A Catholic, Sanyasin monk with an Oxford accent. This was the sight that greeted visitors and pilgrims to the Saccidananda Ashram in rural Tamil Nadu. The story of Bede Griffith, who died as Swami Dayananda, begins in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England.
Born in 1906, Alan Richard Griffiths grew up in material poverty, but against the backdrop of the open countryside of Sussex. Walking between the hills and the sea, Griffith developed a love for Nature and Romantic poetry (that of Shelley, Keats, and Wordsworth). His love for either became what he would later call the “whole heart of my religion.”
He was sent to Christ Hospital school, a charity-school of high reputation. He worked his way into a scholarship at Oxford, where he studied English literature under C.S. Lewis at Magdalen College. The two became close friends, often chatting late into the night. They started a close correspondence as both ventured towards Christianity.
A year after graduating in journalism from Oxford, Griffith and a friend moved into a cottage in the Cotswolds. The goal was a disassociate as far as possible from industrialisation. They slept on mattresses made of straw and lived without electricity. They purchased cows and supplied the local village with milk. During this period, Griffith took to the Bible – searching for a way to see beyond the material world. He joined the Church of England in London – and they tasked with him spending time working in the city’s slums.
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