Most Popular Books by Bede Griffiths

This is an intimate first-person account of the life & beliefs of Dom Bede Griffiths, one of the great mystical thinkers of the 20th century & a pioneer in East-West understanding. Born into the English middle class in 1905, educated at Oxford, Bede spent several years as a literature scholar. He developed a close relationship with C.S. Lewis, one of his professors, with whom he shared a spiritual search. After leaving university life, Bede was drawn to the Catholic Church & eventually became a Benedictine monk. After 20 years he left England for India & founded a community that celebrated the common values of Hindu & Christian ways of life. Seekers from around the world traveled to the lush jungles of southern India to experience the unique community Griffiths founded. Although he never left his Catholic faith, Bede developed a spiritual & scientific understanding that transcended all dogma. These pages contain the simple voice of a profound thinker, teacher, & guru, who - despite some opposition from those who would label him a "heretic" - continues to reach out to people all over the world. A Human Search chronicles a lifelong quest for truth. Here are honest, impassioned reflections on God, nature, ritual, the divine feminine, the evolution of Scripture, & the deeper meaning of life.

Bede Griffiths, who died in 1994, was an English Benedictine monk who settled in India in 1955 and went on to become one of the great mystical teachers of our time. In India, where he assumed the dress and ascetic discipline of a Hindu holy man, Griffiths established a Christian community following the customs of a Hindu ashram. Through his immersion in the scriptures of India, he found wisdom and inspiration for his own Christian faith. This volume, which draws on his autobiographical volumes and his many other books, presents the ideal entry to the cosmic and mystical spirituality of a great spiritual guide.

This pioneering work harmonizes Hindu Vedanta philosophy with the Christian vision of the Word made flesh through the Spirit of God''s love. An introduction to the Vedic scriptures which shows that God has also lavished his riches on non-Christian people and how we must relate ourselves to these other sources of truth. “Without Christianity I don''t think the oriental religions, Hinduism and Buddhism, can answer the needs of the modern world. But without the enrichment of the mystical tradition of Asia I doubt whether the Western Churches can really discover the fullness of Christ which we are seeking.” (Bede Griffiths)

If modern civilization has lost sight of the goal that all ancient cultures held steadily before their eyes--a religious goal--how is man to recover the sense of the absolute and the unconditioned to which he can commit himself? The author believes the answer to this can come only through a meeting of East and West. A new structure must be found, and it must necessarily be universal, since we now irrevocably belong to one world. Only with a meeting of the old religions can a new adequate religious approach be found.

These meditations on the mysteries of the Christian faith, and their relation to the religions of India, spring from the contemplation that became the centre of the author''s life, and from the daily experience of encounter that made Shantivanam truly an ''abode of peace''.

"River of Compassion is a reflection on one of the most sacred texts of Hinduism. Father Bede Griffiths shows how the Gita can be a practical spiritual guide to a Christian on the spiritual path. This commentary has been written for the benefit of people who have little or no knowledge of the background to these texts, need a sense of direction to help understand the bearing that these works could have on their own lives, and want to use the Gita as a practical guide in their spiritual life."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Letters to the person to whom Bede Griffiths'' autobiography was dedicated. Like Griffiths, Richard Rumbold was a twentieth-century British writer from a Catholic background, interested in Eastern religion.