Spirituality and the human
Jhulelal, also known as Uderolal, is a legendary saint of the Sindhi Community. He is believed to be an incarnation of Varuna, the Sea God in Hinduism. The story of Jhulelal is associated an evil ruler Mirkshah Badshah attacking the Sindhi community settled in Thatta in Sindh.
Jalaram Bapa is a saint who lived in a small town of Virpur in Alandi region of Gujarat. Upon meeting his master from a previous life, he commenced namasmrana – repetition of the divine name – and engaged in ceaseless spiritual activity of feeding pilgrims and the poor. An ashram has been erected in his honour, and there are miracles associated with prayer and devotion Jalaram Bapa.
Rabindranath Tagore, mystic, painter and Nobel laureate for literature is among the leading personalities of Modern India. He was awarded the Nobel prize in Literature for his collection of well known poems Gitanjali.
Guru Gobind Singh, born Gobind Rai, was the tenth Sikh Guru, a spiritual master, warrior, poet and philosopher. When his father, Guru Tegh Bahadur, was beheaded for refusing to convert to Islam, Guru Gobind Singh was formally installed as the leader of the Sikhs at age nine, becoming the tenth Sikh Guru
By 1910 the village of Shirdi had become slightly more prosperous, though Mrs Tarkhad, a Sai Baba devotee and regular visitor from Bombay, still found it “little more than a neglected hamlet without any lighting, sweeping or other conveniences of civilization… The streets and passages were all dark and unlit at night.” By then, Baba’s mosque had already taken on the character of a darbar (royal court), which it was to retain till the end of his mortal days.
Galileo Galilei was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath, from Pisa. Galileo has been called the “father of observational astronomy”, the “father of modern physics”, the “father of the scientific method”, and the “father of modern science”.
Howard Murphet was an author and devotee of Sathya Sai Baba. Howard Murphet was born in Tasmania and educated at the University of Hobart. Many of his books were instrumental in people discovering and visiting Sathya Sai Baba.
George Fox was an English Dissenter, who was a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends. The son of a Leicestershire weaver, he lived in times of social upheaval and war.
Guru Nanak is named founder of the Sikh religion. ‘Sikh’ means ‘disciple’ and Guru Nanak believed that one can evolve or achieve salvation only through direct contact with a true master or a ‘sadguru’. His religion has spread not only in North India but also in America, Singapore and Africa. Many Sikhs now live in other countries.
Elijah Benamozegh, sometimes Elia or Eliyahu, (born 1822; died 6 February 1900) was an Italian rabbi and a noted Kabbalist, highly respected in his day as one of Italy’s most eminent Jewish scholars. He served for half a century as rabbi of the important Jewish community of Livorno, where the Piazza Benamozegh now commemorates his name and distinction. His major work is Israel and Humanity (1863), which was translated into English by Dr. Mordechai Luria in 1995.
Few saints in the history of the church have had such an immediate and such a lasting success as Francis of Assisi. His first two followers, Bernard of Quintavalle and Peter of Catani, joined him in 1208, yet by 1222, three, if not five, thousand men are said to have assembled together for a Convocation. And in our own time the stream of visitors to Assisi and the flood of books and articles devoted to Francis show that the appeal of il poverello has not diminished. Indeed, the current Pope took the name Francis – for he was told “don’t forget the poor” when he was elected
Abraham Isaac Kook was an Orthodox rabbi, the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine in the Land of Israel, the founder of Yeshiva Mercaz HaRav, a Jewish thinker, Posek, Kabbalist, and a renowned Talmid Chacham. He is considered one of the fathers of religious Zionism.
Bede Griffiths was a contemplative Benedictine Monk who was led to India by spiritual means to explore the depths of the incarnation within the heart of the human person. He first went to Kurisumala Monastery, Kerala and then to Shantivanam – a Christian Monastery and Ashram in Tamil Nadu. Seeking the meeting point of the divine incarnation of Christ the Son of God in Indian spiritual tradition, Bede Griffiths and the Shantivanam Ashram became a beacon for Christians seeking inner renewal, world-wide.
One of the best reasons for hope in the crisis through which at present the world is passing is certainly the growing interest shown by Western people in the East. Western man has in fact much to learn from the spiritual and cultural world of the East, which has evolved in ways very different from his own. Perhaps too it is only there that he will discover that inwardness which he so patently lacks and will recover that identity which seems to have escaped him – but this time an identity which will reveal to him the very depth of his own being. Abhishiktananada, Preface, Guru and Disciple.
Father Tissa Balasuriya is a member of a religious order, like the Benedictines, and the Fransciscans. Numerically, the largest religious order of priests in the country are the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI), and this is the congregation to which Father Tissa Balasuriya belongs. Founded in 1816 in France as a missionary and educational order, the Oblates came to Sri Lanka in 1847. Father Tissa was excommunicated from his church in 1997 and fought to have the excommunication lifted the following year.
