The Asia Society Presents #24
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The Asian society prison.
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This is a series of interviews with experts on Asian affairs designed to
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strengthen our understanding of Asian people and ideas. Your host
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on this transcribed series is the noted author on the ward winning broadcaster
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Lee Graham.
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Here now is Mrs. Graham on this program we will be
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talking about two great people. One of them is no longer with us. His name is
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Thomas Merton and we will be discussing him and his work and what made him
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so unusual. The other distinguished person is the man who is August and is
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very much with us and he is Dr. Mia Chocola Bhatti. Dr.
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chocolate Vikki at the present time is professor of eastern philosophy
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at New York State University college at New Paltz in New York. He has been on the
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faculties of Boston University and Smith College. He has written a number of
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books he has received many awards. I would say he is one of the most distinguished
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persons that we have ever had on our series and I'm most delighted that he is
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here. He is known in the course of his lifetime so far. Many of
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the outstanding figures of the wounded aside from Thomas Merton he has known Dr
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Albert Schweitzer Dr Rabindranath Tagore Mahatma Gandhi
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which I think is most important to mention because this is the centenary year of
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Mahatma Gandhi. And he's even known Boris Pasternak. So Dr.
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chocolate you have traveled so far and spoken to so many remarkable
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people. You must have a very fine sense of fulfillment in your own life.
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Well it was a great privilege to be on the road. Our life
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plan to travel in many continents and meet some of these very great
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people who with all the differences seem to carry some
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common quality of humor humanity
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and simplicity. The power they had of attracting
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people their disarming friendliness and the
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genuine concern but they are not a person. This I've watched
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in Gundy and the crowds where he often is
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surrounded by people in the villages. I was with him
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and his various travels in Europe America and Asia
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and there was a man who was lofty and his own eminence but with such a
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tenderness.
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There was no sense of this kind of discriminating.
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Hierarchy validation that we often had.
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You mention the name. Sure I do.
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I should in my great reverence fought him
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refer to those days I had with him not only not us but uniquely
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Tauriel Africa for a great well known man
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to go to Africa and not for six weeks or six months but for
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half a century. The jungle fly is terrible
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he let her see what made him do it.
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This quality of he'll want to thank him almost on
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reigning love for people to heal them to help them
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find their bodies Pasternak course would be very shocked if we
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spoke of him as a saint as a man who was as
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outstanding in his offerings to the people. But having
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suffered from the October Revolution from the first or
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second world war all the purges I'm not going into politics but a man who
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had been stealing me all these experiences was
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still a disarming friendly person who would chat with you on
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music on great art in the Noble
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Prize and the snows in Moscow which were something like I think
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15 feet high.
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And feel that warmth for Asia for there was for
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me one small reproof for man's humanity.
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Yes I've asked this question of others aside from you doc to talk about it. What
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do great men have in common. And I almost always see the same answer.
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It is the simplicity of an affection for the human race.
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But that these people seem to be easy to know the easy to reach. They
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never opportunity. There is no class system in their attitude
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and although they are distinguished they never don't even seem aware of it.
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But you say that's true. Exactly true because if they were
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artificial They would barely care themselves. Not only against people but against
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root against life. They had to keep all the. Having it was
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open for the profound contacts with life and with people I
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totally agree with you.
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One of the extraordinary things about Thomas Merton to whom you begin with whom
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you became very friendly and quite close in fact I have in front of me a book
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by Merton go Zen and the birds of appetite. And this book is dedicated
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to you. So that is a sign of deep friendship. But Norton was an
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extraordinary man. He the first was a professor of English was he not
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beyond becoming a priest. And he ended the Trappist monastery up to
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seminary in 1941 and was ordained as a priest in
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1949. What has he said to you. Unfortunately
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he lost his life in a bad accident in December 68 but I think
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there's no point talking about but what did he say to you about his early life.
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Well as you put it he was
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brought in two different spheres of civilization
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in France where his father often was as an artist. And this country which
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was his home. And he felt that somehow in his
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depth of life he had to have a room for more than one nation.
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More than one religion even he had no conscious motivation
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but he grew to this larger acceptance of Fate of
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heart of this sensitive zones of music.
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Our love each seem to demand for him something more
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open than the life in a university where he was
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at that time. It's no reflection on the university I would give it he
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said. Well yes one more denies some little guys he is going to be
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reading a book. So it's the whole universe couldn't have been planned to devise
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these little comforts for me I had to do something more to deserve the
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tremendous gift of life. And he came to a pond when you couldn't
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endure it anymore. He had to have the whole sky.
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And the sense of boundless pays the right to contemplate
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to read on any religion on any art.
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And these were provided to him by the abbey I
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get so many Trappist monastery in
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Kentucky so as you when there he discovered that
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silence prayer and the disappearance of the monastic
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life didn't shut teams Ashaji moth from their world at
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all is an amazing it's a kind of paradox. Having
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accepted to certain framework of discipline he was free to
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explore.
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And he said we in the ministry I spent a few days with him in his
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ministry in 66. He says We try to do everything
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right if we bake bread is good bread. We make cheese eaters
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to be good. Geez if we draw a pharaoh in the ground it has to be a straight furrow.
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If we write a book it's expected to be right well and here was a man
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who had this essential right and this how we have acquired it is
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amazing to me.
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But evidently then when asked to live gave him a chance to fly
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to open up and shoot out shutting himself off from there. He
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had contacted to deduct the visa route not only
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subsoil of all humanity but there's richness of
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our own human heritage. This two days do
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seem to be slightly contrary to each other the confines of the ND and the
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openness.
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Not really though I think that the solitude and the freedom from
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trivial details such as will I find a cab. Where shall I eat my dinner
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tonight. All these things are very time consuming and he tracked seriously
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from one's life which is all too limited and I think the confinement
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is not a confinement at all in a monastery.
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No it's a very liberal spiritually radiant
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community.
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They do not need my company in the end with a few days they spend there.
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I got to know quite a few. They walked around. They didn't
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obligate me to do anything I'm not him and I'm not in it at the least.
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I actually am not a Christian. He doesn't make any difference come and stay with us. So I was
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accepted immediately.
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I don't like to explain at this point that you were born in India and it is your
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religion. If I ask is it Hinduism.
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Technically it would be so. Yeah but then again I always say it's what you do
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with your religion that becomes your religion rather than what you were born to
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by accident.
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But in any case I was accepted and I heard beautiful
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Gregorian and God have a 2:30 in the night when their
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prayers began and went under the starlight and there having is a
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tree to the silent prayer this was
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exceedingly beautiful sensitive.
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There was no pressure. And flung there as I was reading in that
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remarkable book courageous and the unspeakable. One of these
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volumes he speaks about it. So he
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Islamic mystic now is no other news
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that a Catholic saint and scholar should be so
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involved as it were in a beautiful noble
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of rather heart for God or man who died in thirteen
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ninety.
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In Mara says Mara.
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Barney and Tunisia and spend this man pursued the mystic a
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light in his in terms of his own fate and reach so far
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that Merton says Very possibly he had some
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influence and send John of the cross and I fought again it
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alone and to think that one of the tallest sayings of the Christian
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are that could have been influenced by a Muslim saint is
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quite remarkable but he says it in such an all one have
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enthusiast equal he speaks of the Radiance and the lie that
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this man who when he died was buried buried in a vacant lot for he was a
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stranger and he had not built himself or to.
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After a few years the walls of the lark fell down and
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laid one city governor built the same and a small
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door that is all but the words he left are words of fire.
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Of lighter beauty. So he made that contact. I should add that
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India was very near to him mainly through Gundy. He has a
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gem of a book called Gandhi and nonviolence. It Die anything put
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out by the New Directions and you see this guy and he
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he is of course not east. And the traditions of
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Vedanta New York but he knew the west. His mind
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was as spontaneous and precise as any Martin could be.
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So he became an image of modern man with that extraordinary thing
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in reverse about mission a man of the West. He so well think you
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know the East I mean it's often said that the West and the east have such different
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minds that it's very difficult for them to fully penetrate and comprehend
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each other. I don't know whether that's true or not. Could we answer that.
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I think you think that is true. You do that here you did Richard Pryor and who
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are these directional. Are these
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almost video types of East and West didn't matter too much because
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he reached your depth of human concern and other lofty sense of the
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divinity that attends upon human affairs which made him see.
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All of our civilizations are not as one not as a
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uniform thing but with beautiful differences which did
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not consist constitute any contradiction or
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any hostility. So he could go from his ministry to the
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tarts of a guy and he you could go to Zen. That is what he was
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bent upon doing in the personnel direct way. On this last
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tragic trip of his he had been to India at this
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world Faith conference convened by the temple of understanding. I
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met him in a hotel in Calcutta we were staying together.
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You've never been to Asia standing in the front of a big street and I
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said What are you looking at. He said Ever thing.
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Sacred cows cry as big as richness
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poverty sound silences. He took it all in his stride.
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So I said Would you like to meet one of the great artists of Calcutta is a very well-known man
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Germany is 84.
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Should I love to and when he was there he was N tries
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to buy the tartan the idea an Indian had lived
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out his life in a studio. He made his own painting made his
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own brushes.
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His professional work and his own ideal creativeness are all
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one piece and this is what the artist told Merton. He didn't have
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much English but he said explain to him that it's all one my
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family life my art life my profession all are one
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and Martin see that is how we tease.
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And that is what modern psychiatry tries to do for people doesn't it. To
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reconcile the outer in a man to help people
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obey their instincts impulses without suffering guilt from
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it make a total person out of his man and so that is really another way of
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approaching it isn't it.
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How right that is because it's the holiness which is holiness
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when there is an integrity in our lives we become integral
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and the kind of thing which comes out of self divisiveness
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and reflects itself in hatred for others is the result
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by this engine city that you are mentioning.
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And Martin had that in abundance measure the sheer warm
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than generosity pardon me for quoting two lines one of
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the speeches he gave. I mean we are actually very
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near each other. All of us.
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Only we do not imagine that we are
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all really that we have to do is to read the rest of that
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unity because what we are is what we
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shall be.
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You put it in such a simple way as if we are all growing out of these
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psychological barriers into that sense of the.
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Completeness of human nature.
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Now if art could feed its sense religious
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sacredness in regard to life which you had in great measure he was
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against us not because of any creed but because he's heard his sense
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of propriety. We are here for a sharp dime on a journey. The whole thing
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is a human adventure. You'd better live well and live with some
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kindliness and intelligence that is how we came to these big
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issues. And he put them across.
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So naturally and so beautifully. And as you was doing it in these
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little plays.
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Retreat even in that retreat you hear the drone of an airplane
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every city. If you choose not to insistent it is all right. I wish it would fade
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away in the sky. Then it should hear the little bird cause the Marmara
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of the leaves and he saw the horizon and he was arrested or
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sometimes it rained and the sound of rain reassured him.
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There was this kind of affirmation that he got from life
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from people.
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I think also Dr Chakravarti one of his themes was
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that differences exist everywhere especially between east and west if one
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wants to emphasize them but that these differences are enjoyable and
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stimulating and should be accepted in the full sense without necessarily
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taking them personally. And that's probably what enabled him to
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comprehend everything even if it was something which was completely new to him
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and which you may not have accepted and I would have thought yes as you
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said the rich are aware.
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I think modern readers looking at the human scene would be. If you
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accept differences but not to eliminate them because there are beautiful differences
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we don't want all the flaws to be the same are all human faces to look alike.
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Culture is convictions different traits of human
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personality and Richard unvaried. So the secret lies in a kind
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of unity of diversity. There is a deep down unity which we
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had not to say Hm.
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And I think it all it's a game from these profound
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commitment to his own fate. Many people think that because he was
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fond of Zen there's a beautiful interview with Dr. Seuss Zuki in
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his book The last book that you mentioned.
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Therefore he was weak in the pursuit of his own religion. Just
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precisely because he was so.
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Secure in wordly so deeply
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convinced of the shining witness
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of Christianity edgiest highest that you could arrange for the next
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lot. Never feeling that is own faith would be
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shattered. There is again that paradox. If you carry that fate
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you can explore. If you have a religion in which you believe
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it doesn't mean that you will be opposed to other religions. One could even say
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and he would have said it. If you lose some kind of
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loyalty to your faith or a country people whom you
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know you do not really value other people's faith.
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So again because he had deep fear
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in his Christian witness he could write as he
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did glorious devout Judaism which one could quote in the
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same raids and the unspeakable gives this what he calls
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the great tribal Asian. Their great sorrows of the
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people and see the conquered because they are the prophetic witness I
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saw heard this. Because he he would claim that he had a right to
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belong because he already belonged.
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I would like to ask a final question about Thomas Merton.
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What did you know like it's somehow important for many of us to visualize the
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person we're talking about.
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Well he lives in a sickly physically us very well built
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and strong and if I miss hear this I don't add this.
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But she was radiant. There's a kind of luminous quality to his face
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I think. Long silence intense concentration brought out a kind of a
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long line of expression in his eyes in his face.
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So at the conference people who know but who didn't know anything about
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him say Who is he says you're warm hearted strongly
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built. Well feature is pleasant person and look
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what you are is which isn't always what happens to everyone.
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No you seem to have that much used word charisma. Yeah
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that is they were divided. I'd like to close with a quotation from you
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Dr Chakravarti something you said about your new assignment
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which is a professor of eastern philosophy at York State University at your post you
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said that you felt it was a unique opportunity to serve the community
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of man in an age riven by the paradox of NEA ness which
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still fall short of the understanding needed for our democracy.
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And I think although we've been discussing Thomas Merton one must put in a word for
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your spirituality and your great cultivation. It has been an honor to have
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you as a guest on our program. And Doctor talk of Artie is the author of many
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books. He has taught at Boston University Smith College known many of the great
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people of the world and I think he is among them. And for those of you who would like to know
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Thomas missions books better I'm sure many of you have read Seven Story
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Mountain. And I'd like to add a few conjectures of a bit of a guilty
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bystander. And no man is an island. And finally Zen
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and the birds of appetite. This is Lee Graham saying goodbye and ask you to
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remember that although east is east and west is west. All of us do think the time has
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come for the twain to meet.
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But concludes tonight's edition of the Asia Society presents with Lee Graham.
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The series comes to you through the cooperation of the Asia Society. If you would like to
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comment on tonight's program or would like further information about the society and how you
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can participate in its many interesting activities please write to Mrs. Graham
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at WNYC New York City 100 0 7
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and make a note to join us again next week at this time for another edition of the
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Asia Society presents.
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