MY PHENOMENOLOGY OF RELIGION

The classical definition of phenomenology that Husserl gives is that, Phenomenology is to let that which shows itself, be seen from itself the very way in which it shows itself from itself.

No doubt that drawing from this classical definition certain scholars developed the phenomenology of religion. Notable among them are Van der Luuve, Mircea Eliade, William Brede Kriestensen, Rudolf Otto, Waardenberg etc,. Each of them, following the phenomenological approach arrived at a phenomenology of religion, and tried to describe the phenomena of religion.

I was particularly influenced by the exposition of the sacred that Mircea Eliade does in his book The Sacred and the Profane. Instead of repeating what he has spoken, I would come straight to the point. The concept of Sacred Self particularly attracted my attention. Eliade speaks of sacred self only in relation to the rites of passage, initiation and death: a death to the old self and emerging to new life.

Reflecting rather seriously on the issue at hand, I would like to stress that even man is a phenomena of religion. My contention is based not so much on scholarly research or well quoted foot note but on my conviction. I strongly believe that man as a phenomenon of religion manifests the divine. Just as contemplating on the sky, stones and the cosmos in general point to the divine, contemplating on man would not go lesser, but point even higher to that very Divine Being. If sky manifests to the divine infinity and the stone permanence and strength, the phenomena of man points to the Being who is alive, real, active and the most intelligent Being.

At this juncture I would take the support of St. Thomas Aquinas who said that the intelligence, creativity and complexity of human brain do nothing but point out to the Supreme Intelligent Creator, who is Simple, devoid of composition.Further, dwelling on this topic we can go on enumerating many instances of divine manifestation through man. However, I would like to take the most obvious example of the Saints, who through their life and actions manifested the divine. Examples are available in galore, but let me limit myself by mentioning about our own contemporary, Bl. Mother Teresa of Kolkata. As an ordinary religious woman she spread the compassion of Christ. Whoever encountered her, encountered Christ and His compassionate love. Her words were God’ words, her love was God’s love and her touch was the Divine touch.

With this example of a simple woman I would like to reemphasize that man is a phenomena or religion; a glimpse of whom and an understanding of whom can direct us towards the divine. Then our experience would be that of St. Augustine who said “ I looked all around for you, O Beauty so ancient yet so new, but failed to see you indwelling within me. And my heart is restless until it finds rest in you.”

Just like some writers adopted the result of Anthropology and psychology to the study of religion; I would suggest the same enterprise to be undertaken for my phenomenology of religion. Schleiermacher spoke about the psychic faculty that is present in the religious subject. Mircea Eliade said that religion is just about man’s behavior. Putting these two pieces together I feel that getting deeper into the psychic faculty and behaviour of man, we can get the glimpse of the divine within this subject. However, I consciously avoid the danger of advocating the Vedantic concept of identity between the real self and the Ultimate Brahman.

I would unhesitatingly claim that studying the phenomenon of man and the way he manifests the Divine would be like doing “Depth Phenomenology of Religion.” By doing this depth phenomenology of religion, I am confident of an ascent from the immanent world to the transcendent, from the myths and ritualistic practices to a personal relationship.

Finally before I conclude I would like to give my definition of religion: “Religion is the deeper awareness of the divine self within the human self. It is also a means to establish a relationship with this divine self and the manifestation of this relationship to the external world through religious behaviour.”

USE OF COMPARISONS AND SIMILES TO TEACH TRUTH

7.7 – Mattah paratarm n’anyat

kincid asti Dhananjaya

mayi sarvam idma protam

sutre mani-gana iva

Atman is the source, sustenance and end of everything. While He is the maker, he also holds in sustenance and everything is directed to Him. The whole reality is clung to Him just as myriads of pearls are threaded onto one string. The whole of reality is held by Him, the supporting string. The pearls threaded together may vary in colour and species but their support is one and the same. Apart from the string the pearls are scattered, order is destroyed and beauty is lost. Just like the pearl if may soul does not thread itself to the string I will be nothing. Apart from Me you can do nothing.

2.58 – yada samharate cayam

kurmo ‘ngani va sarvasah

indriyani’ndriyarthebhyas

tasya prajna pratisthita

Collecting oneself into the core of his/her being is a prerequisite for contemplation. To attain true wisdom one has to detach him/herself from the objects and obstacles of the world. The way to do it is beautifully explicated in the about simile. A tortoise that pulls its limbs into its shell feels safe and secure. In the same fashion, a man who wishes to be perfect bolts from within and sits indoors undisturbed and delights in the Atman. This is the path to the realization of the supreme. The sages of India have left us with the same model. The way in is the way to transcendence. This is the longest journey that anyone can venture into.

2.46 – yavan artha udapane

sarvatah samplut ‘ odake

tavan sarvesu vedsu

brahmanasya vijanatah

Demand is more where there is lack. One who lacks the wisdom of the Vedas requires them in a more urgent fashion. One who is already filled with the knowledge of the Brahman the use of Vedas and Scriptures is limited. Such a person can compared to one who is dwelling in the place of abundance. In a flooded situation where there is water all over, what is the use of a tank of water. Just as the tank is submerged in the flood, so also the Vedas are submerged in the enlightened soul. The following simile can be a parallel to the above simile – “it is the patient who needs doctor and not the healthy.” The enlightened soul is a healthy soul which does not need the doctor (Vedas).

5.10 – Brahmany adhyaya karmani

Sangam tyaktva karoti yah

Lipyate na sa papena

Padma-patram iv’ ambhasa

To be inside something and still be untouched by it is very difficult. To be in the world and yet remain unaffected by it is also difficult. But his is the way to salvation as taught by the Gita. In every thought, word, and deed detachment is expected. Such a detachment comes by dedicating all our deeds to Brahman. Consequently our detachment leads to attachment with Brahman. All of us are born with Karma and sustained by it. But a yogi is one, who while living with his Karma is not affected by it. He is compared to a lotus leaf which though constantly in touch with the water is not touched by it.

2.70 – Apuryamanam acala-pratistham

samudram apah pravisanti yadvat

tadvat kama yam pravisanti sarve

sa santim apnoti na kama-kami

The metaphor of the ocean beautifully describes the state of mind of a Jivan-mukta – a free Soul still being in his body. He is rightly compared to an ocean which does not undergo any change although the rivers keep pouring into it and the water keeps getting evaporated. The expanse of the ocean remains unaltered. The mind of the yogi is like the ocean. Everything gets dissolved in the ocean of his consciousness including the sensations carried in by the sense-organs. He is not subject to desires, aversions, feelings and thoughts. His state is identical with one who is in the world but not of the world. Still being in this world he has already attained mukti. That is why he is called the Jivan-mukta.to have one such soul is the society is a boon. People can look at him and be radiant

.10.39 – yac c’ api sarva-bhutanam

bijam tad aham Arjuna

na tad asti vina yat syan

maya bhutam car’ acaram

Nothing comes out of nothing. All that exists and lives, whether animate or inanimate has its source. That source is the Atman – the creator, sustainer and the goal of everything. He is rightly compared to the cosmic seed in this verse. Everything has emerged out of this seed. Apart from this seed (Atman) they have no being (existence).

3.16 – evam pravartitam cakram

n’ anuvartayati’ha yah

agh’ ayur indriy’ aramo

mogham Partha sa jivati

There is order in the created universe. Things live and move according to a particular rhythm. Order also reveals that everything has a purpose. The purpose is already set in motion at the creation. If a man does away from doing what is expected of him it would be better for him not to have been born. A life without purpose is not worth living. If any man fails to fulfill his purpose in life he frustrates the divine plan. He disrupts the order in nature. Each and every man has a vocation to fulfill in his or her life.

6.34 – Cancalam hi manah Krsna

pramathi balavad drdham

tasy’aham nigraham manye

vayor iva suduskaram

Wind is a very strong natural force. We are quite familiar with the effects of a strong wind. It destroys anything that comes on its way. It can even turn a ship upside down. In the above verse human mind is compared to the wind which is to a certain extent beyond our control. Human mind is as obstinate as the wind; it does not listen to anybody. Even if man has discovered ways an means to control the wind the mind is still a baffling reality before him. Controlling the mind is so very difficult. It is only Krishna who is endowed with the power to tame the human mind and keep it under control. It is our duty to surrender ourselves to him.

13.33 – yatha prakasayaty ehah

Krtsnam lokam imam ravih

ksetram ksetri tatha krtsnam

prakasayati Bharata

The light around us has a single source – the Sun. in the same way the paramatman who gives spiritual brilliance to the whole universe is single without a second. Everything without difference of any kind gets its light from the Atman. Just as the Sun shines on the righteous as well as the wicked, the light of the paramatman shines equally on the myriads of existing things in its true glory. His light is unchanging and unaffected by the merit or demerit of the individual souls. He remains in His glory forever while also providing life, light and love to all beings.

The Mediation of Christ in Prayer

Our world is a mediated world. It is mediated because it is created. It has its origin. It is the effect of a cause. Some call its origin to be God, while some others (scientists) call its origin to be some vital principle. The fact is that, what was immediate has been mediated in the making of the world. In this was everything we see around us is mediated due to the dynamics of cause and effect. This is the basic understanding of mediation with which we will attempt to understand the mediation of Christ in our prayer. This article is concerned about the mediation of Christ in prayer. However, Christ’s mediation is something more profound than the way, let us say the saints mediated our prayer through their intercession.

According to Bernard Lonergan, there are two ways in which mediation of Christ is applied. One, an objective application, and the other, subjective application. Objective application would be the spontaneous way Christ is presented in the Scripture, in terms of Galatians 4:4 ‘But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying Abba! Father!’; Christ as love ‘No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends’ (John 15:13); in terms of the precept of Christ ‘I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another’ (John 13:34). Objective application is done also through the religious teachings on Christ’s life of suffering and death, his work of redemption in his sacrifice. It is also evident from the scripture that Christ mediates between us and the Father: ‘There is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus’ (1Timothy 2:5); and the Holy Spirit mediates between us and Christ:‘Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says “Let Jesus be cursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit” (1Corinthians 12:3). This is all an account of Christ as mediator in the objective field.

We now move on to the subjective application of Christ’s mediation. Each of us to himself is immediate: oneself as one is, oneself as Existenz, as capable of decision etc. There are some things in us which are to be known; things that are prior given to oneself, all the data of one’s spontaneity, one’s deliberate decisions, one’s living, one’s loving. These are all in our immediacy as ourselves. In all that immediacy there are supernatural realities that are actually not part of our nature but result from the communication to us of Christ’s life. We find the evidence to it in the prologue of St. John’s Gospel: ‘what has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people’ (John 1:3-4). We are a mixture of earth and heaven (body and spirit). We are also temples of the Holy Spirit – proclaims St Paul to the Corinthians: ‘Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?... Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?’ (1Corinthians 6:15-19).

Being the temple of the Holy Spirit, a member of Christ, and adoptive child of God the Father is the higher part of our reality. Though not part of us by nature they are essentially the gift of God. Present in us as immediate they have to be mediated by the life of prayer. What is thus given to us as a gift has to be made part of our habitual conscious living. Otherwise, we remain in a vegetative state of grace. Grace can be made dynamic and active by the life of prayer, by living, developing and growing, in which one element is gradually added to another and anew whole emerges.

Just as we came to consciousness and grow into full knowledge of ourselves by self-appropriation, in the same way what we are by the grace of God can be mediated by our acts. This is actually self-mediation – for we are mediating what is immediate in us, namely: the temple of the Holy Spirit, a member of Christ and an adoptive child of God the Father. In doing so Christ becomes as one who is apprehended by us. We put on Christ in our own way, in accord with out own capacity and individuality in response to our own needs and failings. Although our appropriation of Christ through our acts appears to be a self-mediation, it is much more than that. Since the object of our living and loving has been Christ in one way or the other it is a self-mediation through another. Besides experiences, insights, judgments, choices, decisions, conversion there is a sense of being carried along. This, Lonergan terms it as mutual self-mediation. We have to see how it is a mutual self-mediation.Christ’s incarnation is the real evidence to this mutual self-mediation as it can be very beautifully explicated in the words of the Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 4:7-8:

Yada yada hi dharmasya

Glanir bhavati bharata

Abhyutthanam adharmasya

Tad’ atmanam srjamy aham

Paritranaya sadhunam

Vinsaya ca duskrtam

Dharma-samsthapan’ arthaya

Sambhavami yuge yuge

(Whenever there is decline of Dharma and ascendance of Adharma, then, O scion of the Bharata race! I manifest (incarnate) Myself in a body. For the protection of the good, for the destruction of the wicked, and for the establishment of Dharma, I am born from age to age).

Christ as incarnated man developed and acquired human perfection. Christ chose and decided to perfect himself in the way of the cross, because he was redeeming a fallen humanity. In becoming a perfect man he was thinking of us and thinking of what we needed to be able to attain our own self-mediation. Just as we attain our self mediation with reference to him in the life of prayer, so also the life of Christ was a self-mediation with reference to us. Prayer is then a reciprocal response of mutual self-mediation that we choose because of him. The mediation of Christ in the life of prayer is then a mutual self mediation, because we choose the cross of Christ because Christ chose it because of us.

Finally we can say that Christ is the mediator in the life of prayer insofar as the life of prayer itself is a transition from the immediacy of spontaneity through the objectification of ourselves in acts. The mutual self-mediation of God’s love in the life of interior prayer can be exteriorly expressed in the charity towards one’s neighbour. We become perfect by our acts of living and acts of praying which are done of course with reference to Christ. Christ came that all people might be saved, and that kingdom of God may be established here on earth. But only a small contingent of people appropriated him through their self-mediation. Therefore the ideal of the Cosmopolis which Lonergan speaks of remains an ideal to be achieved. Nevertheless as he himself says, the movement towards the Cosmopolis begins with mutual self-mediation.

Bhagavad Gita and Christ: Parallels

Bhagavad Gita and Christ: Parallels

Gita is the source of joy – 18.77

Tac ca samsmrtya-samsmrtya

Rupam atyadbhutam Hareh

Vismayo me mahan rajan

Hrsyami ca punah-punah

(again and again does that most wondrous form of Hari arise in my mind, generosity great astonishment and endless thrills of joy).

John 15:11 “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy mat be complete.”

Gita is revelation out of love – 18.64

Sarva-guhyatamam bhuyah

Srnu me paramam vacah

Isto si me drdham iti

Tato vaksyami te hitam

(listen again to My Supreme word, the profoundest of all spiritual teachings. You are well beloved of Me; and so I shall tell you what is beneficial to you).

John: 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

Gita is a promise – 4.7-8

Yada yada hi dharmasya

Glanir bhavati bharata

Abhyutthanam adharmasya

Tad’ atmanam srjamy aham

Paritranaya sadhunam

Vinsaya ca duskrtam

Dharma-samsthapan’ arthaya

Sambhavami yuge yuge

(Whenever there is decline of Dharma and ascendance of Adharma, then, O scion of the Bharata race! I manifest (incarnate) Myself in a body. For the protection of the good, for the destruction of the wicked, and for the establishment of Dharma, I am born from age to age).

Mathew 1:23 “Look the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, “God is with us.”

Acts 13:23 “God has brought to Israel, a Saviour, Jesus, as he promised.”

The promise of the Gita is fulfilled in Christ; for he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world and establishes Dharma.

We are the Temples...

Today is the feast of the "Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple," which is called the Purification of Mothers among the Jews. This feast is also called the day of consecration for religious. I would say that it is apt to call this day so...

Religious consecration is the presentation of the Lord to us. Every religious is supposed to receive the Lord into the temple, for we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. As Lonergan would assert, we are the temple of the Holy Spirit by Grace. Our bodies are made to receive the Lord. While it is termed the day of the religious, the feast is an invitation for all to receive the Lord into the temple. Then everyone will be able to exclaim like Simeon:

"Now, Lord, you have kept your word: let your servant go in peace.

with my own eyes I have seen the salvation which you have prepared in the sight of every people: a light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people Israel"

Let us make ourselves a temple fit for Him...