preacherwho knew the Bible almost by heart my mother, an orthodox
Catholic, would only give us the morning coffee after her return from
Church.
Even from my youngest days, I was made to memorize certain verses from
the Bible.
By the time I had completed the study of all the four Gospels and knew
many important verses, in those four books, by heart.
My father sometimes took me along with him when he went to preach, and
from the special attention he paid to my knowing certain controversial
points, and his teaching me the methods of explaining to the others
those intricacies, it was quite obvious that he wanted me to succeed
him in his profession. The strong desire of the paternal love to make
me a priest was implemented by educating me with a detailed knowledge
of the Bible and the science of ministering it to others. By the time
I reached the Form IV in school I could preach the gospels in my own
way, supervised by my father. Many senior missionaries admired my
knowledge of the important doctrines of the faith. I passed the Form
VI and joined College. There I came in contact with several classmates
who were Protestants, and some of whom were wellversed in the study of
theProtestant Bible.
I often met my Protestantclassmates and discussed matters regarding
differences in our faith and the performance of rituals. There were
also some Muslim students, but I met them only in the play ground as I
hated meeting Muslims whom I took to be dangerous fanatics. By the
time I completed the first year in College, I wassufficiently grounded
in the knowledge of the Christian faith as held by the Catholic Church
and had also considerable knowledge of the Protestant view point.
Appreciating this knowledge of the Catholic faith in my young age I
was given a scholarship from the church funds and in return for the
help I received, I was required to receive special coaching in the
guidanceof deeper thoughts about certain parts of theHoly Book, under
of the Chief Priest of the Church who loved to teach me very much and
was very intimately attached to me. He used the special devotional
methods of worshiping Jesus and his Holy Mother. Having appeared in
the first group for my intermediate course I used to sit working at
hissubjects till late at night.
One night when all were asleep and I was absorbed in my studies an
idea suddenly struck my mind to examine the doctrine of the Holy
Trinity, the Basic formula of the Christian faith. The question, how
three different things can be one and the same, arose in my mind i.e.
how anything singularly absolute in its unity with its indivisible
oneness, can ever by itself becomedivided into three separate beings
with three variant native attributes opposed to each other justifying
the distribution into the three different entities.
My failure to reconcile mybelief in the Trinity with the reasoning of
the science of logic, created amental restlessness in me.Days passed
on and manya time I thought of asking my father to help me in solving
the problem which was puzzling my mind. But I knew that my father
would never appreciate the least doubt in the dogmatic belief of the
Catholic School and my venture to discuss anything hated by the
Catholic faith, would onlycreate further problems in my domestic life.
However, one day when Ifound my father in a happy mood, I asked him as
to how he would defend the Christian faithin the Holy Trinity
againstthe attacks from the members of the other religions of the
world. The answer was:
"In matters of faith one has to stop reasoning. One should belief in
the doctrine only by one's heart and mind."
This reply from my father upset me further more and disappointed me to
avery great extent and all my thinking got centeredin the question
which had become a definite problem to puzzle my mind further and I
wondered saying:
"What! Is this the Foundation upon which is built the huge edifice of
the Christian faith? Is the basis of my own faithonly a matter of a
blind following of some dictated belief which cannever stand reasoning
or the independent scrutinyby the dispassionate and impartial
arguments from the clean conscience?"
I became much worried and made up my mind to find some arguments to
somehow make my muchdisturbed mind at least imagine that one could at
one and the same timebe three different persons, and the three
different persons could at the same time remain one.
One day our Mathematics Professor was sitting alone in his room and I
got in with his permission and asked him if he would help me to solve
something whichto me was an intricate and a perplexing problem. He
very kindly asked me what it was. I told him to explain to me in what
sense one and the same person could bethree different beings, and the
same three different beings with their individual differences could at
the same time be the indivisible absolute one?
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