Abhishiktananda (Fr. Henri Le Saux, OSB) was a monk on fire, at first for and eventually with, the “blazing Presence” within. By the time of his death on December 7, 1973, that driving, unquenchable thirst for the Mystery within had become an “Awakening” to that Greater One lying behind us, yet not-other-than you or me. “The vision of Jesus”, Abhishik wrote to his beloved disciple Marc only two weeks before his death, “recovers all its power when his Spirit—entirely in the depths—has revealed the depth of the ‘Aham’” (MC 23, 11, 73). This “Aham asmi” (I AM) of Jesus was the profound preoccupation and final breakthrough for this French monk from Kergonam Abbey who spent the last 25 years of his life in India.

James Stuart, editor and compiler, also personal friend of Abhishiktananda, has done an admirable work for the English speaking and reading world in making available this volume, which, because it is drawn from the letters of the monk, reveals the heart of the man behind the many books of Abhishiktananda, and gives a greater than ever authenticity to them. The pains, the fears, the joys and the anguish that accompanied his journeys, his retreats and writings were relatively unknown in English until now, so that the volume fleshes in much that has been lacking for those who knew him in life.

Already a Benedictine monk before his call to the Orient, Abhishik wrote to Father Monchanin, his future French partner in India, that as Benedict did, long ago, these two pioneers in India would have to show the supreme importance of the interior life, and the subordinate place of externals. He believed that St. Benedict could only create Monte Cassino and the Rule because he had first passed three years in blessed solitude at Subiaco. For only in solitude does anyone enter the heart of monastic life; only there one enters “within,” and monastic life is essentially a life “within.” He saw the total freedom of the Hindu monk only a dream for a Christian monk or priest. While longing more each day for the ineffable encounter, Abhishik was a man without anything extraordinary. He wrote of his aspirations to a greater degree of personal stripping, a greater freedom, a greater nakedness, though he admitted neither his body nor his spirit were yet ready for it.

Abhishik’s personality was complex while ever aspiring to be utterly simple. This “Life Told Through his Letters” gives a clearer than ever picture of the joys and struggles shared by these two monastic pioneers, and the price that prophets and those called to be bridges and pathfinders for the rest often have to pay.

The “bridge” Abhishik found between Hinduism and Christianity, he often claimed was tearing him apart. While, with Monchanin, the very thing that united the two was in the end that which divided them. Shantivanam, the ashram they began March 21, 1950 on the banks of the Kauvery River in South India, was not only seen differently in its possibilities by the two, but even within Abhishik himself, it both “charmed” him and drove him from itself. He not only found that it complicated his contemplative life to have the burden of its maintenance and direction, but he claimed he could neither make it with his companion nor without him unless another companion would join them. He found Monchanin too Greek to go to the depths. Yet he described Monchanin as one with an uncommon quality of humility, gentleness, peace and poverty of spirit.

This Life further shows the depth of friendship between Abhishik and many to whom or about whom he wrote both in India and in Europe. As an author trying to describe his authentic experience, he was often harshly judged, particularly by censors. Guhantara (still never fully published), which he considered his most creative and strongest writing, was mercilessly criticized and caused him to try to publish thereafter either jointly with Monchanin or under a pseudo-name: Macarios the Indian. However, long before his death, his works began to reach the deep hearts of many and the feedback was heartening to him. His main correspondents from whose letters the compiler ably drew include: his immediate family, Fr. Chanoine LeMarie, OSB, Murray Rogers, Raimundo Panikkar, many Carmelites both in France and in India, his disciple Marc, Odette Baumer-Despeigne and others. One sees in his letters that he wrote to each person according to his or her situation and spirituality, always adapting himself to the other.

This French monk slain by India so loved the Church, Christ and the Gospel that these were the very causes of much of his anguish. If only the Church were more spiritually radiant! India, he said, will only finally become interested in the Gospel when it is preached in the manner of St. Francis of Assisi, in poverty, simplicity, humility and prayer. He saw the Church’s mission grounded in the awareness of the Presence in her own life and at the heart of all. Her fundamental calling, he claimed, is to awaken everyone to that Presence, in whatever situation (cultural or religious) God may have placed one. This, he insisted, is more important than making converts. The contribution of the East, when it is finally accepted, he believed, would be that explosive force which will free the Church from the “gravity” of its bond to a particular time and place which prevent her from being herself.

Ecumenical study weeks began at Shantivanam in 1957, the same year that Monchanin died. They were modest in their beginnings but eventually blossomed into East–West Dialogue Gatherings even in other parts of India. It was Abhishik who strongly insisted on the contemplative dimension of these. “What mankind needs today,” he wrote, “is a dimension of depth.” The world, he lamented, is dying from lack of depth, of roots. And this, he insisted, does not have to be given in words. To find the depth in oneself is the way to find it in everything. Abhishik believed more and more in the great value of these meetings held at the level of interiority between Christians and Hindus and Christians and Christians.

While Abhishik longed for disciples, his hopes were again and again dashed with bitter disappointment until he finally resigned himself to having none. And the Lord, always awaiting our surrender, quickly brought him three: two Hindu and one French Catholic. The latter was Marc, a young French seminarian who later took Sannyasi diksa (initiation) from both Abhishik and Swami Chittananda: the Hindu Swami coopting him into the host of monks and seers of India and Abshihik uniting him with the succession of monks that goes back to the Desert Fathers and behind even that to Elijah, the great monk-prophet of the Old Testament. This ceremony was for him the culmination of his 25 years in India, only 14 days before his heart attack and five months before his death. Abhishik described Marc as one who was burnt up by India and the one person with whom he could share the depths of the Mystery at the heart of the Upanishads: the Advaitic experience which he found so akin to Jesus’ experience of “I am He.”

He repeatedly claimed he was envious of Marc and insisted that the true Sannyasi should have nothing—and no more surely should monks and nuns. Abhishik explained to a friend how this total stripping of Sannyasi teaches one about the true inner life. He said that when he himself took the “kavi” (orange robes), he had no idea of the renunciation it implied.

Yet, in what Abhishik called one of the great graces of his life: the awakening to what is Real, which came into focus with his heart attack, he said that the awakening has nothing to do with any situation, even so—called life or death. I Am—no matter in what world. The awakening is in the ordinary. He wrote to those closest to him that he had found the holy Grail and this extra lease on life could only be used for living and sharing this discovery. Each awakened one is only a mirror in which you awaken to yourself. Abhishik saw everything becoming so simple. All the beautiful ceremonies he claimed he had enjoyed as much as anyone, but now in the “guha” (cave) of the Father, what is life to say? For him, only one thing mattered: the awakening! In his diary he had recorded dreams shortly after the heart attack in which he passed from cave to cave of varying altitudes and he continually replied: “the awakening has nothing to do with ‘measuring yourself’ against more and more difficult living conditions.” This was indeed his swansong to the world: to awaken, simply open your eyes there where you are! Ekadrishti (the one-pointed gaze)! “Who can bear the glory of transfiguration, of our discovery as transfigured; because what Christ is, I AM!” Some of his last recorded words were: “One can only speak of it after being awakened from the dead.”

Chosen by authors and compilers of Glory to Glory to be, with Thomas Merton, the mystics representing our present century, Abhishiktananda is bound to be better known, loved and appreciated because of this present volume, so ably forwarded by Donald Nicholl. The book is a pearl of great price for all who are preoccupied with discovering the Real here and now!