Universal Avatār

JEFFERY D. LONG

UNIVERSAL AVATĀR

A Hindu Theology of Divine Incarnation in the Tradition of Sri Ramakrishna

Introduction The intent of this comparative theological project is to begin the process of developing a systematic theology of divine incarnation for the Vedānta tradition of Sri Ramakrishna in dialogue with Christian theology. A distinctive feature of this project is that it is pursued from a Hindu perspective engaged in a dialogue with Christianity. Issues with which this project engages include the utility of such theological dialogue for Hindus and Christians, the epistemic question of the recognition of a divine incarnation, the interpretation of scriptural proclamations by divine incarnations that apparently endorse an exclusivist model of salvation, and the idea of a singular divine being with multiple incarnations.

The specific problem to which this project responds is the fact that Ramakrish- na, taken in the modern Hindu tradition based on his life and teachings to be an avatār or divine incarnation undertook intensive spiritual practices, or sā- dhanas, for the purpose of attaining God-realization. If Ramakrishna was a divine incarnation, why was it necessary for him to undertake the arduous practices he did in order to reach God? Was this a mere display, undertaken solely for teaching unenlightened human beings the path—or paths1—to God-realization, as some thinkers in this tradition have suggested? And if this is the case, does it not undermine Ramakrishna’s efficacy as an exemplar for practitioners? If he was God, of course he was able to reach God-realization. But what of those ordinary souls who struggle for even a glimpse of divinity? It seems that Ramakrishna can serve as a genuine exemplar only as a truly human practitioner, with the failure of his quest a real possibility.

1 The diversity of paths to God-realization is the central message of Sri Rama- krishna’s life and teaching, embodying and proclaiming which was arguably his chief mission as a divine incarnation–hence my choice to designate him as a “universal ava- tār,” teaching that God-realization is available to people of all religions and cultures. Yato mat, tato path—as many religions, so many paths—is Ramakrishna’s essential teaching.

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It may be the case that a deep, thoroughgoing, and potentially unsurmountable forgetfulness of his own divinity was an essential feature of Ramakrishna’s incarnation. The received accounts of his life and spiritual practices are strongly suggestive of such a possibility, certainly at the outset of the period of his sā- dhanas.2 This is the hypothesis with which I shall be working in this project.

If an avatār’s forgetfulness of his (or her) divine nature is, as suggested here, deep and thoroughgoing, how, then, is the avatār distinct from the incarnation of the ordinary soul or jīva? Does the term avatār point to a meaningful difference, on a spiritual level, between one type of being and another? According to Vedānta, we are all forgetful of our true, divine nature, and the whole point of the practice of Vedānta is to overcome this forgetfulness: to attain God-realization. The traditional distinction between an avatār and an ordinary person is that “the avatar,” as the meaning of the Sanskrit word implies, is “the descent of God, whereas the ordinary man ascends toward God.” (Prabhavananda 1963: 42) But if an avatār is characterized by spiritual amnesia phenomenally no different from that experienced by all beings in the thrall of cosmic ignor- ance—avidyā—how is an avatār different from any person who attains God- realization? Is there a difference other than the fact that the avatār was once aware of his or her divinity, having willfully forgotten it for a specific purpose (such as the instruction of humanity), whereas the ordinary person has yet to attain this awareness? Finally, if the experience of the two is not phenomenally different, how are we to recognize avatārs, apart from their self-proclamation as such?

To be sure, the Vedānta tradition does make a distinction between Īśvara—that is, the supreme person, who continuously creates, maintains, and recreates the universe—and Brahman, the impersonal spirituality that is the basis, the fundamental Self, of all beings: both Īśvara and the innumerable souls or jīvas mak- ing up the universe. The use of the English words “God” and “divinity” to re- fer to Īśvara and Brahman can confuse issues.

The “God-realization” that is sought by spiritual practitioners is the realization of the divine Self—Brahman—as identical to the core of one’s own being. It is not to become Īśvara, who, like the God of the Abrahamic religions, is one unique entity. It is, however, to become God-like, inasmuch as the chief distinction between Īśvara and all other souls is that Īśvara is ever-free, never having been bound by the cycle of rebirth. Īśvara knows that Īśvara is Brah- man, whereas the rest of us do not. God-realization is to know oneself as Brah- man, not merely cognitively, but through direct, experiential awareness.

2 I am speaking here of the period of his initial yearnings for a vision of the Goddess Kālī—a period of deep and painful longing (Saradananda 2003: 206-13). His later realization experiences came comparatively easily.

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The question behind this project, though, is not altogether dissolved by the Īśvara-Brahman distinction; for if, in a given form, Īśvara is capable of Self- forgetfulness, then that particular form is, again, in a situation that is phenomenally no different from that of an ordinary soul seeking realization, and the outside observer is still left with the question of distinguishing one from the other.

Catalyst: Clooney’s Theological Challenge This project is inspired by a challenge posed by Francis X. Clooney in one of the journals of the Ramakrishna Order in India, Prabuddha Bharata (Awa- kened India), established by Swami Vivekananda in 1896. Among the theological challenges Clooney characterizes as currently facing the Ramakrishna tradition, he draws attention to the following set of questions: What are we to make of the fact that for a major portion of his adult life he [Ramakrishna] was engaged in sādhanas [intensive spiritual disciplines] aimed at spiritual advancement? Did Ramakrishna, as a spiritual practitioner intent upon spiritual learning, actually discover something new about himself, his identity, and his mission, because of those sādhanas? For it is not immediately clear how a person can manifest a sure and certain spiritual identity, even sure perfection, as did Ramakrishna— and yet at the same time be really engaged in practices aimed at spiritual advancement. What are the conditions under which sādhana is possible and necessary even for a spiritually advanced person? (Clooney 2011) The more fundamental theological problem to which these questions point is the nature of the relationship between the human and the divine in a being held to be both at the same time. As Clooney points out, Ramakrishna’s humanity is definitely asserted in the texts of the Ramakrishna tradition, on the understanding that his sādhanas involved a genuine effort and were not merely a show put on by a wholly divine being who was free from the need for such intensive striving: This issue too was a live one for [Ramakrishna’s biographer] Saradananda in the Divine Play [an account of Ramakrishna’s life that includes much extensive reflection on Ramakrishna’s nature]. In his introduction to the second part of that work he insists, against the skeptics of his day, that Ramakrishna was truly human and not merely seeming to be so. Indeed, he insists that readers will not feel the full impact of Ramakrishna’s sādhanas unless they agree that an avatāra [divine incarnation] becomes truly human, and as a real human being experiences real human needs, uncer- tainty, dependence on others, and the obscuration of consciousness, and hence needs to strive for human perfection. Saradananda repeatedly drives home the point that the imperfections of the avatāra, even if chosen freely by the divinity, are not “for show” but are real. (Clooney 2011) At the same time, the tradition also does assert that Ramakrishna is truly divine: Yet Saradananda also suggests that when we are advanced in insight, we will see Ramakrishna as perfect and divine—even beyond all our categories, nirvikalpa. This 172 UNIVERSAL AVATĀR loftier language makes it sound as if Ramakrishna’s sādhanas are indeed “only” for our sake and not something that he had to undertake for his own benefit too. In fact, upon a second reading, it is hard to see where Saradananda allows for any moral or spiritual imperfections in Ramakrishna, the kind of imperfections usually remedied by sādhana. Even as he stresses Ramakrishna’s humanity, Saradananda keeps presenting Rama- krishna as the ever all-knowing, perfectly aware teacher. So one might just as well conclude, from Saradananda’s discussion of sādhanas, that Ramakrishna really did engage in spiritual practice only to set a good example for others, not for his own sake; for embodied divinities have nothing to learn. (Clooney 2011) The questions raised by the relationship between Sri Ramakrishna’s divinity and humanity have, of course, close resonances with the questions raised by the relationship between the divinity and humanity of Christ. And the issues re- lating to the nature of this relationship that Clooney raises based on his reading of Saradananda’s Divine Play have parallels in the early history of Christianity.

Some streams of early Christian thought affirm the divinity of Christ as pri- mary—his humanity being a mere show—with others affirming the humanity of Christ in a way that subordinates him to the fully divine Father. Docetism, for example, is a stream of early Christian thought that sees Christ as fully divine, as a result of which his suffering and death on the cross is a mere ap- pearance or illusion. Docetic scriptural texts even describe the real, divine Je- sus cheerfully walking and laughing aloud behind the illusory, suffering Jesus carrying the cross up the hill of Golgotha. The real Jesus is visible only to those with the eyes of faith.3 Arianism, on the other hand, is a stream of early Christian thought that sees Christ as the firstborn of all creation, but as a cre- ated being, not divine, and wholly subordinate to God the Creator or Father. Both of these streams are seen as heretical by what eventually emerges as orthodox Christianity: that stream that affirms the Chalcedonian formula of one Christ with two natures—one fully human and one fully divine.4

Autobiography: Christianity through (Formerly Christian) Hindu Eyes Unlike a good deal of comparative theology, the majority of which seems to be practiced by Christian theologians engaging with traditions other than their own, and ultimately in the service of the Christian tradition, I undertake this project as a Hindu theologian, in the service of my particular Hindu saṃpra- dāya or tradition—the Vedānta of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda. The “other,” in the case of this project, is Christianity, while the voice of the

3 This brings to mind Krishna’s bestowing of the “divine eye” (divya-cakṣu) upon Arjuna in the 11th chapter of the Bhagavad Gītā, thus enabling Arjuna to behold Krishna in his full divine glory. 4 Scriptural justification can be found for all three positions, though Docetism is more of a Gnostic view.

173 STUDIES IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE 22 (2012) 2 author is a Hindu voice. In this sense, then, this project is in some ways the re- verse of the dominant trend in comparative theology.5

At the same time, I am a peculiar Hindu; for unlike the vast majority of those who identify themselves as Hindu, I was neither born nor raised in the Hindu Dharma but in the Roman Catholic tradition of Christianity. To look at Chris- tianity is therefore, for me, to “look back” with new eyes upon the tradition of my upbringing and my initial spiritual formation—to look not simply at “another,” but at a part of myself.

A full account of what led to my identification with Hinduism more broadly, and with the tradition of Ramakrishna in particular, is beyond the scope of this article.6 To the extent that it is relevant to the questions pursued here, I can say that this theological project of bringing the tradition of Ramakrishna into dialogue with Christianity continues an internal Hindu-Christian dialogue that I have been having throughout my life.

My differences with Christianity do not arise from skepticism about what I take to be the central Christian message—the proclamation that the love of God has taken form in the person of Jesus—but of a sense that this message is often not construed in a way that does justice to the sheer vastness of the reality of God. Why only one divine incarnation? How can love infinite beyond im- agining be so contained? Surely the nature of God as infinite love must be capable of embracing the wisdom of all the world’s religions?

Purpose: The Utility of this Theological Dialogue for Hindus and Christians One presupposition of this project is that a comparative look at discourse on the nature (or natures) of Christ in Christianity—or Christology—is potentially instructive to adherents of the Ramakrishna tradition—a tradition in its relative infancy that has only just begun to reflect on these questions, and so to tread ground already well-trodden by Christians.

To be sure, the Ramakrishna tradition, as a Hindu tradition, has centuries—in-

5 This trend exists for historical reasons that Francis X. Clooney has outlined well in Comparative Theology: Deep Learning Across Religious Borders (Clooney 2010: 24- 53). As Clooney demonstrates, the discourse of comparative theology has emerged from a Christian milieu. It thus quite naturally remains dominated by Christian voices. This will likely remain the case until such time as it becomes a discourse more widely accepted by practitioners from a variety of religious traditions–a process already under- way. 6 For fairly detailed accounts of various aspects of my transition from Chris- tianity to Hinduism, see Long 2007: 1-22; Long 2012a; and Long 2012b.

174 UNIVERSAL AVATĀR deed, millennia—worth of texts and debates on the nature of an avatār on which to draw in formulating a theology of the relationship between Sri Rama- krishna’s divinity and his humanity.

At the same time, however, the tradition itself is a relatively young saṃ- pradāya. The monastic lineage that Ramakrishna inspired—the Ramakrishna Order—was established by his closest disciples in 1886. Swami Vivekananda, his most famous disciple, went on to establish the first Vedānta Society in New York in 1894 and its Indian companion organization, the Ramakrishna Mis- sion, in 1897. Although a Hindu tradition in terms of the contours of its world- view and the older traditions on which it draws—such as Advaita Vedānta— the Vedānta of Ramakrishna was self-consciously presented and promoted in the West by Swami Vivekananda and his brother monks as a universal philosophy with an appeal for persons of all religions (and no religion). It was pre- sumed from the start that many adherents of Vedānta, particularly in the West, would come to this tradition with an initial spiritual foundation in other traditions, such as Christianity. It therefore stands to reason that at least some adherents of Vedānta will instinctively understand this tradition using Christian categories—categories that bear with them the weight of the centuries of de- bate and reflection that make up Christian intellectual history. Also, the idea that truth can be found and God-realization achieved using the tools of a variety of religious traditions is at the core of this tradition, taking the form of the multireligious sādhanas of Ramakrishna himself. That reflection on the nature of Ramakrishna should itself have a multireligious character, tapping the resources of more than one tradition—the traditions from which his devotees have come—again seems natural and appropriate.

As a Hindu tradition that has a considerable following among non-Indians in the West—persons such as myself who were raised and whose spirituality was nurtured in other traditions, such as Christianity—it is hoped that this project will contribute to as well as encourage a process in which adherents of Rama- krishna’s Vedānta think through the implications of our tradition utilizing the categories of the societies of our upbringing in dialogue with the categories of the tradition we have received from India. Again, just as the early Christians tapped into Greek philosophy, as was natural to them as inheritors of Hellen- istic thought, thereby unleashing enormous creativity in Christian theology, it is hoped that increasingly global Hindu traditions can think not exclusively in Sanskritic or Indic terms but can also be enriched by other cultures as Hindu Dharma emerges as a truly global tradition, and not merely an ethnic one: lo- calized and thereby limited to a single cultural idiom. Questions of authenticity will no doubt arise as projects like mine emerge—just as they arose among the early Christians—and a “watering down” of the Indic categories is certainly a

175 STUDIES IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE 22 (2012) 2 danger given the history of Western global domination.7 Mutual cross-fertiliza- tion among cultures, rather than a subordination of one to the other, is what is ultimately desired, and such exercises must be undertaken with care for the in- tegrity of all the traditions involved. Rather than something to be feared or re- jected, however, I would suggest that this is part of the maturation process of a tradition that seeks to be global in its reach and scope: that it engage meaning- fully and substantively with cultural categories from a variety of points of ori- gin, particularly those of a growing number of its adherents.

There are, of course, clear differences between the claims of the Christian and Hindu traditions regarding the nature of divine incarnation, and any appropri- ation by the Ramakrishna tradition of Christian categories will no doubt entail transformation of these categories in ways that Christians may or may not find useful.

The most obvious point of departure between Hindu traditions, including that of Ramakrishna, and Christianity regarding the nature of a divine incarnation is the Hindu claim that many such beings have appeared throughout history. The classical scriptural warrant for this is Bhagavad Gītā 4:7-8, in which Sri Krishna states that, “Whenever, oh Arjuna, there is a decline in dharma [goodness, righteousness, the sacred cosmic order], I manifest myself in order to re-establish dharma and to destroy evil.” Christianity, on the other hand, has traditionally viewed Jesus Christ as unique—as the only begotten Son of God. Indeed, assent to this doctrine is widely seen as definitive of Christian adherence.

Furthermore, the Advaita Vedānta and Tāntric traditions on which the tradition of Ramakrishna draws most explicitly do not make the strong metaphysical distinctions that Christianity does between human beings and God. All beings are divine, in their basic essence—that is, as Brahman—according to these traditions. The distinction between a divine incarnation and a regular human being is thus not a matter of kind, but of degree. The divine being knows that he or she is divine, whereas the human being, prior to enlightenment, has not realized this divinity (though he or she may be aware of it at a cognitive level, through the study of scripture and philosophy). The distinction between a jīvanmukta, a being who has attained God-realization in this life, and an incarnation, is not very clear. One is tempted to say that the distinction is that the avatār has entered this life as a God-realized being—and as an incarnation of Īśvara—whereas enlightened beings are not aware of their divinity from birth, achieving this awareness later in life, through sādhana. But this neat distinction is muddied when one takes account of avatārs such as Rāma who are not

7 A concern raised prominently by independent scholar Rajiv Malhotra, among others.

176 UNIVERSAL AVATĀR aware of their divinity early in life, seeming to have forgotten it in the process of taking a human birth. If avatārs can be unaware of their divinity, what is the difference between an avatār and everyone else?

The relevance of this conversation to Ramakrishna is obvious, given that he did perform sādhanas and so would intuitively seem to fit the category of jī- vanmukta better than that of avatār. Yet his status as a divine incarnation is asserted in the tradition. How are we to understand this?

Despite the clear differences noted between Christianity and the Hindu traditions, similar questions apply to Christ as to Sri Ramakrishna. Was Jesus fully aware of his divinity from infancy? If so, was he truly tempted in the desert? Could he be tempted in any meaningful way if there was no possibility that he could succumb to imperfection? If he was aware of his divinity, did he really suffer on the cross? Why would he cry out, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” The early Christian community, as mentioned above, strug- gled with these questions, eventually arriving at the Chalcedonian formula of one being with two natures—one human, one divine. Is there anything that the tradition of Ramakrishna might learn from this early Christian conversation?

There is no “official” doctrine of the nature of Ramakrishna in the Ramakrish- na tradition—nor, most in the tradition would assert, should there be. The bit- terly contentious polemics and mutual excommunications that characterize the early centuries of Christian history are not something this tradition wishes to import. As a tradition with a founder whose central teaching was that many different paths—including different religions—lead to God-realization, the im- position of a single formal orthodoxy would be a poor fit with Ramakrishna Vedānta. The intent of this project is not to generate a formal doctrine of divine incarnation for the Ramakrishna tradition to which all adherents of this tradition would need to assent in order to continue to be regarded as bona fide devotees. Dogmatic insistence on adherence to a particular doctrine goes very much against the grain of the pluralism that has long characterized Hinduism as a loosely organized family of religious practices, and even more so of the Ramakrishna tradition to which pluralism is integral.

This pluralistic stance, however, need not preclude serious theological reflection and intellectual discussion—speculative thought and conversation carried out in a spirit of faith seeking understanding—on the important topic, for a devotee of Ramakrishna, of Sri Ramakrishna’s nature as a spiritual being. This project is intended as a contribution to—and hopefully as a catalyst for— such reflection and conversation, in dialogue with another tradition that has been down this road before.

Regarding its engagement with Christian theology, a hypothesis I wish to ad- vance is that, as a tradition with a pronounced tendency to employ the cate- 177 STUDIES IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE 22 (2012) 2 gories of Advaita Vedānta in its interpretation of the life and experiences of its founder, engagement with Christology is a way to direct the attention of the Ramakrishna tradition to other Hindu resources with a more robustly theistic character that can illumine our understanding of just what it means to affirm the simultaneous divinity and humanity of Sri Ramakrishna. To be sure, these resources have always been available to the tradition, and have even been deployed within it.8 The avatār concept is more central to the Vaiṣṇava traditions of Hinduism than it is to the Advaita Vedānta or Tāntric traditions mentioned previously. But in these early years of the 21st century, it seems worth- while to reengage with these resources and to do so in a way that takes us out of the orbit of Hinduism and into an in-depth engagement with Christianity precisely on the understanding that it was the very strong desire of our founder that we do so: that we engage with other religions as we seek after truth, in the spirit of yato mat, tato path—each religion is a path to the divine.

The twofold hope behind this project is that, on the one hand, by bringing these questions into dialogue with the similar problematic of divine incarnation present in the Christian tradition—the tension between the full humanity and full divinity of Christ that Christians, at least since the council of Chalcedon,9 have affirmed—Hindu practitioners in the tradition of Ramakrishna might gain insight into the full humanity and full divinity of Ramakrishna as well. On the other hand, it is also hoped that, to the extent this project is of interest to Chris- tian theologians, it might also reinvigorate a more robust sense of the paradox of the simultaneous divinity and humanity of Christ that has arguably waned in the wake of theologies that see the divinity of Christ as symbolic or mythic in nature.

To be sure, these Christologies, starting with that of Rudolf Bultmann, have been seen by many Christian theologians as an antidote or corrective to an ex- cessive emphasis on the divinity of Christ at the expense of his full humanity, and in this sense have served a salutary purpose. The concern that the figure of Christ had become too remote to serve as a genuine exemplar—the concern I have also just raised about Ramakrishna—has been a live issue for Christian theologians grappling with issues of Christology.

Simultaneously, however, to the degree that these mythic Christologies have been seen as a compromise with modernity at the expense of a central Chris-

8 Most prominently in the Śri Śri Ramakrishna Paramahāṃsadever Jīvana Vṛt- tanta of Ramchandra Datta, an early biography of Sri Ramakrishna that is less well known than the Kathāmṛta of Mahendranath Gupta or the Līlaprasaṅga (Divine Play) of Swami Saradananda, and that views Ramakrishna primarily through a deeply devo- tional Vaiṣṇava lens and emphasizes his role as avatār. 9 The Council of Chalcedon was held in 451 CE.

178 UNIVERSAL AVATĀR tian doctrine, they have surrendered ground, in the mainstream Christian community, to anti-modern, anti-rational fundamentalist theologies. This trend is due at least in part, I would argue, to the modern de-valuation of the mythic as a genuine source of knowledge—or pramāṇa, to use a Hindu term—about transcendent truths. In modernity, mythos is subordinated to logos. Though fundamentalism is widely seen as anti-modern, its ultimately modern character is belied by the fact that it shares the modern devaluation of the mythic. This occurs not through a rejection of the mythic per se, but through a denial of its mythic character: an insistence that the Christian mythos, in order to be true, must be true in a concrete, literal, historical fashion.

One hope that underlies this project is that Hindu ways of thinking about divine incarnation might open up ways of thinking about Christ that resonate more fully with orthodoxy while not surrendering critical thought in the manner of fundamentalism, as well as pointing those Hindus who have absorbed the modern aversion to the mythic back to the more nuanced hermeneutical approaches of Hindu traditions. Rather than taking a dualistic, bifurcated approach that makes a sharp distinction between mythos and logos, traditional Hindu theologians have viewed sacred texts through a multidimensional lens in which the meaning of a text varies depending upon the level of spiritual evolution of the interpreter. None of these levels of meaning is mutually ex- clusive. It is not that any one of these levels is “true” and the others “false,” although they can be, and often are, arranged hierarchically. There is certainly not a privileging of linear, historical reality over transcendental, eternal truth, but neither are the historical or concrete ever wholly discounted. There are, rather, multiple levels of truth, each one appropriate to the state of consciousness of the interpreter—just as there are multiple levels of reality generated, at least in part, by the states of consciousness of those who experience them.

The accounts of Ramakrishna’s life take such an approach to the question of his divinity, viewing it as a sacred mystery that is revealed only gradually to his closest circle of disciples—and resisted to the last by his most advanced disciple, Swami Vivekananda. Moreover, in keeping with the principle that each level of understanding is both valid and appropriate for one who adheres to it, nothing fundamental hinges on one’s acceptance or rejection of the idea of Ramakrishna’s divinity, in the sense that it is not a criterion for membership in the community based on his life and teachings. It is simply a belief that many hold—albeit very deeply—while others (including Vivekananda himself in his earlier years) prefer a more impersonal approach to and view of the divine. Christians, it could be argued, might benefit from a similarly multivalent approach to the Christ event, rather than seeking a single orthodox answer to the question of the identity of Jesus—one that not only includes modern hermeneutical approaches but mystical approaches as well.

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Why should a Hindu theologian be concerned with how Christians conceive of the Christ event? Such a concern is fully consistent with a desire to promote the progressive voices in the Christian tradition. This is a vital imperative for Hindu thinkers, as Arvind Sharma has argued, for a fundamentalist Christology goes hand in hand with theologies of mission that promote proselytizing and lead to a degradation of interreligious relations (Sharma 1997 and Sharma 2012). Sharma, following Gandhi, argues that the “mission” of Hindus is not to convert others to Hinduism but to a more pluralistic understanding of their own traditions. Such is the imperative that motivates this project.

The Importance of Vaiṣṇava Categories in Ramakrishna’s Self-Understanding An exchange is recounted between Ramakrishna and Narendranath Datta (better known as Swami Vivekananda) in the Śri Śri Rāmakṛṣṇa Kathāmṛta of Ma- hendranath Gupta,10 in which Sri Ramakrishna reveals to Datta on his deathbed that, “He who was Rāma and Krishna is now, in this body, Ramakrishna.” Datta, skeptical about the classical avatār doctrine and having a strong prefer- ence for the Advaitic interpretation of Ramakrishna’s divinity, thinks to himself that Ramakrishna is here referring to the universal ātman, the divine soul dwelling in all beings. At this point, Sri Ramakrishna, as if reading young Naren’s mind, adds, “But not in your Vedāntic sense” (Nikhilananda: 72).

The words of Sri Ramakrishna recounted here clearly suggest that he did not see himself simply as a jīvanmukta—as a person who has realized the divinity inherent in all beings, as it is understood in Advaita Vedānta—but as an avatār in the classical Vaiṣṇava sense, as it is expressed in the Bhagavad Gītā: an incarnation of the singular Īśvara. The distinction between these two, again, is that “the avatar,” as the Sanskrit etymology of the word implies, is “the descent of God, whereas the ordinary man ascends toward God” (Prabhavananda 2003: 42), and the avatār is an incarnation of Īśvara, the supreme personal form of Brahman, whereas the jīvanmukta is not and will never be Īśvara but, like Īśvara, shares Brahman as the fundamental core of his or her being.

This Vaiṣṇava understanding fits uneasily with an Advaitic model of Vedānta. It is not that there is a deep contradiction. There is nothing in Advaita Vedānta that makes such a descent of the divine impossible (and indeed the avatār doctrine is affirmed in the textual tradition of Advaita Vedānta, such as in Śaṅ- kara’s commentary on the Bhagavad Gītā). But the necessity of such a descent is not obvious if all beings are already divine. And if some of these beings are forgetful of their divinity, at least up to a certain point, the epistemic question of how one is to distinguish an avatār from a jīvanmukta arises. The only criterion for this distinction seems to be an avatār’s self-identification as such.

10 Translated by Swami Nikhilananda as The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna.

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The Vaiṣṇava sensibility that Sri Ramakrishna articulates in his self-revelation to Narendra resonates more deeply with Christianity, it could be argued, than with Advaita; for Vaiṣṇavism and Christianity share the sense that divine incarnation, when it occurs, is of a singular being, although divine incarnations are many in the Vaiṣṇava tradition and there is only one in Christianity. That Ramakrishna found this an important point to pass on to his disciple is under- scored by his words, “But not in your Vedāntic sense.”

The Singular Incarnating Deity: A Shared Vaiṣṇava and Christian Insight The singularity of the divine incarnation is expressed most dramatically in the Christian tradition in John 14:6: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me.” This verse has long been taken as a statement not only of the divinity of Jesus but also as justifying the claim that salvation can be found in Jesus alone.

Two analogous Vaiṣṇava scriptural passages can be found in the Bhagavad Gī- tā. There is, of course, Gītā 4:7-8, already mentioned, in which the multiplicity of the avatārs is affirmed. “Whenever, oh Arjuna, there is a decline in dharma, I manifest myself in to re-establish dharma and to destroy evil.” Additionally, there is Gītā 4:11, in which both the singularity of the divine being and the multiplicity of the divine manifestations are brought together in a soterio- logical formula, “In whatsoever way human beings approach me, thus do I receive them. All paths lead to me.”

To these two traditions, the Ramakrishna tradition adds the conviction that it is legitimate for Hindus to view Jesus as a bona fide avatār, a claim that is validated by the powerful vision of Jesus that Ramakrishna experienced as the culmination of a sādhana in which he regularly listened to readings from the gospels in a Christian home and prayed to Jesus in what he took to be the Christian manner (Nikhilananda 1942: 34; Saradananda 2003: 356-58).

One implication of the idea of Jesus as avatār, in conjunction with the idea of all avatārs as incarnations of a singular being, is that the same being who speaks as Jesus in the gospel of John is the same being who speaks as Krishna in the Bhagavad Gītā. In his affirmation of the divinity of Jesus, Ramakrishna therefore opens up the possibility of a new reading of both gospel and Gītā, which I shall now briefly explore.

The Gospel of John and the Bhagavad Gītā as Proclamations of the One Íśvara If one understands the words of the gospel of John and the Bhagavad Gītā to have been spoken by the same, singular divine being, manifesting in two different times and places, and brings them together, an interesting effect e- merges, akin to reading each verse for the first time. A new verse appears: “I 181 STUDIES IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE 22 (2012) 2 am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. And in whatsoever way human beings approach me, thus do I receive them. All paths lead to me.”

Rather than seeing contradictory messages in the passages that make up this new verse—an exclusivist insistence on faith in Jesus versus a pluralistic (or inclusivist) claim that many paths lead to the same goal—bringing together both the Christian and Vaiṣṇava understandings of divine incarnation on the common ground of the notion of a singular divine being who becomes incarnate leads to a third option. This is the option implied in the acceptance of the Jesus avatār into a Hindu self-understanding: that there really is one way, one truth, and one life—that is, a singular divine being who is the unique gateway to transcendence (“coming to the Father”), but who manifests in many ways and in many forms which, when approached sincerely, are acceptable to this singular divine being who lovingly receives us through whichever of these forms we choose to approach him-her-it.

This new mahāvākya11—“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. And in whatsoever way human beings approach me, thus do I receive them. All paths lead to me”—facilitated by Rama- krishna’s insight into the shared divinity of both Krishna and Jesus, has radical implications for both Christian and Hindu practitioners. On the one hand, it validates the practice of many Hindus, especially in the Ramakrishna tradition, of incorporating Jesus into the Hindu pantheon—observing pūjās at Christmas, having a picture or mūrti of Jesus in the family altar, and so on. Some have objected, from within the Hindu tradition, to this practice as a subtle conversion tactic on the part of Christians. The theology it embodies, however, is a profound challenge to the orthodox Christian understanding of Jesus as uniquely divine. If the same “I” who speaks in the gospel of John is the same “I” who speaks in the Bhagavad Gītā, this suggests that Christians should similarly embrace Rāma, Krishna, Buddha, Ramakrishna, and so on—hardly a sentiment that orthodox Christian missionaries would want to promote! On the other hand, the implication for Christians of the historical Jesus as just one avatār among many suggests the need for a reassessment of Krishna, Buddha, Ramakrishna, and so on.

11 A mahāvākya, or “great statement,” refers in the Vedānta tradition to certain statements in the Hindu scriptures—specifically, the Upaniṣads—that are taken to teach the essence of Vedānta. They include such famous statements as ahaṃ brahmāsmi (“I am Brahman.”) and tat tvam asi (“You are That [Brahman]”) and sarvaṃ khalvidaṃ brahman (“All this, indeed, is Brahman.). These statements affirm the fundamental identity of all existence with Brahman, the basic claim of Advaita, or non-dual, Vedānta.

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Jeffrey Kripal’s Thesis and the Question of Ramakrishna’s Humanity Up until now, I have focused my discussion upon the divinity side of the Chris- tological equation with regard to Sri Ramakrishna. What does it mean to say that Ramakrishna is divine? The Advaita Vedānta stream that is a prominent element of modern Vedānta has one piece of the puzzle, in the form of its teaching that all beings are divine—in the sense that all are manifestations of Brahman, that absolute ground of existence which is infinite being, consciousness, and bliss. The Tāntric element of the Ramakrishna tradition is one with Advaita in this regard in affirming the ultimate non-duality of the realm of human experience and the divine. Sri Ramakrishna repeatedly affirms this by as- serting that Kali, the Tāntric divine mother, is the active form of the same reality that, in its unchanging, eternal form is Brahman. And, finally, the Vaiṣṇava tradition, also an important element of Ramakrishna’s self-understanding, brought into conversation with Christianity points us to the idea of a singular divine being—the personal God or Īśvara—who takes on forms for the sake of restoring dharma and achieving a particular divine mission. In the fully de- veloped form of this project, I shall argue that the specific mission of the Ramakrishna avatār is his teaching of religious pluralism and the healing of divisions among religions that have been such a catalyst for human suffering throughout history.

But what of the human half of the Christological equation? I think it is fair to say that the author who has focused most closely upon this dimension of Sri Ramakrishna is Jeffrey Kripal. To be sure, Kripal is not an adherent of Rama- krishna Vedānta, at least not in any formal sense of which I am aware. His work on Ramakrishna has also received a good deal of criticism from within the tradition—most prominently by Swami Tyagananda and Pravrajika Vraja- prana in their recent book Interpreting Ramakrishna.

What, if anything, can this work teach us about the simultaneous divinity and humanity of Sri Ramakrishna? Let us set aside, for the sake of argument, the numerous problems documented in Interpreting Ramakrishna and follow Kripal’s basic thesis to its conclusion: namely, that Ramakrishna’s mystical experiences were at least in part effects of erotic impulses that he could not fully understand and of which he was unaware (and that generations of readers of the Kathāmṛta have not understood, not being in possession of Kripal’s psychoanalytic hermeneutic).

The problem, it seems to me, from the perspective of the Vedānta tradition, is that this thesis—though Kripal says that this is not his intention—seems prima facie to be deeply reductionist, suggesting that Sri Ramakrishna’s experiences were solely effects of erotic energies, rather than that through or by means of these erotic energies he interfaced with a higher reality that was really, in some sense, there.

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If we take Kripal at his word, however, and reinterpret his interpretation in a non-reductionist way, then it is not incompatible with the understanding that Ramakrishna, at least in the earlier stages of his sādhanas, was unaware of his divine nature but attained this awareness precisely by working through his humanity: the unconscious impulses and energies that characterize all human beings.

It seems to me, however, that the greatest theological difficulty with this view for the tradition is the claim that Ramakrishna remained unaware of his human energies and impulses to the end of his life and that these were only revealed many decades later, with the publication of psychoanalytic writings by schol- ars not yet born during his lifetime. If a human being is to discover his or her inner divinity—whether this be the divinity that we all share, as manifestations of Brahman, as affirmed in the Advaita and Tāntric traditions, or if the person in question is an avatār, a manifestation of the singular divine being—Īśvara— on whom the salvation of all ultimately depends, it seems that this would re- quire one, at minimum, to become aware of the unconscious energies to which the Freudian paradigm points, and to go considerably beyond even these, un- covering the saṃskāras, or mental impressions, of past lives before the divinity that is the innermost core of the self could be revealed.

Conclusion Pursuing the theological issue of the simultaneous divinity and humanity of Ramakrishna, in conversation with Christianity, for the sake of acquiring interreligious insight or what Clooney calls “deep learning across religious borders” clearly involves a complex range of topics, including the logical relation- ships among Hindu traditions internal to the make-up of the Ramakrishna tradition (the Advaita, Tāntric, and Vaiṣṇava strands mentioned here), the so- teriological implications of the shared Vaiṣṇava and Christian insight of the singular divine being who becomes incarnate and the role of human limita- tions, such as the very existence of unconscious impulses and hidden di- mensions of self. Does this have to be an either-or question or might such an approach be perfectly in line with a traditional Hindu approach to scripture?

My hope is that the conversation to which this project gives rise will shed light on the meaning of Ramakrishna in the 21st century, not only as a great, inspir- ational teacher, and even less as an intriguing historical character, but as a universal avatār, whose function is to show the validity and efficacy of all paths to the divine, and as a vibrant presence in the living experience of his devotees even today—a presence relevant to the enduring conflicts that continue to be- set our troubled world.

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LITERATURE Clooney, Francis X., SJ. (2011). “Renewing the Study of Ramakrishna: A Proposal” in Prabuddha Bharata (Awakened India) (January). (2010). Comparative Theology: Deep Learning Across Religious Borders (Ox- ford: Wiley-Blackwell. Cobb, John B. (1998). Christ in a Pluralistic Age. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Pub- lishers. Kripal, Jeffrey J. (1995). Kālī’s Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Locklin, Reid. (2012). “Up, Over, Through: Rethinking ‘Conversion’ as a Category of Hindu-Christian Studies” http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/ webforum/052012/LocklinHCConversionFINAL.pdf Long, Jeffery D. (2012a). “‘Never Was There a Time…’: Crossing Over to Hinduism from Roman Catholicism through the Bhagavad Gītā.” In: Jennifer Howe Peace, Or Rose, and Gregory Mobley (eds.). My Neighbor’s Faith: Stories of Interre- ligious Encounter, Growth, and Transformation. Maryknoll: Orbis Books. A Vision for Hinduism: Beyond Hindu Nationalism (London: I.B. Tauris, 2007) (1012b). “Up, Beyond, and Back Again: Conversion and the Task of the Com- parative Theologian” http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/webforum/052012/Long%20Response%20to%20Locklin%20Final.pdf Nikhilananda, Swami. (1942). The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. New York: Ramakrish- na-Vivekananda Center. Prabhavananda, Swami. (1963). The Sermon on the Mount According to Vedanta. Hol- lywood: Vedanta Society of Southern California, Rambachan, Anantanand. (1991). Accomplishing the Accomplished: The Vedas as a Source of Valid Knowledge in Śaṅkara. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Saradananda, Swami. (2003). Sri Ramakrishna and His Divine Play. Transl. Swami Chetanananda. St. Louis: Vedanta Society of St. Louis. Sharma, Arvind. (1997). Hinduism for Our Times. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (2012). Hinduism as a Missionary Religion. Albany: State University of New York Press. Tyagananda, Swami and Pravrajika Vrajaprana. (2010). Interpreting Ramakrishna: Kālī’s Child Revisited. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.

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