SWAMI ABHISHIKTANANDA: Essential Writings (Modern Spiritual Masters) [Paperback]

This is one of the most recent additions to the lengthening list of volumes in Orbis Books' Modern Spiritual Masters series. In this series, now with over thrity five titles, you find works on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Simon Weil, John Main, Thomas Merton, Thich Nhat Hanh, Mother Teresa, Mohandas Gandhi, Bede Griffiths, Brother Roger. The list goes on in this series which makes accessible the lives and thought of these religious leaders and teachers.

Shirley du Boulay's earlier biography of Abishiktananda, The Cave of the Heart, has helped to place this remarkable person among such company. (She has also offered her own fine presentations of Bede Griffiths, Theresa of Avila, and Desmond Tutu.)

Abishiktananda, the French Benedictine monk Henri Le Saux, is one of the primary figures to study if you want to learn how committed 20th-Century practitioners of Christian spirituality engage the great Hindu spiritual tradition. Merton, John Main, and Bede Griffiths were his co-travelers in teaching how the Christian contemplative tradition seeks to integrate-- or encounter-- the practices of Vedanta. In Le Saux's and Griffith's case, it took the form of living in India in an Indian version of the monastic setting. This is the Christian side to the equation, matched by spiritual guides from India who have moved to the West to share their wisdom and practice.

One of the fruits of this Christian generation's efforts is the ashram movement, represented most recently by such writers as Sebastian Painadoth. (Painadoth's works, from the Indian publisher ISPCK, do not appear to be available yet through Amazon.) Griffith's and Le Saux's influence is found most concretely in the United States in the Christian ashram community Osage Monastery Forest of Peace in Sand Springs, Oklahoma.

The book assembles defining excerpts from the eight volumes which bear his name. Du Boulay offers short introductory remarks for each section and subsection. They are arranged by topics, for example Immersion in Hinduism, Prayer, The Life of the Hermit.

Abishiktananda, more than his colleagues on this path, has written with the greatest focus on the Vedanta concept of advaita, or non-duality, in which experience of reality is not to be separated out into subject and object, knower and known. The vocation of such practitioners, most pointedly, is not to philosophize on such things, but to pass all such questions through the crucible of experiential prayer. Related to advaita is the Sanskrit term Saccidananda, meaning the state in which being, awareness and bliss are found. Le Saux explored the relation of this desired end of spiritual practice to the Christian experience of the Trinity.

Abishiktananda's classic little book Prayer is well represented in these excerpts and may be the most practical of chapters for readers' own life of prayer. Here is a flavor of Le Saux's teachings: "The main thrust of spiritual discipline and ascetic life should be to prepare one for the stillness of her faculties where she can be at the full disposal of the Spirit." "The Christian will say: it is the eternal awakening of the Son to the Father in the advaita of the Spirit."

Readers familiar with Christian desert spirituality and the Eastern Orthodox tradition of the Jesus Prayer will find convergences with Abishiktananda's guidance on meditation.

There is a glossary of Sanskrit words drawn from the Vedanta tradition.

The proces of learning about one's faith by experientially encountering, and immersing oneself in, a different tradition is perhaps a certain type of vocation. These men (and contemporary women ashramites) have sought to be unremittingly true to that vocation. It certainly can yield new meanings for Christians, and others, for Paul's guidance to be transformed by the renewal of our minds.

Swami Abhishiktananda is one of the most overlooked, most interesting and revolutionary, of modern spiritual masters.

Going to India as a French Catholic monastic in the early 20th century, his mission was converting the Hindus, or of creating a version of Christianity that would work for Hindus, when he encountered Ramana Maharshi. His spiritual practices took a dramatic turn, and now included practicing Ramana's direct inquiry, while living in caves on Arunachala, adjoining Ramana's ashram, as well as pilgrimages to the upper end of the Ganges, in addition to his Christian practices.

His writings, as assembled in this masterful collection, show the deeply personal, honest, open conflicts and understandings he encountered when confronted by non-dualistic/advaitic/Upanishadic mystical awakening while attempting to hold on to his love for Christ and his teachings. This was a courageous, revolutionary undertaking with little support or outside direction.

As one who had the privilege of staying in his hut in the ashram he co-founded on the banks of the sacred Kauvery River, called Shantivanam, I can attest to his austerity, depth of commitment, sincerity and love for both advaita and Christianity and the challenge he faced in attempting to reconcile them. I strongly recommend this book to any Christian, or folk of any strong religious background, who is moving deeply into contemplative spiritual practice or awakening - it is ground they will encounter.