A new book Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light contains some of the confession letters of Mother Teresa in which she doubts her faith. Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu who was born in the Republic of Macedonia moved to India in 1929 to become a nun. It was on September 10, 1946 that she experienced “the call within the call”, a mystical union with Jesus, in which she reports hearing the words of Jesus and started her missionary work.

For people around the world, this Nobel peace prize winner was a  the selfless social worker who always was there to look after the poor and the dying. She herself did not see her work that way. While talking to Christopher Hitchens, she mentioned that she was not a social worker and  she was working to expand the number of Catholics and did all her work for Christ and the church.

The new letters, which she asked to be destroyed, reveal that she doubted the existence of God, heaven and the soul. This period of darkness started around the same time she started her missionary work in 1948 and lasted  her entire life. Her spiritual life was similar to that of St. Paul of the Cross, who went through “dark night”, but recovered after 45 years, but unlike St. Paul, she never found the light. Mother Teresa finally came to the conclusion that Jesus was not true. ( “What do I labour for? If there be no God — there can be no soul — if there is no Soul then Jesus — You also are not true“)

Even when she had this realization, she did not display it in public and she continued to save souls for the church till her very end. She expressed her doubts to her superiors and they convinced her that what she was experiencing was the same sense of abandonment that Christ experienced on the cross. Present day priests say that she is a role model since she did not waver from her path even during doubt and this humanizes Mother Teresa as a role model for all seekers.

Others think that she was involved in verbal deception, telling something to the public which she herself did not believe. Christopher Hitchens, who wrote a scathing book on her, thinks that she was like one of those Communists who could not believe that the ideology failed.

“There was a huge amount of cognitive dissonance,” he says. “They thought, ‘Jesus, the Soviet Union is a failure, [but] I’m not supposed to think that. It means my life is meaningless.’ They carried on somehow, but the mainspring was gone. And I think once the mainspring is gone, it cannot be repaired.” That, he says, was Teresa.[Mother Teresa’s Crisis of Faith]

See Also: On Point: Mother Teresa’s Crisis of Faith

One Congressman who got worked up about the Hindu prayer in the United States Senate was Rep. Bill Sali, who said , “When a Hindu prayer is offered [in the Senate], it creates problems for the longevity of this country.” Later this intellectual giant, who introduced a bill to reduce gravity by 10%, explained why he thinks Christianity is better than Hinduism.

“Christian principles work, and they show up in a lot of different areas,” Sali said. “Most of the hospitals in this country have Christian names. If you think Hindu prayer is great, where are the Hindu hospitals in this country? Go down the list. Where are the atheist hospitals in this country? They’re not equal.”[Bill Sali’s Half-Apology]

Though he did not personally apologize for such remarks, Wayne Hoffman, Sali’s press spokesman wrote that Congressman Sali bears no ill will toward Hindus. One of the editorial writers calls him an embarrassment and a Capital Hill sideshow. Then, for his excuse, he is from Idaho where elected officials do worse things.

In 1864, a group of sailors were castaway in Auckland Islands, some 300 miles
south of New Zealand. Very few had survived shipwrecks in that area and one such
group was led by
Capt.
Thomas Musgrave of Britain. Eight days after surviving the wreck  the
sailors came out of the tent on seeing the sun and when the captain read a
passage from the Bible in which Christ asks his disciples to love one another,
the group consisting of a French gold miner, a leprosy-deformed Portuguese cook,
a  Norwegian and an Englishman burst into tears. Some modern days followers
of Jesus have forgotten or have chosen to ignore this message.

All you need is ask Rajan Zed,
director of interfaith relations at
a Hindu temple in Reno, Nev., who recently gave the brief prayer that opens each
day’s Senate session. His prayer
was
disrupted by some anti-abortion activists
who shouted
“No
Lord but Jesus Christ“, “There’s only one true God,” and
”this
is an abomination”. While the Indian Parliament does not open with a
prayer, legislative assemblies in United States have opened with prayers since
the early sessions of Congress, but so far the prayers had been only of the
monotheistic religions.

Christian historian David Barton said that the prayer was unconstitutional since
Hindus worship multiple Gods and it violates the motto, One Nation under God.
Mr. Barton would have to spend a lifetime to understand the concept of
Brahman to realize the shallowness of his
statement, but much simpler for him would be to read
Ann
Althouse’s explanation that the motto isn’t in the constitution and by
protesting Mr. Barton is foolishly asking the motto to be declared
unconstitutional.

While  intolerance for other faiths has been accepted without any
introspection by some of the foot soldiers, it is also worth looking at the
leadership of some of these sects as well. A 16-page document prepared by the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Pope Benedict XVI headed when
he was a cardinal has declared that Christian denominations outside the Roman
Catholic Church are not full churches of Jesus Christ. The document also claims
that Roman Catholic Church
alone
is the mediator of salvation while other defective Christian faiths, like
the Protestants, can be just instruments.

The Pope is also planning to
issue
a decree allowing wider use of the Tridentine Mass, the Latin rite which was
codified in 1570 and and used till the 1960s when the  second Vatican
council reformed it. The Tridentine mass is supposed to be more beautiful with
Gregorian chants and a much dignified service than the present day mass.
The
Jews are not very happy about it since there are prayers in the Mass which
calls for their conversion and the
Pope’s
explanation is that whatever was held sacred by ancient generations remain
sacred to us too and cannot be forbidden. Imagine for a moment what would have
happened in India if such argument was used for reviving the caste system.

When the leadership lacks sensitivity to other monotheistic religions and even
members praying to the same God, it is too much to ask for some of their brain
washed followers to respect a religion which they don’t even understand.
Fortunately a vast majority of the people think the ant-abortion protesters are
idiots, 
and stupid
jerks

Stephen Devassy, the 24 year old keyboard player from Palakkad was unknown to me, till I head his version of Mahishasuramardini Stotram (link has a sample) at the Melody Corner Music Store in Trichur last month. He was the music director of the album which  mixed traditional devotional songs with non-traditional music along and vocals from Saindhavi, Uma Mohan and Ghayatri Devi. A student of Chetana Music Academy, he has played along with Hariharan and L. Subramaniyam as well as composed music for a bad Mohanlal movie called Hariharan Pilla Happy Aanu.

His music which has elements of gospel music  is not intrusive, but gives importance to the vocals. While the music is soothing and uplifting, the vocals too are clear and perfect with their pronunciation. The store had only the above two CDs, but like others I too would buy any of his Sacred/Holy Chants series in a heartbeat.

See Also: Video Interview with Stephen (Malayalam/English),  stage performance, The right keys to success,  Village boy from Palakkad climbs the music ladder

When Israel became a nation, they chose Hebrew as their official language, while we in India ditched Sanskrit to chose Hindi as the national language. We now stand low, at the eminent historian level, having to depend on English translations of our scriptures to understand their meaning.

Due to work of an organization called Samskrita Bharati, Sanskrit is experiencing a revival and people around the world are getting a quick introduction to the language. The idea behind these classes are to get people comfortable talking in Sanskrit as soon as possible and the teacher does that by conversing only in Sanskrit for the entire 10 day duration.

Today, spoken Sanskrit is enjoying a revival – both in India and among Indian expatriates in the United States. There is even evidence of Sanskrit emerging in American popular culture as more and more people roll out yoga mats at the local gym and greet one another with “Namaste.”

Harvard, Yale, and the University of Chicago, among others, have long offered Sanskrit courses to undergrads. But the demand for these classes is growing beyond academic settings. A decade-long economic boom has brought Indians some measure of prosperity, and with it a sense of pride in the nation’s past. In large part, however, the revival is the result of the efforts of a private group, Samskrita Bharati, headquartered in New Delhi. The volunteer-based group’s mission: Bring the pan-Indian language back to the mainstream and lay the groundwork for a cultural renaissance.

Yoga practitioners in the US are seeking out the authentic Sanskrit names of various poses such as “downward dog” or “spinal twist” and the philosophy behind the practice as spelled out in the Yoga Sutras – the original treatise on the subject written in Sanskrit thousands of years ago.

Science-history buffs see old works in Sanskrit as treasure troves of ancient knowledge of astronomy, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, and metallurgy. When Copernicus announced that the sun was the center of the universe in 1543, it was a defining moment for Western science. In Samskrita Bharati’s recently released “Pride of India” – a compilation that offers a glimpse into India’s scientific heritage – Sanskrit scholars point to calculations from AD 499 that indicate astronomer Aryabhatta’s underlying concept of a sun-centered planetary model.

“This knowledge tradition is what we hope to revive through the spread of Sanskrit,” says Shastry.[Sanskrit echoes around the world]

Check the site for courses in your area.