(written in 2003)
I had the opportunity to meet an Indian Fr. Sebastian Periannan recently, who I had first met in the Philippines about 13 years ago. He was recently invited to join a seminar entitled “The Youth and Internet.” Along with two other speakers, he presented his pastoral view on the youth and the Internet. His simple, friendly, honest, and humorous gestures made me interested in Indian Christian Spirituality. I would like to share with you some of the points regarding Indian Spirituality based on his special lecture for 13 local journalists.
Indian Christian Spirituality has three paths: love, wisdom, and action. These three ways of spirituality hold prayer or meditation as experiences of the now. Prayer is also an experience of personal, social, dynamic, cosmic, and loving relationships. The most important way is, of course, love or devotion. This love lets us be deeply concerned about human beings. In fact, another name of God is love.
The second path is wisdom, which leads to meditation or contemplation. This wisdom resulted in the union of everything _ nature, man, God, and everything else. The knowledge of God beyond sense and reason leads to a communion of love and communicates life, light, and love with the help of the Holy Spirit.
The third path is action or liberation. Ritual and social actions are signs of salvation. Their fruits are justice, peace, freedom, and harmony in life, which have been revealed by Tagore, Gandhi, and Mother Teresa. With these three ways of spirituality, Indian Christians try to reach out to the ultimate reality of living presence. I think the dynamic ways of love, wisdom, and action are also related to our spirituality as well.
It is also interesting to see the main elements of Indian spirituality. Characteristic elements of spirituality are as follows: experience, interiority (intuition, contemplation, mysticism), mystery of being, divine presence in all things, pilgrimage to seek God's universal presence, renunciation (non-possession), and non-attachment, sacrifice, emptying and offering of oneself, liberation or unconditional offering, wholeness (personal and communitarian integrity and totality), cosmic harmony, silence, lifestyle, and discernment. All these keywords show the importance of inner and personal experience. Being in the present moment in harmony with everything is more crucial than theory and material development.
Indian people rather emphasize the present moment. A story describes how people of different countries would take their life: Three presidents came to the Father in heaven. American president proudly said “we landed on the moon in 1969”; Russian president also said “we made the submarine to go deep into the sea”; however, the Indian president said, “I just came to see you.” This little story tells us the first priority for being, presence, contemplation, love, and harmony.
Indian Christians also practice various ways of deepening their spirituality. They say “om” representing the omniscient power of God in the universe. Through prayer during sunset or sunrise, they try to realize God through self-realization. They enjoy meditating by sitting erect, inhaling and exhaling regularly and deeply, or looking at something with concentration.
Above anything else, listening, reflection and interiorization bring about deep peace and communion. So, they practice yoga to realize the harmony of life embracing all aspects of life. Physical well-being, mental harmony, and spiritual happiness lead to the integration of personality. The European way of existence is “I think. Therefore, I am”; the African way is “I dance. Therefore, I am”; but the Asian way is “I meditate. Therefore, I am.”
Making use of images and music is to be in union with God. So, their liturgy is quite well uncultured in society. They believe the heart is important because everything starts from the heart. It is the source of prayer, the spring of desire and longing, and the center of communication. Hidden mysteries are revealed in the depths of the heart. Surely, meditation with the help of yoga helps to contemplate the heart and the ultimate presence of being. Nothing could make up for this inner mysterious world.
Once upon a time, a story goes, there was a tribe of cannibals in the mountains. The people of this tribe ate human flesh as their main food. If they caught hold of somebody, then that day was a feast day for the entire tribe because they could eat the human flesh. One day, this group caught a gentleman to be killed and eaten.
But fortunately, they had a good custom; before killing a person they gave them a chance to ask one question to the chief of the tribe. So, this gentleman asked the chief of the tribe one question. “Have you got any education to kill me or other human beings and eat?” The chief of the tribe answered, “Yes, I was educated in the United States of America. Before my education, we ate people with our hands, but after my education, we use a knife and fork to eat them.”
It's true that any amount of education, development or material success will not bring true peace to us. Peace and communion come from the heart, our inner cosmic world.
The Korea Times/ Thoughts of the Times/ May 14, 2003
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