John Main Seminar 1996 - Raimon Panikkar

(Panikkar and Freeman) "The Silence of Life" was the topic for the John Main Seminar held at Ascot, England from August 22-25, 1996, led by Raimon Panikkar. His erudition is obvious to all who hear him, but more than this he spoke from a spiritual vision which conveyed not only the learning of a scholar but the experience of a practitioner and the authority of a prophet - one who does not predict the future but helps his contemporaries to see the present with insight. Panikkar stated that Life is ontologically silent. Silence, therefore, is not the repression of thought or expression, even though "silence says nothing". It is simply the realization of our true nature. In his talks on the silence of the body, the mind and the will, and his concluding discourses on me Resurrection and Fullness of Life, he opened up for his listeners not just a deeper but for many a quite new understanding of human nature in its solitary and social aspects, as well as in its human and divine dimensions. Moving easily from Christian theologians and mystics to the traditions of India and Islam, Panikkar expounded his Christian anthropology of human wholeness and its destiny of divinization: God became Man so that Man might become God, as the earliest Christian thinkers proclaimed. This basic Christian dogma was explored and opened up to display fresh fields of understanding. Most Christian thinkers, Panikkar said, remain neo-platonists in their assumption that life means only the 'life of the spirit'. Life however means not just bios (biological life) but zoe, and that fullness of life which Jesus promises demands a full integration of the body. It is a view that is truly obedient to Jesus' promise not of immortality but of eternal life and of resurrection as a dimension of present reality rather than just a future event. This emphasis on the bodiliness of the spiritual life is not superficial. It inculcates a lived humility and nurtures a healthy asceticism devoted to the guarding and training of the senses not to their repression.

When he turned to the silence of the mind, Panikkar showed how affirmative of the potential of the human person the apophatic approach of silence can be. Neither repression of thought nor the thought of thoughtlessness, silence is the ascent of consciousness which allows full knowledge to awaken. God, the one who knows all, is the Knower. But the knower can never be known or he ceases to be the knower and becomes merely another known ­ which is how many theologian's treat God We come to know not by knowing the knower but by becoming the knower 1 this seems to some Christians to smack of pantheism, Panikkar described it as being in fact the true meaning of our adoption in Christ; the destiny which leads from kenosis to theosis, from the cross to the resurrection, in which the whole of divinity is shown to dwell in us. So as the mind becomes silent the third eye of human consciousness opens and the teaching of Jesus on the sound eye giving health to the whole person (Mt. 6:22) is realized in personal experience. The last step of the mind is thus to discover its own limits.

In his teaching on silence Panikkar showed the influence not only of his study of Indian tradition (where philosophy and theology are not split as in the West) but also of his years of spiritual practice in the East. Friendships with Indian masters as well as the great pioneers of Hindu-Christian dialogue: Jules Monchanin, Henri Le Saux and Bede Griffiths taught him that while religions cannot teach one another, they can and are meant to learn from one another.

One thing we learn from the meeting of the hemispheres in the human spirit is that "God has no will". This assertion can shock but can also liberate us from the near divinization of the human will in western culture and philosophy. To silence the will is to go beyond the will. It is the work of grace and the outcome of purity of heart. But liberty of spirit arises as the desire for God, which is the greatest obstacle between us and God, gives way to the aspiration for God which is integral to our nature. The lethal dichotomies of life which inhibit our realization of the fullness of life lose their tension and power to deform. For the Christian the silence of body, mind and will frees us to know Christ as a person not merely an individual. An individual is isolated while a person is a "knot in a net of relationships". Christianity is not the religion which makes Christ another idol in the pantheon of human gods, but precisely what Jesus himself tells us he is ­ a teacher, way, truth and life To complement the famous Buddhist saying "if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him", Panikkar suggests "if you meet Christ, eat God, gives way to the aspiration for God which is integral to our nature. The lethal dichotomies of life which inhibit our realization of the fullness of life lose their tension and power to deform. For the Christian the silence of body, mind and will frees us to know Christ as a person not merely an individual. An individual is isolated while a person is a "knot in a net of relationships". Christianity is not the religion which makes Christ another idol in the pantheon of human gods, but precisely what Jesus himself tells us he is - a teacher, way, truth and life. To complement the famous Buddhist saying "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him", Panikkar suggests, "If you meet Christ, eat him".

The concluding Eucharist sacramentalised the enlivening and freeing teachings of the Seminar. Reminding us that liturgy means public worship, Fr. Panikkar celebrated a long, reverent and joyful Mass which integrated the elements of creation as well as the minds and hearts of the participants. In leading the seminar, Panikkar showed himself to be a great Christian mind and heart, an inspired and inspiring teaching, treating his audience as friends and adults and urging them, as a much earlier teacher once told his people, "Christians, recognize your dignity!"

Fr. Laurence Freeman, O.S.B.

"The Silence of Life"

Raimon Panikkar was born to an Indian father and a Spanish mother. This in part explains the unique and prophetic perspective of his thoughts and the power and charm of his teaching style. In the recorded conferences of this Seminar he leads six stimulating sessions about the meaning of silence for humanity today as it stands on the brink of a new spiritual era.

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