Chapter 1: What experiences shaped Bede Griffiths' understanding of nature?
I liked the solitude and silence of the woods and the hills. I felt there the sense of a presence, something undefined and mysterious, which was reflected in the faces of the flowers and the movements of the birds and animals, in the sunlight falling through the leaves, and in the sound of the running water, in the wind blowing on the hills and the wide expanse of earth and sky.
I was suddenly made aware of another world of beauty and mystery. such as I had never imagined to exist, except in poetry. It was as though I had begun to see and smell and hear for the first time. The world appeared to me as Wordsworth describes, with the glory and freshness of a dream.
The side of a wild rose growing on a hedge, the scent of lime tree blossoms, caught suddenly as I rode down a hill on a bicycle, came to me like visitations from another world. But it was not only my senses that were awakened.
Chapter 2: How did Bede Griffiths relate Indian thought to Christian theology?
I experienced an overwhelming emotion in the presence of nature, especially at evening. It began to have a kind of sacramental character for me. I approached it with a sense of almost religious awe. And in a hush that comes before sunset, I felt again the presence of an almost unfathomable mystery. The song of the birds, the shape of the trees,
the colours of the sunset, were so many signs of the presence which seemed to be drawing me to itself. I felt the need to surrender to the mother. And this gave me the experience of being overwhelmed by love. I realized that surrendering to death and dying to oneself is surrendering to total love.
The feminine in me opened up and a whole new vision opened.
Chapter 3: What is the significance of surrendering to love according to Bede Griffiths?
I saw love as the basic principle of the whole universe. God had brought me to my knees and made me acknowledge my own nothingness. And out of that knowledge I had been reborn. I was no longer the center of my life and therefore I could see God in everything. I saw God in the earth, in trees, in mountains. It led me to the conviction that there is no absolute good or evil in this world.
We have to let go of all concepts which divide the world into good and evil, right and wrong, and begin to see the complementarity of opposites. We are born into this world of division and disintegration. Beyond it all is this undivided wholeness and it is that wholeness which we are all seeking. We are all fragmented.
Chapter 4: How does Bede Griffiths define the concept of wholeness?
but we have this longing for the whole, for the one. All the weaknesses we find in ourselves and all the things that upset us, we tend to try to push aside and get rid of. But we cannot do this We have to accept it and allow grace to come and heal it all. That is the great secret of suffering. Not to push it back, but to open to the depths of the unconscious.
and to realize that we are not isolated individuals when we meditate, but are entering into the whole inheritance of the human family. To enter deeply into meditation is to enter into the mystery of suffering love. It is to encounter the woundedness of our human nature. We are all deeply wounded from our infancy
Chapter 5: What practices does Bede Griffiths recommend for spiritual growth?
and bear these wounds in the unconscious. It is first of all necessary to accept our woundedness, opening these depths of the unconsciousness and exposing them to light, and thus to realize that this is part of the wound of humanity. Perseverance is the essential requirement in our practice.
It has to be done day by day, week by week, year by year, until the mind is brought to the still point where it is open to the grace of God. You must be ready to give up everything, Not only material attachments, but also human attachments.
Father, mother, partner, children, everything that you have.
But the one thing which you have to abandon unconditionally is yourself.