Responding to a kind inquiry:

Aetiology of my thought? It's a significant question and I haven't addressed it ever in a systematic way. Schweitzer did for himself (Out of My Life and Thought), but I have not. I do not recall that Goethe did. Schiller did, I believe.

I have been compared to Schweitzer by more than one observer. The interests certainly coincide: music, philosophy, medicine, theology. Many of the details do, also.

Tillich held me when I was a babe-in-arms and gave me his blessing. As you know, such things are puissant. I am a Tillichian with birth in the Spiritual Lineage (Gothra) of Saint Jerome.

Women have played a very crucial role in my life and thought, especially elderly women. There are a number of them, all most competent, high-bred, masters of their life and arts. Women have saved me over and over from the vicious jealousy of men and of some women. The names would not be recognizable to you.

I tell the children that a single blessing from a widow, regardless of her station, is more powerful than all the idle curses one collects during the course of a life. Such curses are unavoidable. They come from people's bilious dispositions and momentary lapses in good manners. But one widow's blessing is more puissant than all of these.

John Cage was very important to my development. Glenn Gould even more so. A Benedictine named Meehan. He in Whose Name I am baptized, Jesus the Christ. Moses, Paul and Jerome.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel got me through the most difficult time of my life -- he and, by proxy, Tillich. To Heschel I owe my life and the axis of my investigations.

There was a man named Robert Theobald with whom I worked very closely, a British economist resident in this country. From him, the next most important intellectual influence after Cage, namely, Gregory Bateson.

Teilhard de Chardin -- very important. And equally so, Douglas MacArthur and his other half, wife Jean.

Lama Anagarika Govinda gave me the worst drubbing of my life, and for good purpose, and the spiritual name White Cloud. He it was who decided me to renounce the career begun with Claremont, Union and Theobald and to seek solitude and truth inside. The Lama was everything his name and title indicated ... and more ....

Three months in an iron lung, six months recouping -- the last polio epidemic before they said, 'Enough!' and hired Salk -- and knowing that my parents would never like me in any way and would do everything they could do to prevent my being happy -- which they did, and almost succeeded -- these things were major compilers of my thought.

The paralysis taught me humility and resignation. The parents taught me detachment. Humility, resignation and detachment are the foundation of sound thinking, of accurate discrimination.

Francis and Clare of Assisi. Paul Lehmann, George Landes and Robert T. Handy of the Union Theological Seminary. Benedict, Dominic and Theresa of Avila. All these are in the spiritual lineage of the Sage of Bethlehem, Jerome.

But over, under, in, through, beyond and before all of this, there is the Presence of Swami Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba. He, alone, explains everything. Ultimately, nothing makes sense unless it starts and ends and consists of nothing more than He.

My thought consists of Swami Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba. It is inaccurate to say my or me. The truth is He. What is called I or my is He. So, there is no secret to me. He. He. He.

My attitude toward Swami Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba is as a Christian's is towards the One Who sent Jesus, not as it is towards Jesus. Christians do not take Jesus for God. They take Jesus for showing God. There is a difference.

Just as Jews are wrongly accused of deicide, so too, Christians are wrongly accused of worshipping Jesus as God, that is, of idolatry. It's just a bad rap, from ignorance.

People who take Jesus for God are not Christians. They are idolaters. Jesus is a Great One -- Magister, Master, as St. Francis said -- not God.

Swami Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba is all that God is. He is the One who sent Jesus. He is the One Who is indicated by the Shema. This is something very different from Jesus.

So-called Christians are not expecting the Father, the Infinite One, to be taking human birth and going about with a laugh and a twinkle. It is not at all in the Christian canon or tradition that such as thing is even possible. But, voila, there it is.

Swami Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba
is the Shekinah
enveloped in human birth.
He is the Torah.

Adwaitha Hermitage
June 27, 1993