The Relics are coming

Ollie Ollie Ollie, Aylesbury oh oh oh. Only the most important religious event since the Council of Diamper. I exaggerate not. She is the most beautiful woman well young gel rather who has ever been, generations to come will scarce imagine that one such as her ever walked the earth. Once upon a time when I master the art of time travel I visit her at an Italian Train Station and all I was trying to do Officer was lift her up out of the carriage onto the station but she took it as some student oik trying to carry her orf. It was worth it sir just for the look she gave me. The Princess in Chief of the Legion de Petits. Our commander-in-chief. Ok I am not worthy but that's the whole thing with the Legion, we get the cast-offs the ones no one else wants. Now every now and then I think I should join up with the lioness cub, Leoni la Pauvree. She is like her sister only really camp. She eloped to join the Poor Clares. Then when her family came to visit she showed them her beautiful baby blues the last time adding no one on earth shall see them again, it's a poor clare thing. Within six months she was back home in tears. I thought I was a serial postulant. Leoni is our Patron Saint. As for miracles, the visit of the Relics, and I think you only get an arm and a leg, rest stays in France, has averted wars, it shall end H1N1, you name it. Safest place on earth during a nuclear attack is to be next to the Relics. I found another book of her autobiography, the unabridged version translated from the French version of the 70s. Fell in love all over again I did. Look I know I am not very good with the whole saint thing, but I remain un de sa Legion de Petits, Beau Dezie, mwah mwah. Do you forgive me Ma'am.

Yeah I am a little annoyed with life

So the adviser wasn't just resting on hols near Lisieux. He is now being accused of indirect mental bullying and abuse and yada yada. Apparently the Cousins have by divine right received a direct communication from my mother that she wants them to give only the interest on some of the money she left for me, because otherwise bad things will happen, possibly to do with global warming their reasons change like the weather, which I was glad to hear was bad for them, unless they went to Roumania to spend my money generously on wedding gifts there. I am sure my mother is in heaven and filled with forgiving grace. But as soldier saints are never supposed to ask, what do I get out of all this. Holding out for a surprise U turn from the OIAHE. The senior reviewer returns tomorrow. The last deadline of TVU having been passed 15 days ago she will no doubt give another reason why they can't now investigate. If I were her I'd go for timed out but since I am going to appeal on article 6 grounds against the OIAHE, ah that's the problem when you play politics instead of trying to do your dharma. So Spiritual direction with Jose tomorrow or day after. I shall apply to Delhi for OCI so Ill let Oliver stand down which proves my point if you wait long enough we can all stand down. A bit pissed off with life, but still a little hope. The last Sannyasi class the priests said after during break we just let him talk we listen then forget. So I decided to challenge him harder next period. He talks of a beautiful religious way of living that is relationship with others, and we are in a seminary where authority slams down on anyone who tries to think. He gets away with it because he is very old and is very talented. I have been trying to sort out my next class and explaining the problem to Jose. I shall check out an MA in Syriac at Kottayam. It may be a big city but hopefully less people will have heard of it and I'd hate to bump into a shopper I know in Bangalore. I have resisted the urge to purchase another Kurti, I attribute it all to the prayers merits and graces of Therese and Leonie la Pauvree

kurti pjs

So finally Fr Jose insists I stop wearing the torn jeans thing he is not buying into the whole I wear a costume. And I purchase two Kurt PJs whitish colour of renunciation and if before I was getting the namaskars now they are certain I am some kind of priest. My main problem though is I now have the desire to purchase another one. They cost 8 quid each 640 rupiyah. But I don't need another one. I really have too many clothes now. This must be how a woman feels all the time.

Theory and Practice

So Cyriac the elderly professor knows it is talk. I offered the short observation that the model of Word - Body, that God so loved us, with all his being, with all he has with all he does, a love that inspires us to love him with all our being, possessions and deeds, a love crucifying us upwards to the Father and sideways to God's people, by their right not our generosity, well transferred to the vow of obedience is very inspiring. Those with the knack listen to the body to discern the Word. But once we move to St Paul the Superior is the head the community the body. The husband is the head the family the body it moves from a religious truth to a political fudge. The metaphor derives from the Roman Republic a Senator's attempt to quell early rebellion just as the Vedas subdued lower castes and dalits/tribals via their legend. The Brahmans are born from the head, Kshatriyas from the chest, the traders from the arms and the Shudras from the feet. He accepted the point. But what was more interesting is later on. Several priests and nuns started saying but in community the Superior makes a decision then has the discussion. Or he asks for our advice and then tells us you discern I decide. This we pass on to the Parish. So yes a change in consciousness is required true metanoia. A higher form of thinking. And it has not yet come not to the Church not to Humanity. It is now and not yet. Ah well.

At least they talk openly here. They are all pgs and no longer worry about being kicked out of the seminary before they become ordained. I have my ticket to visit Sri Lanka to renew my visa. Still waiting for news about who of the many people managing my money on my behalf wants the honour of paying the 700 pound fees. Sometimes if you want something done it's better to do it yourself. Don't know about you guys but I don't see any benefit in my handing over any more funds to anyone to invest for me. I have nothing against the theory because everyone says it's my money just say how much you need and whenever I do ask, the last excuses were I can't be bothered with your request my mother-in-law is seriously ill (though she seemed in the perfect picture of health when I saw her a few days later), I am not taking requests from you because you are an emotional bully, tell him to learn to live within his means, now even the person I asked to ask for me is busy, but keeps telling me not to worry because he thinks they are coming round. Coming to round to what is the question he never seems to answer.

Now peeps I appreciate this whining over things that do not really exist, that in so far as they do exist belong to God by right not to anyone else, and if push comes to shove, I just return home, take control of my own assets in my own name and then if they really want to try and outlive me to take possession of my inheritance, good luck to them. If I run out of cash I get a shyster to recover what's mine. And if I don't I have enough of my own sins and failings to worry about, nothing was mine, nothing I have given was mine, nothing I have done was mine. Best not to boast of holiness or complain about sinfulness. We end up being crabs in a bucket.

Oh but I have identified a most beautiful Syriac Grammar 30 pounds sterling paperback in the West. If they can get it here it will be 300 rupees.

Shuf ya

So Today's Deccan Herald. It's on the front page but the headline. A minor age given as 14 but probably younger was bought four weeks ago by Mr Salam a billionaire hotel chain owner in Mumbhai. He didn't realise there was anything wrong in this most people have young gels to do for them about the house. She was locked in the appartment when the owners left. Yesterday she fell from the fourth floor balcony while attempting a daring escape. While she is lying on the pavement bleeding with multiple injuries including dislocated pelvis (those kids are tough) and responding to a tip off, the local child protection officer Geo De Souza (George the Goan I guess) takes her to Hospital for treatment and files a report with the police. A colleague of Mr Salam said to reporters everybody does it why is my friend being brought to book. I think I can answer that one. Because the young gel in this instance fell from a fourth story balcony and now has multiple internal injuries and it's in the middle of a busy pavement in Mumbhai. If the man can't lock up his own slaves properly then a little embarrassment might encourage him to introduce stronger security measures. Any money you like nothing else will happen to him. So Fr Jose and he is coming to AP with me on 4 October to see the Prema Seva Ashram and check out possibilities for a school. He has invited me to their many projects in the area but I am passing. It's like going to a tea dance for singles when you have just gotten married. Not in itself a sin against charity but why do you still want to go to tea dances to see singles now you is married hmm. As I was saying Fr Jose says these things are not about caste really they are about poverty, India doesn't have a caste problem so much as a poverty problem. An cake is a cake no matter which way you slice it.

Which brings me I did attend a delightful Onam pre-party. The women of Kerala are the most beautiful in the world (in Indian philosophy an affirmation does not automatically produce a negation, the women of Andhra are also the most beautiful women in the world, Lambadi are also etc). They like gold, one newly wed showed me her Talli cross, for hindus it's a pendant on a string for Kerala Xtians it's a gold ingot with an etched cross on a gold chain. So while chatting over breakfast about whether I should consider shaving dressing better to attract wimin. In the course of discussing superficialities powerful though these things are, the real problem would be whether she would take to the proposition, whaddya say we sell all the gold and any presents we might have taken be spent on Lambadi child scholarships, let the children be our gold. Treasures in the kindom of heaven hmm. There is always one slightly bewildered woman for whom this sounds utterly utterly.

But then gold is an odd element. No one makes money investing in it but when you are in dire straits it's always just enough to bail you out if you have any to sell. That or trusting in God and Providence. Reminds me of the difference between a placement or a partnership. In a partnership the local boys say so what resources is your company bringing can we access it's agencies and funds and you say oh no in response to the dire straits my agency have sent me one highly twained professional. But surely if you tell them. Nope they already know and they sent me. God's like that. You ask him for help. You explain we are surrounded by the foe, supplies minimal, out of ammo for God's sake send help. And some idjit turns up with the same response. My grace is sufficient.

Ah well Uncle John returns from Lisieux today tomorrow he will bring news, probably along the lines of God's grace is sufficient mind. And don't start me on what that elderly prof Fr Cyriac said about our most beloved Contessa St Teresa of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. I shan't repeat it it was about her sexuality. As you can imagine. In another age the class would have broken up in duelling and seconds, chaos. Today I figured she can defend herself and sometimes we suffer not because we love but because we can't resist the urge to be a smartarse smartypants nahneenahneenahnah.

That old chestnut

First Oliver you hero, once I get the photocopies together I shall email you. I figure if I don't get OCI then I'll just wander about S E Asia as a tourist. Also I am beginning to realise that most problems or jobs in life either go away or get done by someone else or you wish you hadn't done them so it's often better to do nothing. Having said that I will probably call upon your assistance some time in December this year, there is some magic figure of 12 weeks and I return in March but I have come to realize the details don't matter because closer to the day everything changes.

So I asked the elderly prof now we were getting along and all, since Chastity properly understood had nothing to do with celibacy, celibacy being accidental while chastity essential. Chastity being for God and God's People in love so that God and God's people can love you back with being possessions and deeds. And since the gift of our sexuality had to be accepted and integrated, and since suppression, avoidance, sublimation and transcendence are essentially dishonest ways to approach this gift, what about homosexuals who are celibates, if they aren't going to express their sexuality should they too accept and integrate it into their religious lives. At which point he stated no because homosexuality is really like depression or Hodgkin's disease and being a moral disorder of the Will was a sure sign that the person did not have a vocation to a canonical religious life, although we should approach with compassion etc. When I pointed out that DSM IV no longer treated homosexuality as a disease he still maintained in the case of homosexuality the sexuality is disordered and cannot be redeemed I did mutter and take a look around the room but he probably didn't hear it he is more than a little deaf and they use that voice contraption (oh it's a microphone we have them in blighty but never really seen lecturers depend on them so much). He didn't feel the question of integration and acceptance was relevant because they would not have a religious vocation. I am not there to argue with the man the question seemed clarified. Now in the break of course peeps approach me and say so what do you think one word about homosexuality. I said Hypocrisy. We got into a frank exchange where I think by pure force of will and unable to stand the breeze my priestly opponent accepted that the Church had as much competence to rule on what is and what is not a mental illness as they did on determining whether the Sun went round the earth or vice-versa. And clearly there are many priests and religious who are homosexual. I remember as my parthian shot which apparently was once north indian, but before the Brits came and there was an India mind, bit like China's view of its boundaries hmm. I said well I am sure it is an important discussion but not one that will be had today coz no one is going to say anything. And then this other priest in the back first thing at restart asks for clarification on homosexuality with reference to the recent supreme court decision which decriminalized the act for the first time in India since the Victorian Age, and the trend in the modern world etc. To which the elderly priest said it was an important issue but he didn't have the expertise to clarify it for us and he asked him to press the course Director for such an expert to come forward. Good for him.

I think asking a few questions makes the class more interesting. What I hates is when someone thinks asking questions is the new silent note taking and they say oh what about Micah, oh what about Amos, oh what about, that's not really a set of intelligent questions designed to draw us deeper into mystery. They have their brains in their uteruses if you ask me.

So I thought he might be insane

The elderly highly respected aren't they all, prof stops half way and complains to the Sisters that women have brains in their uteri, where as male brains are in their head. Women's brains are reproductive men's creative. We need both he is not judging but they are better off as primary school teachers they will never understand theology the best they can hope to do is repeat what he says but how he wishes they could truly understand like a man. Ok not quite like that but pretty much. So I had to interject is this not Father what they say in the west of Indians that White People can do research but Indians just repeat what the teacher says like children. Of course the shock sigh was heard around the class. Then the old man says perhaps, you see the Greeks were navigators, they used abstract thought to navigate the seas, whereas Indians live in Mountains and plains we are more concrete. You have a point but we need both types of thinking. From then on I loved him. A very interesting idea. Total renunciation.

Things are progressing slowly. I think a year's retreat will be good. I have come to realise that my brother is temporarily insane. Mere greed. My cousins are probably just very stupid. I am far more content now outwith achieving and with more freedom than I have ever known. Plus Mumsie owes me and she pays her debts.

I am not expecting any conflict we cannot handle and when I say we I mean God and all his armies I'll be in my tent taking Tiffin if anyone needs to let me know when it's over.

Beats Work

So we had four lectures five minute breaks between each ten minutes for tea half way. It's like a guided retreat. I can cope with it. Much more meditative after the last few weeks. It's a lot different studying with Injians. I'll need time to change gear. At the end several suggested you'd probably need a lot of theology to follow the lecture. Perhaps I shouldn't have dismissed the comments so abruptly but what was there to follow. Lovely stuff, a bit too idealistic perhaps, too sermon on the mount. But as the lecturer put it. This is basic theology what we should return to before attempting formation spirituality.
All he was saying was that true religion was God using the metaphor of Word incarnating to forge a relationship with Humanity. Word and Flesh. Baptism incorporates us into that WordyFlesh. Synthetically God is WordFlesh, analytically God and Humanity but what we do to one now Worship for example we automatically must do to t'other. Christologically incarnation and resurrection are the metaphor for this relationship. Ecclesially it is the Eucharist, Word made Bread. Personally it is consecration and worship namaskar the doing of not mine. Yeah I guess maybe I take my theology for granted. But it seemed straightforward enough. What he objected too was even the word formation, the recruitment of objects to fill posts. So if we wanted to train a bus conductor we'd tell him the money you get each day for tickets isn't yours you have to hand it in, modern training in poverty, the wimin you get to see each day are not to be molested, modern training in chastity, and follow company guidelines on health and safety, obedience. He has a point. What we are supposed to do via baptism is become unforgettable memory for God, as the love poets put it, unforgettable memory for the other, so that by disappearing in total surrender because this is the right of the other not our gift. Once we accept the total love of God, it's all very John of the Cross, Mine are the heavens mine the earth saints are mine sinners mine. I guess I do have a good grounding in theology. The style though was several hours of lecture. They describe him as Socratic because every now and then he repeats the last sentence and asks peeps to fill in the missing word. I purchased Counsels of Light and Love by Juan de la Cruz intro by Tommy Merton because it cost 105 rupees. And I ordered Gitanjali for tomorrow because max it will be 400 rupees. I should feel bad about my designer Lunghi (not the Cherie type) but I am not ready for total surrender just yet. I am still hoping to dream dreams of beatitude with the widow. First things first. I am pretty sure I am better off with God even if it may not seem that way to those in the world. I am not turning all holy again, I am just saying that when they talk of love, well there might be something in it, and I am with Pascal on this one, if you are gonna make an incredibly stupid bet with all your life savings because of the rush, then you are probably better off putting it all on God rather than Mitzi the ex-stripper turned sex guidance counsellor who says that you have sad beautiful eyes. How does that make me all holy, hmm.

next steps

Today I joing second year Formative Spirituality and Counselling, I have been advised and not for the first time perhaps just to listen for the first few weeks and not to ask any questions. It's a lot harder to regain the cover of Mary Wrigglesworth gentle housewife-knitter crochet artiste after it has been blown, but also very simple. That's the plan.
Then for October a week visit to the Prema Seva Ashram see how many of my kids have survived. The priest is back to building each to their own. This one says they set up schools anyway there's a possibility they could set one up for the Lambadis. For now it's a hostel, they learn to attend western style there and learn to stop being gypsies. But with a Carmelite school and Tribal/Dalit theology now being a force they might be able to recover being gypsies and get a degree. Steady there Dezie, he hasn't come to see them yet. But it's possible now isn't it.
Oh then a quick trip to the Thomist shrines, Chennai, Mylapore I think and then Velankani before hitting the Sri Aurobindo Ashram on 17 October. Colombo and the ten day retreat in Sri Lanka 21 october returning with fresh visa November 1.
I may have to ask Oliver to assist with the handing in of my OCI application. Still waiting upon Zanzibar for some comment, I thought an official letter stating how hard it is to get a birth certificate or a birth certificate something I could translate into Hindi to let the High Commission in London know that I am taking the matter very seriously. I was going to swear then. I think the battle line of Ahimsa will have to be redrawn at beachhead of Thought.
And to be fair I am not physically violent. If I can cut out the swearing then the real battle can begin. Best wander over to Vidayasana something like that the lecture hall for the course. Yeah the priest will want money but peeps in this world of broken dreams and desiderata who doesn't.

The North East Frontier lands

On your visa you have to state that you won't enter the badlands. India is strange but the North East the land of the more asiatic looking tribals is just, it's puzzling how people can continue to function where evil prevails. I am pretty sure that an incarnation of Vishnu is summoned so where is he. I am not clear who is doing what to whom, just that everybody seems to be doing it up north east and there is a bravery that comes when Man has taken everything from you and then keeps taking.

So had a long chat with Father Jose on India and how it's not all that bad, or ok it is that bad but it isn't caste it's poverty and look at all the projects we are doing do you fancy teaching english meboy and by the way I do know of an attractive widow what do you think and then perhaps you should seek a spiritual director for confidential advice not me but I am available. So I figure first chance I get I'll just give him the potted history and see if he says Oh.

Beyond that he has promised and I know he is an Injian, so not going to cancel all my appointments but he has promised to visit the Hyderabad Diocese pop in to see my Lambadis as they are my first love and see what can be done, maybe the CMI could set up a school nearby. That would be a result. Plus they are making a school for disabled the pc term is just too long to write and I never really know what it means. It will be on my doorstep so I dunno. I promise to spend less than a second hand BMW from a dodgey second hand car dealer or a cut price leisure cruise for the nouvelle nouveau riche if you promise not to give me any advice on how to spend my money.

The Yolanda Gitanjali Award strikes again, though apparently one of the gels was a possibility though the priest was suspicious why I should offer 1k to a European when he could rescue 100 tribals infants from child prostitution for the same amount. If you put it like that mind you never spend any money outside a small town near Namibia. But to reassure him I extended the award to a German friend he knows who is equally rich and being a male would protect him from accusations of sexual favours or perhaps it was to gain ... the trick is not to analyze and stay out of the north eastern frontier lands because my visa don't allow it and the security forces there don't mess around.

India

So I was not wrong about my daughters, beautiful souls. But I don't think they will be tempted to return to India to work with the poor. But very beautiful in either sari or jehendra I think it's called, or Salwar Kameez. One day someone will accept my offer to visit my Lambadis. And on that I had wondered why Paul Father had been so silent since sending me Manjulah's orthosis photo. And it was a photo of her orthosis. Perhaps I should remind him of Kant's categorical imperative. Or perhaps not he is now building a Sacred Heart Church.

After all those lectures on modern missions and the Church is not a building. The man is primarily an architect builder. I'd submit him to DSM V for a new disease of obsessive compulsive building. Before the building was not a church, now the church is the building, and when it's done he'll ask to replicate the model in the African missions. Although for historians and archeologists the man is a dream. Spirituality/Religion outwith patriarchal structures leave no mark on the world.

Yeah I think I may just retire to my forest. There doesn't really appear to be much difference between my biological social and religious brothers and sisters. Their treasures are in the world where their heart is. I am not saying I am better. I am I believe ontologically different unless of course it comes to sugar / dairy products. I had tiffin with that Madam Cyn.

A bit like Paul then I have that terrible sin of inevitable avoidable Type II diabetes for in my weakness God is strong and to stop me whining on about how the others have missed the point and don't want treasures in heaven. We all want treasures in heaven but as Fr Nelson reminds me do you not also want pastries from a French Indian Widow and though he believes that I am merely using the term metaphorically, and although I am not ruling out the extras, I am pretty sure I mean pastries sugar/dairy based confections et alia illius generis. And just because I used Latin don't mean I is talking about sex.

Ooh Today Bible study and my meet to set up Malayalam lessons with a parishioner.

Christian Ashram Today

Not certain after that. Spent the afternoon with my two temporary kids Rachel and Oliver. We met Madame Cyn the Dalit Womanist (she don't like feminist) had some Tiffin. She reiterated. And confirmed for me that there is a huge elephant in the room but whenever I complain about the mess I am told that we no longer have elephants in India and if I am just going to make unsubstantiated claims when they are in fact a world superpower with their own nuclear submarine (though technically it hasn't been fully commissioned yet not for another two years but that's not important).

I did think that I should not stay too long here. I am not at home when the hypocrisy becomes psychotic. I don't mind their telling me that they are rishis with direct communication to angelic or supramental beings, I am not opposed to psychosis per se. It's more there is no dalit gel being gangraped and beaten to death trust us we are priests and holy men. It's more that it's difficult to blot out the screams entirely from consciousness though after a while I surprise myself at how adaptable the human spiritual condition is.

No I think a change is better. If I ever learn a local language hope to fix first class tomorrow I can return to the villages, real India. A visit to the Mall yesterday it's like Ealing Broadway Mall only it's bigger and more modern and a charming young moustachioed turban geezer searches your bags for explosives on the way in. And they fumigate for mosquitoes outwith.

Apart from the whole elephant thing there are some good days. Definitely want to press on with Syriac. Dalit Movement is the India which fascinates though more Tribal but the Dalits seem to want to take the lead for now. I didn't mention the famine up North. Let's see what Congress does. They have enough stockpiles of staples to feed everyone. It's a first world nation after all with their almost ready nuclear submarine the INS Arihant. And Arihant by the way is a Hinyana/Teravadin enlightened one. Since there is only ever one Buddha then all others now aspire to become Arihants those who have destroyed the great enemies (Hatred Greed and Ignorance) not sure if nuclear weapons second strike facility is really what is meant by an Arihant but what do I know I am just a visitor, or as I put it a Roman Catholic of the Padroado of His Most Catholic Majesty we too are Hinjians.

Last official day with the gang. Am wearing my Lunghi, and very proudly too. I am aware that the only people to wear traditional dress proudly are foreigners concessitur otherwise it's worn coz you can't afford anything else or you wear blue jeans and Ts with witty aphorisms mispelt in American English. Fr John replied the Manuka Honey and CD arrived though the honey was no longer inside the bottle, the bottle having disappeared to be replaced mysteriously by broken shards of glass. Tried to contact Paul Fr with him I still have hopes that a Lancastrian will go there what say you to the Yolanda Gitanjali Applied Spirituality Fellowship beats going to Mahabalipuram for a stone angel with large bosooms in a dancing pose to exhibit more clearly her latent spirituality, mumsie was broad minded but the former was more her style. And I am not going to mention again that my brother took 1300 squid for an angel and new tombstone and by some mysterious mishap instead of the body going directly to heaven the tombstone, the angel and the money appear to have done so. The reason I don't mention it is so that you don't mention where I intend to get the money to set up this so called applied spirituality fellowship. Given that no one ever wants to see the gypsies it really is more about whether a fellowship must exist independently of its application or somesuch. Had that Kurian again on analytical philosophy and mysticism. Not my cup of chai. Much rather listen to some sisters singing, tribals dancing while reading Gitanjali under the shade of the local spiritual tree.

More Profound than Khalil's Prophet, More spiritual than Jallaludin Rumi, faster than a speeing bullet yada yada

Where dost thou stand behind them all, my lover, hiding thyself in the shadows? They push thee and pass thee by on the dusty road, taking thee for naught. I wait here weary hours spreading my offerings for thee, while passers-by come and take my flowers, one by one, and my basket is nearly empty.

The morning time is past, and the noon. In the shade of evening my eyes are drowsy with sleep. Men going home glance at me and smile and fill me with shame. I sit like a beggar maid, drawing my skirt over my face, and when they ask me, what it is I want, I drop my eyes and answer them not.

Oh, how, indeed, could I tell them that for thee I wait, and that thou hast promised to come. How could I utter for shame that I keep for my dowry this poverty. Ah, I hug this pride in the secret of my heart.

I sit on the grass and gaze upon the sky and dream of the sudden splendour of thy coming---all the lights ablaze, golden pennons flying over thy car, and they at the roadside standing agape, when they see thee come down from thy seat to raise me from the dust, and set at thy side this ragged beggar girl a-tremble with shame and pride, like a creeper in a summer breeze.

But time glides on and still no sound of the wheels of thy chariot. Many a procession passes by with noise and shouts and glamour of glory. Is it only thou who wouldst stand in the shadow silent and behind them all? And only I who would wait and weep and wear out my heart in vain longing?

OR

The song that I came to sing remains unsung to this day.
I have spent my days in stringing and in unstringing my instrument.
The time has not come true, the words have not been rightly set; only there is the agony of wishing in my heart.
The blossom has not opened; only the wind is sighing by.
I have not seen his face, nor have I listened to his voice; only I have heard his gentle footsteps from the road before my house.
The livelong day has passed in spreading his seat on the floor; but the lamp has not been lit and I cannot ask him into my house.
I live in the hope of meeting with him; but this meeting is not yet.

I can't make up my mind. Did you know even after he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for Gitanjali, the University of Calcutta wanted to have the poetry done over by someone with a better command of English. Maybe I am used to Indian English now. But no on balanced reflection snobs apart from being petty really are a bunch of how hard it is to practise Ahimsa of Thought and Word when Himsa is more appropriate to what I want to say.

Caste and cousins

So had full and frank discussions with the last lecturer on Indian Christianity. The syro-malabar Xtians are brahmins mainly, the padroado Dalit OBC and Tribal mainly, not what mumsie said but there you go. Not sure if I want to buy into all this. I have been reading Tagore. There are more spiritual aspects of India then poncing about which caste order you aspire to.

My parents visited me during second rosary. I lost my place I did for a few beads. They seem both to want me to refrain from sticking the boot in with my cousins. Odd request, and their support is a bit like KRSN to Arjuna at the Kurukshetram. If the dead could work wonders the world would be as whacky as I dream it. But I'll go along, because no matter what I claim I don't really desire a supramental body of light, but I certainly don't want to have my arms up some lawyers paperwork so that I can prove who cares.

Now the assurances of the dead, now that's something I put my faith in. Now must dash and try to help my blonder daughter Jenny.

All I said was

So they want questions is what they say. The guy had just said Vat I got it wrong it's corrected in Vat II and brought up total but imperfect self-revelation. Now all I said was that it's such a relief. If the Church can admit it gets things wrong, we can learn from other faiths, prophets of other traditions, if the Eucharist is a total and imperfect self-revelation, we can combine it with other imperfect self-revelations, this is a goldmine for interfaith dialogue, signalling the end to communalism and the violence that plagues India. To which his minder responded that is more of an observation not a question so I added do you agree with it. Semantically have I not changed the observation into a question. In fact even at a deeper level it's a question. So the lecturer standing next to me I don't think he was my minder but he grew to the challenge took my mike and asked a question about ecology. And the Emeritus professor was able to say ecology is a good thing.

I think he didn't mind my question about if the only difference between secular and sacred history is our faith response and if history is a more complete because versatile and progressive self-revelation of God then wouldn't it make more sense for Indians to take Indian Liberation as our Scripture rather than the paradigm of Jews. Actually I liked his response. Up to a point. We need to discover and listen to our own prophets as and when God inspires them. And the only reason we read the OT is because God incarnated as a Jew. It is a world religion because of Christians and Muslims. I digress now but the poetry is ok but is a bit why you laugh at some gel's jokes if God had incarnated as Nip then we'd all be studying the five zen arts and recontextualizing Shintoism. Liked his response to that one.

To be fair the only reason he didn't reply to the first was his minder kicked in and the CDF spy would have got what they had come for. No point handing it to them on a plate.

I was going to mention that were I to have a daughter I should name her Gitanjali but only for when she travelled to the west. I think I'll take another dip later. Very puzzling why God didn't incarnate as an Injian. Unless they aren't kidding about that whole Vasudeva Krsn thing. He also writes plain love poetry that Rabindranath I have songs of awakening too.

OCI

Just took a look at the OCI. There is always the possibility that the Indian High Commission will not be very bureacratic. Full birth certificate is going to present a problem. I may have to visit Zanzibar for one I'll try with a Baptism certificate and hope it slips through on a heavy day. If they say no. I'll just go visit Zanzibar.

The other option is to study for the MA in Counselling Psychology because that's an accredited course and I can get a student visa for that. But it sounds grown up and something I could fail because I'll decide the lecturer is really stupid ignorant or unnecessarily pink. A little pink occasionally perhaps but always being pink is in many ways the opposite of pink. They'll just claim they have no idea what I am talking about.

That is why I think I shall be better off with the Diploma in Formation Spirituality and Counselling. That's just a mass, a bit of chatting, the odd exam on something really easy like compare six modern approaches to Counselling, Freud, Beck, Ellis, Maslow, Adler, I mean easy or what. 3 essays in 90 mins they aren't looking for anything in too much depth. And I can then join in the MA classes for next term in the various Order Spiritual formations, Franciscan Carmelite Jesuit and one other can't recall. That I'd enjoy. Cousins are beginning to get on my tits as my new Lancastrian friends soon to pass away would say. There is greed and there is taking the piss.

Then again either they let me stay here for the next few years for the princely sum of 700 pounds per six month term or I come home with furious anger. And either works for me.

The course is now winding down. I have gained two daughters and a son who means well but is probably going to be a screw-up and an underachiever. He will probably end up being my favourite, not coz he is a boy, it's not like that. Maybe be it's all pretty much subconcious these things so how can anyone really know.

Two short lectures today and tomorrow. Then a definite wind down. I hope I can return to Syriac and messing about in the library. Fr Jose had mentioned sending me on a retreat at the Christian Spirituality centre. But I think that will be like here outwith a library or Syriac lessons. I have decided to offer the whole come to England thing with a new twist first anonymously then through the DVK as a new pilot Applied Spirituality Course. But I figure when I had them all here in India and it was just a train journey away for which I was happy to pay there and back they still all thanked me and made their excuses.

I have no idea why I am the only person to love these gypsies and want to see them and then stay with them it's the third part which stumbles.

Bit of a downer since after Guru-ji. Ah well got Pondicherry to look forward too. That's working out. I have a rrrrroom from 17 Oct. Will leave for Colombo on 21 October. Have a ten day meditation course near Kandy. Then on 2 November I return, where will depend on Trustees attorneys and of course the Will of God. I don't forsee any problems but then if I did I'd probably handle them better.

Think I have come to terms with that woman but it's probably just a passing insight that will fade when the next attachment emotion returns I must practice Patanjali's Yoga sutras more attentively. Oliver was right. They are the key.

Guru-Ji

The day started with a folk historian discussing tribal songs and objecting to the whole little tradition title. I like his style but he was weak in presentation. Just a poor quality audio recording of some Tamil and Kannada bards. Of course I mentioned the minni-singer trouvere/troubadour critique of courtly love when he tried to argue from the text it seems women had great power in mediaeval India among tribals. I am not sure if I completely intimidated him. He clearly knows a lot more (given that I know nothing) a lot then on tribal songs, culture, dance and is a tribal himself. But I think I intimidated him. He tried to stitch together a metanarrative hiding it with a few sanksrit/pali terms in the hope we wouldn't know what he was talking about. Don't you hate it when people try things like that.

The meal with Dr Tapassum the pudding doctor was a banquet. I prophesied as much.

Then Sri sri Ravishankar (not the sitar playing daddy of Norah Jones the other Ravishankar) was truly uplifting amazing and restored my faith and love for humanity. Quite impressive since our lecturer on Gurus had done his best mainly off the record to suggest Guru-ji was a fraud, a bailum and barney's performer for the West, closely linked to Hindutva fascism and notably silent on the Gujerat genocide. He had warned us how friendly and loving it would seem so no surprises there. We were given a darshan with Guru-Ji because we were taken by DVK. So I did ask if it would be ok to ask Guru-Ji for an official response to the Gujerat genocide since most of his followers in India are from there. (They had a visit of about 1500 guratis on silent retreat while we were there). They said I could ask though Fr Jose added it was more personal questions we were very honoured usually only presidents etc. He is a carmelite. That man will be Prior General one day.

So he got asked to sum up his message. He began smile and serve. And went on about the common humanity, love for all, not to be taken in by outward appearances, not to criticize little things in what we see but to meditate upon the best and the noblest for in so doing we then will begin to see what is really wrong with the world where we must smile and serve. So I asked him. I personalized the question and I asked him. And what a beautiful manchild. He went out to gujerat set up conflict resolution centres he is now in Sri Lanka doing the same for the post-genocide there and in a few days he goes to Pakistan.

He may not be one of us but he casts out demons all the same. I felt in my heart he is the real mccoy. We were told he claims to be the reincarnation of the love of Christ, the silence of the Buddha and the playfulness of Krsna. When asked he affirmed the divinity of all. See God in everyone and see everyone as God. His real claim is that he refuses to grow up and will stay a child forever.

He was beautiful.

After the darshan we had the tour too and they are really welcoming and friendly. We stayed for a celebration of Krsn birth (coincides at midnight with the birth of the Indian republic and Assumption of the BVM) ok that was like a charismatic pentecostal revival meeting. They think he is a Godman.

Even then not so much a showman or it takes real showmanship to appear that natural unaffected and childlike. I took away his blessing. Aum Shanti Shanti Shanti-ii as you do and I hope his smile and love. Some lancastrians felt on balance it was a cult mind.

Getting my sri lanka meditation trip sorted for visa return. but it's a few months off. India is getting better. Beautiful and ugly and multilayered. Only been here 3 weeks this time though I am sure it will get boring again before another bud opens.

I don't think he'll be that impressed

Really amazing Dalit Womanist (though she'd say feminist) lecturer told this story about the Dalits. Can't really shift it very powerful. Peeps here can't criticize India outwith sounding disloyal. But I think the caste system in a post-industrial world is an evil beyond the pale. Anyway final version here I think I have printed it out in which case I'll see what he thinks. But for now I get the feeling hard to judge with orientals, but I feel he thinks I am more of a contemplative would you like to stay on as a brother type more than would you want help finding the Mall and doing shopping. So I may get to stay longer. After this course talk of joining the spirituality class though i am still keen to perfect my mastery of Syriac. Found another gem among the lancastrians it is but a pure coincidental happenstance a mere contingency, yeah so what if she is blond and blue eyed. Not all aryans were the evil marauders of the Mohenjodaro empire, some of it was due to flooding.

The Herstory of Indian Christianity
as revealed through a redaction of
the Purana of Mar Thoma Sliha
and
the Legend of the Wandering Jew.

By Desmond M Coutinho
For Rev Fr Jose Nandikkara


Many eagles ride the wind currents above the Dharmaram. The seduction of Western Empirical Scientific method is to trap, dissect and quantify. The eastern style is to write the Windhover.
So let me tell you herstory. Once upon a time Mar Thoma came to India. He was a mysterious carpenter who built seven and a half churches here. He was a wonderworker who performed many miracles. He was put to death by a lance from which spilt water and blood and he was buried. But when they came to look for his body the tomb was empty. Some say his followers had taken his remains to the West. This much is revealed to us in the Purana or Acts of St Thomas the Apostle. The Syrian Church fathers speak of his coming to Edessa where there too he mysteriously overcame death and still worked great wonders for the people. He appears later as a wanderer through Europe and later America known in one version (that of Michael Lewis, The Monk) as the Great Moghul of India who travels under a curse and can never settle in any one home for the foxes have their holes and the birds of the air their nests but he has nowhere to lay his head. Demons and ghosts fear him. He does good wherever he wanders known by the fiery cross burning upon his forehead. Finally in 1878 at the Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe New Mexico a mysterious carpenter completed a miraculous spiral staircase in answer to the Loretto Sister’s prayer for help. Interestingly the sisters themselves claim that the mysterious carpenter is Joseph.
Mar Thoma Slihe is the Blessed Twin who is sent. In the Gospels he appears as Thomas Didymus, Hebrew and Greek for Twin the Twin. In Mark 9:1 Jesus states that there are some here present who will not taste of death until the Kingdom had come in power. This was taken to mean that some of the apostles may not die before the parousia (cf John 21: 21-23). Perhaps the prophecy foretells that Apostolic Churches cannot be completely destroyed (cf Matthew 16:18). From the beginning the herstory of Indian Christianity has been a story of Twins of whom only one is given a voice. As if the other twin struggles to break free from her gag as the Purana is retold over the centuries imposter twins emerge. Hence some argue that it is Bartholemew not MarThomas who evangelizes India. Or it is Thomas of Cana a merchant in the 5th century.
Because India is always multi-dimensional, complex, Russian dolls of riddle within paradox within Mysterium; recapitulating the Twin deep structure this Thomas has a wife and a mistress each providing a northern and southern parish of legitimate and illegitimate Mar Thoma Nasranis. Both the purana of Mar Thoma and the legend of the Wandering Jew highlight an essential theandric truth, that if you believe in Christ you will not die, and if you die believing in him he will raise you up. The karmic cycle of Samsara from the Hindu legacy of the Mar Thoma Nasranis is a typology of the eternal life of the Spirit. The Wheel is replaced by the Mar Thoma Sliba. Pentecost is our Moksha.
On a structural level Purana catechize Indians through the four purusarthas, Kama, Artha, Dharma and Swargam/Moksha, Love, Wealth, Duty and Liberation. The Purana of Mar Thoma takes the typology of Hindu Catechesis and retells them through what Tillich describes as broken myth. Thus Mar Thoma is given wealth by King Gondolphes but instead of making more palaces for him as his architect he gives the money to the poor. Instead of a building buildings to praise the king, he builds up people the new wealth of the Kingdom of Heaven. When he gives talks to the King’s harem instead of teaching them to be obedient buxom concubines he encourages them towards greater self-determination and introduces proto-feminist catechesis telling them that they are in control of their own bodies and that sex is not just a pleasure for the King, the chastity of the Kingdom. Dharma is the life of Mar Thoma to live the gospel service to God in love and truth fearless of the consequences. Thus the traditional purusarthas are represented in the Purana as the Evangelical Counsels. And the Swargam/Moksha that derives from these three liberates us into the kingdom of heaven upon earth, the Ramraj. In this world he begins eternal life and hence leaves no rotting corpse.
In terms of the myth of the eternal return. If the agricultural cycle happened only once it would be happenstance. It is by repetition that the coming of the monsoons derive gravity, become part of the theandric truth, instead of floating away into dark space. Indian culture knows these cycles as the three yuga. The purana of Thomas is prefigured in the Ramayana and from the Christian impact transmutes to purana of the later Bhakti Tradition of Tamil Nadu.
At the heart of the Purana of Mar Thoma and the Legend of the Wandering Jew is the truth that true faith is always a stumbling block, one which the builders reject. The story of the true church has always been one of persecution responded to with the joy of the spirit of life, and the alleluiah of the Resurrection. In addition they hint towards the eschaton whereby all will be reunited in Christ. For we so love our poor twin brother. We love his hard working simple honest ways. It is his smell we cannot stand. It’s not that we don’t want to give him voice. We fear his accent will make his words unintelligible.
During the imperial age of colonization they became the two lungs of the Church the Padroado Christians and it’s poorer twin the Mar Thoma Nazranis. Our elder brother in the church is Dalit to us because it is more Indian. Yet to escape a murderous band of Brahmans Mar Thoma at first transforms into a peacock the symbol of the local God. The lecturer on Hinduism complained that English has too many irregular verbs unlike Sanskrit with its pure root and conjugation system. Let me introduce an interesting irregular verb: We inculturate, You Indigenize, They are syncretic.
During the annual Shakti festival in Kerala pilgrimages are made to both Temple and Church. A wise lay Hindu woman puts it thus when we light a candle at the Church it is seen to flicker also in our Temple and vice-versa. There is only really one flame. In simple words an expression of the Advaita philosophy, or Rahner’s theology of anonymous Christianity. According to Dalrymple the parish priest dismisses the exercise as worse than worthless and shuts his door to it.
The wandering Jew of Lewis though a force for good cannot settle in any one place as he is because he has stolen the voice of his darker poorer twin. The contemporary Indian Christian Church cannot survive for long as they are. Part of the forgotten twin syndrome is the twin lungs of our Church and for too long the East has been the poorer unknown collapsed lung. From the West we take the scalpel of low knowledge, the necessary suffering of the Via Dolorosa, but breathing with the Eastern lung, we can draw on the spirituality of the pneumatic Christ and the joy of a Resurrection people. Outwith the lung of the Padroado the Eastern Church might neglect Social Justice. Outwith the lung of the Mar Thoma Nasranis we lack a mystagogy to save us from unfettered materialism.The Mar Thoma Sliba is a beautiful rendition of this mystery. Why do you seek the living among the dead. The cross of Mar Sliba is not empty it is flowering, flowering on a bed of lotuses, and soaring as a windhover is the Spirit of Life animating the kingdom with the flowering cross at its centre and periphery.
To end the Purana here outwith deconstructing would be to perpetuate a fascist lie. There is a dark vicious tale of attempted and on-going infanticide in the history of our church. In the East Thomas Didymus is called the Judas. How did he get that title? There is something ambivalent about the twin, as in all real human beings. From the gospel preamble to the Purana we know that all the Messiah’s family did not support him. Joseph is not mentioned by name again after the falling out at Jesus’ Bar Mitzvah till he asserts his right to claim his son’s corpse from the Roman Authorities after the crucifixion. In between he tries to have his son sectioned. Who else would have been granted the grace of simulacrum to the Messiah but his adoptive father?Thus at the heart of the Purana of Mar Thoma Slihe is another neo-gnostic secret that those in power have kept from the people of God in silent conspiracy spanning the ages, just like the Da Vinci Code and Holy Blood Holy Grail. And what does this sub-text signify? For the true Herstory of Indian Christians to be told we must first debunk the accepted lies perpetrated by Hindutva Fascists that our Indian Legacy, is Brahman. It is as much our legacy as Dutch Boerdom is the cultural legacy of African Christians.
The caged bird song of India, a Dalit version of Herstory plaint that it was the Dalit people who carved temple statuary, built the nation, sowed, reaped. It was the Dalit people through the Tamil master language of India, who wrote our poetry, created our art. These inheritors of the Indus Valley civilizations of Harapa and Mohenjodaro are the true voice of India whose Gita has yet to be heard. When Christendom came to conquer India, they came with Mediaeval feudalism and allied with the patriarchy of its day. Industrialisation always magnifies social evils but the obscene manner in which this is inflicted upon modern Dalits is a sin that cries out to heaven for vengeance.This essay is a Purana song searching for the final resting place of Mar Joseph b’n David, b’n Adam, b’n Elohim known in the East as Mar Thoma Slihe. Having examined the evidence poetically I have taken you to another empty tomb, another burgeoning cross of the Spirit. Is his final resting place in Santa Fe, New Mexico? Neti! Will we find it translating the cheap spirituality of Hindutva Brahmans? Neti! They have poets still inTamil and the South. We the Church have sinned and murdered our twin Brother. In faith let us keep vigil by the empty tomb and listen to our Dalit Saviour’s new songs of redemption. The irritation you feel at this absurd prophecy, the suppressed anger at this arrogant solitary voice crying in the wilderness, if I may my shallow puerile attempt at trying to reduce the Herstory of Indian Christianity to a mathematical duality is the certain sign that Truth is being conceived in your heart. For before She sets you free the Truth gives you a nagging sense of freefloating discomfort.

Bibliography
Chakalackal S, Ramayana and the Indian Ideal St Joseph Press, India (1992)
Dalrymple W, Sisters and Goddesses Guardian Weekend The London and Manchester Guardian (28 June 2008)
Edited Menachery G, Thomapedia St Joseph’s Press (2000)
Lewis M, The Monk (first published London 1796)
Nedungatt G, Quest for the Historical Thomas Apostle of India – A Re-Reading of the evidence Theological Publications of India Bangalore (2008)

Web Reference for the miraculous spiral staircase of the Loretto Chapel http://www.funtripslive.com/santa_fe/miracle_staircase/staircase.htm.

Lectures and discussions with DVK staff and students Bangalore August 2009
The Jerusalem Bible

1659 words that'll do

Many eagles ride the wind currents above the Dharmaram. The seduction of Western Empirical Scientific method is to trap dissect and measure the animal. The eastern style is to write the Windhover.
So let me tell you herstory. Once upon a time Mar Thoma came to India. He was a mysterious carpenter who built seven and a half churches here and was a wonderworker who performed many miracles. He was put to death by a lance from which spilt water and blood and he was buried. But when they came to look for his body the tomb was empty. Some say his followers had taken his remains to the West. This much is revealed to us in the Purana or Acts of St Thomas the Apostle. The Syrian Church fathers speak of his coming to Edessa where there too he mysteriously overcame death and still worked great wonders for the people. He appears later as a wanderer through Europe and later America known in one version (that of Michael Lewis in the Monk) as the Great Moghul of India who travels under a curse and can never settle in any one home for the foxes have their holes and the birds of the air their nests but he has nowhere to lay his head. Demons and ghosts fear him he does good wherever he wanders and is known by the fiery cross burning upon his forehead. Finally in 1878 at the Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe New Mexico a mysterious carpenter completed a miraculous spiral staircase in answer to the Loretto Sister’s prayer for help. http://www.funtripslive.com/santa_fe/miracle_staircase/staircase.htm. Interestingly the sisters themselves claim that the mysterious carpenter is Joseph.
Mar Thoma Slihe is the Blessed Twin who is sent. In the Gospels he appears as Thomas Didymus, Hebrew and Greek for Twin the Twin. In Mark 9:1 Jesus states that there are some here present who will not taste of death until the Kingdom had come in power. This was taken to mean that some of the apostles may not die before the parousia (cf John 21: 21-23). It is an equally plausible reading that the prophecy is that Apostolic Churches cannot be completely destroyed if read with Matthew 16:18. From the beginning the herstory of Indian Christianity has been a story of Twins. As the Purana is retold over the centuries imposter twins emerge. Hence some argue that it is Bartholemew not MarThomas who evangelizes India. Or it is Thomas of Cana a merchant in the 5th century. And as recapitulation of the Twin deep structure he has a wife and a mistress each providing a parish of true and imposter Mar Thoma Nasranis.Both the purana of Mar Thoma and the legend of the Wandering Jew highlight an essential theandric truth, that if you believe in Christ you will not die, and if you die believing in him he will raise you up. The karmic cycle of Samsara from the Hindu legacy of the Mar Thoma Nasranis is a typology of the eternal life of the Spirit. The Wheel is replaced by the Mar Thoma Sliba. Pentecost is our Moksha.
On a structural level Purana catechize Indians through the four purusarthas, Kama, Artha, Dharma and Swargam/Moksha, Love, Wealth, Duty and Liberation. The Purana of Mar Thoma takes the typology of Hindu Catechesis and retells them through broken myth. Thus Mar Thoma is given wealth by King Gondolphes but instead of making more palaces for him as his architect he gives the money to the poor. Instead of a building buildings to praise the king, he builds people for his greater glory. When he gives talks to the King’s harem instead of teaching them to be obedient buxom concubines he encourages them towards greater self-determination and introduces proto-feminist catechesis telling them that they are in control of their own bodies and that sex is not just a pleasure for the King. Dharma is the life of Mar Thoma to live the gospel in love and truth fearles of the consequences. And the Swargam/Moksha that derives from these three are not in another world. In this world he is liberated into the kingdom, the Ramraj. In this world he begins eternal life and hence leaves no rotting corpse.
In terms of the myth of the eternal return. If the agricultural cycle happened only once it would be happenstance. It is because it is a repeatable cycle that the coming of the monsoons derive gravity become part of the theandric truth instead of floating away into dark space. Indian culture knows these cycles as the three yuga.
At the heart of the Purana of Mar Thoma and the Legend of the Wandering Jew is the truth that true faith is always a stumbling block, one which the builders reject. The story of the true church has always been one of persecution responded to with the joy of the spirit of life, and the alleluiah of the Resurrection. In addition they hint towards the eschaton whereby all will be reunited in Christ. Thus the twins Mar Thoma in India has been the Hindu Brahmins and the original Christian converts of the first century. Then they were the twin families of Thomas of Cana the forward and backward castes of Indian Christianity.
During the imperial age of colonization they became the two lungs of the Church the Padroado Christians and the Mar Thoma Nazranis.The Purana itself shows a way forward. To escape death Mar Thoma at first transforms into a peacock the symbol of the local God. Syncretism is the norm in India. During the annual Shakti festival in Kerala pilgrimages are made to both Temple and Church. A wise lay Hindu woman puts it thus when we light a candle at the Church it is seen to flicker also in our Temple and vice-versa. There is only really one flame. In simple words an expression of the Advaita philosophy, or Rahner’s theology of anonymous Christianity.Mar Thoma is a Slihe one sent. His children of the first covenant the Nasranis have traditionally treated all India as their mission territory. Traditionally the Padroado Christians of the second covenant were sent as missionaries to the Portugese African colonies, and through the Goan diaspora to the coastal ports throughout the world. But we are sent out enduring the sorrows of white martyrdom solely that the joys of our return may be magnified. Having involved ourselves in the world of the Other we joyfully return to enrich our own in our continuing evolution into supramental life everlasting.
The wandering Jew of Lewis though a force for good cannot settle in any one place as he is. The contemporary Indian Christian cannot survive for long as they are. They are in need of the Indian heart the heritage of the Vedas, the Yoga of Pantajali of the liberators and founders of the Indian Nation Gandhi-Ji and Sir Aurobindo the rightful heritage that we must reclaim. And we must learn to breathe with the lungs of the Western and Eastern rites. From the West they take the scalpel of low knowledge, the necessary suffering of the Via Dolorosa, and breathing with the Eastern lung, they draw on the spirituality of the pneumatic Christ and the joy of a Resurrection people. Outwith the lung of the Padroado the Eastern Church might forget Social Justice. Outwith the lung of the Mar Thoma Nasranis we lack a mystagogy to save us from unfettered materialism.The Mar Thoma Sliba is a beautiful rendition of this mystery. Why do you seek the living among the dead. The cross of Mar Sliba is not empty it is flowering, flowering on a bed of lotuses, and soaring as a windhover is the Spirit of Life animating the kingom with the flowering cross at its centre and periphery.
To end the Purana here outwith deconstructing would be to perpetuate a fascist lie. In the East Thomas Didymus is called the Judas. How did he get that title? There is something ambivalent about the twin, as in all real human beings. We know that all the Messiah’s family did not back him. Joseph is not mentioned by name again after the falling out at Jesus’ Bar Mitzvah till he asserts his right to claim his son’s corpse from the Roman Authorities after the crucifixion. In between he tries to have his son sectioned. Who else would have been granted the grace of simulacrum to the Messiah but his adoptive father?
Thus at the heart of the Purana of Mar Thoma Slihe is another neo-gnostic secret that those in power have kept from the people of God in silent conspiracy spanning the ages, just like the Da Vinci Code and Holy Blood Holy Grail. And what does this sub-text signify? For the true Herstory of Indian Christians to be told we must first debunk the accepted lies perpetrated by Hindutva Fascists that our Indian Legacy, is Brahmin. It is as much our legacy as Dutch Boerdom is the cultural legacy of African Christians.
The essay began arguing that we should reinterpret the Acts of the Apostle Thomas not as history or chronicle but in the context of the Avatars who continually arise as prophesied in the Mahabarat, the Ramayana, the Bhagawad Purana. A Dalit version of Herstory is that it is vice-versa, and that we must shrug off the cultural imperialism of effete scroungers who brought nothing to India save sitting and meditating though often it was just sitting. They cannot carve temple statuary or build or sow or reap. It is time to free them from their lethargy and their lies, that the God of Life can bring them liberation too.

This essay is a Purana song searching for the final resting place of Mar Joseph b’n David, b’n Adam, b’n Elohim known in the East as Mar Thoma Slihe. Having examined the evidence poetically I have taken you to another empty tomb, another burgeoning cross of the Spirit. What the Purana sings is that his final resting place is not in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and archeodelving into the Hindutva Brahminical legacy is but a ruse of fallen angels. Mysteries from the past to lead our way to the future lie in our Tamil heritage and the voices no longer silent of freed song birds, like one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye a way for the Lord and make his paths in Truth. Truth is God for who can deny the Truth?

just have to tidy up now a couple hundred words left

Many eagles ride the wind currents above the Dharmaram. The seduction of Western Empirical Scientific method is to trap dissect and measure the animal. The eastern style is to write the Windhover. So let me tell you herstory.Once upon a time Mar Thoma came to India. He was a mysterious carpenter who built seven and a half churches here and was a wonderworker who performed many miracles. He was put to death by a lance from which spilt water and blood and he was buried. But when they came to look for his body the tomb was empty. Some say his followers had taken his remains to the West. This much is revealed to us in the Purana or Acts of St Thomas the Apostle. The Syrian Church fathers speak of his coming to Edessa where there too he mysteriously overcame death and still worked great wonders for the people. He appears later as a wanderer through Europe and later America known in one version (that of Michael Lewis in the Monk) as the Great Moghul of India who travels under a curse and can never settle in any one home for the foxes have their holes and the birds of the air their nests but he has nowhere to lay his head. Demons and ghosts fear him he does good wherever he wanders and is known by the fiery cross burning upon his forehead. Finally in 1878 at the Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe New Mexico a mysterious carpenter completed a miraculous spiral staircase in answer to the Loretto Sister’s prayer for help. http://www.funtripslive.com/santa_fe/miracle_staircase/staircase.htmMar Thoma Slihe is the Blessed Twin who is sent. In the Gospels he appears as Thomas Didymus, Hebrew and Greek for Twin the Twin. In Mark 9:1 Jesus states that there are some here present who will not taste of death until the Kingdom had come in power. This was taken to mean that some of the apostles may not die before the parousia (cf John 21: 21-23). It is an equally plausible reading that the prophecy is that Apostolic Churches cannot be completely destroyed if read with Matthew 16:18. From the beginning the herstory of Indian Christianity has been a story of Twins. As the Purana is retold over the centuries imposter twins emerge. Hence some argue that it is Bartholemew not MarThomas who evangelizes India. Or it is Thomas of Cana a merchant in the 5th century. And as recapitulation of the Twin deep structure he has a wife and a mistress each providing a parish of true and imposter Mar Thoma Nasranis.Both the purana of Mar Thoma and the legend of the Wandering Jew highlight an essential theandric truth, that if you believe in Christ you will not die, and if you die believing in him he will raise you up. The karmic cycle of Samsara from the Hindu legacy of the Mar Thoma Nasranis is a typology of the eternal life of the Spirit. The Wheel is replaced by the Mar Thoma Sliba. Pentecost is our Moksha.
On a structural level Purana catechize Indians through the four arthas, Kama, xxx , Dharma and Swargam/Moksha, Love, Wealth, Duty and Liberation. The Purana of Mar Thoma takes the typology of Hindu Catechesis and retells them through broken myth. Thus Mar Thoma is given wealth by King Gondolphes but instead of making more palaces for him as his architect he gives the money to the poor. Instead of a building buildings to praise the king, he builds people for his greater glory. When he gives talks to the King’s harem instead of teaching them to be obedient buxom concubines he encourages them towards greater self-determination and introduces proto-feminist catechesis telling them that they are in control of their own bodies and that sex is not just a pleasure for the King. Dharma is the life of Mar Thoma to live the gospel in love and truth fearles of the consequences. And the Swargam/Moksha that derives from these three are not in another world. In this world he is liberated into the kingdom, the Ramraj. In this world he begins eternal life and hence leaves no rotting corpse.
In terms of the myth of the eternal return. If the agricultural cycle happened only once it would be happenstance. It is because it is a repeatable cycle that the coming of the monsoons derive gravity become part of the theandric truth instead of floating away into dark space. Indian culture knows these cycles as the three yuga. Avatars continually arise as prophesied in the Mahabarat, the Ramayana, the Bhagawad Purana, and the Acts of the Apostle Thomas.
At the heart of the Purana of Mar Thoma and the Legend of the Wandering Jew is the truth that true faith is always a stumbling block, one which the builders reject. The story of the true church has always been one of persecution responded to with the joy of the spirit of life, and the alleluiah of the Resurrection. In addition they hint towards the eschaton whereby all will be reunited in Christ. Thus the twins Mar Thoma in India has been the Hindu Brahmins and the original Christian converts of the first century. Then they were the twin families of Thomas of Cana the forward and backward castes of Indian Christianity. During the imperial age of colonization they became the two lungs of the Church the Padroado Christians and the Mar Thoma Nazranis.The Purana itself shows a way forward. To escape death Mar Thoma at first transforms into a peacock the symbol of the local God. Syncretism is the norm in India. During the annual Shakti festival in Kerala pilgrimages are made to both Temple and Church. A wise lay Hindu woman puts it thus when we light a candle at the Church it is seen to flicker also in our Temple and vice-versa. There is only really one flame. In simple words an expression of the Advaita philosophy, or Rahner’s theology of anonymous Christianity.Mar Thoma is a Slihe one sent. His children of the first covenant the Nasranis have traditionally treated all India as their mission territory. Traditionally the Padroado Christians of the second covenant were sent as missionaries to the portugese African colonies, and through the Goan diaspora to the coastal ports throughout the world. But we are sent out enduring the sorrows of white martyrdom solely that the joys of our return may be magnified. Having involved ourselves in the world of the Other we joyfully return to enrich our own in our continuing evolution into supramental life everlasting.
The wandering Jew of Lewis though a force for good cannot settle in any one place as he is. The contemporary Indian Christian cannot survive for long as they are. They are in need of the Hindu heart the heritage of the Vedas, the Yoga of Pantajali of the liberators and founders of the Indian Nation Gandhi-Ji and Sir Aurobindo the rightful heritage that we must reclaim. And we must learn to breathe with the lungs of the Western and Eastern rites. From the West they take the scalpel of low knowledge, the necessary suffering of the Via Dolorosa, and breathing with the Eastern lung, they draw on the spirituality of the pneumatic Christ and the joy of a Resurrection people. Outwith the lung of the Padroado the Eastern Church might forget Social Justice. Outwith the lung of the Mar Thoma Nasranis we lack a mystagogy to save us from unfettered materialism.
The Mar Thoma Sliba is a beautiful rendition of this mystery. Why do you seek the living among the dead. The cross of Mar Sliba is not empty it is flowering, flowering on a bed of lotuses, and soaring as a windhover is the Spirit of Life animating the kingom with the flowering cross at its centre and periphery.

second draft still got 500 words to play with

Many eagles ride the wind currents above the Dharmaram. The seduction of Western Empirical Scientific method is to trap dissect and measure the animal. The eastern style is to write the Windhover. So let me tell you herstory.
Once upon a time Mar Thoma came to India. He was a mysterious carpenter who built seven and a half churches here and was a wonderworker who performed many miracles. He was put to death by a lance from which spilt water and blood and he was buried. But when they came to look for his body the tomb was empty. Some say his followers had taken his remains to the West. This much is revealed to us in the Purana or Acts of St Thomas the Apostle. The Syrian Church fathers speak of his coming to Edessa where there too he mysteriously overcame death and still worked great wonders for the people. He appears later as a wanderer through Europe and later America known in one version (that of Michael Lewis in the Monk) as the Great Moghul of India who travels under a curse and can never settle in any one home for the foxes have their holes and the birds of the air their nests but he has nowhere to lay his head. Demons and ghosts fear him he does good wherever he wanders and is known by the fiery cross burning upon his forehead. Finally in 1878 at the Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe New Mexico a mysterious carpenter completed a miraculous spiral staircase in answer to the Loretto Sister’s prayer for help. http://www.funtripslive.com/santa_fe/miracle_staircase/staircase.htm
Mar Thoma Slihe is the Blessed Twin who is sent. In the Gospels he appears as Thomas Didymus, Hebrew and Greek for Twin the Twin. In Mark 9:1 Jesus states that there are some here present who will not taste of death until the Kingdom had come in power. This was taken to mean that some of the apostles may not die before the parousia (cf John 21: 21-23). It is an equally plausible reading that the prophecy is that Apostolic Churches cannot be completely destroyed if read with Matthew 16:18. From the beginning the herstory of Indian Christianity has been a story of Twins. As the Purana is retold over the centuries imposter twins emerge. Hence some argue that it is Bartholemew not MarThomas who evangelizes India. Or it is Thomas of Cana a merchant in the 5th century. And as recapitulation of the Twin deep structure he has a wife and a mistress each providing a parish of true and imposter Mar Thoma Nasranis.
Both the purana of Mar Thoma and the legend of the Wandering Jew highlight an essential theandric truth, that if you believe in Christ you will not die, and if you die believing in him he will raise you up. The karmic cycle of Samsara from the Hindu legacy of the Mar Thoma Nasranis is a typology of the eternal life of the Spirit. The Wheel is replaced by the Mar Thoma Sliba. In terms of the myth of the eternal return. If the agricultural cycle happened only once it would be happenstance. It is because it is a repeatable cycle that the coming of the monsoons derive gravity become part of the theandric truth instead of floating away into dark space.
At the heart of the Purana of Mar Thoma and the Legend of the Wandering Jew is the truth that true faith is always a stumbling block, one which the builders reject. The story of the true church has always been one of persecution responded to with the joy of the spirit of life, and the alleluiah of the Resurrection. In addition they hint towards the eschaton whereby all will be reunited in Christ. Thus the twin Mar Thoma in India has been the Hindu Brahmins and the original Christian converts of the first century. Then they were the twin families of Thomas of Cana the forward and backward castes of Indian Christianity. During the imperial age of colonization they became the two lungs of the Church the Padroado Christians and the Mar Thoma Nazranis.

The Purana itself shows a way forward. To escape death Mar Thoma at first transforms into a peacock the symbol of the local God. A wise lay Hindu woman puts it thus when we light a candle at the Church it is seen to flicker also in our Temple and vice-versa. There is only really one flame. In simple words an expression of the Advaita philosophy, or Rahner’s theology of anonymous Christianity.

Mar Thoma is a Slihe one sent. His children of the first covenant the Nasranis have traditionally treated all India as their mission territory. Traditionally the Padroado Christians of the second covenant were sent as missionaries to the portugese African colonies, and through the Goan diaspora to the coastal ports throughout the world.
The wandering Jew of Lewis though a force for good cannot settle in any one place as he is. The contemporary Indian Christian cannot survive for long as they are. They are in need of the Hindu heart the heritage of the Vedas, the Yoga of Pantajali of the liberators and founders of the Indian Nation Gandhi-Ji and Sir Aurobindo the rightful heritage that they must reclaim. And they must learn to breathe with the lungs of the Western and Eastern rites. From the West they take the scalpel of low knowledge, the necessary suffering of the Via Dolorosa, and breathing with the Eastern lung, they draw on the spirituality of the pneumatic Christ and the joy of a Resurrection people. Outwith the lung of the Padroado the Eastern Church might forget Social Justice. Outwith the lung of the Mar Thoma Nasranis we lack a mystagogy to save us from unfettered materialism.
The Mar Thoma Sliba is a beautiful rendition of this mystery.

Indian Christianity Herstory retold through a redaction of the Mar Thoma Slihe purana and the legend of the Wandering Jew

Many eagle ride the wind currents above the Dharmaram. The seduction of Western Empirical Scientific method is to trap disect and measure the animal. The eastern style is to write the Windhover. So let me tell you herstory. Once upon a time Mar Thoma came to India. He was a mysterious carpenter who built seven and a half churches here and was a wonderworker who performed many miracles. He was put to death by a lance from which spilt water and blood and he was buried. But when they came to look for his body the tomb was empty. Some say his followers had taken his remains to the West. This much is revealed to us in the purana or Acts of St Thomas the Apostle. The Syrian Church fathers speak of his coming to Edessa where there too he mysteriously overcame death and still worked great wonders for the people. He appears later as a wanderer through Europe and later America known in one version (that of Michael Lewis in the Monk) as the Great Moghul of India who travels under a curse and can never settle in any one home for the foxes have their holes and the birds of the air their nests but he has nowhere to lay his head. Demons and ghosts fear him he does good wherever he wanders and is known by the fiery cross burning upon his forehead. So who is Mar Thoma Slihe, the Blessed Twin who is sent. In the Gospels he appears as Thomas Didymus, Hebrew and Greek for Twin the Twin. In Mark 9:1 Jesus states that there are some here present who will not taste of death until the Kingdom had come in power. This was taken to mean that some of the apostles may not die before the parousia (cf John 21: 21-23). It is an equally plausible reading that the prophecy is that Apostolic Churches cannot be completely destroyed if read with Matthew 16:18. The debate over the historicity of Mar Thoma appears to me linked to the more hierarchically important truth of purana. Mar Thoma Nasranis have taken criticisms of the historicity of the arrival of Mar Thoma to impute that they have no right to be Indian and Christian. This essay is an Apologia of the Eastern Lung of the Church prescinding the historico-critical debate relying rather on the gifts of the Eastern . The medium is the message. This essay is a Qurbana of Eastern gifts to honour the noble heritage of the Eastern Church.

Both the purana of Mar Thoma and the legend of the Wandering Jew highlight an essential theoandric truth, that if you believe in Christ you will not die, and if you die believing in him he will raise you up. The karmic cycle of Samsara from the Hindu legacy of the Mar Thoma Nasranis is a typology of the eternal life of the Spirit. The Wheel is replaced by the Mar Thoma Sliba. In terms of the myth of the eternal return. If the agricultural cycle happened only once it would be happenstance. It is because it is a repeatable cycle that the coming of the monsoons derive gravity become part of the theandric truth instead of floating away into dark space.

The herstory of Christians in India, the theandric story is one of persecution death and resurrection. The particular purana of Mar Thoma emphasizes the resurrection and the life of the spirit whereas in the Western Church the emphasis is on the agony in the garden and the way of the cross

Doll Woman and Dancing

I read at mass today. First reading. But what I do well I do well. Did I mention I can bend the candle flame to the horizontal for half a minute on a single breath. Yeah I studied the physics of sound, head voice heart voice. How to develop timbre project. When I read I look at the peeps, phrase, or I can be like a news reader. So the priests liked it but then English ain't their first tongue. But with the doll woman. There was this taiwanese minister in training. He read a poem Don't pity me. Now that is how to proclaim God's word. It's God's work. I am good at what I do. But I'd rather listen to someone who fitted the text more. But I take success when it comes. The doll woman was beautiful. Belgian nun life of suffering worked in the villages as a nurse for ten years now makes dolls. You really have to experience her and her dolls. I suppose that is it. They are empty in many ways though in some quite intricately and thoughfully made (no features no eyes nose mouth etc but if they are playing an instrument the sitar looks like it could be played by someone really tiny) She gives a voice to the voiceless. A saint I touched her foot and bought her book. And if she has asked I would have given up everything and followed her. Thank god she didn't ask.

Next day had lecture on Hinduism. Old Swami-ji touched his foot too but mainly coz I felt sorry for him. A dinosaur among modernity. Once he was a giant. The course is getting to be quite intense. We carry on with Yoga. I have been getting the lancastrians hooked up with the priests. Bit like a teenage disco. And the priests eat together like sardines or starlings. But enough have made contacts. Some of the Lancastrians are into spirituality and getting as much as they can in the pace of India. A lot of the gels are into shopping, travelling and not getting ripped off by taxi drivers. As the liberation priest Arputham put it to me, Dezie it's a process they are young, we each travel from where we are at our own. I like him.

Gotta head back. Got Bhiku Anand next he sounds like the real mccoy. In the Kwai Chang Kane sense. But let's see.

Not bad

Just finished the first day with the Lancastrians. They grow on me. Rachel (seems a bit young to be at University still has adolescent spots but very pretty or will be once she grows) a fan of little therese, so she is like my daughter ok not like my daughter but we have a mutual friend or is she a friend in common. And she found her own way to the Qurbana in English at St Thomas' my kind of gel or what.

Yoga was really quite like Tai Chi. Slow gentle relaxing. Embarrassing coz I hate the idea of going to India and studying yoga with a yoga guru. But there you go it was very relaxing I'll have more of that. The first lecture put Indian traditions in context. First time I've had someone go through the spiritual/philosophical/religious history from RigVedas to present with such simplicity.

It really has begun to be both relaxing and with little time to fret. I miss my mother. I look forward to the future. England was a past. Time to move on. Oliver from Lancaster I like too. Very earnest doing two dissertations possibly one on dalit theology the other an anthropological study of the dharmaram. Now that will be interesting. And very much into India.

Basically these are nice people right now. If I was young they'd make good companions possibly. Not materialistic, but down to earth, simple wisdom of the unpretentious. They are growing on me and the beauty is they are only here for three weeks. And since I have my own routine as a semisanyasin wise man of the forest I can't see us falling out in any real way.

Plus I don't tink I'd go for Kshetram as a Temple. I think it's more of a battlefield. As in the Kurukshetram which I think is near the Taj Mahal where the Gita is based. The battlefield of Wisdom in the garden of action. And I haven't even begun learning Sanskrit. There is much scope for pretentiousness in the learning of letters.

So tomorrow it begins

Lancastrians aren't too bad. Sweet and young. Going to be schoolteachers. Some are earnest. And some are young. At the orientation Fr Jose was as scary as I have seen him. I hadn't realized they were serious about the attack dogs being let out after 10.30 doors locked and nobody inside with a key. I tend to go to bed by 9 and read for an hour. But to be fair all he said to them was for the girls (as he affectionately addressed them) to be in bed by 9.30 (not quite or come home but if they were not in the hostel by 9.30pm to stay where they are till morning). And the typical first year questions on the FIRE course a way of participant observation in the rituals of other faiths to increase empathy and assist in our living together peaceable, will we be examined on this.

As for me not going according to plan. I had hoped to maintain my Mary Wrigglesworth deep cover just doing my knitting while occasionally looking up to smile. But I think I have already got a reputation as a trouble maker. Last night there was a forum advertised at the DVK, the CMI general vicar general various provincials open discussion on global future of the Order. After the discussion they throw it open to the floor. So all the seminarians have to attend and it was optional for PG group. I turn up and am welcomed but then Jose turns up and says no I don't think there is any cultural programme today. Basically it's like a UN or G20 conference. You don't actually look at new policies there. It's more a celebration. So a good question from the floor would be something like could you tell us more about your experiences while a PP in america. Anything really that enables another anecdote from the PP's experiences in america. What they don't want is questions or suggestions how to increase scholarships from SC and ST groups or mention of the recent Women's Court on Dowry and associated crimes of violence against women. At the same time there are always a few priests who moan but no one ever says anything real all they do is congratulate each other did you notice how no one mentions the Women's Court on yada yada.

But he did agree to get me a library card on Monday so I can't complain. Though I shall email Pune about their MA in Indian Spirituality to start June 2010 get to travel to Varnasi and Kottayam, just in case.

And for me I don't get why TVU are now offering me a refund of my fees. They still haven't lifted the suspension. And I don't get why they expect me to sign a gagging order. I've appealed to the OIAHE being a government QUANGO they operate under a full disclosure open and transparent protocols. Anyway I am gonna go hell for leather with the 3 week experience starting Monday and if nothing else find out where the Train Station is and book my ticket to Pondicherry. I am having difficulty with Sri Aurobindo's Light Divine, he writes like Plato, very simple style and too wordy. Problem with poet philosophers. But every now and then when you hit a purple passage. Yep I think it's like reading Walden. No point reading for information more for sifting for pearls.

Now to email Pune and rest of the day is for the Gita and Syriac composition (letters and words haven't a clue about grammar)