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Mysticism Across Religions
There have always been those who have regarded mysticism as the unify-
ing path, which brings all religions together. The mystical experiences of
the different traditions seem to show a similarity which is greater than the
variations between them. Some mystics have been particularly involved
with more than one religion. They have found that in transcending their
own tradition to a deeper level of consciousness, they have discerned deep
affinities with other traditions. Some have fused two traditions, others
many, bringing them together in innovative and enriching ways.
Hinduism and Christianity
Bede Griffiths (1906–1993)
In his last term at school, Alan Griffiths had an experience of nature
mysticism, which awoke him to another dimension in life. He was alone,
listening to the birdsong at sunset.
Mystics
187
I remember the shock of surprise with which the sound broke on my
ears. It seemed to me that I had never heard the birds singing before
and I wondered whether they sang like that all the year round and
I had never noticed it. As I walked on I came upon some hawthorn
trees in full bloom and again I thought I had never seen such a sight or
experienced such sweetness before. If I had been brought suddenly
among the trees of the Garden of Paradise and heard a choir of angels
singing I could not have been more surprised. I came then to where the
sun was setting over the playing fields. A lark rose suddenly from the
ground beside the tree where I was standing and poured out its song
above my head, and then sank still singing to rest. Everything then
grew still as the sunset faded and the veil of dusk began to cover the
earth. I remember now the feeling of awe which came over me. I felt
inclined to kneel on the ground, as though I had been standing in the
presence of an angel; and I hardly dared to look on the face of the sky,
because it seemed as though it was but a veil before the face of God.
These are the words with which I tried many years later to express
what I had experienced that evening, but no words can do more than
suggest what it meant to me. It came to me quite suddenly, as it were
out of the blue, and now that I look back on it, it seems to me that it
was one of the most decisive events of my life.
165
He suggests that such an experience is not uncommon, particularly in
adolescence, and may be triggered by a number of things, including nature,
art, music, adventure, war, illness or falling in love.
[I]t is as though a veil has been lifted and we see for the first time
behind the façade which the world has built round us. Suddenly we
know we belong to another world, that there is another dimension to
existence. It is impossible to put what we have seen into words; it is
something beyond all words which has been revealed. . . . we see our
life for a moment in its true perspective in relation to eternity.
166
This experience awakened Alan to the challenge of finding out more
about what had been opened to him. It set him on an unexpected
adventure, a search for God, which continued for the rest of his life, as he
found that the more he learned, the more there was still to learn. After
studying at Oxford, he and two friends tried to ‘return to nature’ in an
experiment of simple living in the Cotswold village of Eastington without
any ‘mod cons’. During that time he found the Christian faith, which led
him to the Benedictine community at Prinknash in Gloucestershire, where
as a novice, he took the name of Bede.
Religious and Spiritual Experience
188
The presence of God had been revealed to me on that day at school
beneath the forms of nature, the birds’ song, the flowers’ scent, the
sunset over the fields; but now it was another presence which I per-
ceived, the presence of God in the mystery not of nature but of Grace.
Externally it was shown in the white habits of he monks, in the chant
and ceremonies of the choir, in the order and dignity of the life which
they led, and it was not long before I discovered the inner secret of the
life. It was something which had been hidden from me all these years,
something which I had been seeking without knowing exactly what it
was, the secret of prayer.
167
At the beginning of
Return to the Centre
, Bede reflects on that
mystical experience at school, as he watches the sun set behind the
trees, but now they are palm trees and it is the Indian robin singing.
Bede emigrated to India in 1955 to ‘discover the other half of his soul’, as
he put it in
The Marriage of East and West.
Although in some ways fulfilled
by the monastic way of life, Bede had long wanted to go to India, convinced
that he would find the intuitive awareness of the presence of God in man
and nature missing in the West. He wanted to combine the Western, con-
scious, rational approach to life with the Eastern, unconscious, intuitive
awareness.
Eventually he set up an ashram in Tamil Nadu called Shantivanam,
meaning forest of peace, where he brought the Hindu teachings of eternal
truth,
sanatana dharma
, and Christianity together in a way of life centred
on silent prayer or meditation.
When the mind in meditation goes beyond images and concepts,
beyond reason and will to the ultimate Ground of its consciousness, it
experiences itself in this timeless and spaceless unity of Being, and this
is expressed in the ‘great sayings’ of the Upanishads: I am Brahman,
‘Thou art That’ . . . the Ultimate is experienced in the depth of the soul,
in the substance or Centre of its consciousness, as its own Ground or
Source, as its very being or Self (
Atman
). This experience of God is
summed up in the word
saccidananda
. God, or Ultimate Reality, is
experienced as absolute being (
sat
), known as pure consciousness (
cit
),
communicating absolute bliss (
ananda
).
168
He evolved a pattern of worship, which included readings from the Bible,
the Vedas, the Qur’an and the Granth Sahib. Bede recognized the Truth
behind all religious traditions and a spark of divinity in everyone, glimpsed
in religious experience.
Mystics
189
All religion derives from a mystical experience, transcending thought,
and seeks to express this experience, to give it form, in language, ritual,
and social organization.
169
At the end of his life, Bede lived as a sannyasi.
[C]alled to go beyond all religion, beyond every human institution,
beyond every scripture and creed, till he comes to that which every
religion and scripture and ritual signifies but can never name. In every
religion it has been recognized that the ultimate Reality cannot be
named and the Sannyasi is one who is called to go beyond all religion
and seek the ultimate goal.
170
The story of Bede Griffiths’ life is told by Shirley du Boulay in
Beyond the Darkness
. The ashram still thrives and Bede’s teachings are
kept alive by the Bede Griffiths Sangha, which as its newsletter states, ‘is
committed to the search for the truth at the heart of all religions’. www.
bedegriffithssangha.org.uk
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