Letter written to a Friend in September 2002: About Experiences Made in India in 1977.

Subj: BEDE GRIFFITH in India
Date: 9/9/2002 12:24:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: LiloKinne

Dear Friend,

When I visited you two years ago, we had a brief talk about India. At this specific point in time, you mentioned that you know about Bede Griffith. At this occasion, I had told you, that he was a friend of mine, and that I had met him for the very first time in the 1970's in his ashram Shantivanam in Tamil Nadu, in the South of India. Since I was recently studying what I would find about Bede online, I saw his life story being put online, and wanted to share it with you.

The following is a text about the life of Bede Griffith, who was a friend of mine in the 1970's. I met him during my very first stay in India in 1977 in his ashrama Shantivanam near Tiruchirapalli (Trichi). When you will read the attached article, you will be able to imagine more how he lived and what he has accomplished during his lifetime!

In 1977, I met father Francis Acharya in the ashram, which Bede and he had established in Kerala. I stayed there in the Kurisumala Ashram for some weeks, and went from there to visit Bede Griffith for the first time in the ashram, which was founded by two French priests, Father Jules Monchanin and Pere LeSaux, and to whom an old French priest, a friend of mine, had sent me with greetings from Madras.

The ashram, in which Bede lived and worked was called Shantivanam, and was in Tiruchirapalli, short Trichi. I stayed with Bede for some time. There were very few people, mostly Indian people from the village close by, who worked in the ashrama, or who loved to be close to Bede, but almost no visitors. Therefore, we spend much time together, talking about the existence. I enjoyed the time, which I have spent in the garden, the library, and the small chapel, which was colorfully decorated with Hindu figures.

Every day, we prayed together several times and celebrated the mass using texts from the different languages: English, Tamil and Sanskrit. Bede used the elements of different religions in his prayers, and it was a true inner experience. Having learned many chants in Sanskrit throughout my travel in different parts of India, I often chanted in the open air around the tiny chapel, and we all learned from one another to pray to god in the different forms: Christ, Budda, Shiva, Vishnu, Allah.

One specific song, which was taught to me by sisters in a monastery in the South of India while I visited them, was chanted by me at several occasions in Bede's ashram Shantivanam, as well as the Ashram of Ghandi, at mother Teresa's community, and many other so called "Holy Places" all over India. Especially my very first trip to India, which lasted 6 months, has changed me forever!

I wish you a beautiful time! Enjoy all that you do, and please stay in contact with us.

With much love and warmth for you from New York,

Lilo

USA Phone: 1 (201) 223 - 63 66
Lilo Kinne Cell Phone: 1 (646) 523 - 75 42

e-mail:
LiloKinne@aol.com

websites:
http://www.lilokinne.com
___________________________________________________________________________________

Information about Bede Griffiths' work:

http://www.monasticdialog.com/links.htm

http://www.bedegriffiths.com/bio.htm

BEDE GRIFFITH

India, 1955-1993

During his years at Farnborough, Bede had met Fr. Benedict Alapott, an Indian priest born in Europe, greatly desirous of starting a foundation in India. Fr. Bede had been introduced to Eastern thought, Yoga and Indian Scripture by a Jungian analyst, Tony Sussman.

"I am going to discover the other half of my soul..."

When Fr. Griffiths asked permission to go to India he was refused because the Abbot said "there is too much of Bede Griffiths' will in this." Later, however, the Abbot saw fit to "send" Fr. Bede, but the venture was not to be a foundation from Prinknash. Fr. Bede was to be henceforth subject to a Bishop in India, which meant that eventually his vowed status with Prinknash Abbey would expire. Of all this he wrote: "The surrender of the ego is the only way of life." And again, "The surrender of the ego is the most difficult thing we have to do." In leaving for India, his spirit was lighthearted as he wrote to a friend, "I am going to discover the other half of my soul." In 1955, Fr. Bede and Fr. Benedict took a ship to Bombay, and after pilgrimages to Elaphantes and Mysore, they settled in Kengeri, Bangalore, the garden spot of India. But this was only to last until 1958 when Fr. Bede joined Fr. Francis Acharya in Kurisumala for ten years. Fr. Bede said of life at Kengeri, "It was too Western."

Kurisumala, 1955-1968

The Mountain of the Cross (Kurisumala Ashram) was located on 100 acres of donated land in the ghats of Kerala. Fathers Francis and Bede used the Syriac rite and developed a fitting monastic liturgy in that language. Wanting to enter into the tradition of Indian Sannyasa (monk hood) and to establish a Christian ashram, they dressed in Kavi orange robes, and Fr.Bede took the Sanskrit name, Dhayananda. During his time there, Fr. Bede wrote Christ in India and studied the religions and culture of India which he had loved from the start. In 1963, Bede Griffiths was invited to New Mexico to give lectures at an East-West Dialogue Meeting. During this same trip to America, he was interviewed by CBS, and gave lectures to 500 Missionary Sisters at Maryknoll, N.Y.

Shantivanam, 1968-1993

Shantivanam, the ashram in Tamil Nadu dedicated to the most Holy Trinity, (hence the name in Sanskrit: Saccidananda), had been founded in 1950 by two French priests: Fr. Jules Monchanin, a diocesan missionary, and Fr. Henry leSaux (Abhishiktananda) from the Abbey of Kergonan. Fr. Monchanin arrived in India in 1939 and first lived with the Bishop, then in a rectory in Kulithalai. Only in 1948 did a donor offer a few acres in Trichy near the Kavery River where he and Abhishiktananda began worshipping in a tiny chapel that they had built with their own hands in Indian style. They used English, Sanskrit and Tamil in their liturgies, meeting three times daily for common prayer, using scriptures of the different religions, using the Roman rite themselves. They lived in thatched huts, the real poverty of the poor in India. On October 10, 1957, Fr.Monchanin died in France where he had gone for surgery. Abhishik stayed on at Shantivanam but travelled up to the caves in the Himalayas off and on until he asked in 1968 that someone from Kurismula come and he retired to the North. His heart gave out in Rishikesh and he died December 7, 1973.

In 1968, Father Bede Griffiths arrived at Shantivanam from Kurisumala with two other monks and again immersed himself in the study of Indian thought, attempting to relate it to Christian theology. He went on pilgrimage and studied Hinduism with Raimundo Panikkar. Under Fr. Bede's guidance Shantivanam became a center of contemplative life, of inculturation, and of inter religious dialogue. He contributed greatly to the development of Indian Christian Theology. In 1973 he published Vedanta and the Christian Faith. The first copies of Return to the Center arrived in time to be the centerpiece in the temple kolam for Father's 70th Birthday, December l7, 1976.

In 1979, our monastic East-West Dialogue Board, NABEWD, invited Fr. Bede to come be a "roving lecturer" in our American Monasteries. The fruit of this became his volume entitled, The Cosmic Revelation, most of which lectures he gave at Conception Abbey in Missouri. Again in 1981, the Board invited Fr. Griffiths to come be keynote speaker at our Conference, "Formation and Transformation from an Eastern Perspective," in Kansas City, Kansas. The fruit of this became the set of audio tapes from Credence called, "Riches from the East." Back at his ashram in South India, Fr. Bede gave daily teachings on the Vedas, homilies at Eucharist and Vespers, throwing shafts of penetrating light into the Christian mystery. His complete commentary on the Bhagaavad Gita appeared in 1987 under the title, "Rivers of Compassion." By 1989, Fr. Bede had completed another volume called The New Vision of Reality, which together with The Marriage of East and West, (1952), is his most popular. The latter has been translated into some six languages. In between the books he authored, there were countless conferences and articles he penned by hand together with voluminous mail.

Illness and Mahasamadhi

On January 25, 1990 Bede Griffiths suffered a first stroke in his hut at Shantivanam. One month to the day in February, he was cured in a struggle with death and divine love. He later described this as an intense mystical experience. By May of that same year he was in the USA. Among many other lectures and conferences he gave the John Main Lectures at New Harmony, Indiana, now published as The New Creation in Christ. Soon afterward, Fr. Bede completed his final work, not yet published, Universal Wisdom. He visited the USA again in 1991 and 1992, giving roving lectures before going to England, Germany and Australia. While in Australia he met with His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, and the exchange was enriching for both. Afterwards Fr. Bade said, "I do believe he liked me!" He took the long way home, giving more lectures in Germany and England. His heart was fluttering but he was always energized by all that went through him. He arrived back at his ashram in S. India in October. An Australian film team was awaiting him. "A Human Search" was successfully completed just three days before his final stroke on December 20th - three days after his 86th Birthday. On January 24, Bede Griffiths had a series of strokes which finally brought him to his Mahasamadhi on May 13, in his hut at Shantivanam in South India, surrounded with much tender loving care. Father Bede Griffiths was laid to rest nearby the temple, next to one of his first disciples, Fr. Amaldas, who, half Father's age, died some years before him.