Continued from part 1 

The Basis of Hindu Universalism

Hinduism derives its universal vision from its own scriptures. It is necessary to first understand the verse that Dr Morales had analyzed: ‘Ekam sad vipra bahudha vadanti’ (‘Reality is One, sages call it various names’). This profound statement is regarding the relationship between Brahman and names. The Chandogya Upanishad instructs that this universe of diverse names and forms is same as Brahman. The seeming difference is ‘vacarambhanam’, having its origin in speech only.

According to Advaita Vedanta, the effect is pre-existent in the cause, and all names and forms abide eternally in Brahman. There is au fond no creation because that which is already pre-existent cannot be born again. In purely logical terms, the world is aja, unborn, and the doctrine of non-creation is ajatavada. However, it is the magic of words that plays upon the screen of non-duality and holds us to the songs of plurality. There is, in Reality, a mystical nature through which the unborn unfolds which the Advaita doctrine of vivartavada explains. According to the Grammarians, vivarta is the unfolding of Vak (speech) through four stages of evolution. These stages are para, pashyanti, madhyama and vaikhari.

Morales subjecting this sentence (‘Ekam sad vipra bahudha vadanti’) to ‘Exegetical Categorical Analysis’ and then restricting its meaning is mere verbiage, says Naik. Morales says that since this verse is an ontological statement, it fails to support the soteriological claim that all paths lead to the same goal. However, the soteriological path of each school grounds in its own unique ontological vision of Reality. In Advaita Vedanta, for example, release ‘obtains’ from realizing the identity of the Atman with Brahman. This is commensurate with the ontological vision of Advaita in which Brahman is the sole Reality that admits of no difference within It. In Visistadvaita, the release is by the consciousness of the soul, expanding by jnana-bhakti to attain identity with the Lord. This is commensurate with the Visistadvaita vision of ontology in which the world (and the soul) is the inseparable body of Brahman. And yet the Reality of which they all speak is One. The differences are ‘vacarambhanam’, having its origin in speech only.

The insight of every religion is the Numinous Ground underlying the materiality of the world. The Numinous Ground of every religion is a Living Principle. According to Vedanta, this essence is Consciousness (chaitanya) which is undivided (akhanda) and immutable (akshara). How is it possible for a Hindu to say that the Living God of other religions is another mountain when the essence of the Living is Undivided Consciousness? This is the grand Universalism that we find in Hinduism and it finds one of its most beautiful expressions in the Svetasvatara Upanishad: “The whole universe is filled by the Purusha, to whom there is nothing superior, from whom there is nothing different, than whom there is nothing either smaller or greater; who stands alone, motionless as a tree, established in His own glory.” (III.9)

Dr Morales makes a case that the great Hindu Acharyas never subscribed to the idea of universalism because of the intense ‘polemics’ that these Acharyas engaged in. Dr Morales does not realize that at stake in vada (debates), or Hindu ‘polemics’ which he terms as, is Vedartha, the ultimate Truth of the Vedas. It was not the negation of other conceptions of Reality. Shankaracharya, arguably the greatest and most uncompromising of the Acharyas, mentions that the other aspects of Brahman are also visions of Reality even though they constitute the Lower (apara) Nature of Brahman and fall short of the ultimate Truth of Vedanta. According to Suresvaracharya, the disciple of Shankaracharya, the various doctrines about Reality exist eternally in the Nature of God: All these alternate views (different darshanas) existed, before creation, in the Atman, as the sprout in the seed. The power of Maya comprising ichha (will), jnana (knowledge) and kriya (action) of Ishvara display them. (Manasollosa, II.43)

Universalism has its roots in the Vedas, but it seeps into everyday life through the Smrtis. One example is the Puranas. Here is a unique conception of Avatara, the doctrine that God incarnates on this earth from time to time. Surprisingly, Morales does not understand that this is precisely the conceptualization that gives Hinduism its universal vision. In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna declares that, though unborn and imperishable, He takes birth in every age by the power of his own nature whenever there is a decay of dharma and evil needs destruction. In the face of such declarations, it would be hard for a Hindu to accept that the prophets of other religions were all frauds who lured their people to various ungodly mountains.

The Puranas reveal God’s manifestations in both the heavenly and earthly realms. They also bring the presence of Divinity all around us to life by recognizing the places where God manifested in His Leela. The Hindus refer to these places as tirthas. There are thousands of these in Bharata’s pure land (pavithra bhoomi). They are regarded by Hindus as places imbued with the Divine. The earth and a slab of stone, in Vedantic truth, are likewise the shimmer of Light, the dance of Effulgence, in God’s Divine Consciousness. The goal of a Hindu is to behold Brahman in all things finally; how then can we say to a Hindu that the goals of other religions are so many different mountains?

Surprisingly, Morales is unaware of one of Hinduism’s core tenets: soul transmigration. In the framework of this Hindu doctrine, the Hindu notion that all paths lead to the same goal must be considered. As the Bhagavad Gita explains, the goal of moksha is incredibly difficult to achieve (one in thousands who strive). Birth after birth, the individual strives for moksha, picking up from where left off in the previous existence. Hence, no effort goes wasted as Lord Krishna tells Arjuna explicitly. After repeated births, the individual finally is born in a family of wise Yogins from where the final destination becomes easier. According to Hinduism, birth is not an accident. One stations here by the workings of the Great Law of Karma. The path given is what one earns previously.

Hinduism recognises that all paths lead to the same goal, though it does not subscribe to the view that all of them take you right up to the summit. The key element of this universal idea is the directedness of the paths to the goal. There is a path in Hinduism for every aspirant to the truth. For one fit to be on a path, the Supreme One decides what path he or she is to take-the yogas of bhakti (devotion), karma (work), or jnana (contemplation) to attain moksha. There is no inferior or superior path here; only the path that corresponds to where one is stationed. But they all lead to the same goal ultimately.

“Brahman is a very specific and unique conception of the Absolute,” says Morales. Naik says that he is confused between conception and Vedic epiphany. Brahman, as revealed by the Vedas, is not a specific conception. Brahman is purnanubhava beyond all conceptions. Yet, Brahman is that in which no concept has a negation. The knowledge of Brahman is the enlargement of the aperture of our vision to the sweeping compass of its presence that one can never grasp in its entirety. Who else but Him has ever known Him?

Hinduism and the 72 Houris of Islam

But Morales says that the Islamic salvific state of 72 virgins waiting for the pious Muslim; Christians aiming for salvation to physically ascend from the dead to reach heaven and meet Jesus; Jains seeking a kevala where there is an eternal existence of omniscience and omnipotence; Buddhists seeking to dissolve all the transitory elements, producing the illusion of a Self; and so on, are individual concepts irreconcilable with each other. A Christian, Muslim, Jain, or Buddhist, would become upset and confused if they found themselves united with Brahman. Conversely, the Hindu yogi would probably be quite bewildered upon finding 72 virgins waiting for him, says Morales.

This is a self-contradiction. Brahman is Sat-Chit-Ananda (Existence-Consciousness-Bliss), a state of absolute happiness and non-confusion with the pure light of knowledge. A state where one is confused or upset implies simply that the individual has not reached the state of Brahman. The self-contradiction results from being ambiguous on the meaning of the term “union with Brahman” and a poor understanding of Vedanta. The Upanishads state explicitly that Brahman presents Himself in accordance with one’s own fixed conception of Reality. One that conceives of Brahman as nothing becoming nothing (Tai.Up.VI.1). Regarding different schools, Gaudapada (Karika on the Mandukya Upanishad) says: Anyone to whom a teacher may show a particular object as reality sees that alone. And that thing, too, protects him by becoming identified with him. That absorption leads to his self-identity with the object of devotion (Karika.II.29). This reality is presented as if it were different through these things that are really no different from the Self.He who truly understands this comprehends the meaning of the Vedas without hesitation.(Karika.II.30)

Though Dr Morales, perhaps influenced by the Judeo-Christian abhorrence for the erotic, finds it quite bewildering, a true Hindu does not find the 72 virgins’ salvific state dissonant with his universalism. To a Hindu, erotic stimulation is not something alien; it is as natural to life as breathing is. The essential form of the erotic is beauty, and its primary flavour is sweetness. The union that the genders seek in their mortal bodies is the eternal unity of the masculine and the feminine that they see dimly refracted through the prism of duality. When the desire is sublimated into love for the Divine, it can become a path to salvation. The single-minded devotion to the lover is called Madhura-bhava. It is the central theme of Rasa-Leela, the play of Radha and Krishna.

In Advaita, for example, the sadhaka displays vairagya for everything here and hereafter, up to and including the world of Brahma. But one, with still a trace of desire, follows the path of the Lower Brahman. The higher is the formless aspect, and the lower is the Lord ornamented with the universe. Advaita admits that those devoted to the Lower Brahman attain salvation in stages. Shankaracharya says that the Lower Brahman is Hiranyagarbha, the Purusha identified with all the beings of the world. In the world of Hiranyagarbha, the soul enjoys the pleasures of heaven that accrue to it from the merits it has accumulated in its journeys. When subtle desires in the soul have not been fully eradicated, the soul attains the world of the Lower Brahman and enjoys the fruits of its merits. Hinduism may be uncompromising in its pursuit of truth, but its heart is large enough to accommodate the salvific states of other religions, virgins included.

Ramakrishna and the Irruption of Hindu Universalism

In his attempt to negate Radical Universalism, Dr Morales also belittles the Hindu saint, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1836–1886), who was perhaps the greatest embodiment of Hindu Universalism. Morales writes: “Throughout his remarkable life, Ramakrishna remained illiterate and wholly unfamiliar with both classical Hindu literature and philosophy and the authentic teachings of the great acharyas who served as the guardians of those sacred teachings. Despite the severely obvious challenges that he experienced in understanding Hindu theology, playing upon the en vogue sentiment of religious universalism of his day, Ramakrishna ended up being one of the most widely popular neo-Hindu Radical Universalists.”

These are careless words. To judge that Sri Ramakrishna was not familiar with the authentic teachings of the great Acharyas betrays an extremely poor understanding of Vedanta, Brahman, and the need for scriptures. It is a repeated teaching of the masters that humans with limited vision cannot understand the individual who has attained Self Realization. The authentic Self also needs no teachings (Ramana Maharishi is another example).

Sri Ramakrishna said: “This world has come out of the Self; where shall ye find its truth if not in the recognition of Self? No one can say that God is only ‘this’ and nothing else. He is formless, and again He has forms. For the bhakta, He assumes forms. But He is formless for the jnani, that is, for him who looks on the world as a mere dream… the jnani realizes Brahman in his own consciousness. He cannot describe what Brahman is…Think of Brahman, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute, as a shoreless ocean. Through the cooling influence, as it were, of the bhakta’a love, the water has frozen at places into blocks of ice. In other words, God now and then assumes various forms for His lovers and reveals Himself to them as a Person. But with the rising of the sun of Knowledge, the blocks of ice melt. Then one does not feel anymore that God is a Person, nor does one see God’s forms. In that state a man no longer finds the existence of his ego. Who can describe how he feels in that state – in his own Pure Consciousness – about the real nature of Brahman?”

Can anyone with even an inkling of Ramakrishna’s teachings and the true nature of Vedanta really say that Sri Ramakrishna was unfamiliar with the authentic teachings of the Hindu religion? This “illiterate rustic” was a blaze of jnana-shakti that reduced great Hindu scholars like Ishwara Chandra Vidyasagar and Pundit Shashadhar to the likes of kindergarten students. Clearly, Dr Morales has not bothered to read anything about Ramakrishna’s life and teachings before writing his paper.

Ramakrishna’s ideas and practices were influenced by the outlooks of Islam and liberal Christianity, apparently blending, mixing, and matching beliefs as they appealed to him. This is again a statement from ignorance of the saint’s well-documented life. Sri Ramakrishna, after his first vision of the Divine Mother at twenty years of age in 1856, spent the next decade of his life in intense sadhana in the traditions of bhakti, meditation, and tantra (under the tutelage of Bhairavi Brahmani). In 1865, it culminated in the highest goal that a bhakta may reach—the state of Madhura bhava. Shortly after this, under the initiation of Totapuri, an Avadhuta, Sri Ramakrishna attained the vision of the unspeakable Non-Dual Truth in the Advaitic traditions. Sri Ramakrishna remained for a full six months in the ineffable state of Nirvikalpa Samadhi, in complete neglect of his body and physical well-being.

After this, in 1866, Sri Ramakrishna met a Sufi holy man and became eager to experience for himself how the Lord blessed devotees who worshipped Him through the forms of Islam. The sadhana lasted precisely three days in the gardens of Dakshineswar and not in a mosque. Eight years later, in 1874, Sri Ramakrishna undertook devotion to Christ, which also lasted only for a few days in the temple premises of Dakshineswar. Ramakrishna recognised that Islam and Christianity are forms of the same Spiritual Truth. In Kashmir Shaivism, this recognition is Ishvara Pratyabhijna. To say that Sri Ramakrishna resorted to worshipping in mosques and churches to create a mixing of ideas from different religions and traditions is to distort a few singular events in his sadhana to make them appear as if they were regular features of his life.

Next, Dr Morales tries to forge a spurious nexus between Radical Universalism, Brahmo Samaj, and Sri Ramakrishna when he says, “We encounter one of the first instances of the Radical Universalist infiltration of Hinduism in the syncretistic teachings of Ram Mohan Roy (1772–1833), the founder of the infamous Brahmo Samaj.” Dr Morales is confused when he says that the doctrine of the Brahmos was a form of Radical Universalism. He contradicts himself by stating that the Brahmos rejected Hindu “panentheism” as well as all forms of iconic worship. If the Brahmos truly believed that all religions are the same, they would have had no reason to reject Hindu “panentheism” or “iconic worship.”

Ram Mohan Roy, based on the twin conceptions of formless God and reason, rejected both the Advaita of Shankara (the God of the Brahmos was a formless God that created the world ex-nihilo) as well as the idolatry of Hindu polytheism. Ram Mohan Roy correctly defined himself as a Hindu Unitarian and not as a Universalist. It is sheer delusion when Dr Morales tries to show that Hindu Universalism came from the Brahmo Samaj or that the Brahmos influenced Sri Ramakrishna into accepting a universalism that did not exist in Hinduism.

Ram Mohan Roy died four years before Sri Ramakrishna was born. It was Keshab Chandra Sen, among the Brahmos, who shared the closest and most intimate relationship with Sri Ramakrishna. Even at an early age, Keshab had come under the spell of Christ, and he professed to have experienced the special favour of John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, and St. Paul. Keshab’s faithfulness to Christ was to remain right up to the end of his life, believing himself to be an incarnation of Judas, the thirteenth disciple of Jesus who had betrayed the Son of God. While Keshab enriched the doctrine of the Brahmos with the genius of his intellect, at its core, it remained eclectic in character, intellectually pieced together from the best features of various religions. By 1866, he could no longer hide the inner propensity of his soul, and when he strove to introduce Christ to the Samaj, a rupture became inevitable. In 1868, he split to found the Brahmo Samaj of India, while the first Brahmo Samaj, under the leadership of Devendra Nath Tagore, became the Adi Samaj. In the aftermath of the schism, Keshab went through a deep moral crisis. And then, in the year 1875, Keshab met Sri Ramakrishna.

Keshab was convinced that Sri Ramakrishna must have actually seen God. Stupefied and puzzled, the high priest of the Brahmo cult felt like a child before this man of realisation and listened to him with utmost reverence. Keshab, intensely moved, developed a deep reverence for Ramakrishna. He began to speak about Sri Ramakrishna in his sermons and quoted him frequently in his writings. Soon, he became the instrument through which the voice of Sri Ramakrishna reached the elite of Bengal. Keshab’s doctrine was until now merely an intellectual synthesis. But his association with Sri Ramakrishna broadened his vision, and his eclecticism began to give way to a more truly universal conception of God. To Keshab, God had been the Father, but from Sri Ramakrishna, he learnt that God is also the Mother; that Brahman and His Maya are One; and that idol worship is similar to singing the glories of God’s attributes. Keshab introduced the singing of kirtans to the accompaniment of Vaishnavite music into the Brahmo Samaj.

In 1879, there was a great revival that was brought out of the New Dispensation. It was a vision of the Vedic God influenced by Sri Ramakrishna, but Keshab covered it with the name of Christ. According to the New Dispensation, God, out of His boundless love for man, incarnates on earth from time to time. Clearly, the vision was Hindu, but in Keshab’s eyes, it bore the name of Christ. The New Dispensation was not merely Christ coming to India, but Christ coming to the entire world. He was convinced that the West had not understood Christ and that the New Dispensation was “an institution of the Holy Spirit that completes the Old and New Testaments.”

The sequence of events belies the charge that Hindu Universalism was the infiltration of a Western idea into Hinduism, or “the Christianization of Hindu theology,” as Dr Morales calls it. The New Dispensation is proof that the current of history actually flowed in the reverse direction-originating in a Hindu source and moved towards the universalisation of Christian theology. Even with the inspirational storm of the New Dispensation, Keshab had become an ardent devotee of Mother Kali. Many other Brahmos also came under the sway of Sri Ramakrishna. The Brahmos began to appreciate that there was much significance behind image worship. From Sri Ramakrishna, they learnt that Brahman and its manifestations are inseparable. Sri Ramakrishna’s universal vision was not, as Dr Morales claims, due to the influence of the Brahmo Samaj or Keshab Sen. If one cares to read his biographies, it speaks for itself. Dr Morales fails to provide a single argument to substantiate his claims; instead, he merely gives blinkered opinions.

Swami Vivekananda

Dr Morales proceeds to opine about Swami Vivekananda, that he, along with the other leaders of the neo-Hindu movement, felt it necessary to both water down authentic Hinduism and adopt such foreign ideas as Radical Universalism, with the hope of gaining the approval of the European masters they found ruling over them. This is a delusional statement. Romain Rolland describes the Swami thus: “He was a born king and nobody ever came near him, either in India or America, without paying homage to his majesty.” If there is one trait of Vivekananda that comes across consistently in all his biographies, it is this: he never stooped to the opinions of anyone. He abhorred hypocrisy and never hesitated to strike down any form of a sham. The Swami said, “Bravery is the highest virtue… Don’t be concerned about the wealthy and powerful…To pay respect to the rich and hang on to them for support is conduct which becomes a public woman. “

Innumerable sages have enriched the soil of Hinduism. Not all of them were alike. Vivekananda was not an acharya; he did not come to this world to establish any particular Darshana. He had a different role to play here. He came to awaken, not to formulate Hindu doctrinal responses to modernity. Though Vivekananda’s message was based on Vedanta, he delivered it with a freedom of form that suited the purpose of rousing the sleeping Hindus. Had it not been for Vivekananda, the mental sloth that possessed the average Hindu at the end of the nineteenth century would probably have sunk him to the lowest level of servility.

A sadhaka on the path of Vedanta needs to have an adhikara. This adhikara is a result of his predispositions and readiness for grace. Vivekananda saw that the majority of the Hindus at the end of the nineteenth century were deeply servile and self-serving. Vivekananda came to awaken the Hindus from the belief that they were born slaves. The Swami says: “Why is it that we, three hundred and thirty million people, have been ruled for the last thousand years by any and every handful of foreigners? Because they had faith in themselves and we had not… not the English…. It is we who are responsible for all our… degradation. “

Vivekananda once said to Nivedita that the heart must become like a cremation ground—its pride, selfishness, and desire all burnt to ashes. In Vivekananda, we see not the dissections of Hindu doctrinal tenets but the will to heroism, and his words, his actions, and his life were the burning fire that stirred the heart of the Hindu to take pride once again in being a Hindu. The hero was the voice of a resurgent Hinduism. At a time when the educated Hindu had begun to be ashamed of their own religion; when the downtrodden Hindu was in abject poverty and had insufficient food to eat; and when the voiceless Hindu watched in dismay as his religion was sacked by the Indologists on one hand and the Hindu reformists on the other, Vivekananda was the hero who restored Hindu religion’s glory.

He epitomised both the pursuit of the highest truth and the selfless service of God to humanity. It is a travesty of truth to accuse Vivekananda of diluting the teachings of Hinduism. Ironically, it is Morales that is watering down the teachings of Hinduism by denying them the great universalism that lies at its heart. Before one can judge saints, one needs to immerse oneself in the living waters of Hinduism. A superficial reading of the texts instead of the intense sadhana required for many years can give a distorted view of what Hinduism is all about or the state of the spiritually realised saints. When assessing both Hindu traditions and their saints, Morales is guilty of this to the core.

Continued in part 3