Marriage of East and West: A Sequel to The Golden String

by Bede Griffiths

Bede Griffiths was a Benedictine monk who achieved worldwide recognition for his pioneering efforts to bridge the great traditions of Christian and Hindu faith. He advocates a global spiritual friendship, rather than a global religion, cultivating respct for each other's spiritual practices.

Genres: Religion, Spirituality, Christian, Nonfiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Bede Griffiths (1906-1993), born Alan Richard Griffiths and also known as Swami Dayananda (Bliss of Compassion), was a British-born Benedictine monk who lived in ashrams in South India. He was born at Walton-on-Thames, England and studied literature at Magdalen College, Oxford under professor and Christian apologist C. S. Lewis, who became a lifelong friend. Griffiths recounts the story of his conversion in 1931 to Roman Catholicism while a student at Oxford in his autobiography The Golden String.

Although he remained a Catholic monk he adopted the trappings of Hindu monastic life and entered into dialogue with Hinduism.

Griffiths was a proponent of integral thought, which attempts to harmonize scientific and spiritual world views. In a 1983 interview he stated,

"We're now being challenged to create a theology which would use the findings of modern science and eastern mysticism which, as you know, coincide so much, and to evolve from that a new theology which would be much more adequate."

Reviews

[Gille Liath · Rating 4 out of 5]

Close your eyes and see
I studied Indian Philosophy as part of my degree, and my other lecturers were dismissive of it; to them it wasn’t philosophy at all. I now realise that, from their own point of view, they were right: Indian philosophy is based not on rationality but on spiritual intuition; it means nothing without a basis in one’s own spiritual experience. The Indians, more than anybody else, have tried to convey the essential of that which is beyond reason.

The essence of this book is the attempt to find, from the elements of both Christianity and Hinduism, the essential features of spirituality which go beyond what is culturally conditioned and are really common to all humanity. The book contains many striking insights, such as that atheists are really only rejecting the forms and concepts under which they have been presented with spirituality, and that the universe itself comes to consciousness in humanity. But, inevitably, as soon as he tries to get down to the nitty gritty Griffiths loses traction; he is no more able than anyone else to translate spiritual intuition and imagination into rational words and concepts. When you try, it sounds lame and ridiculous. You have to suspend rational judgement and be willing to work at the level Griffiths variously describes as the ‘mythic’, the ‘poetic imagination’ or the ‘intuitive’.

Sounds like self-deception? Believing six impossible things before breakfast? All great religions teach that the fundamentals simply can’t be put into words. Spirituality and rationality are two different ways of looking at the world. They see the same things but in different ways – like one of those puzzle pictures which, one minute, seems to be a young woman; the next, your perspective shifts and it’s an old lady. You can see it as the young woman, then as the old woman, and back; but you can’t see both at the same time – there has to be that gestalt switch between the two. Or it’s like a magic eye picture: the physical sense-data is all there, but only with that shift of perspective do you really get it.

And I suppose the message of the book is that Christians shouldn’t be embarrassed about Biblical mythology, ignore it, try to explain it away, or interrogate it scientifically, but should, as Hindus do with their own stories and symbols, be open to it and allow it to work on us at the subliminal level. Used that way, it can be part of the key that enables that shift to happen; it can help us to ‘get it’.

However, you have to wonder whether, by the time Griffiths has finished stripping the historical and cultural away, there is anything left worth having. He says it ‘won’t do’ to accept the Resurrection as historical. Why not? Stories didn’t ‘grow up’ about the risen Christ, it’s not a pious legend such as might have attached to a pagan god, and about which later generations worked themselves up into fanaticism. It is the central claim of the faith, apparently present from the start, and given prominence in even the earliest Christian writings (the earliest surviving is 1Thessalonions from around 50AD, some 20 years after Christ’s death); and for this claim all the apostles – ie those who knew Christ in his lifetime – were willing to die. If it were anything else, you would have to say that the most likely explanation was that it had actually happened. On the other hand, if we’re saying a priori that it *couldn’t* have happened – are we not falling victim to the very same hypertrophied rationality that Griffiths says is the problem?

[Xavi Ruiz · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bazofia tremenda

[Eileen · Rating 5 out of 5]

1982. Bede Griffiths was well ahead of his time, leading the modern movement toward pluralism from the point of view of a Catholic monk who embraced the wisdom of India. This English man actually went and lived there, and started an ashram to combine the culture of India and his Christian faith. But not just the culture. He studied the Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita and other scriptures, and found great wisdom there which did not conflict with Christian teaching, but melded with it for a much stronger, more universal meaning.

[John Mullen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bede Griffiths is an amazing exegete. His theology would not be to everyone's taste, but it's right up my alley -- pretty esoteric, and yet, when you come down to it, his exegesis is often a clear and perceptive summary of very orthodox interpretations. But I'm getting ahead of myself . . . .

Griffiths became a Benedictine monk at age 26; at age 49 he moved to India with the intent of opening a Christian monastery there. He spent the rest of his life in India, with the goal of living monastic life in an Indian style; he adopted saffron robes, immersed himself in Hindu culture and religion (while maintaining his Christian identity, but with a distinctively Hindu flavor), and did a lot of interfaith dialogue. And so his theology is informed by monasticism and Hinduism among other things.

Griffiths compares Western thought with Eastern thought, and Western religion with Eastern religion

The aim of all religion is to restore this undivided consciousness and unity of being to man, which in Hinduism is called Moksha or liberation, in Buddhism nirvana or ‘suchness’, and in Christianity is represented by the redemption of man and his restoration to union with God.

Griffith sees a problem in the predominance of Western thinking in Christianity -- not just predominance, actually, as Christianity is pretty much permeated with Western thinking. Hinduism's weakness is the absence of a personal God. Thus almost all hospitals in India were founded by Christians, because the Christian faith is concerned with the personal soul, whereas Hinduism is concerned with the greater cycle of life, with every individual sort of a cog in the wheel and not terribly important.

Griffith sees that "Reason [Western religion] without intuition is sterile, intuition [Eastern religion] without reason is fertile but blind" (121), and comes to the conclusion that each needs the other. He then attempts to find common threads in Judaism, Christianity, and Hinduism, with even a nod to Islam.He stresses the importance of imagination and symbolic language, seeing that "the Western world has been dominated for centuries now by the 'analytical reason' manifested in the 'so-called exact sciences', so that it is almost incapable of understanding the language of the imagination" (103). That lack of imaginative understanding has led to disastrous misinterpretations of scripture. Ironically the growth of rational, scientific thought, while good in and of itself, has created a new set of problems:

. . . in recent times with the growth of rationalism in Europe, a crude attachment to the literal historical sense has prevailed. (111)

This has sometimes led to devastating misunderstandings:

Jesus was, of course, deliberately speaking in parables and his language is always symbolic, but in the course of time it was taken with terrible literalness. The result was the doctrine of everlasting punishment, which is surely the most terrible doctrine ever preached by any religion. (109)

Although The Marriage of East and West isn't terribly long, it's quite a read! Besides all that I included above, Griffiths spends a good amount of time on Old Testament and New Testament scripture, almost always with remarkable twists, ways of looking at things that I had never heard before. His writing isn't dense -- in fact, I found his style very readable -- but the concepts are profound, and it took me a long time to read this because I really wanted to digest it. I wouldn't say I succeeded, and thus I want to read it again. I am definitely drawn to Bede Griffiths' spirituality and an intellect that can look at both the big picture and the smallest details.

It's also exciting to me that he didn't go to India until he was 49. Look at how much he managed to do with the rest of his life! It gives me hope that life is just beginning, at least this mortal life, here and now.

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it!

[Jean-Pierre Piché · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very informative, but a little too scholarly for me. For deeply learned theologian?