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Presented
by Fr.Lancelot
Pereira
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To
turn to the second passage. In his letter to the people of Ephesus
(Eph.3: 18-19), Paul prays that God the Father may give to each
one "the strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height
and the depth; so that knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond
knowledge, you may be filled with the utter fullness of God".
Note the paradox: knowledge of love, which is beyond knowledge.
Paul conceptualizes Jesus who is the Christ under the strange
symbol of a multi-dimensional 'cube' without graspable boundaries
of knowledge, love and fullness.
 Paul
and John were Easterners and their approach does not rely on
anemic, logical constructions. Once more, then, we are presented
with a rich vastness for Indian approaches to work on - advaita,
for instance, which is really an experience born of the clarity
of inner light and beyond all words. Words, in any case, may
draw others to parallel the experience, but by themselves they
are incapable of reaching the depth of truth. It is very Indian
even to admit that! |
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| Advaita
and the wonder of Jesus |
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An
important feature of the wonder of Jesus is that he discovered
alone through his own inner experience, and independently,
what we Indians recognize as the non-dual heart of the Upanishads.
Even more wonderful is it that this was achieved against his
strongly dualistic Jewish background. Hence the speculation
(which has no historical foundation) that he must have come
to India as an adult before returning to teach in Palestine!
In any case, it is abundantly clear that Jesus is as much
a mystic as a prophet, shuttling easily in his teachings between
the dualistic needs of his Jewish audience and the non-dualistic
experiences of his inner life (e.g., "I and the Father are
one"; "I am the vine, you are the branches"). And he was put
to death because of his mystic utterances…
Much of what follows is quoted almost verbatim - and with
some quite minor rearrangements - from the work of two famous
Christian scholars. The books used are Swami Abhishiktananda's
'Ascent to the Depths of the Heart' and Raimundo Panikkar's
'Myth, Faith and Hermeneutics'. The former is stronger on
the inner experience of Jesus, but both adapt advaita to understand
Trinity, the relationship of Jesus to the Father, the world
and us, and, finally and especially, the advaitic approach
to person and to love (human and divine).
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Obviously
all one can provide here is a small taste, a 'pickle - relish'
rather than a satisfying meal. So here goes:
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An Advaitin is established in the supreme and unique I (Aham-
Brahman). Yet this I, by the very fact of being the I implies,
brings forth, a Thou as its necessary counterpart.The Thou
is the consciousness that the I not only has but is. In fact,
this I knows Himself, but His Knowledge is none other than
the Knower.
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There is nothing other than the Father, nothing other than
the Son, nothing other than the Holy Spirit. Each is Purnam,
Sarvam, fullness, totality. Each is a - Dvitiya (without -
a - second). This experience of the advaita of the Divine
Persons is grounded in the experience of one's own advaita.
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In discovering the Father, Jesus has not found an 'other'
(I and the Father are one, he said). In the only Spirit he
has discovered his non-duality with the Father; it is the
Spirit that is the link, the non-duality.
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The Mystery of the Trinity is a revelation of my own depth.
Jesus has lived this depth-called 'Divine -Human'- at an intensely
deep level. Jesus revealed to the human being what he is,
what everyone is.
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The essence of the person is relationship; my person is nothing
but a relation with the I. Properly speaking, the place of
my personality is within the single Thou of the unique I.
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I love you, my beloved, because I am that love of God, which
makes you, my beloved, to be. I love you, simply, for in you
I discover the Absolute as the very subject loving in me.
I love you as you are - i.e., insofar as you really are- the
Absolute. There cannot be a more personal love.
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'Come' is the call to the Ultimate to love, to Advaita through
Bhakti. "Tat Tvam Asi". A Thou you are, Svetaketu. We are in
as far as we are the Thou, the Tvam of the One. |
This
Christmas we can wish each other a happy, holy and really enjoyable
Jesus-Birthday celebration. You can do no better than to ascend
to the depths of your own heart and discover that you too are
a 'son in the Son' (daughters, of course, equally acceptable!).
Recognize that you could already begin to enjoy the non-dual existence
you have in the womb of a Love beyond all telling. For some this
is an awareness (Jnana); for others a grace (as in Bhakti), but
does it really matter? The awareness is already a grace. Happy
Birthday Awakening!
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