Hindu-convert-turned retreat preacher dies

By Thomas Scaria

Kochi, April 19, 2023: Aravindaksha Menon, an upper caste Hindu who discovered Christ through the reading of the Vedas, died of heart attack in Kerala.

The death occurred on April 19 as he was being taken to a hospital in Kottayam with complaints of chest pain. He was 75.

“This is the death of a saint,” says Father George Panackal, director of the Divine Retreat Centre in Kerala’s Muringoor, mourning the passing away of Menon.

Babu Mathew, the center’s public relations officer, told Matters India April 20 that Menon was a powerful preacher who brought the message of Christ to millions from all religions.

Menon is survived by his wife and two daughters and their spouses.

Mathew, a former Kerala government employee, said the funeral will take place at 4 pm on April 20 at St. Anthony’s Church, Puthuppalli, near Kottayam.

Menon was born in an orthodox semi-Brahmin family and studied the Hindu scriptures from childhood, but later turned to Communism and atheism.

In the early 1990s he lost his government job because of his affiliation to the Communist party. He then became an atheist but continued his search for God. He found some hints to Jesus, son of God, in the Vedas, the scriptures of Hinduism. He then began reading the Bible.

Menon used to say that his search for God ended with his encounter with Jesus, the Son of God, which led to his conversion to Christianity. He joined the Divine Retreat Center in early 1990s and shared his testimonies with the participants of popular charismatic retreats there until recently.

Deepa Joseph, a human rights activist and a lawyer, wrote on her Facebook page that she in 1998 listened to Menon’s testimony during a one-week retreat in the Muringoor center.

“His sharing of ‘Vedas to Christ’ was the most powerful witness I have ever heard in my life,” she wrote.

Menon testified that he was brought up in his orthodox Hindu family studying scriptures, chanting hymns and attending temple rituals every day.

When he turned 18, he found a job under the federal ministry of commerce. “For more than 20 years I led a very happy and cheerful life,” he wrote in one of the testimonies. His amiable nature won him many friends and became the leader of the employees’ union. This brought him closer to the Indian Communist Party and soon became one of its local leaders.

However, his Communist links and participation in labor strikes cost him his job and plunged into financial hardships.

He said the financial problems forced him to think of God and he made offerings in their temples. He also consulted a famous astrologer four times.

“All the four times he found different reasons for my hardships — curses of a god, curses of goddesses, curses of birth stars and so on,” Menon wrote. The astrologer suggested expensive penances to ward off the hardship. He had to borrow money to fulfill those rituals. “Still nothing happened to my life,” he said.

As his troubles continued Menon became an atheist. “I was convinced there is no such God. God is only a myth created by man, for the welfare of the priests, astrologers and temples,” he recalled.

He then joined a rationalist association and went around cities in India preaching the non-existence of God for the next three years.

However, “this period turned out to be a blessing in disguise for me. I could read a lot of books and meet many intellectual giants, and writers. While I was preaching against God, He changed my life totally,” he said.

He met a judge, who was a Sanskrit scholar, after one of his lectures on atheism. The judge told him that in his difficulties he had not turned to the real God. The judge, a Brahmin, asked him to go through the Hindu scriptures – the four Vedas.

“You have to go through these Vedas. Then you will get light, you will find the truth, you can see the real God who will give you peace,” Menon recalled the judge’s advice.

In the Vedas, he found mention of the first born and only born son of God. Confused, he went to the same judge who said what the Vedas say is about Jesus and advised him to start reading the Bible.

He experienced a strong tussle in mind between the culture he was born and brought up and the knowledge about Jesus. “Then, I could understand what my Guru told me was correct. Jesus is the only Son of God.”