The Yogi and the Devotee (Routledge Revivals)

The Interplay Between the Upanishads and Catholic Theology

Ninian Smart

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136629334
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy of Religion

First published in 1968, Ninian Smart's The Yogi and the Devotee: The Interplay Between the Upanishads and Catholic Theology is based on lectures given in Delhi and explores in a novel way the relation between Hinduism and Christianity. The author puts forward a general theory of the relationship between religious experience and doctrines, a theory he had developed in earlier works. He argues that a new form of 'natural theology' should be presented, which would show the relevance of religious experience and ritual to what is given in revelation. Smart believes this could be the key to a new understanding between Christianity and Indian religions, and also examines what Christians can learn from other faiths. During a career as a Professor of Religious Studies and Philosophy, Ninian Smart was hugely influential in the way Religious Studies was taught, not only in Britain but around the world.

CHAPTER II

THE NATURE OF NATURAL THEOLOGY AND THE WESTERN TRADITION

2.1. If the analysis in the previous chapter is at all correct, it implies that religious experience plays an important role in the formation of the Indian systems of belief. This is, in any event, a thesis likely to appeal to many students of Hinduism and Buddhism, whether they belong to either of these faiths or not. For both seem to lay great stress on the existential realization of the truth, and this is but another way of claiming to focus upon experience. The Buddhism, for instance, of the Pali canon affirms that the Buddha’s faith is ehipassiko,a ‘come-and-see’ faith. Of course, the seeing is not literal seeing; but it stands for a form of experience. The emphasis upon experience itself is reflected in the practical psychological teachings of much in the Hindu and other Indian traditions — yoga is a nest of psychological techniques (and since the mind and the body are interwoven, of bodily techniques also). But though it is in yoga that we more easily recognize the stress upon existential experience in the Indian religion, bhakti too importantly emphasizes the possibility of communion with God and the dramatic impact of the Lord in human experience. Thus the great theophany of Vishnu in the Bhagavadgītā is a memorable expression of the mysterium through which God presents himself to the human psyche.

2.2. Before we can estimate properly the significance of religious experience for the mutual understanding of religions, and of Christianity and Hinduism in particular, it is necessary to set it in the wider context of religion. For after all, religion does not only consist in religious experience: it consists in many other things besides. Moreover, even if we can see in the experiential roots of the Indian systems the possibility of an interplay with Christian faith, we must also recognize that natural theology has been traditionally conceived in the West as a rather intellectual thing. There is thus a certain lack of correspondence between that aspect of Catholic theology (in the broad sense previously outlined — 1.1) which promises most for an understanding of Hinduism and the actual basis of so much of Indian spirituality. Natural theology tends to speak of arguments: Hinduism tends to resort to experience and intuitions. Natural theology is a rational account of the world; but religion so often is an imaginative apprehension of the world. Natural theology seems theoretical; so much of faith is practical. It appears, then, that a gap is fixed between the outward reach of Western natural theology and the universal themes of Indian existence. The way forward is by a broader conception of natural theology. But this in turn presupposes a proper account of religion.

2.3. Hitherto our analysis of systems has been on the one hand doctrinal and on the other hand experiential. On the one hand we have singled out beliefs such as the unity of Brahman and ātman or the doctrine of Nirvana; on the other hand we have looked to bhakti and dhyāna. To some extent the analysis has also included, in a broad sense, ritual: for the practice of bhakti includes worship, and is sometimes predicated upon a background of sacrificial ritual, as in the Advaita of Shankara, and the achievement of dhyāna is consequent upon the practice of yoga. Now admittedly yoga is not worship; and it is not sacrifice, though it can be interpreted (as in the Upanishads) in sacrificial terms. Yoga is not what we might ordinarily call ritual. But it has analogies to worship and sacrifice, for it is the practice of a spiritual activity. It is within the ambit of religion, and it is directed towards a religious end. Perhaps, then, we may be permitted to count it under the general head of ritual. If we are allowed to do this, then we can claim that our analysis has included reference not merely to the doctrinal and experiential dimensions of religion, but also to the ritual.

2.4. But this still leaves out much that is of importance for getting a full-bodied view of religion. For one thing, little (though something) has been said about the mythological aspects of the various theologies under consideration. Though, say, Ramanuja’s system may bear a close resemblance to Christian theism, its mythological substance remains very different. While Christian theism focuses upon the events of Christ’s life, death and resurrection (and much else besides), Ramanuja, in the daily practice of his faith, concentrated upon the figure of Vishnu, replete with the incarnations through which he manifests himself to men in scriptures and temples. The mythological anchorage of Ramanuja’s religion, then, is highly diverse from that of the Christian’s faith. It might here seem a little strange to treat the events of Christ’s life, death and resurrection as ‘mythological’, and a word about this general topic is necessary.

2.5. Myths are in essence, as the name implies, stories; and they are stories about the gods, or about men in so far as they stand in relation to the sacred or divine world. It is characteristic of mythological thinking that truths are not conveyed by metaphysical affirmations, but by a kind of poetry. In this respect, myths are like parables, though parables are more self-consciously pointing beyond themselves. Parables hint at an underlying truth conveyed pictorially; myths encapsulate the truth in their own substance. They are generally treated seriously in themselves — they do not demand a further interpretation. Or at least this seems to be so as long as religion simply stays at the mythological level. But when doctrines are propounded, then the myths are often treated as pointing to the doctrines. They take on the form of parables. Thus in recent times it has become fashionable among Christians to look on the story of Adam and Eve as a parable of the human condition, rather than as an explanatory myth.

2.6. If myths are stories about God or the gods, then in one important sense the account of Christ’s life, death and resurrection as contained in the Gospels is a myth. The Gospels are about God: they are not just a bit of history-writing. They tell a story, then, about God, which is, as it happens, an historical story. It is a matter for later discussion as to whether it is better for myths to be historically founded (as is the case in Christianity). But the analogy between the historical myth of Christ and the largely unhistorical myths of so many religions (including Christianity itself, for the account of the Creation must fall into this category) may justify us in using the term ‘myth’ to describe what is recorded in the Gospels. The term, of course, does not imply anything either way about the truth of the Christian story.

2.7. We have, then, a great diversity in substance between the mythology incorporated into, say, Ramanuja’s religion and that of Christianity. Similarly the mythological flavour of Buddhism is very diverse from that either of Christianity or of Hinduism. Again, the Jain picture of the world contains its own particular myths. About all this little has hitherto been said. Suffice it at the moment to note that we must add to the doctrinal, experiential and ritual dimensions of religion the mythological.

2.8. Ritual is one kind of practice. But it can tie in with the ethical demands of a faith. Thus for the Christian good conduct, love, compassion — these can function as a form of worship. Worship is extended beyond the boundaries of Sunday and the doors of churches to practice of the holy life. The ethical side of religion has been touched on in the previous chapter, in relation to the development of the Bodhisattva ideal as expressing the heart of compassion. But it is clearly more important than such a rather passing reference would suggest. Alongside the doctrines and the myths, then, we must place the ethical dimension. Naturally the capacity of men to follow the ethical teachings of a faith may fall far short of what is required. What for our purposes is important is not so much the actual effects of faith on conduct as the ideals enshrined in faith. Thus the ethical dimension can be regarded as co-ordinate with the doctrinal dimension. Both represent the teachings of a religion, as also do the mythological stories which give colourful and imaginative substance to the Weltanschauung and values expressed in those teachings. Thus doctrines, myths and ethical teachings can be seen as a trinity of dimensions representing the beliefs of a faith. Experience and ritual can be seen as expressing the manifestation of religion in life.

2.9. But that manifestation is not just a matter of these two dimensions. Religion is a social phenomenon, having both social causes and social effects. It works itself out in communities. It may fall short of ideals, but that very falling short is a manifestation of its operation. Likewise if it rises beyond its ideals. The social side of faith, then, has to be added to the experiential and ritual dimensions as part of the manifestation of religion in practice. We now have a further trinity — religion, so to say, in manifestation is comprised of the experiential, ritual and social dimensions.

2.10. Naturally, the contrast drawn between the two trinities is too simple. For people’s beliefs are as much part of the manifestation of religion as their ritual practices. But the first trinity does stand for the concepts which give meaning to religious activity; while the latter trinity delineates the nature and fruit of that activity. If there is a crudeness in the contrast it will be moderated by our analysis of the further problem of the relationship between the six dimensions. For they have, severally and together, an organic connection.

2.11. Let us consider first the connections between the members of the second trinity — the social, ritual and experiential dimensions of religion. We have seen in the preceding chapter that the practice of yoga culminates, or can culminate, in the higher states of dhyāna. This is one instance of where a ritual practice (in the broad sense indicated above — 2.3) provides the context for the existential knowledge of the focus of belief and endeavour. Similarly the practice of worship provides the setting for the numinous experience of a divine Being. For instance, Isaiah’s famous vision of the Lord in the Temple occurred in the context of an ongoing religion of worship. This is not to deny that prophetic experiences can be revolutionary and so lead to a transcendence of the tradition in which they were born. This is, indeed, a crucial aspect of the more significant religious experiences in the history of religion. Often they have precipitated widespread changes. One has but to think of Paul on the road to Damascus, the Buddha’s enlightenment, the prophetic visions of Muhammad. But the point remains: that these occur in a certain context.

2.12. The contextual relation between ritual and religious experience cannot simply be interpreted as a kind of causal relation, as though it is the practice of worship or yoga which causes the experiences in question. This may sometimes be so, although it is extremely hard to suppose that one could perform effective experiments in this field in a controlled way which would establish such a connection, or its absence. More importantly, the nature of the experience is seen in relation to the contextual activity. What Isaiah perceived in the Temple hinted at the Lord, and the Lord is the supreme object of the contextual cultus of worship and sacrifice. Indeed it is intrinsic to the concept of God that he is deemed holy, worthy of worship. That is, the concept ‘God’ itself is partly defined by the ritual context. This already broadens the scope of the organic connection between the dimensions, for it implies that worship itself ties in with the doctrinal or the mythological dimension, or both, as we shall shortly see (2.13).

2.13. The contextual relationship between ritual and experience can be illustrated by an example drawn from sport. It does not make proper sense to speak of scoring a goal save in the context of a certain game, let us say football. It is true that a boy may be playing an imaginary game by himself and may shoot the ball between the posts, thinking ‘I have scored’. But this case is itself parasitic upon the prior institution of football as a game played in reality and not in mere imagination. Thus the set of rules governing play constitutes the context of the concept ‘goal’, and instances of goal-scoring occur in the context of play.

2.14. If ritual and religious experience have this kind of connection, then the third member of the trinity, the social dimension, must be brought in too. It is in the community that the ritual is performed, and it is through participation in the community that a person learns what worship, etc., mean. These are in a sense public activities even when performed in private and alone. For example, the practice of eremitical yoga in early Buddhism by members of the Sangha had a certain setting: that setting was constituted not merely by the institution of the Sangha itself, conceived as a body of persons devoted to the continuance of the way of life prescribed by the Buddha, but also by the wider community of those who respected the ideals and the practices involved, and who were the catchment area for recruitment to the Sangha. A person outside the Sangha could yet have an understanding of what the Path consisted in, for they themselves were already participating in the broader life of the Buddha’s religion. We may thus say: the experiential dimension has as its context the ritual, and the ritual is learned and nurtured in community.

2.15. It has already been noted (2.10) that the ritual dimension presupposes something of the upper trinity of dimensions. For it is necessary to ask ourselves what is meant by worship. We cannot answer that it is a matter of (say) kneeling and shutting one’s eyes. Certainly these items of behaviour express adoration, for they are given this meaning in certain communities. But to express adoration more is needed than kneeling, etc. A person who is kneeling and keeping his eyes shut may be thinking of cricket; or he may be thinking what a waste of time religion is. He can be thinking all sorts of things which have nothing to do with adoration. We would say about a person in this condition: he gave the appearance of worshipping, but he wasn’t doing so really. For the activity of worship has to be directed in a certain way. It is an activity with an object. Worshipping is worshipping God, or a god. In short, to give a proper account of ritual one has to introduce something of the doctrinal and/or mythological dimension. One has to make reference to Vishnu or Ganesh or Christ or Allah or Jupiter. To put the matter crudely: the inner meaning of worship is supplied by doctrinal or mythological belief. More generally: ritual, for its interpretation, has to be referred to the upper trinity.

2.16. If ritual is the context of religious experience, and if ritual is intrinsically connected to doctrinal and/or mythological conceptions, then religious experience is so connected. The experience is seen as that of the Lord; it is seen as involved in the attainment of Nirvana; and so on.

2.17. We now turn more directly to the upper trinity — doctrines, myths, ethics. What relations do they possess? The connection is close, and for that very reason not too easy to state clearly. We defined (2.5) myths as stories about the divine or sacred. Included in them, for convenience, we count the stories of historical events treated as manifestations of the divine or sacred. The relationship between myths and doctrines can be illustrated by reference to the development of the Trinity doctrine. The latter is scarcely a story about God’s nature: it is an attempt to delineate its eternal structure.

2.18. The Trinity doctrine has a certain basis and it has certain aims. Its basis consists chiefly in the events of Christ’s life and of Pentecost. Here the divine Being manifests himself in a special way to men and among men. But also as part of the basis there are the earlier acts of God in the history of Israel. There seem then to be three phases of divine activity: that of the Father, that of the Son, that of the Holy Spirit. This then is the mythological basis of the Trinity doctrine. As for the aims of the latter: these were at least two-fold, to preserve the essential monotheism claimed by Christianity while also expressing the triple richness of the divine activity, and to demarcate orthodoxy in the face of doctrines tending to lower the status of Christ. The Church worshipped Christ. This would be idolatry were not Christ God. These aims were achieved by the somewhat abstract vocabulary of Nicea. The phases of divine activity were seen not just as modes of God’s operation, but as revealing three Persons. Behind the mythology lay an eternal and triple substance.

2.19. This example helps us to understand something of the interplay between doctrine and mythology. Doctrine helps to define and clarify the suggestions implicit in mythology. It helps too to prevent the myths from degenerating into simple stories. In the case of Christianity, doctrine emphasizes the transcendent aspect of reality, so that the history of Jesus or of the ancient Jews is not mere history, but revelatory of what lies beyond. Myths point beyond themselves, but we are driven to ask: ‘To what?’ Doctrinal affirmations are a way of bringing out the What.

2.20. But since doctrines concern the Transcendent, and the relation between that and the world, they would remain merely theoretical in the absence of some way of locating the self-revelatory activity of the Transcendent. A merely transcendent God would have no connection with human affairs. It could theoretically be the case that God was like that, or that Nirvana was like that: there, somehow, but totally unattainable. But it is the universal testimony of actual religions that the Transcendent is somehow revealed or seen in the experience of the inhabitants of the cosmos. This notion becomes important for understanding the connection between doctrine, myth and religious experience. But first we have to say something about the ambiguous concept of revelation.

2.21. There are at least two main ways in which the Transcendent is conceived as being revealed or seen in human experience. One is by some earthly manifestation, such as the acts of God as described in the Old and New Testaments, or in the figure of the Buddha as according to the Mahāyāna Three-Body doctrine (1.62). Another is in religious experience, as in Paul’s dramatic confrontation with Christ and in the Buddha’s enlightenment. For the sake of exposition, we may provisionally call these modes of revelation ‘mythological revelation’ and ‘experiential revelation’ respectively. This way of distinguishing them can only, however, be provisional, in view of the connection between mythology and religious experience already (2.15) mentioned. Thus, for instance, the marvellous theophany vouchsafed to Arjuna is replete with mythological symbolism. Arjuna’s vision is, so to say, clothed in fragments of stories about Vishnu. Nevertheless, we can draw a rough and ready line between the concretely conceived manifestation of the Transcendent through earthly acts, lying, as it were, in the public domain, and the existentially conceived visions and inner contemplative states through which the Transcendent can appear to individuals, lying, so to say, in the private domain.

2.22. Without one or other of these modes of manifestation the Transcendent becomes a barren concept; or to put the matter in a different way, the doctrinal dimension has no basis in experience if it is not connected to one or other of these forms of manifestation.

2.23. Conversely, myths without doctrines easily degenerate into mere historical tales or fairy stories, while experiences without doctrines are mere items of psychology. I am not here arguing that therefore religion must be true. The question of the truth of religion is not here at issue. What is being attempted is an analysis of the thought-forms and practices of religion, and in this context it is correct to note that myths and experiences are conceived as revelatory of something (so to say) beyond themselves. They are seen as manifesting the divine or as constituting the Transcendent, etc.

2.24. Religions can differ in their emphases upon mythological revelation and experiential revelation....