In this soul-stirring account of his six-week pilgrimage to India eighteen years ago, Father M. Basil Pennington reveals a nation especially attuned "to the holy and the holy person." A teacher of centering prayer who is now a monk of St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts, Pennington discovers the best introduction to India and its people aboard a crowded train: "It was a vigil, an all-night vigil of prayer, plunged into the very midst of Mother India's children."
Pennington visits many Christian communities but is especially moved by the sacramentalism of Hindus who sense the presence of God in people, places, and things. He receives darshan from Mother Teresa in Calcutta and from Father Bede Griffiths at his Shantivanam ashram (a place of prayer). Everywhere he goes Pennington is received graciously; he is deeply moved by this repeated benediction of hospitality. The author's observations on interfaith dialogue, the gap between the rich and the poor, the search for God, and the Eastern emphasis upon divine immanence are salutary.