THE MOUNTAIN PATH January 1964

[Guest guest]

Buchman and Bhagavan

 

By Buchmanite

 

 

 

How can there be anything in common between Frank Buchman, who has been referred to disparagingly as a 'mere moralist' and Ramana Maharshi, the Master of divine philosophy? I think there is, and I am glad of this opportunity to air my views on the subject.

 

Why did Frank Buchman launch Moral Rearmament? Because, as he put it, the fences were down and someone had to repair them. In former times only too many people broke through the moral fences and trespassed into fields where they had no right to be; but at least they knew they were trespassing. They knew that they had left the highroad and broken through a moral fence and had no right to be where they were. But now young people grow up recognising no fences, or considering that it is the fences that have no right to be where they are. Formerly if people went back on their word they knew it was wrong to do so; now, who cares? If they fornicated they knew that their religion forbade it; now religion does not come into the question and they can quote psychologists [who say] that it is the natural thing to do. If hatred and envy poison the air anyone who speaks against them is likely to be sneered at as a goody-goody. Above all, religion no longer means anything for the vast majority of people in Western countries. And the ease with which Communism supplanted it in China suggests that its roots may be withered in Eastern countries too, even though on the surface it still seems to flourish.

 

Frank Buchman steadfastly refused to found a new religion or sect. He held that there were too many religions and sects in the world already. A new one would soon grow a stiff epidermis, like all the others, and shut its followers off from theirs, whereas what he wanted was to build bridges between men of good will in all religions. Himself, he was a devout Christian, but that did not mean that he wanted to make Indians and Japanese, Buddhists and Muslims [into] Christians. He wanted them to become good men, sincere men, men one could trust - with one's money, with one's secrets, with one's daughter, men of good will, eager to help where help was needed, not bearing malice or spreading slander, not gloating over another's misfortune or resenting past injuries. In many, if not most cases, the best instrument for recalling a man to a life of right conduct is the religion he knew in childhood and still sees around him; therefore Moral Rearmament can generally achieve better results by strengthening a man in his own religion than by coaxing him to another. Its reluctance to proselytise does not mean that it is indifferent to religion; on the contrary, it values religious faith above all, but it sees that in the present urgent work of rebuilding the dykes and holding back the flood, all religions can help. After all, however great the differences between them, all religions do forbid falsehood and violent pursuit of one's own interests, hatred, envy and self-indulgence, and do sponsor a way of life that could be called moral, and that Moral Rearmament could approve of.

 

One of the criticisms levelled at MRA is that it is not intellectual, it has no philosophy. That is the whole paradox. It is the inevitable result of its refusal to become a sect or a religion. As soon as it draws up any philosophy or code of beliefs for itself, however broad and general, it becomes a creed and is walled off from other creeds, whereas its purpose is to build bridges not walls.

 

I very much doubt whether Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, ever intended to found a religion. The Granth Sahib, the holy book containing his songs, contains also a number that he selected from earlier poet-saints, some Hindu and others Muslim, and especially from Kabir, the great mystic who had both Hindu and Muslim disciples and refused to belong to either. What Nanak wanted was not to build a new enclosure between that of the Hindus and that of the Muslims, but to make a bridge between those two, showing that in essentials they agreed and that the accidentals were not worth fighting about.. He sang

 

The Lord is the Truth Absolute,

True is His Name.

His language is love infinite

His creatures ever cry to Him

'Give us more, O Lord, give more'

The Bounteous One gives unwearyingly.

 

What then should we offer

That we might see His Kingdom?

With what language

Might we His love attain?

 

In the ambrosial hours of fragrant dawn

Think upon and glorify His Name and greatness.

Our own past actions

Have put this garment on us,

But salvation comes only through His Grace.

 

O Nanak, this alone need we know,

That God, being Truth, is the one Light of all.*

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* No. 4 of the hymns of Nanak in Selections from the Sacred Writings of the Sikhs,

Allen and Unwin, UNESCO collection of representative works.

 

 

There could hardly be a broader and more non-committal creed than that - that God is Truth and Love and bestows His Grace on us for our salvation; and yet Sikhism hardened into a religion. This serves to illustrate how careful MRA has to be to avoid doing so too. It has to deny itself a philosophy and a creed, because they would immediately shut out all those who follow any different philosophy or creed. Therefore MRA has to be unintellectual - but that does not mean that those who follow and propagate it are necessarily unintellectual. What is required of them is that they should be men of good will and initiative, intelligent enough to see that today's situation is perilous and dedicated enough to work at mending the dykes before the flood sweeps in. If they are intellectual as well, so much the better, but it is good will and initiative that come first.

 

In restoring moral barriers philosophy is not very important. Religion is much more potent. Then why not leave it to religion? Simply because the religions today have become too enfeebled to do it. If they recovered sufficient vitality to leaven the lump and uphold a moral code not only among a few scattered adherents but in the community as a whole, thus making MRA unnecessary, that would be the sign that MRA had succeeded.

 

But ethical control, it may be said, is only one aspect of religion, and perhaps not the highest. Granted, but it is one, and it is not being done, or not at all adequately.

 

It could be said that religion has two functions or aspects, one horizontal and the other vertical. The word is said to derive from a Latin root meaning 'to bind'. Horizontally it binds men together in a way of living where each has his rights and duties, his functions and obligations - not only his rights, as so many modern idealists seem to suppose. Rights entail obligations. As one witty philosopher is said to have put it, your right of movement ends where my nose begins.

 

A fully living and flourishing religion - for instance Christianity before the Reformation (and before the corruption that called for the Reformation) - binds the whole of society together in a living harmony. It also organises each person's life in a pattern or harmony. A man grows up with the knowledge [of] what he can do and what he must not do. The pattern may not be perfect, there may be dark smudges in it, social injustices, but by and large it will be found that sins and uncharitable actions are listed among what a man must not do. There may be situations where he can do them and get away with it - every human pattern is stained by imperfections and I am far from wanting to idealise the past - but in general he is liable to the censure of his religion, and to a large extent this is effective, often bringing with it social ostracism or legal condemnation. But today there is no valid condemnation; the fences are down. Who cares?

 

The vertical aspect of religion is its binding men to God or, perhaps better, providing a lifeline by which a man can climb up to God. Horizontally a religion produces a harmonious way of life; vertically it produces saints. And the two dimensions constantly interweave, since the harmonious way of life facilitates a man's growth to sanctity, while the saints, by the radiation of their influence, harmonise the life of a community.

 

Sainthood doesn't just happen. A saint is no more a lucky freak than is a concert pianist or an Olympic athlete. There is doubtless a strong natural disposition in all three cases, but there is also hard work and arduous training. He is something more than a very good man. He is also something more than a mystic. Neither is enough alone. It might be said that he is a combination of the two. A mystic may receive spontaneous visions and experiences like unearned largesse; but so long as he is impure his egoism will cloud or distort his experiences, ultimately to frustrate them. Whole-hearted dedication and severe training are necessary. There is power as well as goodness in a saint.

 

The training may take various forms. It may consist more of mortification or loving service of one's fellows or solitary prayer and meditation, but whatever its forms they have always been provided by religion. In Hinduism and Islam this is clear to see. Ample records remain of the gurus, their ashrams, their modes of training; and some of their successors still practise today, whether or not with the full potency that the great teachers of the past had. In Christianity it was the same, though more concealed. One anonymous 14th century classic, 'The Cloud of Unknowing', even describes its form of training in some detail. Characteristically, the author prefaces it with a stern warning to those who are not pledged to the training but merely inquisitive not to read it.

 

And today? Today the religions have grown ineffectual in their vertical training no less than in their horizontal. That is not to say that nobody ever obeys the moral injunctions of his religion or undergoes spiritual training, but by and large the hedges are down and the ladders broken. And just as Frank Buchman instituted a moral discipline independent of any religion on the horizontal plane, so did Ramana Maharshi a spiritual discipline on the vertical. He was well versed in Hindu philosophy, but in explaining to non-Hindus he used neither Sanskrit terminology nor Hindu philosophical concepts but simply told them to seek the essential Self of them; just as Buchman was a devout Christian but never tried to thrust his Christianity on others.

 

I have no doubt that if someone had come and told Frank Buchman: "I am following the moral injunctions of my religion and I feel that that is enough. I don't feel that I need Moral Rearmament," he would have replied: "Splendid! I wish more people could say that." Similarly, I have no doubt that if someone who was following a traditional discipline under a realized guru in his own religion had told the Maharshi so, the Maharshi would have approved just as fully. But such cases must be very rare. What paths are still valid, and where are the guides? There are some who try to follow guides who are not realized men, but that can't take them far; it is not much better than play-acting. Swami Brahmananda (who was the principal successor to Sri Ramakrishna in the training of disciples, as Swami Vivekananda was in organisation and propaganda) has expressed this very clearly. "Ordinary people understand by the term 'Guru' a person who whispers some mantra into the ear of the disciple. They do not care whether he possesses all the qualifications of a true Master. But today such a conception is losing ground. It is now recognised that none but a realized soul is qualified to be a spiritual teacher. He who does not know the path himself cannot show it to others."*

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* Spiritual Instructions by Swami Brahmananda, quoted in Prabuddha Bharata, Oct, 1963 issue.

 

If, then, as this article contends, Frank Buchman and Ramana Maharshi were performing identical functions in providing a universal substitute for the fast-vanishing guidance formerly offered by the religions, the former on the horizontal plane and the latter on the vertical, would it be possible and advantageous for the two movements to combine? They cannot do so completely. In the first place, MRA is likely to appeal to far greater numbers, since more people are drawn by nature to outer activity than to inner effort. At the same time, it does seem that the Maharshi's path of Self-enquiry, being by nature independent of the creed and ritual of any religion, could supply that intellectual element which is so conspicuously lacking in MRA, without the danger of tying it down to any one religion and thereby shutting it off from others. In doing so it would remove its greatest, though perhaps not most apparent, weakness and increase its power. It could not, of course, be made compulsory, any more than MRA itself can, for the Spirit bloweth where it listeth; but for those who did take it up it would supply what may be lacking now. This would imply no change in the injunctions given by the Maharshi, since he encouraged his followers to practise Self-enquiry in the life of the world and not in solitude and renunciation.

 

So far as the opposite influence is concerned, the Maharshi's training does naturally presume high moral standards. Being a war on the ego, it is ipso facto a war on egoism. Arthur Osborne explains that succinctly in The Teachings of Ramana Maharshi in His Own Words. "Sin and evil of every kind are the result of egoism unrestrained by consideration for the injury caused to others or the deleterious effect on the sinner's own character. Religions guard against them by moral and disciplinary codes and emotional appeals, seeking to keep the ego within bounds and prevent its trespassing into forbidden places. However, a spiritual path that is so radical and direct as to deny the ego itself does not need to attend specifically to the various excesses of egoism. All egoism has to be renounced. Therefore non-duality turns the attack on the ego itself, not on its specific manifestations."*

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* Pp. 41-2 of the edition by Rider & Co., London;, pp. 45-6 of the Sri Ramanasramam edition.