Sunday 17th December – 6pm UK Time
Born in India, I first came to Canada at the age of twenty-three. Until then I had never knowingly met a Christian even though at that time there were more Christians in India than in Canada. However, the total population of Canada was and still is a little more than 3% of the population of India. At the University of Toronto, I was befriended by an organization called Varsity Christian Fellowship (VCF). They were friendly and solicitous and keen to convert me to Christianity. The VCF members would go through much circumlocution, trying to convince me that if I wanted a chance of going to heaven, I had to become a Christian. I did not stay long with VCF, but I am grateful to them for giving me a copy of the New Testament. I was very touched by the gospels and especially by John’s Gospel. I read, pondered over, and re-read again and again, Christ’s comment to Nicodemus: ‘In truth, in very truth I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is begotten from Above. I struggled a great deal with a wish to be born from Above.
Soon I realized that to understand the teachings of the Christ I needed to engage with the mystical writings of the great Christian sages who actually experienced some subtler than usual levels of reality rather than believing in this or that person or remark. Christ’s teaching, much like any other serious spiritual teaching, is not easy to practice simply because it requires a complete freedom from the forces of me-my-mine driving the whole world, including myself. Christ himself said, “He who is near me is near the fire. He is who is far from me is far from the Kingdom.” After much struggle and an enormous amount of hesitation, I ended up writing a book on the Gospel of John. In the presentation on September 6 under the aegis of the Theosophical Society in England I will speak about my understanding of some of the remarks of the Christ which are frequently quoted by the so-called Christians.
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Ravi Ravindra