Evolution of Love 2

TRANSCENDING CHRISTIANITY

The French Catholic monk Swami Abhishiktananda, the time he spent at Arunachala - leading to a deep enlightenment experience towards the end of his life.

He had darshan of Bhagavan in 1949, and in the early 1950s, he came back to Arunachala to spend time meditating in its caves. An account of his meeting with Bhagavan (who made a huge and very positive impression on him) and the months he spent meditating in the caves of Arunachala can be found in his book ‘The Secret of Arunachala’ which was published in the late 1970s, a few years after its author had passed away.

Before coming to India Swami Abhishiktananda had spent more than twenty years as a Benedictine monk in a French monastery, where he was known as Father Henri le Saux. After some time in India, he adopted the robes and lifestyle of a Hindu sannyasi and called himself ‘Swami Abhishiktananda’. Despite the change of outfit and name, for many years he clung tenaciously to the basic tenets of the Catholic faith that he had been brought up in, feeling that the highest Christian experience and teachings were superior to their Hindu counterparts.

In 1973 he had a heart attack on the streets of Rishikesh that left him unconscious and temporarily paralyzed. When he finally recovered his faculties, he instantly became aware that the Abhishiktananda who had held tightly to Catholic doctrine throughout his life had vanished, leaving just an impersonal experience of the underlying ‘I am’. This is how he wrote about it in letters to friends:

‘Who can bear the glory of transfiguration, of man's dying as transfigured; because what Christ is I AM! One can only speak of it after being awoken from the dead … .

‘It was a remarkable spiritual experience … While I was waiting on my sidewalk, on the frontier of the two worlds, I was magnificently calm, for I AM, no matter what in the world! I have found the GRAIL!’ (‘Swami Abhishiktananda’, by James Stuart, ISPCK, 1989, p. 346)

The finding of the grail was inextricably linked to losing all the previous concepts he had had about Christ and the Church. Commenting on this experience in the same book, he wrote:

‘So long as we have not accepted the loss of all concepts, all myths – of Christ, of the Church – nothing can be done.’

From this new experiential standpoint, he was able to say, from direct experience, that it was the ‘I’, rather than a collection of sectarian teachings and beliefs, that gave reality to God:

‘I really believe that the revelation of AHAM [“I”] is perhaps the central point of the Upanishads. And that is what give access to everything; the “knowing” which reveals all “knowing”. God is not known, Jesus is not known, nothing is known outside this terribly solid AHAM that I am. From that alone all true teaching gets its value.’(‘Swami Abhishiktananda’, by James Stuart, ISPCK, 1989, p. 358)

In addition to writing several books that attempted to bridge the gap between Hinduism and Christianity, Abhishiktananda had been a regular contributor to seminars and conferences on the future development of Indian Christianity. After his great experience, he received an invitation to attend a Muslim gathering in France to give a Christian point of view. In declining the invitation, he revealed how all his old ideas had been swept away, and how he no longer felt able to expound a specifically Christian viewpoint:

‘The more I go [on], the less able I would be to present Christ in a way which would still be considered as Christian … For Christ is first an idea which comes to me from outside. Even more after my “beyond life/death experience” of 14.7 [.73] I can only aim at awakening people to what “they are”. Anything about God or the Word in any religion, which is not based on the deep “I” experience, is bound to be simple “notion”, not existential.

‘I am interested in no Christology at all. I have so little interest in a Word of God which will awaken man within history … The Word of God comes from/to my own “present”; it is that very awakening which is my self-awareness. What I discover above all in Christ is his “I AM” … it is that I AM experience which really matters. Christ Is the very mystery “That I AM”, and in the experience and existential knowledge all Christology has disintegrated.’ (‘Swami Abhishiktananda’, by James Stuart, ISPCK, 1989, pp. 348-9)

Then, confirming that a lifetime’s convictions had been dropped, he went on to explain that the final Christian experience of ‘I am’ could not differ from its Hindu equivalent:

‘What would be the meaning of a “Christianity-coloured” awakening? In the process of awakening all this coloration cannot but disappear … The coloration might vary according to the audience, but the essential goes beyond. The discovery of Christ’s I AM is the ruin of any Christian theology, for all notions are burned within the fire of experience … I feel too much, more and more, the blazing fire of this I AM in which all notions about Christ's personality, ontology, history, etc. have disappeared.’ (‘Swami Abhishiktananda’, by James Stuart, ISPCK, 1989, p. 349)

After a lifetime of meditation and research he had finally conceded that no explanation or experience could impinge on the fundamental reality, ‘I am’. Years before he had predicted that this standpoint would be the inevitable consequence of a full experience of ‘I am’:

‘Doctrines, laws, and rituals are only of value as signposts, which point the way to what is beyond them. One day in the depths of his spirit man cannot fail to hear the sound of the I am uttered by He-who-is. He will behold the shining of the Light whose only source is itself, is himself, is the unique Self … What place is then left for ideas, obligations or acts of worship of any kind whatever?’ (‘Saccidananda’ by Abhishiktananda, ISPCK, 1974, p. 46)

‘When the Self shines forth, the “I” that has dared to approach can no longer recognize its own self or preserve its own identity in the midst of that blinding light. It has, so to speak, vanished from its own sight. Who is left to be in the presence of Being itself. The claim of Being is absolute … All the later developments of the [Jewish] religion - doctrine, laws and worship – are simply met by the advaitin with the words originally revealed to Moses on Mount Horeb, “I am that I am”.’