I Am Through You So I Read online

  In Nigeria, my host, with innocent determination, forced a guest gift on me that would get me into quite amusing troubles. A chief insisted on presenting me with an elephant tusk engraved with a personal dedication. Shocked and dismayed, I refused as desperately as gratitude would allow, but to no avail. Then the huge tusk did not fit into my suitcase; I had to wrap it in newspaper and tie it to the outside. My hopes that Nigerian officials might notice and confiscate it turned out to be wishful thinking. Walking through Munich airport, I heard outraged whispers behind me, and I pleaded with customs officers to impound this contraband—again, to my amazement, to no avail. In the end, I asked some Bavarian nuns to sell the ivory to benefit the poor and felt blissfully relieved when I was finally rid of it. Two months later, now home at Mount Saviour, I received the proud message that one of the Sisters—to surprise me (and she sure did!)—had succeeded in smuggling that thing into the United States under the long skirt of her habit.

  However, there were also more pleasant surprises. When I arrived in Kenya, I had no idea that a series of lectures I was to give had been canceled at short notice. But Japanese friends who just happened to be in Nairobi at the time had found out that my schedule was free. They awaited me at the airport and took me on several days of safari, with lions, zebras, giraffes, and the overwhelming view of Mount Kilimanjaro. I cannot say what amazed me more: such beauty of nature or the variety of human encounters.

  Often, I encountered audiences who wanted to hear me speak about happiness or peace and justice, but were not particularly interested in the Christian message, sometimes even opposed to it. My very first seminar at Esalen Institute is a good example. The program director there knew me from having been one of the teachers that Stan Grof invited to give presentations during his month-long seminars. One Saturday morning, I got a call at the Big Sur monastery requesting if I could quickly come down and take over from a teacher who had failed to show up for his weekend workshop. In the car, rushing down the hill to be on time for the morning session, I remembered that I had not even asked what topic I was to speak on. I was in for a surprise. The topic was “Why I am not a Catholic.” Well, I was able to start out with some good reasons I myself could find. Fortunately, not one of the participants walked out on that monk who popped up in place of the disgruntled ex-priest they expected, in fact, a good many came back for later seminars I gave on other topics. The titles I chose were designed to lead to encounters with a wide variety of people—Prayer, Christian Mysticism, but also Science and Spirituality with Fritjof Capra, Pier Luigi Luisi, or Rupert Sheldrake, Hiking and Poetry with Steve Harper, and what came to be known as our “Film Festivals,” which my dear friend and colleague Francis Lu and I “celebrated”—that seems to me the appropriate term—for more than a quarter of a century.

  In fact, some of my most enjoyable encounters were with coleaders—so with the Tai Chi master Cungliang Al Huang; with great enthusiasm, we did “Poetry East/West” together. With Malidoma P. Somé, a great West African teacher, who had been traumatized by his mission-school experiences, I co-led a workshop in which we experienced deep healing and forgiveness—besides dancing to his drumbeat for a whole night without getting tired. With Roger Grande, a pioneer of Thai massage in the West, I gave a workshop on “The Pleasure of Touching” and “The Joy of Being in Touch,” and with the Russian psychiatrist Vladimir Lutchkov, a weekend with the tongue-in-cheek title “Authority—from the Perspectives of the Kremlin and the Vatican.”

  Still more exotic encounters provided a memorable pilgrimage with the Sisters of Compassion in New Zealand. A hundred years earlier, their foundress, Mother Marie-Joseph Aubert, had dedicated the order to serving the Maori—against significant resistance from white settlers. Now, the descendants of these Maori people were showing their gratitude: to celebrate the centenary of the founding of the order, they hosted more than a hundred Sisters on a ten-day pilgrimage up the Wanganui River from village to village where Mother Aubert had founded schools. We walked all day, and each evening, we were received at a different marae4 with impressive festivities. We pilgrims would gather at the gate to the marae and wait until women inside—only women have this right—invited us with song to enter their sacred precinct. Then, young warriors in grass skirts made ceremonial mock attacks on us. There followed long speeches and response speeches between arriving guests and waiting hosts. Finally, an elder among us pilgrims placed a fern leaf on the ground between the two groups. Only after our hosts picked up this sign of peace, were we officially accepted as welcome guests. Forming a long line, we exchanged the nose kiss, or hongi, with everyone from the young warriors to the last snotty baby a mother held up. From that moment, we were simply family members, uncles and aunts, to the children. Our hosts dined us lavishly and put us up to sleep in the longhouse between the carvings of the ancestors. (Along the entire way, Maori children helped me gather trash. From the north of Scotland to near the South Pole, I have been able in this way to clean up Mother Earth.)

  In India, I was to experience the surprises of a different kind of pilgrimage. Father Bede Griffiths, whom I was visiting at Shantivanam—his monastery that is also an ashram—entrusts me to his friend, a Hindu priest, who takes me on a pilgrimage through the south of India—on foot, by train, and by oxcart. In Chidambaram, where we meet not a single non-Indian person, we participate in a highly festive Puja5 in one of India’s holiest temples; both Shiva and Vishnu are worshiped here. Almost more touching is the attitude of a young temple priest in the Kali temple on the city’s outskirts: the humility with which he encounters the poor. When we arrive in Pondicherry, Shri Udar Pinto, one of the pioneers of the experimental international city Auroville, furrows his brow at the red mark on my forehead. I, in turn, feel foreign in this French enclave and am homesick for true India. Neither here nor on any of my other journeys do I want to be a tourist, much less an anthropologist. I simply want to be a brother among sisters and brothers of the human family.

  In Taiwan, I encounter people high up in the restricted mountain areas—a rare privilege accorded to me because I have been invited here by Maryknoll Fathers. I am fascinated by the appearance of the tall, young indigenous women, now nuns, striding like white-robed queens. In my youth, headhunting was still practiced here. One day, an indigenous catechist with whom I became friends appears very sad. “How far you have come,” he explains through our interpreter, “and now we do not even have a common language.” I search for an answer. Then I remember: “But we can drink together.” He likes the idea. To him, it means drinking from the same vessel, cheek to cheek. The rice wine tastes like petroleum, but the ritual touches me deeply. Then my friend says solemnly, “In the old days, one did that only once in life.”

  Is not everything in this life, if done with full awareness, done only once? Is not life a journey of encounters? Is not all suffering on the road homesickness, and is not this homesickness in the end a homesickness for God—for finding shelter and protection in the Great Mystery?

  Dialogue

  JK: “You are my little gypsy,” is something your mother apparently said to you when you once again went on an adventure tour to the Bohemian Forest. The seventh decade of your life is likewise shaped by lengthy tours for seminars and lectures all over the world. You have been invited often. The title of this phase of life is headed by the word encounters. When we travel and encounter someone in foreign parts, then on the surface it is at first a form of contact with something new, something strange, one might say. What were the central insights and experiences that your travels made possible?

  DSR: Possibly, my most important discovery was that, in moments of true encounter, we feel a deep inner connection with people who, outwardly, are completely different, even in their views, culture, and way of life. A spark jumps over and we are one with each other. One example comes to mind: I was traveling in India at the time, before Indian Airlines had begun using computers. Often one had to call or send a telegram to secure a connecting flight. I was
stranded in Madras, the city known today as Chennai. I had an Indian Airlines ticket to Calcutta and needed a connecting ticket from there. But it was rather obvious that the official trying to sell me the ticket wanted to be bribed, which I would not do out of principle. So, he made me go to his office, wait, come back the next day, and again the next. He sent a telegram, and that cost something. Then he made phone calls, and they cost something as well. Then, in the end, he wanted to sell me a suspicious connecting ticket. After all this waiting, I was already somewhat worn down, but suddenly something inside me changed and I said to him, “Imagine yourself in my shoes. If you were me and I wanted to sell you this ticket, would you buy it?” At that, he fell out of his role completely and said, “Under no circumstances. That is not a good idea. But I will help you.” From that point on, everything was settled quickly. He knew exactly what he needed to do and did not ask for any more money. Everything worked perfectly. Unfortunately, I have not managed to do that very often in my life. But for me it is always a significant experience to encounter a stranger in such a way that something shines out in both of us. When that happens, the charade is over and a live encounter takes place. Aliveness is mutual connection. Where that is missing, the best we can manage is polite play acting. The most beautiful experiences on my travels are moments when strangeness switches over to connectedness.

  JK: Your travels often bring you into contact with more elemental religions, such as the indigenous tradition in the United States, but also in Taiwan, New Zealand, and Australia. You are trained in ethnology and religious studies—both open to and curious about the things other traditions can give us. What kinds of horizons did these religions open for you? What were you able to learn from them?

  DSR: What touched me most whenever I encountered archaic religions is the people’s sense of the holiness of everyday life. The separation between the sacred and the profane is not as distinct as it is for us. People are conscious of “Mana,” of the presence and power of Mystery in everything. I would compare this sensitivity for the Holy to a stronger sense of vision, an ability to look through things and see their transcendent aspect. The Holy evokes both awe and fascination when one encounters it in things such as lighting a fire, sowing seed, or preparing food. Drawing water, boiling it, making tea—such simple, everyday activities suddenly become holy acts before our eyes. In India, unfortunately, this consciousness has largely disappeared in recent decades. My memories are still of the early 1970s, and back then, when I walked anywhere in India, I felt as if I were in a cathedral. Every place in that country felt like a holy site. Even in the cities at that time, at every corner people performed sacred actions, decorated altars, honored images of deities. All day long, they did whatever they had to do, with a sense of reverence. I hope that might still be the case today in the tens of thousands of Indian villages. But in the cities, the sense of the Holy seems to have been largely lost.

  JK: You described some of the places where you were welcomed, such as a South Sea island. You recalled that the feature of these societies that most stood out was hospitality. Everything is shared, even if there is little to go around. Is hospitality something that you miss in our culture? Is that something we can learn from these people?

  DSR: Well, I have also experienced a great deal of hospitality in our own culture. But the difference may be that, for us, hospitality is quite selective—not just toward strangers but also toward other social circles. Most people move rather exclusively within their own class and social circle, and that is as far as hospitality extends. I notice this in our society, and in India, it is still far more pronounced: for all practical purposes, India still largely maintains the caste system. But there are still cultures that practice an all-embracing hospitality; an essential feature of their hospitality is that it is not selective. To Maoris, for instance, it does not matter whether you are black or white, rich or poor, or different in some other way. What matters is that you are a stranger, one left alone, without the support of family or friends. That is enough to trigger hospitality.

  JK: That reminds me of Jesus’ words: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (Matt 25:35)—though mirrored in a different culture.

  DSR: Yes, this hospitality is simply the expression of innate human compassion.

  JK: Hospitality without distinctions. But sometimes cultural differences can also lead to difficult moments. You related how in Nigeria you were given an entire elephant tusk, engraved with your name, as a guest gift. You tried to resist as best you could, but out of politeness, finally had to take it, and tried in vain to give it away. Hospitality can have its pitfalls as well.

  DSR: Yes, and hospitality can be painful as well. I once felt its pain when I was hosted by extremely poor people. Their hospitality was so lavish that they did not simply share their own daily bread with me, no, they went out to buy me things they would never get for themselves—and which, in fact, I don’t like, such as Coca-Cola and potato chips. I felt deeply grateful, but I also felt pain. Gratefulness can encompass pain.

  JK: One wants to give something back and cannot. On one of your trips to India, you also visited Bede Griffiths in his ashram, Shantivanam. What did you learn about religious life from him?

  DSR: I had the great good fortune to know Bede Griffiths for a long time.6 We first met in the early 1950s when he visited our community at Mount Saviour, and we stayed in touch until he died in 1993. I greatly admired Father Bede for how he managed to integrate Indian and Christian religious sensibilities. He celebrated Mass at Shantivanam with the reverence and beauty of a puja in a Hindu temple. In a truly creative way, he adopted elements of Hindu worship into the Christian liturgy. I will always remember the climactic moment when, to the sound of bells, he was wafting a camphor fire around the Eucharistic gifts of bread and wine. A liturgical celebration with Father Bede was an unforgettable experience. The enculturation of the Christian liturgy into Indian culture became his lasting accomplishment. Church authorities did not make this easy for him, but he persevered.

  JK: He did understand the importance of Christian enculturation.

  DSR: Yes, in the truest sense of the word. He was deeply convinced that all religions breathe one spirit. And that spirit was alive in him. He kept his eyes on the Mystery that is alive in all religions and unites them. He was so enthusiastic for that unity, and so intellectually convinced of it as well, that expressing it in the liturgy and in his own way of life was completely natural. He wore the saffron robes of the sadhus, the Indian monks. Attempts at enculturation by adopting one or another little detail can be artificial and contrived, but with Father Bede, everything was organic and fitting.

  JK: You asked whether all traveling might be triggered by a sort of homesickness. Normally, we feel as though it is a longing for distant travel—wanderlust—that drives us. What do we seek when we set out into the world?

  DSR: Wanderlust and homesickness are not all that different. Sometimes I am not at all sure whether one or the other is driving me. In the end, a barely conscious longing to venture deep into the Great Mystery may express itself in both our inward quest and in our outward journeys. Our most important journeys in life do not need to be long or lead us to faraway places. Walking over to the next village may turn out to be more of an adventure journey than my traveling around the world by plane. What matters is the attitude—openness for encounters, courage to expose oneself to surprise.

  JK: One undertakes something, be it out of homesickness or wanderlust. One moves, one changes. Staying in place will not do. We humans evidently need to journey—either inward or outward, in some way, shape, or form.

  DSR: To live is to change. And change is the essence of journeying.

  JK: Homo viator—man is a wanderer.

  DSR: In one of his prayers, Rilke says to God, “When I go toward you, it is with my whole life.”7 The movement of our lives is a journey in this sense, a journey home, if you will.

  JK: But the journey home also requires detours, ways out,
and sometimes ways of escape even, to become truly a journey home. Since you are familiar with the religious situation in many parts of the world, your assessment of it interests me. Because religion is a worldwide phenomenon, if, for example, you compare Europe with the United States, the former seems to be far more atheist than the latter. In the United States, an open and vocal commitment to religious faith and invoking religion to justify one’s positions and actions is almost normal, while in Europe, about 42 percent of people see themselves as atheist or close to atheism—including many of those baptized as Christians. Nietzsche’s statement that God is dead, which we have already alluded to, seems to prove true in practice. In our public spaces in Europe, an existential-practical atheism or a complete indifference to religion—an apathy—has become the rule rather than the exception. Often, being religious or believing in God is seen in one’s circle of friends as a little strange, if not downright suspicious. How do you understand this? How do you interpret this mood, which may be rather unique to Europe in comparison with the rest of the world?