Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

David M. Odorisio (ed.), "Merton and Hinduism: The Yoga of the Heart" review by Ron Dart

David M. Odorisio (ed.),  Merton and Hinduism: The Yoga of the Heart, Fons Vitae, 2021.

Thomas Merton, like the proverbial fox, rambled across much terrain and in such roaming saw and revealed much in a variety of challenging areas. Merton was not the only Roman Catholic in the 20^th century to see and articulate the need for deeper interfaith contemplative dialogue, but he was certainly one of the most evocative, accessible and articulate in doing so. Fons Vitae, to their courageous and hard-won credit, deserve many a kudo for bringing together in a splendid collection of tomes, Merton’s fox-like landscape traversed. But, Merton was also very much like the hedgehog, deeper burrowing and much wisdom gleaned from such burrowing. The latest and final text on Merton and his contemplative interfaith dialogue, Merton and Hinduism: The Yoga of the Heart, edited by David M. Odorisio, is a beauty and bounty not to miss. 

The portal of Merton and Hinduism is opened by David Odorisio’s lengthy and incisive “Introduction,” the path and direction of the book made plain and clear for the curious and interested reader. Part I “Hinduism and Christianity in Context: Historical and Comparative Perspectives” threads together six superb essays that reflect on Merton, Hinduism, Yoga and Hesychasm (3 of the essays are on Hesychasm). Part I provides a general overview of the larger topic of Christianity and Hinduism, Merton more in the shadows and offstage. Part II, “Merton and Hinduism: Dialogue and Deep Learning in the Cave of the Heart” has thirteen essays that drill and bore into Merton’s varied engagement with forms of Hinduism from an variety of varied angles, including his friendship with different scholars and practitioners of Hinduism. Part III, “Merton on Hinduism: The Yoga of the Heart”, for the most part, includes many articles by Merton on Hinduism (10 to be sure). Part IV, “Appendix: Reading Thomas Merton Reading Hinduism and Yoga: A Bibliography of Sources” is a fit and fine ending for those keen to delve deeper and further into Merton’s burrowing and probes. There are six black-white photographs in Merton and Hinduism that add to the, mostly, textual book.

David M. Odorisio has walked the extra mile not only to synthesize material that many know about by Merton on Hinduism but he has also unearthed much that has not been written by Merton on Hinduism and articles about Merton on Hinduism—this makes Merton and Hinduism a motherlode and gold mine of sorts that will set new standards for further studies on Merton on Hinduism, Indian religion and the East.  Many of the essays in Merton and Hinduism have been published before but the bringing together of such articles into a polished and needful tome makes this a must read text for Merton keeners. I was fortunate, when younger, to correspond with Bede Griffiths and I was somewhat disappointed there was not an article that dealt with Merton and Griffiths in a fuller and more comprehensive way and manner, Griffiths a more mature and deeper thinker, in thought, word and deed than Merton on Hinduism. An article on Merton, Griffiths and Hinduism could have revealed much about both Merton’s fox like approach and, at times, his lack of hedgehog depth. There is, also, a fine photograph of Coomaraswamy and Tagore in Merton and Hinduism (p. 201) and although Dekar’s article on Merton and Gandhi covers much needed terrain, Merton, in many ways, had more affinities with Tagore than Gandhi. In short, an essay on Merton and Tagore just as an article on Merton and Griffiths would have enriched and fleshed out this timely and, in some ways, timeless volume on Merton’s explorations into the Indian and Hindu soul.   

I suppose a small yet insignificant quibble I have about this expansive book is the lack of an Index, and Index making it possible to navigate more nimbly topics, themes and people that interest the curious reader. But, this is but a fret and misstep in an otherwise superb book. 

There is no doubt that Fons Vitae and David M. Odorisio have excelled, yet once again, in articulating Merton’s fox like traversing of the terrain of Hinduism. As mentioned above, Merton did do his hedgehog like burrowing, but when Merton is compared with those like Griffiths, his leanings are decidedly more fox like than hedgehog. And yet, Merton and Hinduism: The Yoga of the Heart brilliantly illuminates the compelling reality that Merton also had distinctive hedgehog tendencies, ever burrowing in many needful and necessary places---truly an “A+” gift of a tome. This will be a standard source book for future studies on Merton and Hinduism.

Ron Dart  

RJ World eConference 2022 Living Justice - Wayne Northey

Wayne Northey: The second RJ World eConference took place, April 23-30, 2022.

Here was my keynote address:

 

CLICK HERE for links to other presentations.

Symposium II: "If there is any excellence - a conversation on Arete" - with David Goa, Vladika Lazar & Eden Jersak

“Clothed and in his right mind” — Kenneth Tanner

Folks have in recent centuries struggled with the supernatural moments in the gospels, but seeing the things I have seen it puzzles me that some still stumble over manifestations of the demonic in the stories the gospels tell.

One could try to blame this recent disbelief on relative affluence and ease but having been a pastor for seventeen years in one of the stablest suburbs in America I can testify first-hand that darkness doesn't discriminate. There is as much spiritual mayhem here as anywhere, as much bewildering evil now as then.

One of the reasons the gospels have the kind of power they do for so many is that they do not shrink from reality. They tell it like it is. They are not in denial about the corners into which we humans have painted ourselves.

And this story of a demon-addled man by a rural lakeshore, and of the trauma his affliction has imposed on his family and the community, makes as much sense in their time as it does in ours.

The demons don't want to be sent back to "the Abyss,” whatever the hell that is, and one wonders what "the Abyss” must be like because they had rather inhabit a herd of pigs than go back there. The pigs, for all their piggish existence, are yet part of the creation God made good

One recalls that our oceans have a depth called "the Abyss,” which is pitch black, where strange luminous creatures eat each other. And it was Stephen Hawking who described the entrance to a black hole, the "event horizon,” as a place where one might hang a sign with the words of Dante: "Abandon all hope ye who enter here." It seems "the Abyss" is something rather worse still.

The Oxford shootings felt like entering a place like that, and you and I have had other moments of confronting real darkness.

Once when I was sitting in a room on the phone with a young woman tormented by an eating disorder, who had been committed for last resort care, it felt like a deep chill invaded the room, a resistance to the light I was trying to speak into her heart and mind.

l'Il admit it frightened me but I kept speaking words of life and eventually whatever felt it owned this young woman dissipated, and in the weeks and months to come she eventually found liberty and wholeness.

The legions' words are the first ones we read in the account (Luke 8:26-39) but they are spoken in desperate *reply* to Jesus's command that they depart from the man they control.

I imagine Jesus spoke the command in the "still small voice," the one Elijah heard in the cave on Sinai, the whisper that wasn't in the wind, earthquake, or fire-quiet, authentic words of a love that does not boast and yet cannot be resisted by darkness.

And after the stampede and the cliff and the drownings and the rumors of the pig herders and the townsfolk's curiosity and the running to see what trouble Jesus had made for them, there was simply the man made well: sitting at the feet of his rabbi, “clothed and in his right mind."

And for a just one brilliant moment everyone was silenced by the holiness of it all.

"clothed and in his right mind."

I know when I read those words that this story is true and that it's the truest story one can tell, not just of this man's life but of humanity. And this is why we who sit at his feet are no longer afraid. Nothing is going to stop love from clothing us all in himself and giving us all the mind of God.

Symposium I: Morality vs. Moralism - Lazar Puhalo with David Goa & Bradley Jersak

The Impact of Christ on Female/Male Relationships - Wayne Northey

This study still has pertinence today. There are two versions, which titles below explain. The second was presented on the University of British Columbia campus to a secular/Christian audience.

An excerpt from the first:

Introduction

A few years ago, a man phoned me and asked if I had some time for a talk. I replied that I was getting my kids ready for bed, but afterwards would be happy to chat with him.

He phoned an hour or so later, and we had our talk. He had read and kept, as it turned out, a letter to the editor of The Vancouver Sun I had written a few years before concerning a prison riot at Matsqui Institution. He had appreciated some of the points I had made concerning the evil of the prison itself, and now was writing his memoirs. He was planning to quote some of my insights into the nature of prison in light of his own son’s experience as a prisoner. On a whim, he looked up the only ‘Northey W’ listed in the phone book, and asked if I was one and the same.

We had a subsequent lively conversation until in passing, he discovered that I had a Christian commitment. “Not one who really takes the Bible seriously though?,” he asked incredulously, then immediately cooled, and soon therefore terminated the conversation, upon my affirmative response.

I presume neither I nor my letter found its way into his memoirs after all.

Canadian singer/songwriter Bruce Cockburn says that he often qualifies his affirmation of his Christian faith by saying: “But I’m not one of them.” He is obviously smarting under the identification of Christianity with things unsavoury said or done in the name of God and Christ.

To continue reading CLICK HERE