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Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

Volume 8 Article 5

January 1995

Sri , , and Hindu-Christian Dialogue

Michael Stoeber

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Recommended Citation Stoeber, Michael (1995) "Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, and Hindu-Christian Dialogue," Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies: Vol. 8, Article 5. Available at: https://doi.org/10.7825/2164-6279.1110

The Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies is a publication of the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies. The digital version is made available by Digital Commons @ Butler University. For questions about the Journal or the Society, please contact [email protected]. For more information about Digital Commons @ Butler University, please contact [email protected]. Stoeber: Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, and Hindu-Christian Dialogue

SRI RAMAKRISHNA, SWAl\II VIVEKANANDA, AND HINDU-CHRISTIAN DIALOGUE*

Michael Stoeber The Catholic University of America

IN THE LATE smnmer of 1993, noted for his interests in , representatives of the major religions of the Sikhism, J ainism, , and . world met in interfaith dialogue in Chicago, Indeed, his experiences of elements of these to celebrate the centenary of the 1893 different faiths led him to advocate a World's Parliament of Religions. The 1893 common divine Reality behind the many Parliament was remarkable, both in its forms of religiousness, despite the many magnitude and its purpose: it brought differences between traditions. He once together forty-one denominations and over commented, for example: four hundred men and women in a forum of A lake has several ghats [bathing mutual teaching and learning. 1 That is to places]. At one the take water in say, its formal purpose was reciprocal pitchers and call it "jal"; at another the dialogue, something rather unusual for the Mussalmans take water in leather bags 19th century, when interfaith preoccupations and call it "pani". At a third the of the time still normally focused on call it "water". Can we proselytism. imagine that it is not "jal", but only Swami Vivekananda attended the 1893 "pani" or "water"? How ridiculous! Parliament as a representative of Hindu The substance is one under different . Vivekananda was a most popular names, and everyone is seeking the and noted speaker of the event, and his same substance; only climate, temperament, and name create efforts during and following the 1893 differences. Let each man follow his Parliament contributed significantly to the own path. If he sincerely and ardently introduction of Hindu beliefs and practices wishes to know God, peace be unto 2 to the western world. And we see the him! He will surely realize Him!3 influence today, in the many and Mishna centres throughout the Sri Ramakrishna's involvement in world. Indeed, Vivekananda carried various faith traditions was primarily that of interfaith dialogue far beyond the borders of practice, and in this respect he was most , emphasizing in this context an active involved in the spiritual experiences that social orientation and concern in his these religions espouse. He was a profound development of Hindu Vedanta. mystic, which is to say most generally, he His mentor and , Sri Ramakrishna, experienced in state union various was himself an early advocate of dialogue spiritual realities behind this phenomenal between traditions. Sri Ramakrishna's existence, realizations that radically affected his perception of himself, others and the interests in religion were truly eclectic: not 4 only was he involved in practices of various world. He possessed a tremendous vitality Hindu traditions such as , Advaita, and charisma, and in his lifetime he attracted disciples, including Vivekananda. , and Vai~1}avism, but he has also been

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The interfaith leanings of his teacher no ceremony or reflection. And finally, there is doubt inspired Vivekananda' s interest and the "dialogue of action" - of social concerns participation in the 1893 World's Parliament and commitment, of coming together to of Religions. For example, Ramakrishna's improve living conditions or for the sake of view of the universality of all authentic the victims of poverty and social injustice. 6 religions was echoed by Vivekananda in a The dialogue of theology is perhaps the hymn he recited in his response to the initial stumbling block in Vedantin-Roman welcome at the Parliament: Catholic relations, given the many variations As the different streams having their of dogma between the two traditions. There sources in different places all mingle are obvious differences on various issues of their water in the sea, so, 0 Lord, the theological belief. To name a few: the different paths which men take through nature and status of ; the role and different tendencies, various though they importance of the Church; afterlife beliefs; appear, crooked or straight, all lead to the ideas of sin, grace, , and samstira; Thee. 5 the role of sacraments and the clergy; and In this paper I want to focus briefly on the nature and status of the Divine. the contributions of Vivekananda and This last issue is quite central, and has Ramakrishna to interfaith dialogue, as these been a subject over the years of some pertain to religious experience - especially controversy. Is the Divine of the Vedantins to their - and socio-moral the same all-powerful, all-loving, all­ practice. I will concentrate on their claims benevolent Creator conceived by Roman of a common core of religion, evaluating the Catholics? Indeed, when Catholic and possibility as well as the implications of Vedantin theologians come together to such a perspective on Hindu-Christian dialogue about the Divine, are they speaking dialogue, focusing specifically on that of the same thing? between Vedantins and Roman Catholics. To begin to think this issue out a bit, we What do I mean by interfaith dialogue? should note first that for both Vedantins and General but helpful distinctions have been Catholics the Divine is not to be regarded as proposed by the Pontifical Council for Inter­ a phenomenal and distinctive "thing". Religious Dialogue. The Council sees four Although some believers tend to objectify interrelated levels of dialogue. Interreligious the Divine, to conceive and refer to Him or dialogue can exist at the routine level in Her as if He or She were a major discrete everyday community living between pe~ple phenomenon overseeing a creation of minor of different faiths. This is the conversation discrete phenomena, such reference is of openness and camaraderie - of a kind of misleading and inaccurate. God is not an neighbourliness, I suppose - "the dialogue individual person. Indeed, the Divine, in the of life". Today, with our many multicultural form of God or or I§vara or Sakti , communities, this kind of day-to-day is not an object of this world, but rather interaction is becoming extremely important. absolutely transcends all objects of creation. But dialogue also happens in more In fact, this Divine is quite beyond all theoretical contexts, in terms of "theological conceptualization and objectification. As exchange" - in discussions of beliefs about Vivekananda said at the 1893 Parliament , the Divine, or the relation of the human to the Absolute as absolute "cannot have any the Divine, or about morality; or spiritual qualities. It cannot be an individual".7 anthropology, and so on. Related to the In theological language this view of the dialogue of theology is the dialogue of Divine is understood as apophatic - as religious experience - of a sharing of prayer consisting of negative conceptions. The or meditation or contemplation - of an Divine is most accurately depicted over and interfaith gathering in worship or spiritual against everything It is not; "neti, neti - not

https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol8/iss1/5 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1110 2 Stoeber: Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, and Hindu-Christian Dialogue 30 Michael Stoeber

this, not that". Most properly, this Divine universe itself and all its living beings, cannot be described positively at all. It are the manifestations of Sakti, the surpasses positive ascription altogether. It is Divine Power. If you reason it out, you beyond all moral reference or personal will realise that all these are illusory as connotations. In , this a dream. Brahman alone is the Reality, and all else is unreal. 12 Divine is nirguf}a: "Brahman is without qualifiers (nirvis~a), without form (arilpa), Although the created phenomenal realm, without change, without parts, without end what Advaitins come to call , is (advitfya or advaita)" .8 It is non-dual, significant on its own terms and from a without distinctive features and parts, and practical standpoint, it is regarded as inactive or non-creative. Brahman is ultimately illusory and unreal, and not relationless, and hence beyond personal and essentially connected and related to nirguf}a moral reference. It is a Reality which cannot Brahman; and the human essence is regarded relate or communicate because it is not as identical to nirguf}a Brahman. That is to distinct from anything else - because it is say, the only thing ultimately real about not a personal Being. ourselves corresponds identically to This depiction of the Divine as inactive, Brahman, and so our distinctive, creative, impersonal, and surpassing moral reference personal, and moral aspects are finally leads to questions about the relationship of regarded as illusory and unreal as well. Brahman to the phenomenal world and its Indeed, the goal is not a loving personal creator. As Sivaraman poses the relationship with God and others, but rather problem: a realization of identity of Self with this The problematic of Vedanta which finds inactive and impersonal Divine, and release expression on almost every page of the from this phenomenal world and individual Upanisads is really the problem of deity existence. Even though a positive socio­ and deitas, concreteness and ultimacy, moral stance is considered a correlative to God and "the God beyond God", their the Advaitic liberating realization, the ideal relation and balance. 9 is non-dual liberation. Roman Catholics are uneasy about views In Vedanta this question comes to be suggesting the only thing ultimately real answered in terms of a distinction between about people and the Divine is an inactive saguf}a and nirguf}a Brahman - Brahman and impersonal non-dualism beyond moral with or without qualities. Describing the reference. That is, they cannot accept Advaitic position, says, perspectives that deny the importance of According to Non-dualistic Vedanta the personal individuality and the ideal of personal God is one step lower than personal fulfilment, as well as the supreme Brahman though He is the highest significance of moral activities such as love symbol or manifestation of Brahman in and compassion towards God and other the relative world. . . .Isvara is, as it human beings. The idea that the Divine in were, a corruption or deterioration of Brahman. to its highest form is a personal and moral Being who creates and loves human beings Sankara and other Advaitins do indeed speak and this world, and that people are of a personal, creative Divine, but this individual beings created in the personal and Divine, like the rest of this phenomenal moral image of this Divine are basic world, is a facet of (nescience).l1 suppositions for Catholics, and theists in As Ramakrishna understands this view: general. As Karl Potter poses the problem: The jnanis, who adhere to Non-dualistic What is difficult to comprehend from Vedanta, say that the acts of creation, the standpoint of ordinary theism is that preservation, and destruction, the the Advaitin can say all this about God

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and yet view him as conditioned by personalism. There is a personal God of this ignorance. [Sagu~a] Brahman is the world, who creates and maintains it, who is Supreme, the texts say, and yet in the involved in a relationship of love and same breath they affirm that He is not compassion with people. But there is also a only not the Highest, His properties are non-dualistic facet of this deity, the Divine unreal, false attributions of our ignorant in and behind the personal and active Source super-impositions. 13 of maya, which corresponds to the apophatic So we see the initial resistance of Catholics or negative theology I spoke of above. Both to views which deny the ultimate reality of passivity and activity, impersonalism and a personal Divine and the essential personalism are elements of this Divine. As individual moral and personal nature of Ramakrishna puts it: people. When I think of the Supreme Being as But, in his eclectic, interfaith leanings, inactive neither creating nor one of the more striking aspects proposed by preserving nor destroying - I call him Ramakrishna is that the Divine, more than Brahman or Purusha, the Impersonal nirguna Brahman, is both passive and God. When I think of him as active - active', impersonal and personal, beyond creating, preserving, and destroying - I morality and moral. Ramakrishna says call Him Sakti or Maya or Prakriti, the personal God. But the distinction it is true that God reveals himself to his between them does not mean a devotees in various forms. But it is also difference. The Personal and the true that God is formless; He is the Impersonal are the same thing, like milk Indivisible Existence - Knowledge - and its whiteness, the diamond and its bliss Absolute. He has been described in lustre, the snake and its wriggling the both as formless and as motion. It is impossible to conceive of endowed with form. He is also one without the other. The Divine described there both as attributeless and Mother and Brahman are one. 17 as endowed with attributes. 14 So we have a distinction without a difference In his mysticism, Ramakrishna claims to - two different modes of a singular Divine, realize both non-dualistic and theistic types "like milk and its whiteness, the diamond of experiences - both jada samiidhi and and its lustre, the snake and its wriggling cetana samiidhi.15 Not only did he realize motion" . the static and impersonal identity with Ramakrishna in his mysticism stresses Brahman, but he also encountered a personal the interfaith dialogue of religious and active Divine in various forms, one experience. Although he does not attempt to which he affirmed to be just as real and account theoretically for these different significant as nirgu,!a Brahman. About these facets of the Divine, he insists that in different experiences, he says, mystical experience one can encounter both the Reality is one and the same; the impersonal and personal aspects of the difference is only in name. He who is divine nature, that both are legitimate and Brahman is verily , and again, real, indeed that both are elements of one He is the . He is Brahman to divine Reality. He adamantly maintains the the followers of the path of knowledge, validity of personal, theistic experiences to the and Bhagavan despite his immersion in monistic, Advaitic to the lovers of God. 16 unity. His view on this matter, I think, has How can the Divine be both Brahman significant implications for the interfaith and Bhagavan? Apparently Ramakrishna dialogue of theology; for it provides a feels the Divine nature includes elements common basis from which Roman Catholics which correspond both to Advaitic and Vedantins can come together and talk impersonal unity and theistic constructively about the Divine. https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol8/iss1/5 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1110 4 Stoeber: Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, and Hindu-Christian Dialogue

32 Michael Stoeber

It is important to point out that the same religious faith. By emphasizing and kind of negative theology we find in the idea legitimizing personal and active elements of of nirguna Brahman is present in the the Divine, he opens the dialogue to theistic Christian tradition, although it has not Christians. Moreover, the mysticism of always been stressed. Some Christian Ramakrishna and Vivekananda also has mystics speak of the Trinity of the three significant implications for the dialogue of Persons in unity, prior to activity and social action. Ramakrishna's view of a personal differentiation. This is the state of Divine who is both passive and active, Divinity where God somehow is not active, impersonal and personal, non-dual and creative, and personal. Meister Eckhart, for differentiated is also important in the example, calls this apophatic Divine the interfaith dialogue of social action, for it Godhead - the dark unknowable chasm helps to begin to reconcile isolating where God rests passively in Him or contemplative meditation with socio-moral Herself, in non-dualistic unity, prior to aspirations. differentiation and activity. We find similar Vivekananda says: ideas in the Pseudo-D ionys ius , J an Van If you put God in your every Ruusbroec, and some other Christian movement, in your every conversation, mystics. Even St Bonaventure, for example, in your form, in everything, the whole deduces from the idea of God as primary scene changes, and the world instead of Being the fact that God must be Eternal, appearing as one of woe and misery Simple, Actual, Perfect, and One, which is becomes a heaven. 18 to say apophatically that God as pure Being You must try to combine in your life is inactive, impersonal, and beyond moral immense idealism with immense reference. In Catholic theology, just as in practicalities . You must be prepared to Vedanta, we find speculation about elements go deep into meditation now and the of a non-dual Divine, that is to say, next moment you must be ready to go conceptions of the Divine as impersonal and and cultivate these fields. 19 inactive. Vivekananda was deeply concerned with More importantly, all of these Christian combining contemplative meditation with thinkers, like Ramakrishna, insist also upon social activism. In the life of Ramakrishna personal and active elements of the Divine, we find the intimations of this reconciliation. over and above the negative conceptions. The ideas of both an impersonal and This Divine is a living Being - indeed, a personal Divine help us to harmonize the Trinity of Persons who can be experienced; contemplative life with an active social She or He is real and most powerful and orientation. creative, and actively involved in creation. This happens when we understand both Although the Divine is not a person, She or monistic and theistic realizations as He exudes personal and moral trans formative experiences in the human characteristics. She or He is creative and movement towards divinity. Vivekananda loving and compassionate; moreover, like said at the 1893 Parliament: "To the Ramakrishna, Christian mystics claim we Hindu ... the whole world of religions is only can experience these personal powers and a travelling, a coming up, of different men energies directly, through devotional and women, through various conditions and meditative techniques - through . circumstances to the same goal". 20 Both So Ramakrishna's view of the different passive monistic immersion in the aspects of the Divine provides a basic impersonal Divine and active theistic union framework for Hindu-Christian dialogue, with the personal Divine can be thought to and supports the claim that there is indeed a be essential elements of this movement to common Divine behind the various forms of the goal. But to be able to fully integrate,

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live out, or exude the elements of these The "death" implied in advaitic theistic, devotional experiences requires, experience is essential in man's growing according to some mystics, an immersion into himself. 23 corresponding to Advaitic identity with For Christian faith this void means a Brahman. Monistic experiences of the perfect readiness to receive everything impersonal and inactive Divine are here from God, making no claim whatsoever either to be, or to be like this or like associated with the processes of completely that. 24 letting go of one's ordinary egoistic "1- orientation" in the world; in order to For Abhishiktananda, the Advaitic become most properly a vehicle of divine experience bf nirguf}a Brahman opened up expression in the world, one must undergo the possibilities of the highest experiences of the monistic immersion in nirguna Brahman Christian union with an active and personal in the Hindu tradition or in Godhead in the God, leading to the expression of this Divine Christian tradition respectively. For this in everyday life. submersion in the transcendent Source is a This discovery of the ultimate recesses radical self-emptying process which opens of the self is necessary if the Spirit is to one up, so to speak, to the active, personal, complete his work in the created world. and moral energies of the Divine - to the Man is a "microcosm", and only by possibility of becoming a living channel or opening up in man the foundation of his medium of divine expression and creativity. being can the Spirit transform and I call this perspective "theo-monistic spiritualize the cosmos to its depths. 25 mysticism", and see it as an important Through an immersion in the transcendent development in the Hindu-Christian Source, one is opened to the active, 21 dialogues of theology and action. personal, and moral energies of the Divine; This theo-monistic dialogue of theology and in the process the mystic becomes a and social action is based in that of religious creative channel or medium of these spiritual experience. A lucid contemporary example energies, expressing them in the social of such a grounding is illustrated in the life realm. and writings of Henri Le Saux. He was a Ramakrishna and Vivekananda would Benedictine monk deeply involved in such seem to exemplify to some degree this theo­ interreligious practice. In 1950, he along monistic movement, a spiritual with Abbe Jules Moncharin established transformation we find evidenced also in Saccidiinanda ashram at Kulittalai, Tamil some traditional Christian mysticism as well Nadu. In India he became a Christian as in 'that of and Aurobindo sannyiisin (renunciate), a disciple of both Ghose. 26 Ramakrishna speaks of a Divine and Sri Gnanananda, who is both active and passive, and personal taking the name Abhishiktananda, and and impersonal, and he stresses the 22 studying the . Echoing the experience of both aspects of the Divine in feelings of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, his mysticism, while Vivekananda advocates Henri Le Saux emphasizes both the a spiritual transformation that attempts to impersonal and personal aspects of the relate together contemplative meditation and Divine and the essential divinity of social activism. Both men illustrate, I think, humankind. Also, he acknowledges the in their own distinctive ways and in varying importance of uncovering this element in degrees, the effects of this transformation in giving the Divine expression in the world. their life and teachings. In these respects He saw the Advaitic non-dual experience of they contribute significantly to the Hindu­ the impersonal and inactive Brahman as Christian interfaith dialogue of experience, aptly voicing an experience crucial to one's and point the way towards integrating the spiritual transformation. He said:

https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol8/iss1/5 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1110 6 Stoeber: Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, and Hindu-Christian Dialogue 34 Michael Stoeber

dialogues of theology and social action with 7. Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of this experiential core of religion. Swami Vivekananda, Vol. 1, p. 13. 8. ~arl H. Potter, Advaita Vedanta up to Saf!Zkara and His Pupils, Encyclopedia of Notes Indian Philosophies, Vol. III. Delhi: , 1981, p. 74. 9. Krishna Sivaraman, "God-Language and the A version of this paper was presented at the * Language of Nothing", God, the Self and Gandhi Memorial Center, Bethesda, Nothingness: Reflections Eastern and Maryland, 18 September 1993, in Western. Robert E. Carter (Ed.), New York: Celebration of Rashtriya Chetna Varsh, Paragon House, 1990, p. 156. I discuss Commemorating the Centenary Year of Sivaraman's view on this question in more Swami Vivekananda's Address to the 1893 detail in Theo-Monistic Mysticism: A Hindu­ Parliament of World's Religions in Chicago. Christian Comparison. N.Y.: St. Martin's The event was sponsored by the Embassy of Press, pp. 66, and 76-8. India, Washington, D. C. , the Indian 10. Swami Nikhilananda, Self-Knowledge of Sri Community, and the Gandhi Memorial Sankaracharya. , Madras: Sri Center. My thanks to two anonymous Ramakrishna Math, 1970, pp. 76-7. readers of the Hindu-Christian Studies 11. discusses Sankara's Bulletin and to William Cenkner, for their treatment of this problem in his helpful suggestions. Upadesasahasn-, where Sankara gives an 1. Egal Feldman, " American Ecumenicism: early theory of vivartavava (false Chicago's World's Parliament of Religions appearance) through the postulatation of an of 1893", Journal of Church and State, 9,2 "unevolved Name-and-Form" that (1967), p. 183; and "General Information" corresponds to avidya. This "unevolved bulletin of the Council for a Parliament of Name-and-Form" is "the supersensible seed the World's Religions. of the world. ...On the one hand he 2. See Marie Louise Burke, Swami [Sankara] stresses its essential difference Vivekananda in the West: New Discoveries: from Brahman... . On the other hand he His Prophetic Mission, Part I, third edition. asserts that it evolves from Brahman" (p. Calcutta: Advaita , 1983, pp. 85- 22). "Brahman, the cause of the universe is 101; and Norman R. Adams, "Background real, while the world, the effect, is of Some Hindu Influences in America - The unre~" (p. 26). A Thousand Teachings: The Ramakrishna Movement" , Ecumenical Upadesasahasrf of Sankara. Sengaku Studies, 9,2 (Spring 1972), p. 325-6. Mayeda, (tr. and ed.) Albany, N.Y.: State 3 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, Swami University of New York Press, 1992, Nikhilananda (tr.). N . Y. : Ramakrishna­ especially pp. 18-26 and II, 1, 18-19. Vivekananda Center, 1958, pp. 60-1. 12. The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 193. 4 For an interesting summary of the various 13. Potter, kinds of visionary, ecstatic, tantric, and Advaita Vedanta up to Samkara and His Pupils, p. 77. . unitive religious experiences given in the biographies of Ramakrishna, see June 14. The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 241. McDaniel, The Madness of the : 15. The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, pp.311-12. Ecstatic Religion in . Chicago: The 16. The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 192. University of Chicago Press, 1989, 17. The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 54. especially pp. 92-103. 18. Norman R. Adams, "Background Of Some Hindu Influences in America - The 5. Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Ramakrishna Movement", p. 335. Swami Vivekananda, Vol. 1, Mayavati 19. Norman R. Adams, "Background of Some Memorial Edition, 12th ed. Calcutta: Hindu Influences in America - The , 1965, p. 4. Ramakrishna Movement", p. 337. 6. Cardinals Francis Arinze and Josef Tomko 20. Swami Vivekananda, "Dialogue and Proclamation", Origins: CNS The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vol. 1, p. 18. Documentary Service, 21,8, (July 4, 1991), p. 129.

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21. I think the thought of Bede Griffiths, Wayne very lucid and fascinating account of key Teasdale, Louis Dupre, and Michael von events in Abhishiktananda's life and she Bruck reflect and support this view in highlights significant elements of his certain respects. I discuss various facets of interreligious thought. theo-monistic mysticism in Theo-Monistic 23. AbhishikHinanda, Sacciddnanda, Delhi: Mysticism: A Hindu-Christian Comparison. LS.P.C.K., 1974, p. 83 22. Helen Ralston, Christian Ashrams: A New 24. Abhishiktananda, Sacciddnanda, p. 107. My Religious Movement in Contemporary India. emphasis. Lewiston, N. Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1987, 25. Abhishiktananda, Sacciddnanda, p. 87. My pp.36,92. See also "Abhishiktananda: An emphasis. Interview with Odette Baumer-Despeigne 26. I develop the theo-monistic perspectives of Conducted by Sr. Pascaline Coff, O.S.B.", Meister Eckhart, Jan Van Ruusbroec, Jacob Bulletin ofMonastic Interreligious Dialogue, Boehme, Ramanuja, Aurobindo, and 51 (October 1994), pp. 17-24. In this Abhishikananda in Thio-Monistic Mysticism: interview Odette Baumer-Despeigne gives a A Hindu-Christian Comparison.

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