The Reconciliation of Races and Religions Part 11

I do not say that Baha-'ullah is unique or that His revelations are final. There will be other Messiahs after Him, nor is the race of the prophets extinct. The supposition of finality is treason to the ever active, ever creative Spirit of Truth. But till we have already entered upon a new aeon, we shall have to look back in a special degree to the prophets who introduced our own aeon, Baha-'ullah and Keshab Chandra Sen, whose common object is the spiritual unification of all peoples. For it is plain that this union of peoples can only be obtained through the influence of prophetic personages, those of the past as well as those of the present.

QUALITIES OF THE MEN OF THE COMING RELIGION (Gal. v. 22)

1. Love. What is love? Let Rabindranath Tagore tell us.

'In love all the contradictions of existence merge themselves and are lost. Only in love are unity and duality not at variance. Love must be one and two at the same time.

'Only love is motion and rest in one. Our heart ever changes its place till it finds love, and then it has its rest....

'In this wonderful festival of creation, this great ceremony of self-sacrifice of G.o.d, the lover constantly gives himself up to gain himself in love....

'In love, at one of its poles you find the personal, and at the other the impersonal.' [Footnote: Tagore, _Sadhana_ (1913), p. 114.]

I do not think this has been excelled by any modern Christian teacher, though the vivid originality of the Buddha's and of St. Paul's descriptions of love cannot be denied. The subject, however, is too many-sided for me to attempt to describe it here. Suffice it to say that the men of the coming religion will be distinguished by an intelligent and yet intense altruistic affection--the new-born love.

2 and 3. Joy and Peace. These are fundamental qualities in religion, and especially, it is said, in those forms of religion which appear to centre in incarnations. This statement, however, is open to criticism. It matters but little how we attain to joy and peace, as long as we do attain to them. Christians have not surpa.s.sed the joy and peace produced by the best and safest methods of the Indian and Persian sages.

I would not belittle the tranquil and serene joy of the Christian saint, but I cannot see that this is superior to the same joy as it is exhibited in the Psalms of the Brethren or the Sisters in the Buddhistic Order. Nothing is more remarkable in these songs than the way in which joy and tranquillity are interfused. So it is with G.o.d, whose creation is the production of tranquillity and utter joy, and so it is with G.o.dlike men--men such as St. Francis of a.s.sisi in the West and the poet-seers of the Upanishads in the East. All these are at once joyous and serene. As Tagore says, 'Joy without the play of joy is no joy; play without activity is no play.' [Footnote: Tagore, _Sadhana_ (1913), p. 131.] And how can he act to advantage who is perturbed in mind? In the coming religion all our actions will be joyous and tranquil. Meantime, transitionally, we have much need both of long-suffering [Footnote: This quality is finely described in chap. vi. of _The Path of Light_ (Wisdom of the East series).]

and of courage; 'quit you like men, be strong.' (I write in August 1914.)

REFORM OF ISLAM

And what as to Islam? Is any fusion between this and the other great religions possible? A fusion between Islam and Christianity can only be effected if first of all these two religions (mutually so repugnant) are reformed. Thinking Muslims will more and more come to see that the position a.s.signed by Muhammad to himself and to the Kur'an implies that he had a thoroughly unhistorical mind. In other words he made those exclusive and uncompromising claims under a misconception. There were true apostles or prophets, both speakers and writers, between the generally accepted date of the ministry of Jesus and that of the appearance of Muhammad, and these true prophets were men of far greater intellectual grasp than the Arabian merchant.

Muslim readers ought therefore to feel it no sacrilege if I advocate the correction of what has thus been mistakenly said. Muhammad was one of the prophets, not _the_ prophet (who is virtually = the Logos), and the Kur'an is only adapted for Arabian tribes, not for all nations of the world.

One of the points in the exhibition of which the Arabian Bible is most imperfect is the love of G.o.d, i.e. the very point in which the Sufi cla.s.sical poets are most admirable, though indeed an Arabian poetess, who died 135 Hij., expresses herself already in the most thrilling tones. [Footnote: Von Kremer's _Herrschende Ideen des Islams_, pp. 64, etc.]

Perhaps one might be content, so far as the Kur'an is concerned, with a selection of Suras, supplemented by extracts from other religious cla.s.sics of Islam. I have often thought that we want both a Catholic Christian lectionary and a Catholic prayer-book. To compile this would be the work not of a prophet, but of a band of interpreters. An exacting work which would be its own reward, and would promote, more perhaps than anything else, the reformation and ultimate blending of the different religions.

Meantime no persecution should be allowed in the reformed Islamic lands. Thankful as we may be for the Christian and Bahaite heroism generated by a persecuting fanaticism, we may well wish that it might be called forth otherwise. Heroic was the imprisonment and death of Captain Conolly (in Bukhara), but heroic also are the lives of many who have spent long years in unhealthy climates, to civilize and moralize those who need their help.

SYNTHESIS OF RELIGIONS

'There is one G.o.d and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all.'

These words in the first instance express the synthesis of Judaism and Oriental pantheism, but may be applied to the future synthesis of Islam and Hinduism, and of both conjointly with Christianity. And the subjects to which I shall briefly refer are the exclusiveness of the claims of Christ and of Muhammad, and of Christ's Church and of Muhammad's, the image-worship of the Hindus and the excessive development of mythology in Hinduism. With the lamented Sister Nivedita I hold that, in India, in proportion as the two faiths pa.s.s into higher phases, the easier it becomes for the one faith to be brought into a synthesis combined with the other.

Sufism, for instance, is, in the opinion of most, 'a Muhammadan sect.' It must, at any rate, be admitted to have pa.s.sed through several stages, but there is, I think, little to add to fully developed Sufism to make it an ideal synthesis of Islam and Hinduism. That little, however, is important. How can the Hindu accept the claim either of Christ or of Muhammad to be the sole gate to the mansions of knowledge?

The most popular of the Hindu Scriptures expressly provides for a succession of _avatars_; how, indeed, could the Eternal Wisdom have limited Himself to raising up a single representative of Messiahship. For were not Sakya Muni, Kabir and his disciple Nanak, Chaitanya, the Tamil poets (to whom Dr. Pope has devoted himself) Messiahs for parts of India, and Nisiran for j.a.pan, not to speak here of Islamic countries?

It is true, the exclusive claim of Christ (I a.s.sume that they are adequately proved) is not expressly incorporated into the Creeds, so that by mentally recasting the Christian can rid himself of his burden. And a time must surely come when, by the common consent of the Muslim world the reference to Muhammad in the brief creed of the Muslim will be removed. For such a removal would be no disparagement to the prophet, who had, of necessity, a thoroughly unhistorical mind (p. 193).

The 'one true Church' corresponds of course with the one true G.o.d. Hinduism, which would willingly accept the one, would as naturally accept the other also, as a great far-spreading caste. There are in fact already monotheistic castes in Hinduism.

As for image-worship, the Muslims should not plume themselves too much on their abhorrence of it, considering the immemorial cult of the Black Stone at Mecca. If a conference of Vedantists and Muslims could be held, it would appear that the former regarded image-worship (not idolatry) [Footnote: Idols and images are not the same thing; the image is, or should be, symbolic. So, at least, I venture to define it.] simply as a provisional concession to the ignorant ma.s.ses, who will not perhaps always remain so ignorant. So, then, Image-worship and its attendant Mythology have naturally become intertwined with high and holy a.s.sociations. Thus that delicate poetess Mrs. Naidu (by birth a Parsi) writes:

Who serves her household in fruitful pride, And worships the G.o.ds at her husband's side.

I do not see, therefore, why we Christians (who have a good deal of myth in our religion) should object to a fusion with Islam and Hinduism on the grounds mentioned above. Only I do desire that both the Hindu and the Christian myths should be treated symbolically. On this (so far as the former are concerned) I agree with Keshab Chandra Sen in the last phase of his incomplete religious development. That the myths of Hinduism require sifting, cannot, I am sure, be denied.

From myths to image-worship is an easy step. What is the meaning of the latter? The late Sister Nivedita may help us to find an answer. She tells us that when travelling ascetics go through the villages, and pause to receive alms, they are in the habit of conversing on religious matters with the good woman of the house, and that thus even a bookless villager comes to understand the truth about images. We cannot think, however, that all will be equally receptive, calling to mind that even in our own country mult.i.tudes of people subst.i.tute an unrealized doctrine about Christ for Christ Himself (i.e. convert Christ into a church doctrine), while others invoke Christ, with or without the saints, in place of G.o.d.

Considering that Christendom is to a large extent composed of image-worshippers, why should there not be a synthesis between Hinduism and Islam on the one hand, and Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity on the other? The differences between these great religions are certainly not slight. But when we get behind the forms, may we not hope to find some grains of the truth? I venture, therefore, to maintain the position occupied above as that to which Indian religious reformers must ultimately come.

I do not deny that Mr. Farquhar has made a very good fight against this view. The process of the production of an image is, to us, a strange one. It is enough to mention the existence of a rite of the bringing of life into the idol which marks the end of that process. But there are many very educated Hindus who reject with scorn the view that the idol has really been made divine, and the pa.s.sage quoted by Mr. Farquhar (p. 335) from Vivekananda [Footnote: Sister Nivedita's teacher. ] seems to me conclusive in favour of the symbol theory.

It would certainly be an aesthetic loss if these artistic symbols disappeared. But the most precious jewel would still remain, the Being who is in Himself unknowable, but who is manifested in the Divine Logos or Sofia and in a less degree in the prophets and Messiahs.

INCARNATIONS

There are some traces both in the Synoptics and in the Fourth Gospel of a Docetic view of the Lord's Person, in other words that His humanity was illusory, just as, in the Old Testament, the humanity of celestial beings is illusory. The Hindus, however, are much more sure of this. The reality of an incarnation would be unworthy of a G.o.d. And, strange as it may appear to us, this Docetic theory involves no pain or disappointment for the believer, who does but amuse himself with the sports [Footnote: See quotation from the poet Tulsi Das in Farquhar, _The Crown of Hinduism_, p. 431.] of his Patron. At the same time he is very careful not to take the G.o.d as a moral example; the result of this would be disastrous. The _avatar_ is super-moral. [Footnote: See Farquhar, p. 434.]

What, then, was the object of the _avatar_? Not simply to amuse. It was, firstly, to win the heart of the worshipper, and secondly, to communicate that knowledge in which is eternal life.

And what is to be done, in the imminent sifting of Scriptures and Traditions, with these stories? They must be rewritten, just as, I venture to think, the original story of the G.o.d-man Jesus was rewritten by being blended with the fragments of a biography of a great and good early Jewish teacher. The work will be hard, but Sister Nivedita and Miss Anthon have begun it. It must be taken as a part of the larger undertaking of a selection of rewritten myths.

Is Baha-'ullah an _avatar_? There has no doubt been a tendency to worship him. But this tendency need not be harmful to sanity of intellect. There are various degrees of divinity. Baha-'ullah's degree maybe compared to St. Paul's. Both these spiritual heroes were conscious of their superiority to ordinary believers; at the same time their highest wish was that their disciples might learn to be as they were themselves. Every one is the temple of the holy (divine) Spirit, and this Spirit-element must be deserving of worship. It is probable that the Western training of the objectors is the cause of the opposition in India to some of the forms of honour lavished, in spite of his dissuasion, on Keshab Chandra Sen. [Footnote: _Life and Teachings of Keshub Chunder Sen_, pp. III ff.]

IS JESUS UNIQUE?

One who has 'learned Christ' from his earliest years finds a difficulty in treating the subject at the head of this section. 'The disciple is not above his Master,' and when the Master is so far removed from the ordinary--is, in fact, the regenerator of society and of the individual,--such a discussion seems almost more than the human mind can undertake. And yet the subject has to be faced, and if Paul 'learned' a purely ideal Christ, deeply tinged with the colours of mythology, why should not we follow Paul's example, imitating a Christ who put on human form, and lived and died for men as their Saviour and Redeemer? Why should we not go even beyond Paul, and honour G.o.d by a.s.suming a number of Christs, among whom--if we approach the subject impartially--would be Socrates, Zarathustra, Gautama the Buddha, as well as Jesus the Christ?

Why, indeed, should we not? If we consider that we honour G.o.d by a.s.suming that every nation contains righteous men, accepted of G.o.d, why should we not complete our theory by a.s.suming that every nation also possesses prophetic (in some cases more than prophetic) revealers? Some rather lax historical students may take a different view, and insist that we have a trustworthy tradition of the life of Jesus, and that 'if in that historical figure I cannot see G.o.d, then I am without G.o.d in the world.' [Footnote: Leslie Johnston, _Some Alternatives to Jesus Christ_, p. 199.] It is, however, abundantly established by criticism that most of what is contained even in the Synoptic Gospels is liable to the utmost doubt, and that what may reasonably be accepted is by no means capable of use as the basis of a doctrine of Incarnation. I do not, therefore, see why the Life of Jesus should be a barrier to the reconciliation of Christianity and Hinduism. Both religions in their incarnation theories are, as we shall see (taking Christianity in its primitive form), frankly Docetic, both a.s.sume a fervent love for the manifesting G.o.d on the part of the worshipper. I cannot, however, bring myself to believe that there was anything, even in the most primitive form of the life of the G.o.d-man Jesus, comparable to the _unmoral_ story of the life of Krishna. Small wonder that many of the Vaishnavas prefer the _avatar_ of Rama.

It will be seen, therefore, that it is impossible to discuss the historical character of the Life of Jesus without soon pa.s.sing into the subject of His uniqueness. It is usual to suppose that Jesus, being a historical figure, must also be unique, and an Oxford theologian remarks that 'we see the Spirit in the Church always turning backwards to the historical revelation and drawing only thence the inspiration to reproduce it.' [Footnote: Leslie Johnston, _op. cit._ pp. 200 f.] He thinks that for the Christian consciousness there can be only one Christ, and finds this to be supported by a critical reading of the text of the Gospels. Only one Christ! But was not the Buddha so far above his contemporaries and successors that he came to be virtually deified? How is not this uniqueness? It is true, Christianity has, thus far, been intolerant of other religions, which contrasts with the 'easy tolerance' of Buddhism and Hinduism and, as the author may wish to add, of Bahaism. But is the Christian intolerance a worthy element of character? Is it consistent with the Beat.i.tude p.r.o.nounced (if it was p.r.o.nounced) by Jesus on the meek? May we not, with Mr. L. Johnston's namesake, fitly say, 'Such notions as these are a survival from the bad old days'?

[Footnote: Johnston, _Buddhist China_, p. 306.]

THE SPIRIT OF G.o.d

Another very special jewel of Christianity is the doctrine of _the Spirit_. The term, which etymologically means 'wind,' and in Gen. i. 2 and Isa. xl. 13 appears to be a fragment of a certain divine name, anciently appropriated to the Creator and Preserver of the world, was later employed for the G.o.d who is immanent in believers, and who is continually bringing them into conformity with the divine model. With the Brahmaist theologian, P.C. Mozoomdar, I venture to think that none of the old divine names is adequately suggestive of the functions of the Spirit. The Spirit's work is, in fact, nothing short of re-creation; His creative functions are called into exercise on the appearance of a new cosmic cycle, which includes the regeneration of souls.

I greatly fear that not enough homage has been rendered to the Spirit in this important aspect. And yet the doctrine is uniquely precious because of the great results which have already, in the ethical and intellectual spheres, proceeded from it, and of the still greater ones which faith descries in the future. We have, I fear, not yet done justice to the spiritual capacities with which we are endowed. I will therefore take leave to add, following Mozoomdar, that no name is so fit for the indwelling G.o.d as Living Presence. [Footnote: Mozoomdar, _The Spirit of G.o.d_ (1898), p. 64.] His gift to man is life, and He Himself is Fullness of Life. The idea therefore of G.o.d, in the myth of the Dying and Reviving Saviour, is, from one point of view, imperfect. At any rate it is a more constant help to think of G.o.d as full, not of any more meagre satisfaction at His works, but of the most intense joy.

Let us, then, join our Indian brethren in worshipping G.o.d the Spirit. In honouring the Spirit we honour Jesus, the mythical and yet real incarnate G.o.d. The Muhammadans call Jesus _ruhu'llah_, 'the Spirit of G.o.d,' and the early Bahais followed them. One of the latter addressed these striking words to a traveller from Cambridge: 'You (i.e. the Christian Church) are to-day the Manifestation of Jesus; you are the Incarnation of the Holy Spirit; nay, did you but realize it, you are G.o.d.' [Footnote: E.G. Browne, _A Year among the Persians_, p. 492.] I fear that this may go too far for some, but it is only a step in advance of our Master, St. Paul. If we do not yet fully realize our blessedness, let us make it our chief aim to do so. How G.o.d's Spirit can be dwelling in us and we in Him, is a mystery, but we may hope to get nearer and nearer to its meaning, and see that it is no _Maya_, no illusion. As an ill.u.s.tration of the mystery I will quote this from one of Vivekananda's lectures.

[Footnote: _Jnana Yoga_, p. 154.]

'Young men of Lah.o.r.e, raise once more that wonderful banner of Advaita, for on no other ground can you have that all-embracing love, until you see that the same Lord is present in the same manner everywhere; unfurl that banner of love. "Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached." Arise, arise once more, for nothing can be done without renunciation. If you want to help others, your own little self must go.... At the present time there are men who give up the world to help their own salvation. Throw away everything, even your own salvation, and go and help others.'

CHINESE AND j.a.pANESE RELIGION