Search for religious consensus

BEYOND THE DARKNESS - A Biography of Bede Griffiths: Shirley Du Boulay; Rider, London. Available from Random House U.K. Ltd., 20, Vauxhale Bridge Road, London SWIV.2.S.A. £5.30.

THIS IS a paperback edition of the original biography of Bede Griffiths, the Benedictine monk who settled down and lived for decades until his end at Shantivanam, a few miles from Tiruchi.

The biographer was educated at the Royal College of Music and worked for the Religious Department of BBC TV. She has written several important books like The Road to Canterbury, A Modern Pilgrimage, Teresa of Avila and a much acclaimed biography of Archbishop of South Africa who figured recently as the chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up by Nelson Mandela when the latter was the President of South Africa.

The book was entitled, Tutu, The Archibishop Without Frontiers. All this is evidence of the quality and character of her writing. There is depth, insight, elegance and a sensitive awareness of things which do not bear much talking about like matters of faith, inspiration and feeling.

Bede Griffiths studied at Oxford, where he became a close friend of the great Professor C. S. Lewis, whose career and character were both remarkable. Lewis was a professor and teacher of English literature.

But he wrote thoughtful and stimulating religious books like The Screwtape Letters, The Pilgrim's Regress, Miracles and God in the Dock. One would imagine that the journey from literature to religion was something predestined. His book in the Oxford History of English Literature entitled The Sixteenth Century was a unique achievement altogether.

That Bede Griffiths and C. S. Lewis met and came so close to each other is interesting because it would seem that the pursuit of literature is a pursuit of truth about life and living, at one remove. Lewis did not join any monastic order but he was far more influential than many in monastic orders.

Bede Griffith's discovery of India was an event of great importance not merely in his life but in the history of religion. He strove hard and nearly succeeded in promoting a realisation that true religion is beyond theology and churches and that the quest of God inevitably breaks the barriers and frontiers erected at so many points in man's journey by theologians.

The contact between the East and the West, in the sphere of religion is a process of mutual enrichment, not of mutual estrangement. The title of the book under review, taken from Svetaswetara Upanishad, a favourite with Bede, is significant. The verse runs as follows:

I know that great Purusha
Of the brightness of the Sun
Beyond the Darkness
Only by knowing Him does one
go beyond Death

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Features
Previous : Citizen and the state
Next     : Contemporary social theory