Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies Volume 13 Article 10 January 2000 Viewpoint: Christian-Hindu Prayer in Interreligoius Dialogue Anand Nayak Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs Part of the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Nayak, Anand (2000) "Viewpoint: Christian-Hindu Prayer in Interreligoius Dialogue," Journal of Hindu- Christian Studies: Vol. 13, Article 10. Available at: https://doi.org/10.7825/2164-6279.1230 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]. Nayak: Viewpoint: Christian-Hindu Prayer in Interreligoius Dialogue L"I :I f,' Ii :11 I: VIEWPOINT. Christian-Hindu Prayer in Interreligious Dialogue. Anand Nayak Institute for Missioiogy and Study of Religions, University of Fribourg, Switzerland THE INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE contexts. The ambiguity is at its highest in encounters have always given an important Christianity, where prayer can mean any act place to common prayer in their programs. done intentionally to lift up the heart Prayer-meetings are organized to celebrate towards God. The history of Christian feasts and other significant events in life. spirituality has in fact brought out different The Christian ashrams too have made forms of prayer: vocal and mental prayer, interreligious prayer the heart of their the prayer of the heart, to which other forms monastic life. Several prayer-books have like praise, meditation, contemplation can be now appeared, with prayers collected from added as forms of prayer. In that way, different religions, for interreligious prayer liturgy and sacraments too are prayer. For a meetings. The splendid picture of Pope· Christian, it is not important how one prays, John-Paul II praying with the Dalai Lama what method or tradition one makes use of, and with other representatives of religions at but that one prays, that is, that one comes in the Assisi Meeting of 1986 has become a contact with God. Other religions on the classical symbol of interreligious prayer. contrary seem to have kept up more precise However, the initiative for common definitions of prayer-forms in their spiritual prayer in interreligious meetings, as the life. Spiritual activities there do not come interreligious dialogue on the whole, has under a general concept like "prayer". always been a strong Christian initiative to Terms like dhyana (meditation),· stuti which members of other religions seem to (praise), vipassana, satipatthana, dhikr, oblige passively, without really taking - or shukr, sa/at, and so forth have distinctive not knowing how to take - an active part. meanings linked to particular gestures, They do not seem to see a meaningful postures and forms. One does not get into gesture there in praying together with prayer, like Christians do, 'off and on in the persons of other religions. With Muslims, in midst of daily activities without prior fact, there is often an opposition to such an corporal and inner preparation. Prayer there initiative, prayer being the essence of Islam, is linked to space and time more closely than one of its five pillars, not to be shared with it could be in Christianity. "unbelievers" or with "those who believe Coming more precisely to the subject imperfectly". Prayer does not seem to fit in a of Christian-Hindu prayer, the interreligious real dialogical context, a domain which calls contacts do not grow on account of barriers for a real and spontaneous participation. of communication. These hurdles are in the Where minds and hearts do not meet, there structures of the dialogue parties, in the is no real dialogue. attitude towards prayer adopted in each Prayer is a vague concept. It evokes religion, and in the content of prayer itself. different meanings in different religious Over the centuries Christianity has Hindu-Christian Studies Bulletin 13 (200) 32-34 Published by Digital Commons @ Butler University, 2000 1 Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies, Vol. 13 [2000], Art. 10 Viewpoint 33 developed a long and powerful tradition of Hinduism come close together: bhakti or vocal prayer, the prayer of invocation or "loving participation". On the conceptual imploring, in its community and liturgical level there are deep differences between prayer. The Christian prays at home and in bhakti and the Christian concept of love. church uttering vocal prayers to implore However, God conceived as Person and the God's help, much in the line of "Our personal terms employed to describe the Father". The clergy is trained to conduct relationship between the human person and prayer-services for the community and to the Divine, particularly its psalmodies pray for the community. In Hinduism (bhajans) and praise (stuti) expressed in however the tradition in this sense is very inter-personal terms, bring it closer to the weak. What is uttered in public is not prayer Christian way of prayer. It should be noted for needs, but sacred texts, praises (stotra), however, that bhakti in Hinduism is only and mantras. The Hindu may indeed one among many ways of coming in contact sometimes pray to God for his personal with God. Not all Hindus follow this path. In needs; but to implore God in public for the Christianity, however, the personal com­ needs of persons or of the community is munication with God belongs to its very unknown to him. He or she does not seem to core and in that way it appears to be a· way see the need to remind God of what He of bhakti. should do for others. And their clergy has The Hindu meditation (dhyana), too absolutely no training for dialogue in the can be a meaningful meeting point. The way the latter is understood by the deep silence and intense awareness implied Christians. The neo-religious tendencies like there are familiar to the Christian. One of that of Ramakrishna or Gandhi, developed the important attempts in this line towards a under or against Christian influence, does Christian-Hindu meditation can be seen in not represent the general Hindu· practice of Father Anthony De Mello's (1931-1987) prayer. Sadhana, a Way to God. This and numerous In spite of the ambiguities involved, other books written by or attributed to this both communities set clear limits for prayer Indian Jesuit priest are now available in participation. For example, the Hindu yajna bookshops all over. The simple but powerful and the Christian eucharist are· both spirituality of De Mello's teachings, taught sacrifices; but iIi a very different sense of the through· refreshing talks and spicy stories, term. Both of them are "memorials" of seem to capture the heart and mind of sacred institutions on which the very hundreds of persons in India and abroad. I foundations of their religion repose. If the think a meaningful interreligious prayer, in significance given to the sacramental and which both Hindus and Christians can pray formal elements vary in the different together, can take place with this method of Christian churches and denominations, the sadhana which in De Mello's attempt Hindu vedic cult is essentially bound to the remains within the Christian fold and there­ rigorous performance (karma) of the ritual fore needs to be reworked for interreligious in all its visible and invisible forms. Given prayer. the highest sacredness of these acts, they do According to De Mello, religion and not become objects of interreligious spirituality lose interest when they become partaking. Neither Christianity nor Hindu­ activities of mind, in which the body is ism sees an interreligious communion given no role to play. Can spirituality be a possible in these sacred acts. The Hindu passionate adventure of both body and soul? veneration of the idol (puja) on the other Can our breath, feelings, and passions hand is more flexible. But the Christian contribute to discover the depths of the sensibility towards idol worship is so great Spirit? Can our body too be a pathway to that an interreligious participatio:n seems to God? The ancient Hindu, Buddhist, and be impossible, at least for the time being. Daoist spiritual teachings, among others, There is a field where Christianity and were convinced of the active role that the https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol13/iss1/10 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1230 2 Nayak: Viewpoint: Christian-Hindu Prayer in Interreligoius Dialogue 34 Viewpoint body can play in the awakening of the spirit. Something similar happens in the Yoga can be a fine example of it. Working mystical world. If we could go mentally. on body and breath, yoga leads the aspirant blind, so to speak, if we could put a through meditation to the realms of the bandage over our mind while we are Spirit. De Mello was a renowned spiritual communicating with God, we might be master in the line of the Spiritual Exercises forced to develop some other faculty for communicating with him - the faculty of St Ignatius of Loyola. In his later life he which, according to a number of came in. contact with the Hindu and mystics, is already straining to move out Buddhist spiritual masters whose teaching to him even though it is blocked by the gave him an impetus to re-trace the sources noise within us. the Heart.2 of the Spiritual Exercises: methods for the However, the Christian can :he a little awakening of the Heart. His Sadhna, a Way apprehensive of this sadhana over the act of to God is his first attempt to make prayer fixing attention on a point (dharana) , in joyful for his own Jesuit brethren. He wrote awareness, which is the essence of medita­ in 1978: tion and which causes in the meditator I have spent my past fifteen years of mystical feelings of joy, love, and satis­ my life as retreat master and spiritual faction.