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Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

Volume 26 Article 11

2013 Inter-Religious Contexts and Comparative in the Thought of Evelyn Underhill: Symbolic Narratives of and the Songs of Kabīr Michael Stoeber Regis College/University of Toronto

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Recommended Citation Stoeber, Michael () "Inter-Religious Contexts and in the Thought of Evelyn Underhill: Symbolic Narratives of Mysticism and the Songs of Kabīr," Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies: Vol. 26, Article 11. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.7825/2164-6279.1550

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: Inter-Religious Contexts and Comparative Theology

Inter-Religious Contexts and Comparative Theology in the Thought of Evelyn Underhill: Symbolic Narratives of Mysticism and the Songs of Kabīr 1 Michael Stoeber Regis College/University of Toronto

Introductory Reflections In defining mystics and mysticism Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941) regards generally in this way, Underhill suggests a mysticism as the core of . All number of interesting things that pertain to include various dimensions: scripture/ inter- conversations.5 As pioneers, mystics mythology, / philosophy, / law, are regarded as creative originators and social/institutional features, , material innovators of spiritual paths. Mysticism aspects, and personal and communal understood as an art suggests a kind of creative experience.2 For Underhill, personal religious and intuitive openness, rather than a rigidly experience inspires and influences the structured orientation and discipline that one development of these other aspects of finds in the hard sciences, for example. Still, religion—the heart of which is mysticism. art involves specific skills and practices, and so Underhill asserts: “The mystics are the there are various mystical methods and pioneers of the spiritual world”3 (4); “Mysticism activities among and between traditions, and is the art of union with Reality”.4 the sense of learning and development.

Michael Stoeber is professor of and at Regis College and cross- appointed to the Department for the Study of Religion, University of Toronto. His main areas of teaching and writing are the nature of , issues in comparative mysticism, and problems of evil and suffering. In his current research, he is exploring themes in Kuṇḍalinī Yoga, mysticism in The Brothers Karamazov, and the intersection of spirituality and art. Recent essay publications include: “Mysticism in Ecumenical Dialogue: Questions on the Nature and Effects of Mystical Experience”, Teaching Mysticism, William Parsons, ed. (Oxford University Press, 2011) pp. 224- 245; “3HO Yoga and Sikh Dharma”, Sikh Formations, Vol. 8, No. 3 (2012) pp. 351-368; “Re- Imagining Through Canadian Art: Indian Theosophical Influences on the Painting and Writing of Lawren Harris”, in Re-imagining South Asian Religions: Essays in Honour of Professors Harold G. Coward and Ronald W. Neufeldt, Pashaura Singh and Michael Hawley, eds. (Leiden: Brill 2013) pp. 195-220; and “ and Śāktism in the Spirituality of Aurobindo Ghose”, in Situating Aurobindo: A Reader, Peter Heehs, ed. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 253-86.

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Moreover, art involves teachers: and cross- mystical experiences across historical cultures culturally one finds elders, gurus, spiritual and religious traditions some fifty years before directors, masters, guides, and exemplars of the the work of significant scholars of the 1950s mystical path and ideal, people who help the and 1960s, such as Frithjof Schuon, Aldous aspiring mystic find her or his way in the Huxley, W. T. Stace, and Ninian Smart. These discipline of mystical practice. folks—dubbed “essentialist” theorists of Underhill suggests that this definition of mysticism—claim there to be a fundamental mysticism might apply beyond Christian and center of all genuine mysticism that scholars even theistic religious contexts, by referring to can discern in their close examination of the “object” of mystical experience as various mystical descriptions and theology “Reality”. A mystic becomes aware in an across different traditions, cultures, and time altered state of consciousness of a Reality that periods.6 More than this, Underhill in her is much greater and radically different than approach to comparative studies also seems to one’s normal egoic-self. She refers to this be somewhat of a forerunner of what more awareness as a “union”, which could mean a recently has been called “new comparative rather loose relation or fellowship that might theology”. include a wide variety of spiritual experiences Central guidelines of this method of or it might refer to a very radical intimacy—a comparative study include: a critical conscious “junction” or “coalition” or even a “unity”— awareness and acknowledgement by between the subject and the Reality. There is theologians of their own faith commitment and much ambiguity in such a general definition of biases in comparative analysis; creative, mysticism. However, notice how these views engaged reflection on particular aspects of about mystics and mysticism are an invitation theological or practice of a tradition in to inter-faith conversation. They suggest that comparison with those of one’s own; and mystics in all authentic religious traditions are subsequent creative clarification, elaboration, the originators and innovators of their and rethinking of specific aspects of one’s own traditions and share in a more direct and faith perspective in light of such comparative immediate experience of a common Source. study (“extended signification”).7 As I will Mystics are intrepid explorers of spiritual illustrate in this paper, Underhill’s detailed frontiers. They provide maps that they draw reflections on specific aspects of non-Christian from their first hand experiences of ultimate traditions involved a form of active Reality, which can assist people in their own engagement that vividly supported her transformative movement towards this development of mystical symbolic narratives redemptive or liberating union. Such were and enriched and advanced the Christian Evelyn Underhill’s original and provocative perspective to which she was normatively claims in the early 20th century. committed and participated in. These claims about mystics and mysticism However, in response to concerns about make Underhill one of the first modern foundationalist models of comparative religion mystical “perennialists”, having identified, grounded in presuppositions and agendas that illustrated, and categorized common core have been biased by modern liberalism, some

http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol26/iss1/11 2 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1550 Stoeber: Inter-Religious Contexts and Comparative Theology Inter-Religious Contexts and Comparative Theology in the Thought of Evelyn Underhill 93

new comparative theologians question even between very different traditions, has positions which regard the concept of common features: she says it is “always the “religion” as “a universal category of same Beatific Vision of a Goodness, Truth, and experience” and they tend to avoid any Beauty which is one”, even though we find theorizing related to meta-perspectives about diverse accounts of the experience. Underhill religions.8 So, one significant characteristic of observes: Underhill’s view that differs from that of some Attempts…to limit mystical truth—the new comparative theologians would seem to be direct apprehension of the Dvine her essentialist perspective on mysticism. New Substance—by the formulae of any one comparative theologians typically remain religion, are as futile as the attempt to neutral (or critical) about claims concerning identify a precious metal with the die that issues of religious or theological pluralism, converts it into current coin. The dies though it remains unclear to me why such which the mystics have used are many. neutrality (or criticism) should be a Their peculiarities and excrescences are requirement of their methodology.9 always interesting and sometimes highly This essay illustrates significant aspects of significant. Some give a far sharper, more Underhill’s pioneering inter-religious and coherent impression than others. But the comparative theological context. In exploring gold from which this diverse coinage is the history and dynamics of mysticism, struck is always the same precious metal. Underhill focused on well over one hundred …its substance must always be Christian mystics in her many books and distinguished from the accidents under articles. In developing her point of view, she which we perceive it : for this substance also draws on mystics and ideas from , has an absolute, and not a denominational, , , , and , importance” (96). albeit relatively briefly and mainly in her early So Underhill distinguishes between the writings. In this essay I will focus on “substance” and the “accidents” of divine comparative reflections she develops in her Reality. The mystic experiences divine Being classic work Mysticism (1910), from her books of substantially in a direct, affective embrace and poetry (1912, 1916), and from introductions she union that transcends her senses, emotions, did for the autobiography of Maharshi and mind. Underhill observes in mystical Devendranath Tagore (1914) and especially for experience a shifting of awareness to an a book on the poetry of Kabīr (1915). underlying “higher” Self, in intimate union with Spirit. However, the mystic perceives, Underhill’s Three Symbolic Narratives interprets, and understands the experience of Mystical Theology accidentally—according to her socio-religious Underhill argues that mystics are able to context and personal temperament. So one transcend the typical mediums of religious finds “diverse coinage” between traditions that experience of normal folk, in a direct is always “struck” from the same “gold” (96). “apprehension” of what she calls “Divine She writes: “This experience is the valid part of Substance”. The experienced ultimate Reality, mysticism, the thing which gives to it its

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unique importance amongst systems of pilgrimage, spiritual marriage, and spiritual thought, the only source of its knowledge. transmutation or transformation. I will Everything else is really guessing aided by comment on each of these common themes— analogy” (102). the specifics of which diverge considerably This “guessing aided by analogy” can be among different writers—and then propose a quite different between traditions and fourth that we also find vividly illustrated in Underhill does not downplay its significance to Underhill’s writings—the theme of divine the social, spiritual, and religious life of immanence in nature. people.10 Although mystics encounter aspects Influential Christian examples of the of the same spiritual Reality, they end up pilgrimage narrative are John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s developing a wide variety of beliefs and Progress and St. Bonaventure’s Journey of the practices, given their individual temperament Mind to . However, in illustrating this and socio-cultural context. For example, traditional symbolic narrative, Underhill Underhill acknowledges some of the specific chooses to highlight the 13th century Muslim practices and beliefs of that Sufi poets Azziz bin Mohammed Nafasi (died diverge from Christian views, such as the 1263) and especially Abū Hamīd bin Abū Bakr notion of , speculations about Ibrāhīm (1145-1221), who is referred to as , and claims of extreme quietism, ‘Attar of Nishapur. In his story, “The Colloquy monism, the illusoriness of the phenomenal of the Birds”, ‘Attar includes three key features world, and the annihilation of the self. More of the traveler’s journey, including the generally, she recognizes “the classic dangers, magnetic call or deep attraction that draws the heresies and excesses to which the mystical pilgrim on a long and difficult journey, the temperament has always been liable” in all devotional context, which brings illuminating traditions.11 As we will see, she also clarifies knowledge of God, and, mystical elevation, differences between common threads among where the pilgrim enters directly into the traditions. But her focus in her comparative Divine whom she has finally reached at the end writings is always constructive and explicitly of her journey. framed within her hope of promoting the Guided by the lapwing bird, this pilgrimage positive intellectual, moral and spiritual for ‘Attar requires the difficult passing through expansion and transformation of individuals seven valleys, from which none have returned and communities. to tell the actual distance. In this narrative, In that regard, Underhill insightfully there are wild animals and robbers obstructing notices in her wide range of reading of mystical the way, and the mystic must travel extremely writings three major symbolic narratives by light, stripping herself of all earthly possessions which mystics across different traditions have in the first valley of the quest. Having avoided tended to imagine and describe their mystical those obstacles that block one’s path and once experiences. There are “three principle ways”, sufficiently detached from material cares and she writes, “in which [humanity’s] spiritual social responsibilities, the pilgrim moves in her consciousness reacts to the touch of Reality” radical freedom into the valley of illuminative (126): these are the themes of spiritual love, then through the valleys of contemplative

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self-knowledge, absorbed detachment, ecstatic human love in imaging their spiritual vision, and the dark night of the . Finally relationship with God. The 12th century the mystic pilgrim moves through the valley of Richard of St Victor (died 1173) writes of the self-annihilation, what Underhill calls “the “steep stairway of love” in terms of four aspects supreme degree of union, or theopathetic state, or stages: betrothal—which corresponds with in which the self is utterly merged, ‘like a fish the stage of mystical purgation, courtship— in the sea’ in the ocean of Divine Love” (132). which signifies mystical illumination, I will say more about the “theopathetic” wedlock—the unitive stage, and finally the ideal below. But notice how Underhill draws on fruitfulness of conjugal relations—where the a Sufi perspective in illustrating possible mystic “Bride” becomes “a ‘parent’ of fresh Christian mystical orientations. Indeed, spiritual life”. Richard “saw clearly that the Underhill shifts to Christian examples in union of the soul with its Source could not be a illustrating further how in this symbolic barren ecstasy” (140). The key in this narrative narrative God passionately draws the pilgrim to is the redirecting of erotic passion towards God, God’s-Self, just as fish are drawn naturally to which includes sometimes very vivid sexual, their spawning pools: “’For our natural Will’, pregnancy, and birthing imagery. I should note says Lady Julian, ‘is to have God, and the Good that Meister Eckhart, who Underhill does not will of God is to have us; and we may never mention in this context, writes even more cease from longing till we have Him in fullness provocatively than Richard, of giving birth to of joy’” (133-134). This idea of the “love Christ from this naked immersion in Godhead— chase”—of pursuing and being pursued by of the virgin becoming a wife and then of God—is a major mystical-pilgrimage theme embodying and exuding the very compassion across traditions, and is even drawn into the and justice of God, within which she is imagery of our natural world: “’Earth’, [Meister immersed in this most intimate union with Eckhart] says, ‘cannot escape the sky; let it flee God. up or down, the sky flows into it, and makes it From the Indian traditions, we find a fruitful whether it will or no. So God does to similar love-narrative in some of the poetic [humanity]. He who will escape Him only runs reflections that have been traditionally to His bosom; for all corners are open to Him’” attributed to the great 15th century north (136). Indian mystic poet Kabīr (1440-1518), which Notice how the theme of love typically Underhill explores in her introduction to his tends at some point to enter deeply into the poetry, including the themes of the love-chase, symbolic of pilgrimage. But it constitutes a intimate union, and its creative effects: major narrative of its own in the form of Subtle is the path of love! spiritual marriage. Its most popular grounding Therein there is no asking and no not- is in a Jewish text, The Song of Songs, a asking, passionately sensual poem of romance and There one loses one’s self at His feet, courtship that does not even mention God. There one is immersed in the joy of Nevertheless, numerous Christian mystics have seeking: plunged in the deeps of love as drawn passionately from this imagery of the fish in the water.

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The lover is never slow in offering his head through the whole of mysticism and much for his Lord’s service. theology” (140). In Christian mysticism, it is Kabir declares the secret of this love.12 well illustrated in the writings of Jacob Boehme Here we find fish-imagery similar to that and William Law, and Underhill mentions some given by ‘Attar in his pilgrimage narrative, parallel symbols in Chinese spirituality (148). I highlighting the radical intimacy one has in would propose also that in Hindu thought we relation to divine Reality—of being immersed in find this theme especially in Tantra and the divine Presence—who is immanent Source Kuņḍalinī Yoga, as powerful spiritual energy is of our being. One is called by Kabīr to awaken understood to be awakened through various to this Satguru (divine eternal teacher) at the and yoga exercises, and drawn to heart of one’s life. penetrate the subtle energy centers of the Underhill perceives in Kabīr’s writings person, purifying and transforming those evidence also of “the true theopathetic state”,13 aspects of persons that resist the spiritual life, mentioned above. This is the state that and awakening them spiritually, emotionally, Madame Guyon has described as a new life in and physically, to their spiritual core and ideal. God, where the mystic “no longer lives or works of herself: but God lives, acts and works A Fourth Symbolic Narrative: Spirit in in her, and this grows little by little till she Nature becomes perfect with God’s perfection, is rich Underhill herself develops at least one with His riches, and loves with His love” (431). other rich symbolic narrative beyond those of I will return to Kabīr’s poetry below. But this spiritual pilgrimage, marriage, and idea of the theopathetic state brings us directly transmutation, one that is also colored by her to the third type of symbolic narrative common inter-faith conversations with non-Christian to mystical theology, the theme of an inward religious traditions. This is the theme of the alteration, “remaking or regeneration” of the presence of spirit in natural life. Here the person (140). mystic does not encounter God as transcendent Such imagery stresses the inner subject of Other (as in the Pilgrimage narrative) or God as transformation or transmutation, and is lover (as in the Spiritual Marriage narrative) influenced in the West by the traditions of but rather she comes to see and to experience and Spiritual Alchemy, where the God in nature. This is a major theme of prime object was to uncover the philosopher’s Underhill’s first book of poems, titled stone—the transformative substance which Immanence, which she published in 1912. From would convert base metals into gold. In her Christian experience in that period of her “Christian” Hermeticism, the philosopher’s life, this spiritual presence in our created world stone is Christ, who acts to transmute includes angels, saints, our resurrected spiritually the mystic, in redeeming and ancestors, death itself, and above all Eucharistic deifying her fallen nature.14 Underhill writes: , the Holy Spirit and Christ—all of the “We have seen that this idea of the New Birth, themes found in the various poems of this the remaking or transmutation of the self, book. She also points toward a kind of nature clothed in many different symbols, runs mysticism—where the natural world appears

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transfused by spiritual light and beauty, and important work of contemporary eco- the observer of such epiphanies finds herself theologians, such as Thomas Berry and Sally drawn into that vision, participating with them McFague, with her admonitions to recognize and in them. and apprehend spiritually the in the To be sure, in these poems we find the natural world, a theme also pronounced in narrative themes of pilgrimage and spiritual some of her early novels and short stories. She marriage quite explicitly. In the poem also echoes the beautiful imagery of Julian of “Invitatory”, for example, Underhill integrates Norwich, who writes of our sweet “Mother both themes, in imagining Christ calling the Jesus”—the creative Word—our “Mother reader to rest in his healing and nourishing sensual”, whose unconditional compassion presence: reforms and restores us with supreme and Dear Heart, poor wearied one !... gentle patience. The “Motherhood” of …‘Come ! Bride and Pilgrim, rest, “Godhead”, Underhill writes in her poem Thy head upon Love’s breast,... “Planting-Time”, is also the source of creative …Come! at Love’s mystic table break thy light and love: fast’.15 To paint the earth with tulips is a joy, But in the opening poem titled It is the satisfaction of desire ; “Immanence”, God also comes “in the little ’Tis to employ things”, He says: God’s own creative touch …Amidst the delicate and bladed wheat And from the smouldering world to strike a That springs triumphant in the furrowed coloured fire.17 sod. Drawing on a provocative interplay of There do I dwell, in weakness and in masculine and feminine imagery, Underhill power;… asks us to imagine being with the holy Mystery …In your strait garden plot I come to of Godhead during God’s period of fallowed flower: gestation: …I come in the little things, God dreams in plants, they say. Saith the Lord :… Ah, would that I might creep …In brown bright eyes Within the circle of his winter That peep from out the brake, I stand sleep:… confest. …Rapt from all other thing On every nest The flowery fancies that clamp his dark. Where feathery Patience is content to There Life, who cast away brood Her crumpled summer dress, And leaves her pleasure for the high Sets on the loom emprize The warp-threads of another loveliness Of motherhood— And weaves a mesh of beauty for the There doth My Godhead rest. 16 Spring. So Underhill images in feminine symbol the So nature becomes infused by spirit in divine spirit in nature, portending the God’s creative action:

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Here, in this garden bed, Faint and still beneath the sky, Surely the Spirit and the Bride While the solemn clouds go by Are wed: …18 And their massy shadows creep This weaving together of spirit and nature Grey upon the glistering sheep. in harmonious and creative unity continues in Noble sport and mighty aim, Underhill’s second book of poems published in Shrouded Player of the Game. …20 1916, Theophanies: A Book of Verses, but it Here Underhill links the theme of spirit in includes significantly the influences of her nature directly to God’s dynamic play, which is inter-faith conversations. On the title page, magical, mysterious, awesome, and wonderful. Underhill quotes John Scotus Erigena: “Every Although she goes on in this three page poem visible and invisible creature is a theophany or to ask the very hard questions of how suffering appearance of God”; and in her little poem Nihil and evil might possibly fit into this image, it is Longe Deo—[Nothing is far from God]—she clear that Underhill is adapting this theme of writes: the world as creative play of God directly from As sleeping infants in their dream despair mystic poetry attributed to Kabīr, who I We range, and grope thy breast : mentioned above. But wake to find that haven everywhere According to tradition, Kabīr was a And we already blest.19 common man, an uneducated weaver, married, We are already blessed, she insists, and we need father of four children, who appealed to a wide to wake up to this truth—that nature is and diverse audience of , Muslims, and immersed in spirit and exudes and reveals it Sikhs, composing exceptional and brilliant dynamically to those who become open to its poetry in the Hindi vernacular of his time. mystic light. Today there are over 9 million people in the Drawing explicitly on a significant theme of devotional movement (Kabīr Panthis) that was Hindu spirituality, she titles one poem in founded some five hundred years ago, and he Theophanies “Lila, The Play of God”. This poem has been embraced by a wide variety of is a conversation with God that begins by traditions and movements.21 His historical addressing God’s creative play: context is difficult to ascertain. As Underhill What the sport, and what the aim, notes, “Kabir’s story is surrounded by Shrouded Player of the Game? contradictory legends, on none of which reliance can be placed”.22 It seems clear that he Lord, the magic of thy play, criticized aspects of Yogic, Brahmanic, Ever changing, never still, Vaiṣṇava, Śākta, and Islamic beliefs and It enchants the dreaming heart, practices of his time, which complicates the It enslaves the restless will, discernment about his origins and orientation. Calls it to the player’s part”. … John Stratton Hawley notes that Kabīr “seems …O the rush of birds in flight! more at home with Hindu ways”, though his O the blazon of the may! Muslim name—“a Quranic title of Holy fading of the day, meaning great”—suggests that he was Muslim, Mystery of marshes lying

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perhaps part of a recently converted social In her introduction to Kabīr’s poetry, group.23 Underhill praised the inter-faith of In 1915, about a year before she published the traditional Kabīr—a “great religious Theophanies, Underhill assisted 1913 Nobel Prize reformer” of the 15th century. She writes how, winner Rabindranath Tagore in his English from Kabīr’s poetry, “it is impossible to say [if translation of one hundred poems attributed to he] was a Brāhman or Sūfī, Vedāntist or Kabīr that had earlier been translated from Vaishnavite. He is, as he says himself, ‘at once Hindi into Bengali script by Kshitimohan Sen, the child of Allah and of Rām’,” even if he and she wrote the introduction to this showed a “frank dislike of all institutional volume.24 Although some contemporary Kabīr religion, all external observance” and of “the scholars question the authenticity of most of tendency to an exclusively anthropomorphic these poems, Charlotte Vaudeville notes that devotion which results from an unrestricted they were “sung by itinerant Sadhus all over cult of Divine Personality”.27 Indeed, in her Northern India”, translated by Tagore “into mystical essentialist perspective, Underhill beautiful English”, read widely in the West, and considers Kabīr in his poetry to be praising and also translated into French and Russian. These loving the same spiritual Reality that she popular poems present a form of bhakti that addresses in her own Christian context, and reflects some of the perspectives of Kabīr, and similarly calling humanity to mystic union with they certainly reflect a traditional view of this Source. Although I think it doubtful that Kabīr, even if many of them are probably not Kabīr himself was essentialist in Underhill’s his creation.25 In his afterword of Robert Bly’s sense, he did seem to claim a core mystical more recent popular revised version of awakening involving a radical unitive Tagore’s One Hundred Poems of Kabir, Hawley devotional surrender to underlying divine notes the contrast of this western, more Reality of a formless and qualityless nature. As intimately devotional, collection with the Hawley observes, for Kabīr “God is not an eastern “Bijak” collection of the “Barnarsi object, but lies closer to us than our acts of Kabir”—which has become the scripture of the language and symbolic organization permit us Kabīr Panthis—where Kabīr in his poems is more to view, and closer to life than the limitations irreverent, confrontational, critical, and of our own brief and flawed existences allow us skeptical of other religious movements and to comprehend.”28 So, Kabīr can sing: practices of his time26 (though this latter thread All things are created by the Om;29 certainly runs through the Tagore collection as The love-form is His body. well). In my exposition I will highlight some of He is without form, without quality, the differences between Underhill’s reading of without decay: Kabīr—which reflects developments within Seek thou union with Him !30 traditional understandings and devotional It is said by some traditional commentators movements of Kabīr—from what some more that Kabīr himself fused in inter-faith dialogue recent scholars claim to be the more Sufi contemplation of the imageless God of historically authentic Kabīr. Islam, Tantric and Yogic ideas with Hindu devotion to the personal God Viṣṇu, who he

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encountered under the guidance of his famous Kabīr ponders and says : “He who has teacher Ramanand. However, some modern neither caste nor country, who is formless scholars question the historical connection to and without quality, fills all space.” Ramanand and doubt the characterization of his bhakti as essentially Vaiṣṇava. Charlotte The Creator brought into being the Game of Vaudeville, for example, notes with Underhill Joy: and from the word Om the creation that Kabīr was critical of Hindu devotional sprang. …34 practices oriented towards idols, images, and Underhill notices parallels with the sense of forms of God, and feels that he was much more Trinitarian movement we find expressed by his own man—“that he never consciously some Christian mystics, from the static and followed any other guidance than that of the eternal Unity of Godhead, into the manifesting interior Master, the divine Satguru, so that his and creative Word of the second Person of the ‘faith’ or ‘confidence’ remained apparently . Coming from her essentialist supportless,… .”31 Kabīr was a proponent of a perspective, she is struck by the apparent bhakti Yoga focused strictly on the nirguṇa correspondences in vision and description, but aspects of divine Reality—beyond all name and goes on to note the subtle shifts in Kabīr’s form—which he tended to call Ram or Satguru Indian sensibility. For Kabīr—or at least for or Hari. Hindus in Northern India regard Kabīr Kabīr as he has been traditionally understood as a liberal Vaiṣṇava—“the initiator of nirguṇī and read—this formless and unconditioned bhakti”32—and contemporary scholars Being enters into creative play, bringing form acknowledge Kabīr’s inter-religious out of its own nothingness, as God magically dependence on the Nāth-panthi form of Yoga and mysteriously manifests creative life from and his lively encounters with many other inert emptiness, beginning with the sacred religious traditions. Clearly, the authentic vibratory Om. The most significant Kabīr was involved in some significant form of characteristics of this manifestation are joy and inter-religious dialogue (which perhaps even play, which go together, hand in hand: “… The reflected some aspects of the methods of new Creator brought into being this Game of Joy…”, comparative theology), even if he was in many writes Kabīr: respects spiritually innovative and could be …The earth is His joy ; His joy is the sky ; quite critical of other spiritual paths in some of His joy is the flashing of the sun and the his poetry.33 moon ; Underhill writes that the traditional Kabīr, His joy is the beginning, the middle, and along with St Augustine, Rumi, and Jan Van the end ; Ruysbroeck, had a special synthetic vision of His joy is eyes, darkness, and light. God. They were able to give vivid expression Oceans and waves are His joy : His joy the both to “the personal and impersonal, the Sarasvati, the Jumna, and the Ganges. transcendent and immanent, static and The Guru is One :35 and life and death, union dynamic aspects of the Divine Nature”. So: and separation, are all His plays of joy ! His play the land and water, the whole universe !

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His play the earth and the sky ! relation to nature “is essentially dynamic. It is In play is the Creation spread out, in play it by the symbols of motion that he most often is established. The whole world, says tries to convey it to us : as in his constant Kabir, rests in His play, yet still the reference to dancing, or the strangely modern Player remains unknown.36 picture of that Eternal Swing of the Universe, Underhill included this last line as the which is ‘held by the cords of love’”.40 Kabīr in introduction of her poem that I mentioned these songs admonishes his readers to open to above, “Lila, The Play of God”: “The whole the cosmic rhythms of creative life, to learn to world, says Kabir, rests in His play, yet still the dance with God, to follow God’s lead in entering Player remains unknown”.37 God as Player is into the ecstatic joy of God’s divine play: not an object of our senses and intellect but He Dance, my heart ! dance to-day with joy. is omnipresent in His creation—underlying and The strains of love fill the days and the immanent in His creative play and joy— nights with music, and the world is “Hidden within the blade of grass, is the listening to its melodies: Mountain of Rām”—as he sings in a Sākhī from Mad with joy, life and death dance to the another collection.38 Creative immanence is a rhythm of this music. The hills and the major theme of the traditional poetry of Kabīr, sea and the earth dance. The world of and it begins with divine play, which Kabīr man dances in laughter and tears. …41 images as a kind of apophatic dancer whose Of course, dance is associated with music, mysterious movement stimulates the world to and so Kabīr claims the natural world moves to life: the rhythms of God’s music—it listens to God’s …He is pure and indestructible, songs: “The hills and the sea and the earth His form is infinite and fathomless, dance” to divine melodies, as “The strains of He dances in rapture, and waves of form love fill the days and the nights with the music” arise from His dance. of God’s divine play. So Underhill observes in The body and mind cannot contain relation to Christian mystics: “Everywhere themselves, when they are touched by Kabīr discerns the ‘Unstruck Music of the His great joy. Infinite’—that celestial melody which the angel He is immersed in all consciousness, all played to St. Francis, that ghostly symphony joys, and all sorrows; which filled the soul of [Richard] Rolle with He has no beginning and no end ; ecstatic joy.”42 In this collection, Kabīr makes He holds all within His bliss.39 extensive reference to a divine flute player, Underhill is fascinated by this sensuous which Underhill in her commentary naturally imagery of dance to which Kabīr loves to refer, associates with Kṛṣṇa, the human incarnation and one gets the sense she wants her Christian of the God Viṣṇu, who manifests in the world as readers to appreciate deeply the possible the heroic charioteer-prince, or as an infant devotional dynamics. Although he and child prankster, or as an enchanting young acknowledges aspects of God that are static and flute player, especially beloved of the fair absolute unity, Underhill notes that for Kabīr— milkmaid women. However, in these poems, at least for the traditional Kabīr—God in Kabīr does not mention Kṛṣṇa, and the divine

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flute player is never actually named, though in mystical orientation on this, one contemporary other poems in this collection Kabīr does refer Sikh writer speaks of Shabd Guru—sacred devotionally to Brahma, Guru, Ram, and Hari. sounds that function as teacher—where In this traditional reading of Kabīr, the divine is meditative chanting might stimulate “a merger integrated with his rich sense of spirit between the personal experience of you and immanent in the natural world, and of the the impersonal experience of Infinity beyond significance of sacred sounds in evoking you and within you”.44 I think this factor is Satguru’s mystical presence: “The flute of the what contributes most to the fact that, as Infinite is played without ceasing, and its sound Hawley observes, Kabīr “retains a certain bodily is love”: focus” in all of his poems, both those I hear the melody of His flute, and I cannot traditionally attributed to him and those contain myself : considered authentic.45 The flower blooms, though it is not spring ; Still, Underhill draws on much evocative and already the bee has received its symbolism from Hindu spirituality to provoke invitation. and enrich the spiritual experiences of her The sky roars and the lightning flashes, the Christian readers, in encouraging them to open waves arise in my heart, to the immanent presence of the Holy Spirit in The rain falls; and my heart longs for my nature in its various forms—including creative Lord. play, dance, and music—and its transformative Where the rhythm of the world rises and impetus and dynamics. She thus seems to be falls, thither my heart has reached: involved in methods of new comparative There the hidden banners are fluttering in theology, in “proceeding by means of limited the air. case studies”46 between traditions, which are Kabir says: “My heart is dying, though it influencing her understanding and lives.”43 development of Christian spiritual theology. She also portends the creative thought of Concluding Reflections modern eco-theologians—so crucial for any I am not sure if Underhill appreciates fully current if it hopes to remain the significance of song for Kabīr as a mystical alive and compelling—in stressing the means that parallels traditional contemplative sacredness of the natural world and our meditative practices that she develops in her potential awareness of spiritual connection writings. For Kabīr, the practice of vocal with it and dependence on it. Kabīr and various mantra would have been a key other non-Christian mystics also helped her to feature of his devotionalism. Music or sacred illustrate these other major symbolic narratives sound thus functions in Kabīr’s theology as of Christian mysticism—pilgrimage, spiritual much more than symbol of the divine presence marriage, and spiritual transformation. One in the created world. Its active practice is wonders about the degree to which Underhill’s crucial in the surrender to Satguru and in inter-faith conversations continued to inform opening to the awareness of one’s essential her later work in Christian spiritual direction immersion in Satguru. In line with Kabīr’s and retreats, and in Christian liturgy, as her

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Christian faith matured and deepened.47 E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1914) p. 23. However, clearly it affected her development of http://dx.doi.org/2027/uc1.32106000203635 Christian mystical theology in creative and 5 The following two paragraphs are a close interesting ways. As I said, her understanding adaptation of reflections I developed in of mystics and the mystic life was an invitation “Mysticism in Ecumenical Dialogue: Questions to inter-faith conversation, some one hundred on the Nature and Effects of Mystical years ago now. Indeed, perhaps Underhill’s Experience”, in Teaching Mysticism, William B. influence was sufficiently far-reaching for us to Parsons, ed. (New York: Oxford University refer to her as a “grandmother” of both Press, 2011) pp. 231-232. essentialist theories of mysticism and of new http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/97801997 comparative theology (or at least of the more 51198.001.0001 significant features thereof), when one takes 6 In more recent scholarship, essentialism has into account the immense popularity of her become over-shadowed by “contextualist” writings throughout most of the 20th century. theories of mysticism, which tend to focus in

their comparative studies on the differences Notes 1 between traditions, in highlighting the way in This paper is an extended adaptation of two which socio-religious categories enter into and presentations that I gave at the Evelyn over-determine the mystical experiences Underhill Association Annual Day of Quiet themselves. See, for example, influential Reflection at the National Cathedral, anthologies of essays edited by Steven Katz, Washington, D.C., June 16, 2012. I thank Dana especially Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis Greene and Kathleen Staudt for the invitation (N.Y.: Oxford Press, 1978) and Mysticism and to participate in this event, and for including Religious Traditions (N.Y.: Oxford University an earlier draft of this paper in the 2012-2013 Press, 1983). I should note, however that not all Evelyn Underhill Annual Newsletter, contextualists are critical of essentialist “Reflections on the Inter-Faith Conversations of perspectives and some influential contextualist Evelyn Underhill: Symbolic Narratives of perspectives are compatible with and even lean Mysticism”. Also, my thanks to two anonymous towards a kind of essentialist point of view (e.g. readers of JHCS, and to Ted Ulrich, for helpful , An Interpretation of Religion: Human suggestions I incorporated into the final draft. nd 2 Responses to the Transcendent, 2 ed. Adapted from Ninian Smart’s categories, The (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). World’s Religions (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Indeed, Kathleen Henderson Staudt outlines Hall, 1989) pp. 9-21. 3 certain contextualist features in Underhill’s Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism: The Preeminent Mysticism (“Rereading Evelyn Underhill’s Study in the Nature and Development of Spiritual Mysticism”, Spiritus, 12 (2012) pp. 113-128. Consciousness (New York: Image Book, http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/scs.2012.0000). Also, Doubleday, 1990 [1911]). Hereafter pages from overly narrow or extreme contextualist this text are included in brackets in the text- theories have come under serious criticism. body. 4 See, for example, Donald Evans, “Can Evelyn Underhill, Practical Mysticism (London:

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Philosophers Limit What Mystics Can Do?”, light so that scholars do not continue to , Vol. 25, No 1 (1989) pp. 53-60. misrepresent or mistreat other religious http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0034412500019715; traditions or that of their own. It is quite G. William Barnard, “Explaining the another to claim that all comparative Unexplainable: Wayne Proudfoot’s Religious theologians must cease completely in their Experience”, Journal of the American Academy of studies from considering questions about Religion, Vol. 60, No. 2 (1992) pp. 231-256. universalist (or inclusivist or exclusivist) http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/LX.2.231; and religious truth claims. Underhill is not Michael Stoeber, Theo-Monistic Mysticism: A dogmatically presupposing a religiously Hindu-Christian Comparison (N.Y.: St Martin’s mystical essentialism—she thinks that specific Press, 1994) esp. chs. 1 and 2. theological evidence across some religious 7 See Francis X. Clooney, Comparative Theology: traditions supports her point of view and she Deep Learning Across Religious Borders (Malden, illustrates and argues this extensively in some MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2010), especially pp. 3-19, of her writings. Moreover, as I will develop in where he summarizes the key features of new this paper, her analysis of the particularities of comparative theology. See also Reid B. Locklin other traditions is advancing and enriching her and Hugh Nicholson, “The Return of own sense and experience of Christian Comparative Theology”, Journal of the American spirituality—which deepened and widened Academy of Religion, Vol. 78, No. 2 (2010) pp. 477- significantly over her lifetime. Perhaps more 514. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfq017 importantly, Underhill’s essentialist They give a substantial survey of the field and perspective might to some degree actually related influences, and speak of “extended reflect the truth of the matter. It seems unwise signification” on p. 493. to me to dismiss this possibility at the outset of 8 Locklin and Nicholson, “The Return of one’s comparative studies, as some recent Comparative Theology”, pp. 478-481. For comparative theologians seem to be doing, another substantial overview of these concerns, because of methodological presuppositions. see also James Fredericks, “A universal religious 10 James Fredericks argues against the experience? Comparative theology as an essentialist point of view on the grounds that it alternative to a theology of religions”, Horizons significantly devalues dimensions of religion Vol. 22, No. 1 (1995) pp. 67-87. other than the common experiential core. Ted 9 I think that some comparative theologians Ulrich clarifies Fredericks’ concerns: “…the who criticize essentialist theories of mysticism focus on ineffable experience tends to diminish conflate positions that should be treated the importance of the particulars of the separately. It is one thing to suggest that religions: ‘If all religious traditions are in fact certain socio-cultural trends that followed different expressions of the same ineffable upon modern liberalism led historically to experience, then the historical specificities of unquestioned and problematic methodological the various religions can be safely overlooked presuppositions about a universal “religion” as secondary, if not merely accidental.’ If these and “theology” that now need to be brought to specificities are not significant, then what is the

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point of comparative study, except to attempt 15 Evelyn Underhill, Immanence. A Book of Verses to point out a common, pre-conceptual (London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd, 1912) pp. 45-46. experience?”. Ulrich is quoting Fredericks, “A http://dx.doi.org/2027/uc1.b3342687 universal religious experience?”, p. 76, in 16 Underhill, Immanence, p. 1. Edward T. Ulrich, “CATHOLIC THEOLOGY, 17 Underhill, Immanence, p. 54. COMPARATIVE STUDY, AND A PRACTICE OF 18 Underhill, Immanence, pp. 54-55. HINDU MEDITATION”, at the website for the 19 Underhill, Immanence, p. 93. Dialogue Interreligieux Monastique, at 20 Evelyn Underhill, Theophanies: A Book of Verses http://www.dimmid.org/index.asp?Type=B_BA (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1916) p. 34. SIC&SEC=%7B6E8A313C-7CC6-4E72-B33D- http://dx.doi.org/2027/uc1.b3342686 9B5D42299401%7D (accessed June 7, 2013). 21 Charlotte Vaudeville notes: “In Indian However, we need to stress here that religious history, Kabīr is unique: to the Hindus, Underhill obviously regards non-experiential he is a Vaiṣṇava bhakta, to the Muslims a pīr, to dimensions of religion as very significant; and the Sīkhs a bhagat to the sectarian Kabīr- the point of comparative study for her seems to panthīs an avatār of the supreme Being; to the be primarily to enrich and deepen her own modern patriots, Kabīr is the champion of faith-experience and that of her readers, as Hindu-Muslim unity, to neo-vedāntins a well as to stimulate, inspire, and inform her promoter of the Universal Religion… .” Kabīr, readers. Vol I (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974) p. 11 Evelyn Underhill, “Introduction”, The 3. http://dx.doi.org/2027/mdp.39015004098565 Autobiography of Maharshi Devendranath Tagore, 22 Underhill, “Introduction”, One Hundred Poems Satyendranath Tagore and Indira Devi, trs. of Kabir, p. x. (London, Macmillan and Co., 1914) pp. xvi-xvii. 23 John Stratton Hawley, Songs of the Saints of See also Evelyn Underhill, “Introduction”, One India (N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2006) p. 36. Hundred Poems of Kabir, Rabindranath Tagore, 24 The year before, in 1914, Underhill also wrote tr.,(London: The Macmillan Company, 1915) pp. an introduction to the autobiography of vi, xxvii-xxx. This book was also published in Maharshi Devendranath Tagore (1817-1905), New York in 1915 by The Macmillan Company the great 19th century Hindu reformer of the titled Songs of Kabir Brahmo Samaj, and the father of Rabindranath. (http://dx.doi.org/2027/uc1.32106013113789). She regarded the senior Tagore as advanced 12 One Hundred Poems of Kabir, LV, p. 60. intellectually and spiritually. She wrote: 13 Underhill, “Introduction”, One Hundred Poems “Those familiar with the history of Christian of Kabir, p. xxi. My italics. mystics will find again, in the self- of 14 I explore this topic in “Evelyn Underhill on this modern saint of the East, many of those Magic, Sacrament, and Spiritual characteristic experiences and which Transformation,” , vol. 77, no. 2 (2003) are the special joy and beauty of our own pp. 132-151. tradition of the spiritual life”. Evelyn Underhill, “Introduction”, The Autobiography of Maharshi Devendranath Tagore, p. x.

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25 Vaudeville, Kabīr, pp. 18, 24. of Kabir, pp. xxxi-xxxii. 26 John Stratton Hawley, “Afterword: Kabir and 41 One Hundred Poems of Kabir, XXXII, pp. 38-39. the Transcendental Bly” in Robert Bly, Kabir: 42 One Hundred Poems of Kabir, p. xxxv. Ecstatic Poems (Boston: Beacon Press, 2004) pp. 43 One Hundred Poems of Kabir, L, pp. 56, LXVIII, 81-82. pp. 71-72. http://dx.doi.org/2027/mdp.39015058209514 44 Yogi Bhajan and editors, The Aquarian Teacher: 27 Underhill, “Introduction”, One Hundred Poems KRI International Teacher of Kabir, pp. viii, ix, xv, xxvii. Training in Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi 28 Hawley, Songs of the Saints of India, p. 42. Bhajan, level 1 instructor textbook, 4th ed., (Santa 29 In the Hindu tradition, “Om” is the most Cruz, NM: Kundalini Research Institute, 2007) p. sacred syllable and original creative vibration 72. formed within the Divine out of pre-creative 45 Hawley, “Afterword: Kabir and the emptiness or nothingness. Transcendental Bly”, p. 81. 30 One Hundred Poems of Kabir, XXVI, pp. 32-33. 46 Fredericks ,“A universal religious 31 Vaudeville, Kabīr, p. 119. experience?”, p. 83. 32 Vaudeville, Kabīr, pp. 24, 106. 47 For example, one wonders if Underhill’s 33 Vaudeville notes: “Living in sacred Kāśī, encounter with the theory and practice of [Kabīr] must have been in constant contact ahiṃsā in Indian religions at all influenced the with the holy men of his time, Paṇḍits, Yogīs, pacifist orientation she embraced and espoused Śaiva saṁnyāsīs, and Vaiṣṇava Bairāgīs, during the Second World War. Significant Vīraśaiva Jangamas, Munis and Tapīs—ascetics shifts in Underhill’s Christian faith-perspective of every robe and denomination, the motley are well illustrated in Evelyn Underhill, crowd of saints and sādhus which filled, even Fragments from an Inner Life, Dana Greene, ed. more than today, the narrow lanes of the old (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 1993) city. …This is the confused and somewhat and in Dana Greene, Evelyn Underhill: Artist of the discordant clamour that we hear in his poems”. Infinite Life (New York: Crossroad, 1990). Kabīr, pp. 120, 118. 34 One Hundred Poems of Kabir, pp. xviii, LXXXII, 88. 35 The “Sarasvati, the Jumna, and the Ganges” are famous rivers of India and thought to possess spiritual power and significance. “Guru” is reference to divine Being as teacher, a term of reference common to Sikhism. 36 One Hundred Poems of Kabir, LXXXII, pp. 88-89. 37 Underhill, Theophanies, p. 34. 38 Vaudeville, Kabīr, p. 194. 39 One Hundred Poems of Kabir, XXVI, p. 33. 40 Underhill, “Introduction”, One Hundred Poems

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