Experience." I am currently reading it again (for the "first" time) and then re-discovered Shirley Du Boulay's book on my shelves, too. So I am newly intrigued by this amazing mystic who experienced Christ from the depth of Hindu spirituality.
Google ABHISHIKTANANDA to find out more about him. A good resource is here, with a collection of articles by him here.
And what prompted me to start writing about him was this quote that I boldly highlighted in Du Boulay's book:
"Only to the extent that you are not attached to any thought, to any point of view, to anything at all, that you do not desire or fear anything, that you do not feel delight or sorrow in anything--only so can the void be created in your intellect. If I am worried about what will happen tomorrow, about what I will have to decide tomorrow, I will not be able to reach this void. I must have absolute faith in this mystery of the beyond into which I throw myself. Whether I call it Christ, Shiva, Parama-atman does not matter. Total acceptance that someone is there to receive me, to take complete charge of me, or rather that in the end I will find myself set free from all my present limitations."
~~July 27, 1955, Diary
De Boulay, Shirley. Swami Abhishiktananda: Essential Writings. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2007.
That's detachment.
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