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)