Fr. JOHN BRITTO -by Dr. Barbara A. Amodio

He was my most erudite professor at fordham University, and we remained friends always. I published two articles in the Journal of Dharma, and wrote him of other original research which he greatly encouraged. When he left the US in 'retirement' (though someone like Fr. John never 'retires'), I also embarked on a difficult period here in every way, financial, physical and more...though I have continued to teach Indian tradition and other philosophy courses without stop for many decades, and to introduce students to the Indian perspective as I learned it well from Fr. John. We exchanged brief greetings, and then I lost touch with him because of several retina surgeries and my exhausting schedule.....I tried unsuccessfully to find him, and have been sending emails to an address found for me by a former CMI student of yours who sat next to me on an Alitalia flight....Needless to say, I am distraught to read the obituary because I casn no longer find him in the world. I do, however, see him and sense his presence in deepest meditation, for which I am grateful. May he guide us all, and may I continue to teach in the ways he modelled for me. He once called me his 'brilliant' student, but I am nothing in comparison to him, and owe him so much, and all my discernment. My greatest regret is not having been able to come to India to study and live with the CMI whuile he was still with us. I hope you might yet receive me one day, and that I might be of help to you, too. I can think of no christian community with which I feel more intimately and intensely related. I regret I did not get to tell Fr. Chethimattam, as we called him at Fordham (where I was a Teaching Fellow and one of his first and frequent graduate students) one more time, inperson, how vast was his influence and direction on me. I shall continue, God willing, to introduce students to the Indian tradition, the relation of experience to knowledge, and the unity of truth in his honor for as long as I can. I think of him each time I enter a classroom, and do what I do in his honor and following his model. It was my great good fortune to be introduced and immersed in the Indian (and Middle Eastern) traditions by him and from an authentic perspective. A few words from him were worth more than volumes by others. I hope this email reaches you. Please tell me how I can be more in contact with CMI. I feel strangely and intellectually orphaned without his presence to call upon. My next greatest regret is that I did not go on a trip he once planned to the Holy Land before his return to India at the church in Scarsdale...though I recruited several students from the Jesuit university in S. Connecticut where I still teach as a Visiting Professor. I sense him and see him in deepest meditation, most intensely today....and so I found this website. Emails kept being returned from other addresses I'd found. May god and gurus be with us all, and we with them in the tightest of spiritual knots. Dr. Barbara A. Amodio, 50 Aiken St - Unit 362, Norwalk, CT 06851 USA.