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?
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
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.
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.
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.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
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
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
Thursday, August 6, 2009
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.
Monday, August 3, 2009
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.
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.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
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)
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)
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