Monk in the World

“Father Bede sent for me and asked if I would consider taking sannyasa, or Indian monkhood, from him as a Christian, not as a Hindu… Twenty-five of us assembled on the banks of the river an hour before dawn to share in the sannyasa diksha, the ceremony of initiation that goes back to the Vedas and the Upanishads, the sacred Hindu texts. We sat in meditation under a grove of eucalyptus trees as we prepared. The river was quiet and still, but nature was awake with life, and across the Kveri an eerie chanting emanated from a Hindu temple, a timeless harbinger of the coming day. Although it was cloudy that early morning, an energy moved through the air. The atmosphere seemed charged with countless presences, angelic beings who had come to witness what was about to happen…

The gentle and sagely Father Bede signaled to a young monk who led us in the Gayatri mantra, the most sacred chant of the Indian tradition, found in the Rig Veda, one of the most ancient in the tradition. This was followed by more chants, and then readings from the Upanishads, the Psalms, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Gospel of John. Bede then gave a beautiful discourse on the meaning of sannyasa, the ancient roots of renunciation in the life of the rishis, the saints, sages, and mystics of Indian antiquity. He described the place of the renunciate in India and in the Church, how the sannyasi is a living sign of the transcendent nature of life, of the mystical quest for God, or in Indian terms, the quest for the Absolute.

Father Bede and I approached the edge of the sacred Kaveri. I entered the water and took off my clothes, flinging them into the surface stream, then submerging myself under the water three times. As sunrise quickly approached, and I emerged from the river, Father Bede wrapped me in the kavi, the ancient religious garb of the renunciate, the sannyasi. This rite of initiation is thousands of years old, and it symbolizes renunciation of the world, of possessions, and of oneself. Quickly I dried myself off, hidden by the morning’s pale radiance. Grinning broadly, Father Bede draped me with the kavi.

The diksha was a very powerful experience for me. It left an indelible mark on my spiritual life and became a prominent feature in my interior geography. After I took this radical step of sannyasa, the life of renunciation, I thought to myself, “Perhaps I should make a home here and stay in India, living right here at Shantivanam.” I had fallen under the spell of Shantivanam and the new life that lay before me. But it was not to be. Hours later, as I sat with Bede on the porch of his hut, he turned to me and with gentle authority said, “Your mission is in the West.” I replied that I was thinking I might like to stay at Shantivanam. But he insisted that I return home. “You’re needed in America, not here in India.” He went on to describe how the sannyasi’s life might look in America or Europe.

“The real challenge for you, Wayne, is to be a monk in the world, a sannyasi who lives in the midst of society, at the very heart of things.” Although this charge seemed difficult, I accepted it, only later perceiving the wisdom in it. A sannyasi always receives a new name, and so Father Bede gave me the Sanskrit name Paramatmananda, which means “bliss of the supreme spirit” or “joy of the holy spirit.” I strove to make the name fit me, finding joy and humor in life and sharing them with others.

The way of a sannyasi or a sannyasini (nun) in India is an acosmic path — that is, not of this world. It transcends the values, attachments, and obligations of worldly existence. As in their Christian and Buddhist counterparts, the way of the sannyasi and sannyasinin is a path of withdrawal, a radical extraction from the ways of selfish, purely individualistic pursuits. This withdrawal makes possible a focus on the eternal, changeless reality of the ultimate. The way of the sannyasi concentrates one’s life and energy on this eternal quest and the difficult work of transformation, a lonely, often desolating activity. The most dramatic and ancient characterization of the acosmic ascetic, the muni, or silent seer, is found in the Rig Veda, where this seer is said to be “girded with the wind.”

The type of engagement I have in mind is direct, not abstract. It is a twofold engagement: personal encounter with others and a participation in the experiences, struggles, trials, joys, triumphs, and fears most people in society experience. The daily tasks of earning a living, paying bills, saving money, getting along with others, being entertained, enjoying healthy recreation, and learning how to interact with difficult people are all part of an active life. So they must also be part of life for a monk in the world, at the crossroads of contemporary culture and experience. When I use the term monk in the world I am referring both to my own situation as a monastic type living in the heart of society and to you, who are or aspire to be a contemplative resident in the same busy world. The traditional monastic understanding that one can be in the world, but not of it can be reformulated as engaged in the world, but free of it, engaged in the world and with others, but not attached to the world’s greed, indifference, insensitivity, noise, confusion, pettiness, unease, tension, and irreverence.

Declaring oneself a monk, or mystic, in the world is a way to make the journey easier. By committing to a way of life, or even simply to a name on which we can hang our attention, we formalize our commitment to treating our actions in the world as important. Many organized religions have realized the necessity of creating institutional positions for those following the practice of their faith. Although we may not all want the structure and tradition of an established path, the formal dedication to becoming a mystic in the world — even if we keep the identification to ourselves — can help us immeasurably as we battle with the endless distractions the world serves up to us. Whether this commitment involves taking the lay monk’s full vows of celibacy and the formal practice, as I have done, or simply following a path of spiritual practice and right behavior, a formal commitment, one we can return to in our moments of doubt and distraction, makes a mature spiritual life possible…

“The essence of monastic life is not its structures but its interior practice, and the heart of interior practice is contemplative prayer,” wrote Thomas Keating, the Trappist spiritual teacher. The monk is immersed in contemplative experience, and this is why he or she chooses such a unique way of life. The monastery is not an end in itself, or that place where everything comes together for us, but a means to cultivate the mystic in us, the contemplative vision and gift. Each person has this gift, or at least access to it, simply by being born. Our birth is an invitation to our gifts, a call to immersion in the Absolute, with the possibility of our ultimate transformation through contact with the Divine. All monastic life must be inspired by this deep desire. Monasticism has its origin here in the hidden places of the heart.

Brother David Steindl-Rast expresses it simply: “Monasticism of the heart is the heart of monasticism.” It is this heartfelt monasticism that has inspired so many souls to venture to mountain caves, desert huts, and remote communities throughout the East and West, whether these seekers be Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, or Christian. It is the longing of the monk within that calls so many to leave the world for brief retreats. The same call works within both the outer and the inner monk. The outer monk joins the monastery to release the inner monk’s mystical life. A monastic is ideally someone who takes the inner monk seriously, and this inner monk is simply the mystic in all of us. Eventually the outer and inner monk become one through prayer, spiritual practice, meditation, or mystical contemplation.

All these practices are related to the birth of awareness and to inner attention to the sacred. The monk in all of us, as cross-cultural thinker Raimon Panikkar observes, “aspires to reach the ultimate goal of life with all his [or her] being by renouncing all that is not necessary to it, i.e., by concentrating on this one single and unique goal.” Panikkar speaks of the inner monk as essential to the human, as part of each person. Having an inner monk doesn’t require an overtly religious context. It is an innate expression of the mystical quest that everyone can reach by virtue of our common humanity. “The monastic vocation as such precedes the fact of being Christian, or Buddhist, or secular, or Hindu, or even atheist,” writes Panikkar...

Once the inner monk awakens, once the mystic begins to see, an interior freedom is ignited, and the external structures become less important. We will always need them, but they are not where humanity lives. They are places of retreat, renewal, and rest. And most important, they are a countercultural symbol of the spiritual journey we must all make in our own way and at our own pace. Why do I choose to be a monk in the world and not locked away in a remote hermitage? Because I want to identify with and be identified with all those who suffer alone in the world, who are abandoned, homeless, unwanted, unknown, and unloved. I want to know the insecurity and vulnerability they experience, to forge a solidarity with them. The homeless are often open to the divine mystery through their very vulnerability and anxiety…

Living as a hermit monk in the world, as a contemplative mystic working for a living, like most people, living simply and consciously, I can do the most good for others. Furthermore, I choose to be a monk living in the midst of the real world, among my brothers and sisters, because I am first of all a contemplative mystic. That is, I am anchored in a deep and growing inner awareness of God’s presence, of the Divine’s incomparable love for each one of us. Often I feel the Divine One giving itself to me directly, in my relationships with others and in the natural world; it is always a source of inspiration, delight, and even bliss. I experience and so am aware of this Presence in some way, all the time. Often I am overwhelmed by God’s love and I feel it inviting me to profound and subtler degrees of surrender, that is, of greater generosity in assenting to God’s invitation. My mystical experience is emphatically and inevitably God centered.”

~ Wayne Teasdale, A Monk in the World