GBPress- Gregorian Biblical Press

Review
Author(s): J. Dupuis
Review by: J. Dupuis
Source: Gregorianum, Vol. 67, No. 2 (1986), p. 396
Published by: GBPress- Gregorian Biblical Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23577227
Accessed: 27-12-2015 17:07 UTC

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396 GREGORIANUM, VOL. 67 (1986) FASC. 2: NOTAE BIBLIOGRAPHICAE

Thomas Matus, Yoga and the Jesus Prayer Tradition. An Experiment in Faith.
Preface by Bede Griffiths. New York/Ramsey: Paulist Press, 1984; cm20,5 x 14,
PP.III+ 193. Paper $8.95. ISBN 0-8091-2638-9.

"Can the practice of yoga lead to an experience which is truly Christian?" The
question asked by the author is not new, and literature on "Christian Yoga" has been
growing steadily since Déchanet's La voie du silence (1956). The hook is, however,
originai in more than one way. Firstly, because it is based on the author's personal
pilgrimage from yoga to Christ. Secondly, because it focuses on the relation between
tantric yoga (often misinterpreted in its classical form) and the Jesus Prayer tradition
of hesichasm. A serious study of the sources shows that tantric yoga is essentially a
quest for perfect freedom having for its end the consciousness of self and of God; the
author compares it to the experiences of Symeon the New Theologian. The subtitle of
the book, "An Experiment in Faith", indicates well the perspective. "Yoga is indeed
vanity, it is the burdensome yoke of the 'old law' which cannot save, if it is nothing
but 'technique'" (p. 10). Physical procedures are but the "skin of yoga"; mental
exercises its "skeleton". The "soul of yoga" is "a vision of light which is one, pure,
undivided, and beyond ali movement and change" (p. 8). To become Christian, yoga
supposes that one reads his or her faith into the practice of the spiritual method
adopted. "It is faith that is essential; ali else is auxiliary. Yoga belongs to the order of
optional means, even though it has its own intrinsic end, which, in the concrete
situation can be made to coincide with the ultimate end of the Christian: loving union
with God through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit" (p. 26). This clear stand of the
author should suffice to dispel misunderstandings.
J. Dupuis

A. Mathias Mundadan, Indian Christians: Search for Identity and Struggle

for Autonomy (Placid Lecture Series, 4). Bangalore: Dharmaram Publications,
1984; cm21,5 x 14, pp. IX + 224. Rs.35,

This is a sober, dispassionate account — in a field where, especially in recent

— of the
years, emotions tend to run very high past and present "search for identity
and struggle for autonomy" of the Indian Christians of St. Thomas after centuries of
Western imposition and latinisation which tragically resulted in divisions among their
communities. The book is based on the 'Placid Lectures' delivered by the author at the
Pontificai Institute of Orientai Studies, Rome, under the sponsorship of the CMI Ro
man Centre for Indian and Inter-religious Studies. After reviewing the unhappy events
which brought about alienation and division, the author studies the search for identity
not only of the Syro-Malabar Church which remained in communion with Rome and
the Syro-Malankara Church which recovered that communion, but also of the groups
which today remain separated from Rome. He likewise extends his study to the efforts
at indigenisation which the Latin Church in India made only sporadically in the past
but is making in a more concerted manner today. He also devotes a chapter to similar
trends among Protestant Churches in India. The last chapter, entitled "Quest for an
Indian Church", shows the present convergence of attitudes and aspirations among
the various Churches in India today: "One major preoccupation today of Indian Chri
stians — Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox — is how to convert the Church in India
into a real Indian Church of the Indian people, sensitive to the country's cultural and
spiritual past and the needs of the emerging modem secular India." TTie convergence
of aspirations, based on sound theological principles, augurs well for the future rela
tionships between the Churches in communion with Rome, and equally so for ecume
nica! relations with the other Churches.
J. Dupuis

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