Pluralism

[Guest guest]

-

" Swaminathan Venkataraman " <nachiketas

<Ramakrishna >

Sunday, December 12, 2004 06:59

[sri Ramakrishna] Pluralism

 

 

>

>

> Dear Jay

>

> I want to follow up on pluralism once more. You say, <snip>

 

=======response=================

 

Dear Swami

 

Thanks for raising very relevant questions on 'pluralism'

 

Sri Ramakrishna's life, is a life celebrating 'pluralism'. His life is the

best proof that:

 

(1) Different pathways prescribed in Hinduism...God with form, without form,

as Atman as Brahman etc

are all valid pathways leading to the same destination. Dvaita,

Vishist-advaita and Advaita

are seen as pointing to the same gaol! We use the methods that best suited

to our needs.

Now, those of us who may have strong 'Dvaita beliefs' can raise serious

objections saying

they are not same. One affirms that we as individuals are always apart from

God while other

says we are essentially God.

 

One needs to study the lectures of Swami Vivekananda to see the resolution

to such issues.

Late Professor Ninian Smart paid tribute to Vivekananda as the one " who was

able to

synthesis these variations of Hinduism in a way that made marvellous sense " .

 

(2) This synthesis was taken a stage further by the experiences of Sri

Ramakrishna. He

declared that the same destination is reached following the prescription of

different religions.

This is the first time in the history of mankind that a Godman has made this

declaration

accompanied by first-hand experience. This is very unique event in the story

of spiritual

evolution.

 

Now, we can debate that the Christianity Ramakrishna experienced is not the

one

prescribed by the hard-line Christians and that many aspects of Christian

theology

are not in agreement with Hindu teachings (like eternal heaven and hell);

this is not

that different than saying that the hard-line approach of 'Madhava' is not

in agreement with

the conclusions offered by Vivekananda.

 

At some stage world religions require a Vivekananda to show the synthesis of

teachings of different religions. The 'truth claims' of various religions

have to be reconciled

otherwise the rationalist would argue that as the 'truth claims' are

different, either one

religion is right and the rest are wrong ........or more likely the whole

lot are faulty.

 

The suggestion you made that we should learn to live with differences

without bothering

to reconcile them, is precisely the the method favoured by the Christian

theologians

I deal with.......I keep fighting my corner saying......just as in any

science if we find two

alternate theories to explain one phenomenon ...one cannot ignore the

difference, we

have to dig deeper until we reconcile the difference.....The teachings of

Sri Ramakrishna

and Swami Vivekananda would favour that. One lovely expression of Vivekanada

that

sums up this struggle is: " We do not proceed from untruth to truth but from

lower truth to higher truth " . The reconciliation of different pathways to

God require

this attitude.

 

jay

[Guest guest]

Pranams, Swamiji.

 

I would presume to clarify a couple of points you raise.

 

The Christian doctrine of Original Sin is not original to Christian theology and

is only really important in the " Western " Christian churches; it is acknowledged

but not primary in the Eastern Orthodox, Syriac, and Coptic Churches, where

there is greater emphasis placed upon the Resurrection than humanity's

supposedly sinful nature. Still, humanity's only intercessor is considered to be

Jesus; the notion of Jesus as one of many avatars or human Messengers in a

continuum is not compatible with mainstream Christian doctrine.

 

However, there is esoteric Christianity and esoteric Islam just as there is an

esoteric core or corollary to any revealed religion, and these do have the

concept of (what for lack of a better term) we will call self-realization.

 

There have always been mystics in Christianity; some have been sidelined, such

as Eckhart, and some, such as Hans Küng, Teilhard de Chardin, and Br. David

Steindl-Rast, have become major contributors to Christianity's understanding of

itself. These do preach self-realization and are able to support their discourse

with passages from the Bible.

 

So too, with Islam. There have been spiritual adepts among the Muslims since the

inception of Islam, the Sufis. Some of them have kept to the sidelines, and

some, such as Imam al-Ghazali, are accepted by all but the most rabidly

fundamentalistic Muslims. Ghazali, in particular, did a brilliant and all-but-

unassailable interpretation of the Qur'an and Hadith Qudsi as manuals for

self-realization.

 

Among the Christian and Muslim esotericists, there is no argument about the

singular destination of the revealed faiths, and you would find yourself quite

comfortable in their company.

 

Hafizullah

@)->---

[Guest guest]

> dear jay,

> namaste.

 

<snip>

 

> In what sense Swamiji is using higher and lower here ?

>

> regards,

> Vikas

>

=============response===============

 

To be perfectly honest you should ask Swamiji that question : )

 

but let me use another example he has used many times

 

You may proceed towards the sun.....as you get closer you will see

the Sun differently though it is still the same sun. In the same sense

different pathways to God are not paths going from untruth to truth but

from lower truth to higher truth.

 

They are all talking of the same sun but from different position and

some perspectives are closer to the mark than others.

 

Hope this helped.

 

jay