The mission of the Church in Asia and the mission of Maryknoll in the MMM is much intertwined with inter-religious dialogue as we interact with the other great world religions that call Asia their place of origin and their home.
Traditionally Maryknoll has had very little contact with Hinduism, so a ten-day inter-religious dialogue workshop has been arranged in Kerala in south India with a particular focus on India's predominant Hindu tradition. Approximately 25 Maryknoll lay missioners, brothers, sisters, and priests are attending the workshop from 16-25 November.
The workshop participants gathered in Bangkok today, most coming in from Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam, but some from the US and Hong Kong. Because the group would be in India for the American Thanksgiving holiday (the fourth Thursday of November), several of the group from Bangkok had prepared a traditional Thanksgiving meal for 40 people at the Bangkok center house! It was delicious!
The center is very nice, quite simple but well laid out and beautifully kept, not in a manicured sort of way but with each building hidden in the dense coconut trees that cover the property. The three residence halls each have four two-person rooms and an Asian-style squat toilet. A separate shower and toilet building offered two western-style toilets to the great relief of some of the group.
Other buildings among the trees house a meditation center, a dining hall, a classroom, and a residence and library for Jesuit seminarians. All are on a small scale because the center doesn't normally take groups of more than 24 people.
This first day we got settled, wandered around the campus and down to the river, and then had a meeting in a circle of benches outside to talk about the day-to-day plan for this workshop. Fr. Sebastian has several activities lined up for us in addition to the input he himself will offer on inter-religious dialogue.
Friday, 17 November 2000
The days at the center begin with a two-session meditation at 6:30 AM. We gather in the meditation center, sitting on the floor, and Fr. Sebastian gives some guiding principles for contemplative style meditation. The group sits in silence for 30 minutes, and then there is a ten-minute break followed by another 30-minute session. Breakfast follows that at 7:45 AM. After breakfast a crew of seven chops up all the vegetables that will be used in the meals for that day. The food is all vegetarian at the center.
We have input sessions, with Fr. Sebastian as the presenter, from 9:00 AM to 12:30 PM with a tea break in the middle. The tea breaks are real Indian style, with a strong Lipton-type tea that is mixed half and half with hot milk, with a lot of sugar added. Various Kerala-type sweets or pastries are on offer, too.
The content today centered on a foundation for understanding Hinduism. Fr. Sebastian spoke of a spirituality, an awareness of the One, that emerges through symbols into the various religions. We begin with an experience of the Unity of God but end up with a plurality of religious expressions as the spirituality we experience unfolds according to two streams, the Prophetic/Interpersonal stream (in which God is experienced as outside of and distinct from me) and the Mystical/Trans-Personal stream (in which God is experienced as in me and I in God).
At 6:30 PM we gathered in the meditation hall again for a 30-minute session which was followed by a eucharistic celebration. That was followed by supper at 7:45 PM and then there was a short gathering outside in the circle of benches for a check-up on how the day had gone for everyone. People were generally quite happy with the workshop so far.
After lunch there was a break until 2:30 PM when we resumed the input sessions until another tea break at 3:45 PM. Tea was a bit early because at 4:00 PM four taxis came to take all who wanted to go into town, the men in one group and the women in another. The men went to a fabric shop in the nearby town of Kalady to pick out material for an Indian-style shirt. The women went to the next, little bigger, town where they bought Indian-style dress for themselves. This was the first time to see some of the sights of ordinary India for most of the group so it was an interesting experience. Right in front of the fabric shop in Kalady, some men were setting up a small stage and PA system for an evening fund-raising event to benefit the PLO in their struggle against Israel.
Saturday, 18 November 2000
Our classes today began with a history of the foundations for the inter-religious dialogue in the church and how that dialogue has developed in the last 2000 years. We looked at the Jewish, Greek, and Roman milieux in which Christianity began, the early church Fathers, and then the historical, cultural, and theological factors which shaped the evolution of inter-religious dialogue as we know it today.
At 4:00 PM, some people went swimming, some went back into town, and others just took it easy at the center until our evening meditation at 6:30 PM followed by a liturgy for which Mike Bassano was the presider. After supper we gathered in the outside circle again for an evaluation of the day's activities and to plan for tomorrow. One big question we had was about the latest happenings in the US presidential election. Today (Friday in the US) was to be the day for counting the absentee ballots in Florida. Len Montiel has a short-wave radio but was unable to get the BBC or VOA.
The morning meditation today was at sunrise on the river bank with readings from the Vedic scriptures about the dawn.
Sunday, 19 November 2000
At 9:15 AM Fr. Stephen Thadom gave some background on Hinduism, and at 10:30 Hindu Swami ??? came to speak to us, mainly answering questions we put to him. Both presentations were interesting and quite informative.
This morning most of the group decided to experience a Catholic liturgy in the Syro-Malabar rite. Some went to the local parish at 6:00 or 7:30 AM while some others went to the nearby Carmelite Convent chapel. It turned out to be a good experience for all of us visitors. At the parish church, the liturgy was described as rather unexciting but afterwards the visitors were invited to a nearby Hindu temple. At the Carmelite Convent, the two priests who went there went to talk with the celebrant after mass and were then invited to breakfast with the sisters, a dance and song by some children from the Carmelite school, and then to visit homes of several Catholic families in the neighborhood on the way to the priests retirement home on the bank of the Poorna River where the priest lived.
After lunch we continued discussion with the swami, and then at 4:00 PM we left Sameeksha to visit the swami's meditation hall and shrine to one of the modern Hindu saints, Sri Sarkana. From there we went to the birthplace shrine and temple of one of the most famous Hindu mystics who is actually from Kalady, the small town where Sameeksha is located. Then we went to a seven-story circular shrine for Sri Sarkana. Unfortunately we left Scott Harris and Mike Greyerbiehl at the birthplace shrine. Even more unfortunately we took their shoes with us. One of our vehicles went back looking for them but we never caught up with them until they finally arrived back at Sameeksha shortly after we did. They had gone to the entrance of the birthplace shrine compound, where the vans had dropped us off, but the vans had gone around to a rear entrance where they collected us for the return trip to the center.
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