LA AUSENCIA DE UNA LEY DE LUCHA CONTRA LAS ENFERMEDADES CONTAGIOSAS

at least how I see it, and for me to question the religion which will lead me either to strengthen my beliefs or change it. ⁶⁷

Chanting

A member of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness described the effect of chanting Hare Krishna, the name of the Lord.

I had already found the philosophy brilliant but it was the kirtan that really convinced me. I saw how the devotees would chant on the street for five hours and then, at one festival I attended, when everyone was lying down in a tent waiting for food, tired after being on the street all those hours, a spontaneous kirtan began and lasted for more than another hour. There was no one around to see. It was just an expres-sion of the devotees’ love for God. This personal expresexpres-sion of feeling for God was the best I’d ever experienced. Everything else was forgot-ten. Only the name of the One we loved or aspired to love was repeated, over and over, creating a wonderful connection with God. Chanting alone can lead us to love of God.⁶⁸

Yoga

Widely popular in the West nowadays, yoga is practised in various ways.

Some schools of yoga are more, some less closely based on the original teachings in the Upanishads, where Shiva is seen as the god of yogins or ascetics. A classic work is The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali in which yoga is explained as ‘union’, or ‘yoke’, a method leading to union with ultimate reality through control of thought-waves of the mind. Commentators have used the image of a lake. When the surface is disturbed, full of waves, the bottom, the atman or soul, cannot be seen. The aim is the one-pointed mind, resulting in clarity and stillness.

Yoga does not merely involve exercise, as is so often the case in Western classes, but is a holistic system including disciplined conduct and meditation as well as breathing techniques.

Here is an account of the effect of yoga.

Over the past fifteen years some of the most exciting openings have come to me through the practice of yoga and the study of yoga philosophy. Through the practice of the physical postures of yoga I not only made my body supple and balanced, but found a way of bringing my awareness into the present moment, so that without any great effort I could touch the experience of life in the NOW. Through the practice of concentration and meditation I began to take charge of my mind so that I could at times prevent my mental energy from diffusing in all directions and could conserve my inner power, or direct it like a beam in the direction of my choice. Through Yoga Nidra I learned a technique in which my body, mind and emotions experience complete relaxation, while my consciousness, fully aware, touched the deep dimensions of power within me. Through chanting a mantra I can still the mind, or use the sound like a booster rocket to take my consciousness to higher dimensions of my being. By practising breath control I have discovered ways of linking body, mind and soul, touch-ing the deep levels of peace within me.⁶⁹

Interfaith

Interfaith encounters involve being open to new ideas, which may chal-lenge our own deeply held beliefs, but are also profoundly enriching, as in the case of this Muslim,

My faith, however, has become anything but quiet; it is turbulent, wild, rampant and unruly . . .. Learning about Buddhism makes me rethink Islamic Sufism; reading Judaism I find myself making analogies with Islamic Law; listening to a lecture about Christianity I instantly revisit all that I have known about revelation in Islam; and making acquain-tance with Hinduism I startle from the flow of questions, which could never come to my mind earlier . . .. You keep knowing God and you thrill with the experience of this most of your time. You welcome what others dismiss as doubt because it has become the source of your joy and ecstasy.⁷⁰

Search

In Asia the Ten Ox-herding Pictures are well known. They depict a man’s spiritual search for his true self, the ox. He tracks, finds and tames the ox but the ox then disappears as the self searched for and found is tran-scended. Then the searcher also disappears and an empty circle is shown as the individual has lost importance and merged with the whole. That is not the end, however, as the last picture shows the man back where he started. He is back in the world, but now he is no longer of it, he has found the wisdom which will enable him to serve his fellows with compassion.

People are often led to faith or to a vocation after a search which can take years and many different twists and turns of fate.

In my early years I had contact with the Church through Sunday school, singing in a choir and later church going, though my parents were not regular church-goers. I had some contact with a Christian group and church when I was at university. The period that I spent in the army was unsettling; I drifted away from the Church and I suppose that I would have classed myself as an agnostic as far as belief in God and Christ was concerned.

After demobilization and resumption of university career, I contin-ued the search for a satisfying philosophy and faith. I met and talked to several people who probably influenced me without my knowing it, but the turning point came at the time when I became emotionally involved with a female student who had recently become a Christian and to whom this experience meant a great deal.

During this emotional upheaval I returned to my digs one evening and as I sat resting after the evening meal on my own in my room I saw a vision of myself wearing a clerical collar and in a pulpit in the act of preaching. As the vision faded I was rather disturbed at such an unusual and unexpected event, though, as I have explained, the incident took place when I was already in a charged emotional state.

I went on to play badminton to try to take my mind off what I could not understand.

Shortly after, I borrowed a new translation of the Bible from the library and as I was reading a passage from it one night I felt for the first time that God was speaking to me in the words that I was reading.

Following closely after I had further mystical/spiritual experiences which made me strongly aware of the presence of God, once at an

uncle’s wedding where I was best man and also during Holy Commu-nion services. It would be impossible to describe these experiences in words but they were connected with, and deepened, the setting where they occurred.

At one stage I felt consciously that a kind of integration was taking place within me and that, as it were, I was being made to face in a particular direction.

At the same time as this vision occurred, I forgot to mention that I was made aware that I should go far afield with this message.

At Epiphany (I was immediately back in church), which followed soon afterwards, the conviction that I should go overseas was strongly reinforced by the service and the sermon.

Among the changes that took place in my life the greatest was the confidence I now felt to face new challenges, though I was well aware that I was being given help from outside to meet them also.

I was seconded from my teaching post for a year to train for the ministry. I was ordained deacon and served as a part-time curate as well as returning to my teaching post. I was ordained priest and went to South India to lecture in English and to be the chaplain to the church of South India students. In this way my vision came true.

What I consider particularly remarkable is that I had never intended to enter the ministry and certainly never thought that I should return to India (where I spent nine months during my time in the army) as a missionary. I now felt my life had far greater purpose and meaning, and looking for guidance has remained a constant attitude. [4107] ⁷¹ Here a wide range of religious triggers of spiritual experience has been shown to produce many different experiences, often to the surprise of the experient.

Experience

Many spiritual experiences are not related to any kind of religious practice, but are triggered by glorious music, the beauty of nature or absorption in creativity. If there is any common factor, perhaps it is a shift of focus from the concerns of the everyday world, away from more self-centred pursuits, leading to an openness to another dimension. It is however the case that the triggers are more often less pleasant – illness, stress and depression frequently result in a change of direction, and are in retrospect seen as a challenge or wake-up call. Often the comfort felt at such times has a profound effect.

Place

. . . London’s Charing Cross Station. For me it has become like a small Underground sacrament.

The last time I passed through it, on the Bakerloo Line, was just after Easter Sunday when the imagination is sensitised to the nearness of mystery. I have always associated the place with Francis Thompson’s poem ‘The Kingdom of God’, picturing angels ascending and descend-ing between heaven and Platform 3. Synchronically, almost scarily, this is what happened to me as the train drew into the station. While only half aware of the sea of different faces and garments, and half listening to the lilt and timbre of many accents, I began to perceive in a more focused way the colours and textures, shapes and sounds flow-ing from the human panoply around me.

In the sudden spring warmth they seemed to shimmer with divinity.

It was one of those moments of disclosure that many people experience a few times in their lives, when, caught off guard, time stands still, and a deeper awareness breaks through. It was a gift of grace, when God’s presence seemed to be pressing in on me more intensely than usual.

It was all so mysterious, yet so intimate and energising.

I still remember my delight at the realisation that the power within Creation, the author of all the beauty I was just then experiencing, was, in fact, personally involved with me, utterly satisfying and fulfilling.

There was also a strong sense of the part I played in this whole pan-orama. A line from de Chardin came to me: ‘What I call my body is not part of the universe which I possess totally; it is the whole universe which I possess partly.’

Even though my experience was profound, it did not last long – just for a brief space between the opening and closing of those sliding doors at Charing Cross station. In one sense the unsolicited epiphany changed nothing; in another sense it changed everything.⁷²