An Example of a Searching Soul

Raimundo Panikkar fascinates me in delving deep into the mystery of life. His mother (Carme) was a Spanish (Barcelona) catholic; his father was a Hindu from Kerala (Raimuni Panikkar). He was born on 3rd November 1918. He died on 26^th August 2010(just one day before my birthday). He was 91. He showed the importance of searching for truth and at the same time experiencing the interconnectedness of being human. He says that we are knots in an interconnected network of relationship. He became a catholic priest; later his convictions changed and could not remain a priest in the structural sense of the word. He says, “I started as a Christian, I discovered that I was a Hindu and returned as a Buddhist without ever having ceased to be a Christian.”

His search testifies the fact – “ekam sat viprah bahudah Vadanti” (Reality is One, but sages call it differently). He also bears witness to the fact that searching for meaning is a personal venture but never apart from the community and the tradition that you are rooted in.


He was a real 'Panikkar' ("Captain of warriors"), championing, not war but the cause of pluralism and dialogue. He was a child of diverse cultures and the academic product of several disciplines. He is a fine fruit of the East-West fecundation process, a man whose life and work virtually embodied the cross-cultural and interreligious dialogue of our day.


He was not a spiritualist, nor a political activist, but an intellectual. He clearly states in his introduction in Vedic Experience: 

How can you just be an "intellectual," concerned with truth, or just a "spiritual," busy with goodness, when Men desperately cry for food and justice? How can you follow a contemplative, philosophical, or even religious path when the world shouts for action, engagement and politics? And, conversely, how can you agitate for a better world or for the necessary revolution when what is most needed is serene insight and right evaluation. (Taken from The Vedic Experience: Mantramanjari, P. xxxv)

In his books, he says of his inspiration behind all his writings:

If one writes a book with one's life and pays for it with one' blood, if intellectual activity consists of life lived and experiences suffered, rather than being a mere secretion of the brain, then what I have written is part of what I was; and what I was cannot be blotted out (The Unknown Christ of Hinduism, x).

I am using in my writing only words whose meaning i myself have grasped... I remember an ideal I used to have; each paragraph I wrote, possible each sentence, was to reflect my whole life and be an expression of my character... writing to me, is meditation - that is medicine - and also moderation, order for this world. Writing, to me, is intellectual life, and that in turn is spiritual existence... Writing allows and almost forces me to ponder deeply the mystery of reality. It certainly involves thinking, contemplation. But at the same time, writing means that I have to add form, shape, beauty, expression, revelation to this mystery of reality. Writing is nama-rupa and equally atman; it is morphe in both essence and form. Writing presupposes thinking but also shaping and carving out thoughts; cleaning them, clothing them with colours, smells and forms, even strengthening and putting them to action. It is an incarnation process where the "word becomes flesh." (Taken from A Dwelling Place for Wisdom, 77-79)

Christmas: A situational encounter with Christ.

We are situated human beings, encountering the realities around. Some situations come to us unasked for (take for example our own birth – we did not choose to be born), some we create and yet some situations come to us as a bolt from the blue!!! Yet these are our existential experiences. In this connection, a sight of an infant laying at the roadside, right in front of the shrine of Infant Jesus captured my attention. We normally don’t care to know who these people are except saying that they are gypsies without a permanent housing. But my encounter with the situation of the child stirred some questions - what would be the nationality of the child, who are its parents, what would be the child’s perception of the world when it is surrounded by the loud noises and the constant honking of the vehicles that speed past the little innocent? Why was landlessness and homelessness thrust upon this little child? Etc. On the other hand, I also tried to think the other side of the situation of the child- this child would be gifted with special ability to distinguish different sounds of the vehicles and would eventually identify faulty engines of the vehicles and that would make him or her a good mechanic. Or it would show distaste for sounds or totally loose the capacity for hearing. There is definitely a vast difference between the situation of the child and the situation that we find ourselves in (with a secure place to live, books to read, people to relate, etc.)

Being situated is a fact of being human. Having given a fact of being situated as our human condition, I would like to take you to another fact of being human – a situation intra-human, the fact that we do not understand the meaning of the whole. Now as believers, we come to know that what we know is only a little spark of the whole fire. The spark does not know the fire as a whole, but the full flame would definitely know the spark. Similarly, we do not know God, but God certainly knows us completely. Humanly speaking, in our approach to understand the real we are stranded by our limited intelligence. Incarnation, the event of God becoming man cannot be fully understood in intellectual terms, but make sense to us only in faith. Why is this so?  Our Late Pope John Paul II says that human beings by nature cannot withstand an excess of mystery and incarnation is too much a mystery. But Through the Christ-event, we are sure that what is impossible for man is possible for God. Through incarnation, God made himself tangible, that we may experience, see, hear and touch him.

Christ came into this world to share in our human condition and situatedness: God did not choose to remain absolutely transcendent and govern the whole universe; He chose to be situated like any one of us. He took the human form exactly to tell us that God knows our struggles and pain. His assuming the human form meant sharing in our situatedness – birth in a stable, living as a son of a carpenter, experiencing the human experience of shame, humiliation, false accusation, excruciating physical and emotional pain, and the rest. He came to share and care with the assurance that he is with us on our journey. 

In our moments of doubts and uncertainties, we still do not know what we cry for and most often our cries remain unheard. This is again another fact of our situatedness. Not only we cry for redemption but the whole world cries together with us. St. Paul writes in his letter to the Romans 8: 22 – “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.” But what is really consoling is that God hears our Existential cry.

St. Paul again assuredly says “when we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God,” (Rom, 8:15, 16)  

In sharing our human condition he came with a body that he be incorporated into the history of humanity showing us that we are never disconnected with eternity and the time we are in.

In the letter to the Hebrews 10:5, it is written, ‘When Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.” This “body you have prepared for me” implies incarnation. He incarnated in human flesh and blood to show us the way to the Father. That is why he said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” This is the same body that he glorified at resurrection and ascension. He became the offerer and the offered at the same time. He offered his life and his own life is offered for the good of each of us, calling us to represent him in all that we do and believe. Having a body is an essential element of our situatedness. What do we mean having a body with its senses, especially with the senses of hearing and sight? – With our ears, we try to discerningly hear the good news of the ‘birth of Christ”. Ofcourse, what we hear is in proportion to our disposition. The shepherds heard the good tidings in their own situation and predisposition – the shepherds had to keep awake at night that they may protect the sheep from the wild beasts, and losing the sheep would mean that they might either receive beatings from their master or their monthly pay would be cut in compensation for the sheep that is lost. It is in this situation that they hear the good news that a savior has been born for them in Bethlehem. The three wise men from the east in like manner received and fulfilled their quest for knowledge. After having heard and seen the Messiah, they had their turns and never betrayed what they heard and seen. It is exactly here that I want to stress that our faith comes from hearing and seeing is believing. We long to see him with our eyes of faith while strongly believing that He-is-with-us (Emmanuel!!)

Finally, let me conclude with a quote from Fulton J. Sheen who says:

“Our Lord came to die and the rest of us come to live.”

Fulton Sheen's Insight on Vocation

Sheen has some interesting insights into the dearth of vocations even in his time, which i think is even relevant today:

He says that we advertise ourselves with the thrill and feel of life in the congregation.What he says is that Many young people feel called to religious vocation but they do not find challenge in it because it does not present the element of sacrifice in it. Young people love sacrifice and feel challenged by it. According to the statistics that he mentions - he says that many of them are drawn by the sacrificing and mortified priests.

Christmas tells us that God became man. This states the fact that He became one like us with flesh and blood. We are embodied beings, tangible and endowed with sensory knowledge. Why there is a dearth in vocations? This answer can be partly found in our own body itself. In the Bible we read, "You are not your own body, you are bought for a price." That price was paid by Christ on the Cross. He was a sacrifice and the sacrificed at the same time. There was no separation. Today we have not properly understood our own body. We remain an enigma to ourselves - "a mysterium tremendum". Many young men and women are led astray in the aspect of chastity. Viktor Frankl would say that when there is meaninglessness, an inner void is being created and to fill this inner void - depression, addiction and aggression take their place.

Few questions that props up in my mind are - how are we presenting ourselves as persons? Are we thoroughly convinced of our role as a priest-victim? We are not social workers but called apart to partake in the saving mission of Christ. 

It is St. John Bosco who said, "A Priest is a blessing to the family". Yes indeed, A priest is a blessing not only to the immediate family but to the family of whole humanity. Just think of the Eastern wisdom, "while you act, it has its resonance and impact on all".