Christianity as Bhakti Marga

That the process which leads to the assimilation of the knowledge given is also reflective is evident from many characteristic features of Johannine thought, We note in the first place that John has chosen the biographical form for his teaching. This form he uses ‘with considerable elasticity putting into it much of his own personal reflection and comment. He did not write as a historian, but history provided him with the starting point of his thought. He might have written liturgies, hymns, dramas, reports of ecstatic vision but he preferred to make an appeal to the intellect by solid facts, though he overlaid them with his own interpretation. His constant reference to witnesses and testimony suggests that he does not want us to take things for granted. Weare to believe not through any overpowering ecstatic experience but because of the facts which bear testimony to Jesus being the Son of God. Again, miracles are ‘signs.’ - ‘They point beyond themselves to the power of Christ and show His divine origin. They prove His tremendous power and authority. Once again, the knowledge of God is put before us as a constantly growing experience. There is no one supreme crisis of vision or rapture that places the devotee in the entire possession of all knowledge, but there is a constant advance. Jesus has many things to say to the disciples; they cannot bear them; but when the Spirit of truth is come, He shall guide them in all truth.. When washing the disciples’ feet Jesus told them that although they did not know then what He did, they would know and understand later.* It is clear that the knowledge which John speaks of is the appropriation of a divine gift through the intellect though it has also in it the warmth of personal love and the stability of action. We love God and divine revelation becomes a part of our personal life by our reflective processes working with the emotional and the active processes.”

This prominent place which John has given to the intellect has a special significance for the development. of Bhakti in India. Asa Hindu writer says, ‘ Religioerotics, with their piercing glance, their prophetic and dominating tone, their studied manners and appearances: exert a powerful influence. Their self-assurance, the fire of their faith, their feeling of infallibility, al! combine to fascinate, to hypnotise, average humanity. Wherever and whenever, whether in the East or the West, whether in Hinduism or Christianity, the path of devotion has been trodden with heedless and headlong steps unguided by the reins of intellect, such has ever been the case.’* Bhakti is a valuable approach to God, but it should be checked and controlled by the thought and the wili. Otherwise it will degenerate into extravagant and useless emotion.

But an undue emphasis in religion upon an intellectual understanding of truth has tended to spiritual pride. The man who feels that he has attained high flights of knowledge is apt to be filled with arrogance. Having attained that knowledge, the object of supreme desire on the part of many, he thinks that he has reached a higher state of religions development than others. The gradual formation of a circle of such persons leads to a distinction between the favoured few who have mastered the secrets and the unfortunate many who are beyond the pale and the gulf between them keeps on widening. Again an over-emphasis on knowledge is apt to bring about the cold intellectualism that is busy with speculation and study rather than with intense and warm living, and the outcome is often a development of the intellect at the expense of the other parts of man’s complex being.

Now John avoids these extremes. We have seen how wide and comprehensive his message is.* There is no closed circle in his teaching; it has a universal range. And he believes in the warmth and tenderness of personal love. In the middle ages European Mysticism sprang into new life as a reaction against the scholastic obséssion with minute issues of no moment. In India the Bhakti movement gained a new ascendency in view of the cold impersonal abstraction of thought to which Sankara had reduced religion. In view of these movements in religious history John’s teaching becomes clear. There is wonderful wisdom in the balanced and discerning account he has given of knowledge. Knowledge is necessary and yet it is not the first necessity. It is assimilated by the intellect and yet it is constantly enriched with feeling and tested by action.

Jnana and Bhakti, then, are but different phases of the same relation; they are different aspects of the same experience. A study of the Johannine writings makes it clear that the great goal of knowledge is eternal life, that is, a life lived in union with Christ. ‘And this is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ.’’ So also the great goal of love is eternal life. ‘Even as the Father hath loved me, I also have loved you: abide ye in my love. If ye keep my commandment, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.’* Knowledge and love lead us in the same direction with this difference, if there is any difference, that in knowledge there is a larger emphasis on our intellectual activities, while in love there is a greater stress on our emotional activities. But in both we respond with our whole being to the gracious workings of the eternal Christ in our inmost hearts. The Fourth Evangelist is thoroughly aware of the importance and supreme value of knowledge and yet he prefers to lay all his emphasis on love.

In the prologue to the Fourth Gospel Christ is called the Light. ‘There was the true light, even the light which lighteth every man, coming into the world.’? The evangelist thus emphasizes Christ’s work as the illuminator. If we feel the urge of the Infinite within us, if we find it possible to discern between what is high and spiritual and what is low and mean, if we can catch glimpses of another world of beauty and goodhess, if we are able to follow the gleam, it is because a light that is not of this earth has been kindled in our hearts by Christ. As the work of creation is the task of the Logos, so also the work of guidance is His. Religious men of all countries and creeds have recognized that the work of carrying on the world involves constant divine energy. But the work of this energy in illumining the minds of men has not been equally recognized. John however dwells on it often.

In our passage Jesus Himself promises to come into the individual soul and to illumine it. ‘He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I wili love him, and will manifest myself unto him.’ What a glorious prospect is opened to us by these words! In a most intimate way Jesus will dwell in our hearts and enlighten us from time to time. In reading the Gospels we are greatly attracted by the figure of Jesus, His love, His sincerity, His devotion. We are also particularly struck with His insight and knowledge. How illumining is His whole teaching! The immortal words which He has uttered have given an entirely new meaning to our knowledge of God and man and life. With supreme clearness He has told us of the Father who deals with men in love and grace, of the paramount duty of man to love God and man and of the unreality and fleeting nature of the world. The insight which Jesus has will become a permanent possession of our souls. We have not merely the historical records of His teaching to study and meditate on, but we can expect His own personal teaching and guidance from day to day. ‘To the one who lives with Him in love there will come flashes of insight, promptings towards a higher life, glimpses of transcendent beauty, all enabling him to rise higher. Always will the immanent Christ, by whose life as a historical figure we are already captivated, energise in the depths of our souls pouring into us floods of light. In the blaze of His divine glory we shall see all things in their true perspective. Such radiance will invest the whole of life with undimmed clearness and reveal it as it is. And such constant revelation will take place with the intimacy and warmth of personal love.