Go Beyond

‘Go Beyond’: Fr Bede and the Ancient Wisdom 

Notes on a visit to Shantivanam Ashram, India

by Harry Underhill

Fr. Bede Griffiths, although 84 years old and in poor health, still has the charismatic vision and vigour of the prophet. With his gentle face and deep set eyes of wisdom and compassion, living a barefoot life in the saffron-coloured robe of the ‘sannyasi, he has the quiet authority of one who knows. Little wonder that many, from East and West, acknowledge him as their teacher; and with his books and lectures his influence is felt worldwide. 

But it is not so much the man as his vision that I want to tell you about. He writes:

All our conflicts arise because we stop a at a certain level. Christians stop at the Christian religion, and if you are a Muslim you stop at Islam, if you are a Hindu you stop at your own symbolism and formalised structure. Each one feels separate from the others. Only when you go beyond these distinctions, and are open to the reality beyond, can you overcome these conflicts. So also the conflicts between black and white peoples, Jews and Arabs, Tamils and Singhalese; they are fighting because they stop at some limited form and do not go beyond it to the formless”. (1)

The formless is the Transcendent, which cannot be described except in paradox, for description is limiting and this is the Unlimited. This mystery is at the root of all religious faiths, but is usually submerged under dogmas and rituals and man-made structures. Being aware of the Absolute, even in the smallest way and whether recognised as such or not, is a mystical experience, Fr Bede says that it lies beyond mind, beyond intellect. That is why it has no place in our commonly accepted view of reality today. We have excluded it precisely because it is not amenable to study by the mind, by reason. It can only be experienced.

So in each religion you see that they all indicate a transcendent reality which is beyond symbols. Symbols are necessary, and you have to have the symbol to make the reality present to us. Every word we use is a symbol. These are symbols which we use to point to something which cannot be described, cannot be expressed, and which is the Ultimate. This is the mystery of human life – that we are all being pushed beyond ourselves, beyond our limits. That is why it is so difficult. We all want to stick on to this world, to things we can understand, and live our lives. But we are never satisfied. We are always being pushed to go beyond. The Atman or the spirit itself has been drawing man on from the beginning, but people always stop at something else, making it a substitute for the Atman. Whether it is a wife or children, a job or money, power, wisdom, science or philosophy, they are all substitutes for the reality itself. This is extremely fascinating and meaningful, especially for us in India. This is where the West is discovering the East. And would like to end by saying that it has great practical value. 

This final remark, that awareness of the Ultimate has great practical value, is as important as it is unexpected. Certainly our world today is torn by conflicts – political, social, economic, military, environmental. The trick (if one may use the word) seems to be not more reason, intellect and rationality which only reinforce our conflicts because those very conflicts have all arisen for good ‘reasons’ but to let them be and go beyond them. We can observe this in daily life when the solution to a paradox is often found not by one view proving to be right and the other wrong, but by both proving right in a wider context. This ‘trick’ of solving problems, not at their own level but by going beyond them, is very old as old as human consciousness. It is in fact the secret of the Ancient Wisdom, and every religion has this at its core. Fr Bede writes:

I find it very important that each religion has a certain clearly conceived notion about this transcendent reality beyond thought, and conceives it as beyond duality.

Now duality, or separateness, seems to be inevitable it is part of growing up to discover one’s own ego. But, as is found in the folklore of many cultures, the growth of the individual (and indeed of the tribe, human race and cosmos) demands, sooner or later, a leap over this obstacle of duality. And what do we then find? Does it mean that in the ocean of eternity all differentiation is lost? Apparently not. What has been glimpsed by the great seers (and Fr Bede is certainly among them) is a Transcendent Reality in which differences are preserved and valued, indeed are essential, but as part of a greater whole. 

Science and technology, the ‘religion’ of our Western reality, is in fact now waking up to this vision. ‘All is interrelated’: ‘No part exists without the whole’: The whole is contained in every part’; these are some of the concepts that science is now grappling with. This is indeed the Ancient Wisdom, which Fr Bede believes can only be sought by ‘going beyond’. (2)

Lest we should fear that this endangers our faith, Fr. Bede emphasises that: “to go beyond  the sign is not to reject the sign but to reach the thing signified”. This is a call to maturity, to risk growing up spiritually, to be prepared to let go of established beliefs. These beliefs have been good, have served us well, have protected and supported us. But they have become out of date, have become crutches for us. or, even worse, prisons, instead of temporary supports and shelters. Letting them go and walking out into the unknown means becoming vulnerable, embracing the darkness. To do this, faith alone is not enough. It needs a deep trust born of personal inner experience of the workings of the Holy Spirit in the Cosmos. 

This is precisely where Fr Bede’s call to ‘go beyond’ and the message of Creation Centred Spirituality converge. The Ancient Wisdom, which all humanity shares if we look deep enough, is none other than a revelation of the Cosmic Christ; and the search for the Cosmic Christ is the heart and soul of Creation Centred Spirituality. 

This article was first published in Interchange, Summer 1990