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.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
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.
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.
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.
Monday, August 17, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, August 14, 2009
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.
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.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
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
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
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