The Unity of Religion in the Interspiritual Age

One goal for this interspiritual Christian weblog is to make the case that one can be wholly Christian without having to be exclusive. It is my hope that there are interspiritual Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, etc. who are making the same case for their own faiths.

We now live in a time when the influences of exclusive religion on milatarist thinking poses an actual threat to the survivability of the human race. This is because religion needs to be leading the way towards peace instead of apocalypse.

For example, whatever case I hear being made for an exclusivist Christian faith or an exclusivist Islamic faith, I am absolutely certain that neither case is within the will of God, whether I address Him as Allah or Jehovah. Whatever name I use, He is still the All-Merciful, All-Compassionate One who seeks to save.

The Interspiritual Age we live in necessitates that every religion must re-examine itself and its Scriptures in the light of the present state of human affairs. See “On The Nature of Scripture” as an example.

I pray for prophets of peace within all religions–such as were found in Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.–to replace the prophets of apocalypse. No doubt such prophets will be persecuted, first and foremost by the religionists in their own faith. It is to be recalled that Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu terrorist for seeking Hindu-Muslim unity.

There are serious obstacles to the interspiritual movement, and they must be faced with the overwhelming power of love. The unity of all religion is to be found in love. The tribalism of the past must be absorbed into love; tribalism always takes the relative view whereas love is universal.

God bless.

On Three Spiritual Practices

As I mentioned in the previous post, the Sufi concept of passing-away (fana) can be instructive to the Christian seeking to surrender his or her will to the will of Christ. Such a surrender is to go beyond external doctrine and into the heart of the Savior.

The prerequisite to this transformation is the annihilation of the ego. In Christianity, this is symbolized by our Baptism, as we have died unto our sinful selves and are reborn into the life of Christ. The annihilation of the ego as the entryway to the Divine Life is a universal concept in religion.

Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. (John 12:24-25, NIV)

There is a saying in Islam: “Die before you die.”

This state of surrender is most difficult to attain in a culture based on materialism. We cannot surrender to God’s will while we have our own agenda. Among the Islamic mystics, even the desire for Paradise or the fear of Hell are seen as egoism.

True surrender is an act of God’s grace, although it can be facilitated by a spiritual practice. A spiritual practice is NOT an act based on “works” in order to gain merit; it is in itself an act of submission to the will of God.

There are many spiritual practices, which would take an entire book to cover. The three I will mention in this post are the Jesus Prayer, the dhikr, and the Rosary.

The great Russian classic about the Jesus Prayer is The Way of the Pilgrim. The Jesus Prayer can be practiced with the aid of Jesus Beads, which consist of 100 beads, usually wooden, plus a cross. The 100 beads can be used to count one series of repetitions of the prayer. Several forms of the prayer can be used. The full form of the prayer is:

Lord Jesus Christ, son of the Living God,

Have mercy on me, a sinner.

A common (silent) form of the prayer is to recite, “Lord Jesus Christ,” on the in-breath and, “Have mercy on me,” on the out-breath. The goal of this prayer is to facilitate the surrender of the individual will into the will of Christ.

This is similar to the Sufi practice of dhikr. The most common way to practice the dhikr is the recollection or remembrance of God by the recitation of the shahada: “la ilaha illa’ llah” (There is no God but God”). The negative statement, “la ilaha,” is recited on the out-breath, while the affirmative statement, “illa’ llah,” is recited on the in-breath.

There are several Catholic websites which give detailed instructions on how to practice the Rosary. As Wayne Teasdale has noted, the effectiveness of the Rosary as a spiritual practice has been proven.

The Rosary beads are used to keep track of the prayers and meditations. One of the characteristics that makes the Rosary effective is that the repetition of prayers engenders tranquility of mind while simultaneously meditating on the “Mysteries,” which are primarily centered on Jesus Christ. It takes some doing at first to learn the Rosary, but once learned it can be practiced almost anywhere.

For those who might object to the “Mariology” implied in the Rosary, rather than discard this effective practice, one can employ a few substitutions. In place of the “Hail Mary,” one could use the following:

My heart is glad, my soul rejoices.

You will show me the path of life;

The fullness of joy in your presence;

At your right hand happiness forever.

Similarly, in place of the extra-biblical Mysteries of the Assumption and Coronation of Mary, one could substitute the raising of Lazarus and the conversion of Saul. Lastly, one can finish the Rosary with an “Our Father” (The Lord’s Prayer) instead of the “Hail, Holy Queen.” And there you have a fully Protestant-ized version of the Rosary.

The simple rule about spiritual practices is to use what attracts you and,

Pray as you can, not as you can’t.

Open your heart to Him and He will open the door.

God bless.

Jesus, Christ of the Cosmos

The appearance of Jesus marks the intersection of eternity with time and history. The man Jesus, through his life, death, and resurrection, reveals to humankind the character of God. “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9)

Although Jesus lived in a specific time in history and in the culture of Israel, he is not only the Jewish messiah, nor is he only the Christian savior, he is the Redeemer of all humankind, of every nation and every creed. And he is not only the Redeemer of humankind, but also of all life and the entire universe.

In Ephesians 4:10 St. Paul tells us that, through his ascension, Jesus Christ is the Christ of the Cosmos:

He who descended is the very One who ascended higher than all the heavens in order to fill the whole universe. (NIV)

We see that God’s plan is that everyone and everything in the cosmos is to be reconciled in Christ:

It pleased God to make absolute fullness reside in him and, by means of him to reconcile everything in his person, both on earth and in the heavens, making peace through the blood of his cross. (Colossians 1:19-20, Liturgy of the Hours)

Through the Christ of the Cosmos, the ultimate destiny of humankind, and for the universe as a whole, is peace and unity; for God has:

A plan to be carried out in Christ, in the fullness of time, to bring all things into unity in him. (Ephesians 1:10, Liturgy of the Hours)

Through his life, teachings, and sacrificial death, Jesus shows us how to live our lives, as Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, or whatever our creed. In his resurrection and ascension, Jesus Christ has become the Christ of the Cosmos and thus crosses over all religious and cultural boundaries. This is why, as a Hindu, Mahatma Gandhi could put into practice the teachings of Jesus so effectively and become himself an embodiment of the teachings of Jesus Christ.

The potential of the Cosmic Christ is all-pervading and fills up the entire universe, including the sun and moon, mountains, oceans, trees, rocks and birds. Jesus is incarnated in the poor, the homeless, the sick and disadvantaged. Jesus Christ is also in every religion that promotes peace and social justice.

Those who follow the teachings of Jesus throughout history–one might call them saints: St. Francis of Assisi, Mahatma Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Deitrich Bonhoeffer, Franklin Graham, and many others–remind us of the potential in the teaching of Jesus and of the Christ of the Cosmos which is given to people of all faiths.

Blessings and Peace.

The Trouble With Mystics

Wayne Teasdale, a Catholic contemplative monk and interspiritual pioneer whose mentor was Bede Griffiths, observed that the convergence of religions rests in mysticism. The trouble is that mystics of all religions tend to draw the wrath of orthodox religionists. This is because mystics perceive a fundamental Source that is beyond, even, the dogmas of the particular religion they are faithful to.

The result is that mystics have often suffered the ultimate persecution at the hands of orthodox practitioners of their own faith, including burnings at the stake, torture, and death by dismemberment. Ironically, most of these victims later regain a high standing in their faith, even sainthood, as in the case of Joan of Arc in the Catholic Church. Christian mystic Meister Eckhart, who proclaimed that the soul and God are of the same substance, spent the last years of his life on trial for heresy.

Sufi mystic Al-Hallaj said that, when his ego disappeared in fana (self-annihilation), the only existent being was God. This lead to his ecstatic utterance, “I am He,” which is comparable to the words of the Hindu Upanishads, “That thou art.” The closest Christian parallel would be, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” (Galations 2:20)

For the orthodox religionists of the time, this was a heresy, and Al-Hallaj was condemned to a protracted death by torture and dismemberment. Yet he said–while he was still able to speak–”Though I am killed and crucified, and though my hands and feet are cut off–I do not recant.” (Nicholson, Idea of Personality, 32)

Fortunately, such actions are illegal now, but the mystics are still vigorously attacked today by orthodox religionists. The objection seems to be that the perceptions of the mystics undermine the fundamental doctrines of orthodoxy. Nevertheless, the three examples of Joan of Arc, Meister Eckhart, and Al-Hallaj were all faithful to their religions.

The problem is that mystics are able to perceive truth on different levels–the literal level and at the level of the Absolute, which is beyond the symbols of religion–whereas their persecutors function only at the literal level.

Al-Hallaj spent years studying spiritual traditions other than Islam and had this to say:

I have meditated on the different religions, endeavoring to understand them, and I have found that they stem from a single principle with numerous ramifications. Do not therefore ask a man to adopt a particular religion (rather than another); for this would separate him from the fundamental principle; it is the principle itself which must come to seek him. (Divan: Muqatta’at)

This is very interesting because it implies that, once we are fortunate enough to discover the Source that is beyond all dogma, we remain adherent to the faith to which we were called.

For this very reason, whatever religion I may be studying or writing about at a particular time–and I am an enthusiast of many–I remain a Christian, and I affirm the Apostle’s Creed.

God bless.

Christianity and Sufism

Sufism is the mysticism of Islam. Mysticism is the direct experience of God. It is possible that Sufism was inspired when Muslims came in contact with the Christian ascetics of the desert. The meaning of the word sufi is related to the wool garments that Sufis wore in imitation of the Christian ascetics.

Many religious thinkers have observed that the common thread of mysticism runs deeper than doctrinal differences, and this is why the mystics of different traditions can learn from each other. While the earliest Sufis learned from the Christian ascetics, today’s Christians can learn a great deal from Islamic devotion to God.

The meaning of Islam is “submission” to the will of God. Three elements of Islam are faith, submission to the divine will, and virtue (or, the spiritual life). A saying often quoted by Sufis is “Die before you die.” According to R. A. Nicholson,

“fana, the passing-away of the Sufi from this phenomenal existence, involves baqa, the continuance of his real existence. He who dies to self lives in God, and fana, the consummation of  this death, marks the attainment of baqa, or union with the divine life.” (Reynold A. Nicholson, The Mystics of Islam, pg. 149)

We can recall the words of St. Paul, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” (Galations 2:20, NIV)

One of the doctrinal differences Islam has with Christianity is that, while it recognizes the “son of Mary” as a great prophet and gives Jesus the utmost respect, the God of Islam does not have a son, because He “is neither begotten not begets.” (The Holy Koran) This is no small doctrinal difference, but in my view there is grounds for inter-religious dialog, as the Koran, within the confines of Islam, shows absolutely no disrespect whatsoever towards Jesus.

And the two religions find a common thread in the mysticism of both our great faiths. The Islamic poet Jalaluddin Rumi says,

If there be any lover in the world, O Muslims, ’tis I,

If there be any believer, infidel, or Christian hermit, ’tis I.”

How Hinduism Can Benefit A Christian

In order to discover how Hinduism can complement and deepen the Christian experience, Christians first need to break free from the bonds of adversarial and exclusive thinking. In order to do so, we need to be secure enough in our own faith in Jesus Christ. Then we are free to learn from Hinduism’s profound religious philosophy and apply it to our spiritual lives in Christian terms.

The closest counterpart to Hinduism is Catholic spirituality and mysticism. Some of what Hinduism teaches, for example, has been discovered by Christian mystics such as Meister Eckhart. Eckhart’s Godhead is virtually identical to Hinduism’s Brahman. Brahman is the source and ground of all things, yet is beyond even the attributes of a personal God, because it is beyond human description. Ultimate union with Brahman is the goal of the spiritual life for the Hindu.

As Eckhart’s Godhead manifests itself through the Christian Trinity, Brahman becomes manifested in the Hindu trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, representing those aspects of God which create, preserve, and dissolve (respectively). These aspects of God can come to earth as divine incarnations, such as Krishna, whose dialog with the warrior and seeker Arjuna is recorded in the pages of the Bhagavad Gita.

The Bhagavad Gita describes three spiritual paths–called yoga–by which we can serve and become closer to God, the ultimate goal being to become united with him. Jnana yoga is the path of knowledge, of understanding the nature of the Atman–the divine spark within us–and its relationship with Brahman. Karma yoga is the path of selfless service and of offering as a sacrifice all the fruits of our work. Bakti yoga is the life of complete devotion to God.

These paths are not exclusive, but allow a person to worship God in the manner that fits his or her aptitudes and temperament. The thoughtful Christian can see how these spiritual paths can be of benefit in our walk with Christ. While we keep in mind that the path of salvation for us Christians is that of faith through Jesus Christ, we can learn from Hinduism ways through which we can better serve him.

God Bless.

Hindu and Christian

As a Christian, I still have a deep interest in the world’s religions. God–the Word–expresses himself in a variety of ancient cultures; and each culture has its own symbols with which to interpret the divine. As for my own faith journey, Jesus Christ is the way to God, but I don’t view other religions as rivals, much less “counterfeit” or “false.”

A “counterfeit” implies that it is trying to pass itself off as an original, but this is not an appropriate description of the major word religions. For example, an ancient religion such as Hinduism is in fact original. Read, for example, the Upanishads.

The word “false” implies that it is somehow designed to draw people away from the true religion, but this word doesn’t fit very well, either. Using Hinduism as an example again, we observe that the great Hindu teachers such as Ramakrishna and Gandhi did not try to convert their Christian devotees to Hinduism, but rather consistently encouraged them to be good Christians. Gandhi sometimes quipped that he was trying to convert Christians to Christianity by making them better followers of Jesus Christ.

I sometimes see an evangelical preacher who gathers quotes from other religions in order to cast a bad light on them and thereby establishing the superiority of Christianity. But this manner of dealing with the world’s religions is like using a blade that cuts on both sides. Besides, it is not fair to compare the lowest expressions of another religion to the highest expressions of our own. It is disengenuous.

I think it is much better to take the high road when preaching the Gospel. Present the message of Jesus Christ in a positive way; it is counterproductive to attack other religions. The message of the Gospel does not need that kind of help; it speaks for itself. Floyd H. Ross, the author of a book called, The Great Religions by Which Men Live, has left us with sage advice,

Attempts at conversion too often become forms of coercion. It is well to try to see the best in the other person’s religion even while by example one is seeking to share his own faith. Pg 188

As Mahatma Gandhi said, “My life is my testimony.” Besides, in terms of interspirituality today, we have examples of people who are Christian and Buddhist, or Christian and Hindu. More on that in future posts.

God Bless.

Meister Eckhart–Christian Mystic

Meister Eckhart is a famous Christian mystic who lived from 1260 to 1327. He enjoyed immensely high status during his career, but one year before his death a bishop from a rival order initiated proceedings against Eckhart for heresy. In 1329, the pope published a bull condemning many of his works. But his works were restored into Catholic theological teaching in the late 20th century.

The source of his difficulties with the Church, according to Ursula King, was “his strong emphasis on the absorption of the self into God in unitive mystical experience.” Pg 107 (King, 2001) According to King, “In his mysticism the ground of God and the ground of the soul are the same ground.” Pg 107 (King, 2001) The soul contains the divine spark of God, and this is why it is possible for humans to have a unitive experience with God.

The unitive experience of God is a state of grace in which the soul participates in the nature of God. (2 Peter 1:4) “But in order to be unified with God, the soul must be purified by practicing asceticism, detachment, silence and withdrawal…” Pg 109 (King, 2001) According to John C. H. Wu, the “Holy Spirit is given to us in such a way that God knows himself in us.” Pg 19 (Wu, 1996) And according to Eckhart, “The eye wherein I see God is the same eye wherein God sees me.” Pg 19 (Wu, 1996)

Although the concept of the Godhead originated in Hinduism, Meister Eckhart introduced it into Western Christian mysticism. Eckhart felt that the true God was beyond every human description and beyond every concept we can think of. When we allow ourselves to go beyond every name and every attribute we can apply to God, that is when we approach the Godhead. To do this, it is almost as if we have to allow ourselves to fall into a “nothingness.” He says,

Do not understand the God who is beyond words. “Then what ought I to do?” You ought to sink down out of all your your-ness, and flow into his his-ness, and your “yours” and his “his” ought to become one “mine,” so completely that you with him perceive forever his uncreated is-ness, and his nothingness, for which there is no name. Pg 99 (O’Donohue, 1981)

Yet at the same time “nothingness” is not accurate either because the Godhead transcends nothingness too. In Eckhart’s words, God is “a being transcending being and a transcending nothingness” Pg 99 (O’Donohue, 1981), which is another way of saying, he is “all in all.”

Works Cited

King, Ursula (2001). Christian Mystics: Their Lives throughout the Ages. Mahwah: HiddenSpring.

O’Donohue, John (1981). Meister Eckhart: Selections from his Essential Writings. New York: HarperCollins.

Wu, John C. H. (1996). The Golden Age of Zen. New York: Doubleday.

Hindu-Christian Synergy

Between Hinduism and Christianity there exists a certain synergy that has been explored by such pioneers in Hindu-Christian dialog such as Henry Le Saux and Bede Griffiths. For example, the Katha Upanishad says of God, “He is the one light that gives life to all”; whereas, the Gospel of John says of the Word, “In him was life, and that life was the light of the world.” (John 1:4, NIV)

Jesus is what Hinduism calls a divine incarnation–”The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” (John 1:14, NIV) Hinduism can accept that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, but the difference between Hinduism and Christianity is that it believes there can be more than one incarnation of God–

“In every age I come back

To deliver the holy,

To destroy the sin of the sinner,

To establish righteousness.” (Bhagavad-Gita)

Although Gandhi spoke of their being more than one son of God, it seems metaphysically more accurate to say that–even if there could be different divine incarnations–there is really only one son of God.

In the 20th century, Henry Le Saux and Bede Griffiths went to India as missionaries to forward the cause of Christ. But they took a different path in doing so, inasmuch as they both took the vow to live as an Indian sannyasa: a person in India who is wholly dedicated to God. Bede Griffiths had a strong experience of the Hindu trinitarian Saccidananda–which is a direct mystical experience of the divine in the form of “Being,” “Consciousness,” and “Bliss.”

In that experience, Griffiths felt that he had discovered a connection between Saccidananda and the Christian Trinity. He began explaining the Christian Trinity in terms of the Hindu experience of Saccidananda. For example, the experience of the Father can be identified with “Being,” the Son–the expression of the Father–can be linked with “Consciousness,” and the agency of the Holy Spirit can be identified with “Bliss.”

It is thus that Bede Griffiths and others felt there is a deep existential relationship between Christian and Hindu mysticism that underlies the differences in doctrine. The Christian mystics, along with the Hindu sages, felt that there is a direct experience of God that can transcend theologies.

God Bless.

Christ and Other Religions

After expressing the view that divine truth occurs in religions other than Christianity, I have received comments that I might characterize as being concerned with the sovereignty of Christ in a pluralistic world. This is a very important matter to the interspiritual Christian because–while learning about and experiencing the truth in other religions–he or she remains faithful to Jesus Christ and His message.

I have quoted Wayne Teasdale’s work on Bede Griffiths before, and I think it merits doing so again, as he sheds light on the way forward, proposing that the grace of Christ has a mysterious agency in other religions.

“In all religions God has been at work since the inception of each; they are related to Christ in the interdependent cosmic scheme. These different revelation systems will eventually converge in Christ, in the spiritual understanding of His place in the cosmic drama.” (Pg.174, Wayne Teasdale: Bede Griffiths: An Introduction to his Interspiritual Thought)

Two points become clear. One is that Christ is sovereign in all religions. The other is that there is work yet to be done on behalf of the future to find meeting points between religions.

In order to do that, we will need to discover the divine ground of being that lies beyond all culture, symbols, and forms. This is called the One, or the Word of God that has existed since before the world began. (John.1:1) After encountering the divine ground of being, we can appreciate the diversity of its expression. “In my Father’s house there are many rooms.” (John.14:2)

For Christians, the Word of God finds its perfect expression in the person of Jesus Christ, who reveals to us the loving nature of the Father. “No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John.14:6) This is the specific calling of Jesus Christ to us as Christians. While the interspiritual Christian seeks to experience and coexist with other religions, in terms of his/her own path, he/she comes to the Father through Jesus Christ, and thus remains faithful to His message. This is the nature of the sovereignty of Christ in a pluralistic world.

If you will stay tuned, I hope to post an article entitled “Original Forgiveness” soon.

God bless.