Beyond, always beyond: The great awakening of Abishiktinanda

If at all I had to give a message, it would be the message of “Wake up, arise, remain aware” of the Katha Upanishad. The coloration might vary according to the audience, but the essential goes beyond. The discovery of Christ’s I AM is the ruin of any Christian theology, for all notions are burnt within the fire of experience.

-Abishiktinanda

Who are you?

This is the question that drove a young Frenchman to the ends of the earth and to the extremes of human existence.

Abishiktinanda was born Henri LeSaux in Brittany in 1910. The eldest in a devout Catholic family, Henri entered the Benedictine monastery of Sainte-Anne de Kergonan and stayed there for the next two decades. Despite his vows of stability, Henri somehow knew that he was destined for India.

In 1948, the world was recovering from the brutality of World War II, and George Orwell was completing his manuscript for 1984. Monasticism was seeing a resurgence in France and Western Europe, and there was an increasing interest in Eastern religions and mysticism. India, meanwhile, was experiencing a disruptive transformation in the wake of independence from British rule and the assassination of Gandhi.

Henri was among those idealistic youths, along with contemporaries such as Thomas Merton, Raimon Panikkar, and Marc Chaduc, who were seeking an escape from the horrors of nihilism.

One day, Henri met Sri Ramana Maharshi, one of the greatest Hindu sages of modern India. Maharshi asked the question that would consume him for the rest of his life.

Who are you?

Along with Jules Monchanin, a fellow French Catholic priest and hermit, Henri founded Saccidananda Ashram at the foot of Arunchala mountain in southern India. He took the robe of a sannyasi, one who is liberated in this life through renunciation according to the Bhagavad Gita.

Swami Gnanananda Giri Maharaj, a Himalayan Sage who lived to an extraordinarily “long and undetermined age”, encouraged him to go even further.

“ I have found the Grail ... The quest for the Grail is basically nothing else than the quest for the Self ... It is yourself that you are seeking through everything. And in this quest you are running about everywhere, whereas the Grail is here, close at hand, you only have to open your eyes ... There is only the Awakening!”

In western culture, the Holy Grail is known to be the vessel of the Last Supper carried through King Arthur’s wasted land.

In the East ,the Grail can be seen as the sudden shattering of the ego, the I AM that needs no container. Abishiktinanda found himself at the crossroads between East and West, North and South, without security and without adornment. Without name.

For five months, Abishiktinanda lived in that state of radical grace and transcendence. He passed away on December 7, 1973 saying only, “God’s will be done.” His body was cremated on the Narmada River.

Abhishiktananda became and lived the archetype of the sannyasi hermit. One who owns nothing, not even the name Christian, or the name Buddhist or Hindu. His very being was an act of defiance against a nihilistic world. Abishiktinanda’s message is relevant to every contemplative living today regardless of spiritual background.

Wake up.

Arise.

Remain aware.

Brother Abishiktinanda is the mystic we need today.

Kyle Outlaw is a designer, contemplative, and hoarder of books at SUBATOMIC.