Rijo Jose Thalakottoor, O.Carm

My maiden visit to Italy was in 2014, and its scope was higher studies. Consequently, I became a member of Cisa community and enrolled in the Gregorian Pontifical University in 2015. I completed my Licentiate in Philosophy (L. Phil.) with a thesis: Edith Stein’s Concept of the Human Person as an Embodiment of Spiritual Essence. I planned to return to India, but the Regens Studiorum, Mark Attard O. Carm., suggested that I do a PhD in Philosophy. I agreed with his thought and enrolled for the doctoral cycle in 2017. I decided to continue my interest in Edith Stein and did comparative research with Indian mystical thought. Under the guidance of Professor Angela Ales Bello, the most well-known Italian scholar on Edith Stein, I defended my dissertation, The Ultimate Sense of the Human Being: Phenomenological Anthropology and Mystical Experience in the Thought of Edith Stein, Gerda Walther, and Aurobindo Ghose at Antonianum Pontifical University on the 21^st June, 2022. After the publication in September, I will return to India in October 2022. Thank you all…