SPRINGBOARDS and WALKING STICKS

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Remembering Ambedkar on Ambedkar Jayanti

The article, Ambedkar and the Quest for India's Spiritual Heritage, by Harish S Wankhede, argues that BR Ambedkar's engagement with Buddhism was not merely a spiritual choice — it was a deliberate act of political and historical reclamation. By converting to Buddhism, Ambedkar sought to position Dalits not as subordinates within the Hindu fold, but as the rightful heirs of a pre-Brahmanical civilisation rooted in equality and dignity. Ambedkar imagined the Buddhist era as a "Golden Age" of egalitarianism that predated Brahmanical dominance. His Navayana Buddhism drew from diverse socio-religious traditions to offer Dalits an alternative cultural and intellectual identity — one that didn't seek to reform Hinduism from within, but to bypass it entirely. His 1956 mass conversion at Nagpur, accompanied by 22 vows, was framed as a formal declaration of independence from Hindu orthodoxy. Ambedkar was not alone in this project. Several regional movements shared his visi...

Fifty Years of Making, and Still not Going Wild

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that no one warns you about. It is not the exhaustion of doing too much. It is the exhaustion of always doing less than you know you are capable of, and knowing, with absolute clarity, exactly why. For over 20 years I have been a creator. A visual artist trained in the discipline, formed by it, living inside it even when life tried to arrange itself around everything else. And for most of those fifty years, I have been swimming upstream, against the current of institutional falling inline, priestly duty, community suspicion, administrative necessity, and the quiet, persistent pressure of people who love you but do not quite understand what it is you are trying to do. This is not a complaint. It is a reckoning. The ancient Chinese called it as rowing against the current. If you stop, you do not stay still. You go backward. The artist who tries to create within an institution, within a vocation, within a web of obligations and relationships a...

Conversation, Walking, and Breaking of Bread Together | Luke 24: 13-35

For Cleopas and his companion Jerusalem had become a city of collapsed hopes. They had laid everything, their understanding of the Messiah, their vision of liberation, their salvation on the life of one man; and now that man was dead. The crucifixion had not merely taken a life; it had taken the world of these apostles. And so they leave to Emmaus. Not in rage, but in the quiet devastation of people who have decided, almost politely, that there is no reason to stay. And yet, and here is the grace, they do not stop talking. This is what saves them, initially. Not faith, not clarity, not courage, but conversation. They are discussing and debating as they walk, and it is this very openness of speech that creates the opening for the stranger to draw near. In Homer's Odyssey , Odysseus survives not because he is the strongest or even the most faithful, but because he is the most curious, he keeps speaking, keeps asking, keeps engaging even when the gods have turned against him. They ...

Apostola Apostolorum— the Apostle to the Apostles | John 20: 11-18

While eleven solid young men hid behind locked doors in fear, a woman walked alone to a tomb in the dark. And it is to her , not to Peter, not to John, not to any of the Twelve, that the Risen Christ chose first to appear (John 20: 11-18). Thomas Aquinas , who was not known for his generosity toward women in theological roles, nonetheless called her apostola apostolorum the apostle to the apostles, and recognised this as a title of genuine honour. For Aquinas, the mode of apostolicity matters: she was sent, she proclaimed, she was believed. John 20 is the most quietly radical passage in all four gospels. Read it carefully and you notice that the resurrection narrative does not begin with a council of high priests, a gathering of the Twelve, or a male voice of authority. It begins with a woman, alone, weeping, in a garden, before dawn. Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb while it is still dark; the darkness is not merely meteorological. It is existential. The disciples have scattere...

As Jesus Had Said, HE IS RISEN—How Was He So Sure?

Easter is the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. The Lord is risen. As He had said, He is risen. Those who do not have a Christian faith, even those reading the gospels as pure literature, will finally fall back into their chair with relief and a triumphant wow—no, everything is not over. Jesus unfolds, he reveals, a little more of the great journey of life—the resurrection. As humans first we become aware of life, and then we experience death. Most of us stop there, in doubt, skepticism, cynicism, agnosticism, atheism, and the list could go on. Jesus, through the event of his resurrection tells us, do not stop there, life continues into resurrection. Resurrection could be understood two ways. Resurrection Is the Central Blueprint of the Cosmos What Jesus revealed through the paschal mystery — the life, death and resurrection of Jesus — is the revelation of the universal pattern of things. He summarises it this way: order > disorder > reorder (life > death > ...

Resurrection Puts Life Back on Greater Track

Death had overpowered the world for a while, symbolically meaning from the first parents who listened to the serpent in the Garden of Eden to the fulfillment of the promise of a saviour, people lived in the valley of death, valley of sin. The question was who will save us from sin and death? The same question is asked in the gospels as “who will roll back the stone for us.” They had even kept guards, lest the dead man walk. On the Easter morning, women go to the tomb of Jesus, and find the stone already rolled back, not by our merit, or not one of us rolled the stone back; they look in and see that the tomb is empty. According to Matthew, they meet a man there, or an angel there who told them, “as he had said, He is Risen.” Word spreads. Silence is broken, people began to speak again, the apostles began to walk and run again, they began to gather again. This is Easter morning. Resurrection of Jesus literally brought life back on track. The ancient foe is defeated. The apost...

The power and necessity of Questioning

He never wrote a single word. He owned nothing. He wandered the markets and alleyways of Athens in worn sandals, stopping strangers, generals, poets, politicians, and asking them one disarmingly simple thing: what do you mean by that? And yet Socrates, this stonemason's son who left no manuscript and no monument, reshaped the entire architecture of Western thought. The weapon he used was not a sword, not wealth, not even eloquence. It was a question. And two and a half millennia later, that weapon remains the sharpest one available to any thinking person. he stood by the principle, “The unexamined life is not worth living." The Most Dangerous Man in Athens Athens in the fifth century BC was a city convinced of its own wisdom. It had built the Parthenon. It had invented democracy. Its generals had repelled the Persian Empire. Its citizens were not humble men. And then came Socrates, asking them if they actually knew what justice was. What courage meant. What v...

Resurrection Is the Pattern of the Universe

The paschal mystery, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, is the revelation of the universal pattern of things, claims Richard Rohr; he summarises it this way: order > disorder > reorder (life > death > resurrection). God did not just resurrect Jesus to prove a point; rather, the resurrection of Jesus makes visible to the eyes of the disciples and to all of us what God is always doing everywhere. Death is not the opposite of life; it is a necessary part of the transition into a deeper, transformed life. Every time a seed breaks open to become a tree, or a human ego suffers a blow only to find deeper humility—it is the resurrection pattern at work. When we view the resurrection through Richard Rohr’s lens, it shifts from being a distant historical doctrine or reality in the past, 2000 years ago (about Jesus) or a distant reality or possibility in the future (for us). Resurrection is the central blueprint of the cosmos—then our spiritual job is to participate i...

Good Friday—a Glimpse at One Who Was Sent to Love

God sends his son into the world: to use a modern sociological expression, God conducts the most revealing, most expensive social experiment; God sends his son into the world to love, and only love; you shall have no other powers than loving. You shall not judge, you shall not condemn, you shall not punish; If someone slaps you on one cheek, show the other cheek as well, if someone takes your shirt, give your coat as well, if someone asks you to go one mile with them, go two miles; be gentle and only gentle; in the words of Isaiah 42, a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not put out; it highlights the extreme gentleness, compassion, and restorative care of the Messiah. The words of gospel may be most fitting to him, I send you out as a sheep among wolves (Matthew 10:16). He became Immanuel (God with us). He worked like us, ate like us, drank like us, lived like us, except that he did not sin, meaning he did not do anything against the will of one who se...

Maundy Thursday | John 13: 1-15

From the reading, John 13: 1-15, and the actions that are unfolding around us, we could reflect upon two significant events: Jesus washing the feet of his disciples and the Last Supper. Jesus washing the feet of his disciples After the meal has begun, Jesus breaks the feast to draw maximum importance and focus to something that he thought as important as his suffering and death. Jesus gets up from the table, removes his outer robe, ties a towel around his waist, fills a basin with water, and begins to wash his disciples’ feet. In the ancient world, foot-washing was assigned to the lowest servant in a household; and not just any servant; Jewish law considered the task too degrading even for a Hebrew slave. It was the work of the outsider, the foreigner, the one with nothing left to lose. Jesus, the one they called Rabbi, Lord, the one some believed would restore a kingdom, takes that position on the floor, one pair of feet at a time. Washing of another’s feet is an antidote; it is ...

Priesthood in the Light of the Last Supper | John 13: 1-15

The upper room is a study in contrasts. Twelve men recline at a well-laid table—bread, wine, the smell of roasted lamb—momentarily lost in the comfort of a good meal, unaware that history is unfolding around them. And in the centre of them sits Jesus: fully awake, fully aware. He knows what is happening in Jerusalem. He knows what is coming for him in the hours ahead. He knows the betrayers and deniers. He knows this is the last time he will break bread with the people he loves most. To carry that knowledge and still pour the wine; to know the end and still kneel down to wash feet; that is the beginning of any meditation on priesthood. The Priest is not Free of Suffering; He enters it Willingly and Knowingly The Scriptures show us something startling about priesthood in the paradigm of Jesus as a priest. He knew that most of the seeds he had sown had been scattered, choked, scorched, and taken away (the parable of the sower Matthew 13: 3-9). He knew that among the twelve reclining...

The Last Supper and the Washing of the Feet | John 13: 1-15

Here we are standing in the silent shadow of impending sacrifice, Jesus did not just talk about love; he showed that love is a verb that requires us to get our hands dirty for the sake of others. In that quiet, humble moment, he taught us that no one is too important to serve, and no one is too broken to be served. The Company Jesus Kept There is something worth pausing over before anything else is said: the company Jesus chose to keep on the last night of his life. He had been arrested, in the eyes of the religious establishment, for precisely this crime; eating with sinners, tax collectors, the disreputable, the morally compromised. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record the scandal of it. And yet here, in the upper room, on the very night before the cross, he does not surround himself with the devout or the dignified. He gathers, one last time, with his disciples — men who will, before morning, betray him, deny him, and run. He knew this. He knew all of it. And he stayed at the t...