ECUMENICAL ASHRAM HELPS DISCOVER INDIA’S SPIRITUAL HERITAGE
BOMBAY, India (UCAN) October 22, 1990 Among India's many Christian ashrams, the Christa Prema Seva Ashram (CPS ashram) in Pune, western India, stands out as an experiment in ecumenism. Most Indian ashrams (residential religious communities) are associated with Hindu religious traditions, where a guru (religious teacher) gathers around himself a community for prayer and asceticism.
The Christa Prema Seva Ashram (ashram in the loving service of Christ) was founded by Anglican Reverend Jack Winslow in 1927… The original ashram community died out after 25 years, but CPS ashram was revived in 1972 by Sacred Heart Sister Vandana Mataji* with the help of Anglican nuns and other Sisters of the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The ashram now has priests and nuns from Catholic and Anglican communities, as well as lay people of different faiths and nationalities. *see I 8.3 and I 24 1.
Prayer sessions at the ashram include chanting of verses from the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita (popular Hindu Scriptures), meditation on verses from the Bible and the singing of "bhajans" (devotional songs) in Sanskrit and other Indian languages… The ashramites squat on the floor for prayers, meals and meetings and the ashram diet is vegetarian. "The ashram aims to rediscover the original wisdom experienced by saints and mystics of all religions and clarify them to seekers of the present times," CPS ashram directress Sacred Heart Sister Sara Grant told UCA News.
…"Christ is not one who comes to destroy other faiths ... but to fulfil our inner spiritual quest," asserted Sister Grant, an Indologist, who specializes in the Advaitic philosophy of Shankaracharya, the Indian philosopher-saint…
The ashram also holds regular courses on yoga and other Indian methods of meditation and prayer. END
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