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The Golden String: An Autobiography
The title of this beautifully written book is derived from the lines by William Blake that start: ""I give you the end of a golden string"".
This is the life story of Don Bede Griffiths, now a Benedictine monk of Prinknash Abbey, in England. It opens with a mystical experience of school days which led Griffiths to becoming a sensitive nature worshiper -- but with steadily ...more
This is the life story of Don Bede Griffiths, now a Benedictine monk of Prinknash Abbey, in England. It opens with a mystical experience of school days which led Griffiths to becoming a sensitive nature worshiper -- but with steadily ...more
Paperback
,
192 pages
Published
January 1st 1980
by Templegate Publishers
(first published 1954)
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Loved this memoir of a Benedictine monk who came to Catholicism in early adulthood and found his calling living in a monastery. Bede Griffiths was about 48 when he wrote this book, and then went to India and spent 35 years there as a Catholic monk, but also learning everything he could about Eastern religions and finding "the other half of his soul" in Eastern thought.
I'm not Catholic, but I really loved this story and I've already bought a copy of his second memoir, which takes up where the fir ...more
I'm not Catholic, but I really loved this story and I've already bought a copy of his second memoir, which takes up where the fir ...more
A really interesting book.
Bede was an intensely intellectual man. After reading this, I admire him, would love to have met him, and hope to read about his later experiences in India. I think he would have been completely horrified to see an edition of his book with so many spelling and punctuation mistakes in it. It happened often enough to be a distraction. Medio Media must have sacked the proofreaders to save money. Very poor, for a 9.99 rrp book with less than 200 pages.
This autobiography ch ...more
Bede was an intensely intellectual man. After reading this, I admire him, would love to have met him, and hope to read about his later experiences in India. I think he would have been completely horrified to see an edition of his book with so many spelling and punctuation mistakes in it. It happened often enough to be a distraction. Medio Media must have sacked the proofreaders to save money. Very poor, for a 9.99 rrp book with less than 200 pages.
This autobiography ch ...more
Autobiography of a young English man, a student and later friend of C. S. Lewis, who becomes converted from not much of anything to Catholicism, joining a monastery almost immediately after. He later starts a Christian monastery in India with the commitment to include as much as possible of the local language, customs, and using the form of the Hindu ashram. This book ends before he gets to India, though, so I'm planning to read the sequel: Marriage of East and West. Very interesting reading. I
...more
Read - and loved - in my idealistic youth. The combination of beautiful English writing and selfless seeking moved me enormously back then. It may be a mistake to reread it however!
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Bede Griffiths (1906-1993), born Alan Richard Griffiths and also known as Swami Dayananda (Bliss of Compassion), was a British-born Benedictine monk who lived in ashrams in South India. He was born at Walton-on-Thames, England and studied literature at Magdalen College, Oxford under professor and Christian apologist
C. S. Lewis
, who became a lifelong friend. Griffiths recounts the story of his con
...more
More about Bede Griffiths...
