Program Summary:  During this course, we will explore Christian spirituality through the perspective of the Indian spiritual tradition, seeking to enrich our faith, inner experience and the message of the Gospel without compromising the substance of the Christian tradition. Drawing from the visionary work of cross-cultural Benedictine monk, Bede Griffiths, with whom I had the good fortune to study with for many years, and in the spirit of Vatican 2, we will explore alternative forms of spiritual expression born of India’s rich spiritual culture and religious philosophy in the same way that the Church borrowed from Roman culture and Greek philosophy in its early development. The time is now right for us to expand Christian faith and experience in the light of other cultures so that we may rediscover the mystery of Christ in new and profound ways.

Background Information: There is reasonable evidence that Christianity is an old tradition in India, going back 1500 years or more, with remnants of an Eastern liturgical rite still practiced in many parts of the south. St. Thomas, one of the original twelve apostles, was, according to the gospel, commissioned to go to India; and in Chennai, the city of my birth, there is Basilica built over his grave. Another fascinating lineage is an ancient sect of yogis in the Himalayas who maintain that Jesus once walked among them as Isa, meaning “Lord” in Sanskrit. Some claim that this accounts for Jesus’ missing years. While this is debatable, as fact, what is truly interesting is that Jesus, particularly in the Gnostic gospel of John, uses language that bears a strong similarity to the language of Indian mystics and yogis. One hypothesis is the exchange of information that took place on the ancient trade routes between India and Alexandria.

Since the 15^th century, with the arrival of Portuguese in India, colonial missionaries aggressively sought to convert the heathen of India with neither knowledge nor respect for their lofty spiritual heritage evident in the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita or the Yoga Sutras. It was only in the time of my mentor, Bede Griffiths, himself a pioneering figure in inter-spiritual dialog, that any serious exploration began, and Bede was quite instrumental in inspiring many Indian Catholics, and Christians worldwide, to truly understand the depth of Eastern spiritual wisdom in a manner that deepened rather than destroyed their faith. I am one of his success stories.

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