Return to the Center [Paperback]

Bede Griffiths (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 10, 1982

154 paged-paperback "Return to the Center" by Bede Griffiths.

Product Details

• Paperback: 154 pages
• Publisher: Templegate Pub; First U.S. Paperback Edition 1982 edition (October 10, 1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0872431126
• ISBN-13: 978-0872431126
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #178,913 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Griffiths' Finest, May 23, 2002

By 

Alekos (Cancun, Quintana Roo Mexico) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Return to the Center (Paperback)

Of all Griffiths' books this is surely the most beautifully written and the most profoundly mystical. In the first chapter he gives a kind of progress report by reflecting on what life in India has done to him, on how his mind has developed over the years, on the changes that have taken place in his way of life and in the depths of his soul. As a framework for all this he explores the meaning of the three vows of religious life: poverty, chastity, and obedience.

He understands humans as products of evolution, including the evolution of consciousness, and culture and religious expression as conditioned by history. What makes humans unique is their capacity for self-transcendence, and this is what religion is all about. Each religion is a culturally determined medium (or vehicle) to undertake the search for ultimate reality or absolute being. This reality has been revealed in a variety of ways in different circumstances and historical epochs.

In subsequent chapters, Griffiths looks at the meaning of original sin as a failure to appreciate the idea of interiority. He looks at the eternal nature of each person as a thought in the mind of God. Death, he says, should not be feared or despised but regarded as a sacrament of passage into eternal life. He contrasts the eternal religion with the church as a sacramental entity and explores each of the higher religions in terms of three features they all share: organization, ritual, and doctrine. In a fascinating later chapter he speaks of the Spirit as the feminine principle guiding the development of the world. Not all Christians will be pleased with this author's critical views of the Church. But they are views with which we can all agree after some reflection on our own history and culture and on the real meaning of our own religious belief and practice.

46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Voice of True Authority, November 7, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Return to the Center (Paperback)

We are all looking for meaning and purpose in our lives. But there are so many Ways. And so many books about those Ways. Amidst all this mass of material, which voices are authentic and can be trusted, which Ways true? The field of religion is notoriously open to false prophets, to charlatans who profit from people's sincere need to find greater fulfilment in life. Anyone who is sincerely searching for meaning can trust Bede Griffiths. What he tells us about the Universe and the Spirit of Love, which he affirms is the basis of all life, is written with utter authority - the authority which comes from living experience, not from abstract theology. It is certainly The Word of God, and it comes through a man of gentle temperament, of real learning and wisdom, who had a great gift for expressing himself, so that his words fascinate us intellectually, engage us imaginatively, and touch us emotionally. It is the greatest book of its kind I have ever read. Roger Noël Smith. [e-mail]

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding ... intelligent ... compassionate ... wise ..., October 27, 1999

By 

Emerson Olin (Southern California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Return to the Center (Paperback)

Bede Griffiths gives an engaging, authoritative and comprehensive account of the human experience in God's universe ... a must-read for all those with a thirst for knowledge, divinity and love.