Christianity as Bhakti Marga

A careful study of the passage at the beginning of this chapter, reveals the fact that, according to the Evangelist, man’s Bhakti is initiated by the Logos, inadequately translated in English asthe Word. ‘There was the true light, even the light which lighteth every man, coming into the world.’ The light referred to here is obviously the Logos, the main theme of the prologue.

There is along history behind the term. To understand what the Evangelist means by the expression, we must first study, however briefly, the course which philosophic thought has taken on the subject.

Tne Greek Philosopher, Heraclitus, who lived in the sixth century before Christ, found in the order of the universe the ‘signs’ of a power similar to man’s reason. This power he called the Logos. Then came Plato who marked off rigidly the world of matter from the world of ideas. After him, the Stoics sought to bridge the gulf between these two worlds by going back to the earlier hypothesis of Heraclitus and maintaining that the universe is entirely pervaded by an eternal reason. It is possible for man, they contended, to rise above everything that limits him and to reach a sense of identity with the Logos which dwells in his own soul, in the souls of others, thus making fellowship with them: possible, and in the world. Philo, the Jewish thinker, took over the main Stoic conception but combined it with other elements. As a Jew he was eager to maintain belief in one supreme God. But the Jewish idea of God as transcendent had resulted in a severe type of dualism with its moral and intellectual defects. And Old Testament writers began to speak of the Word of God in more than a poetic way as creating heaven and earth and as making His will clear to His servants. Though the personification of the Divine Word probably took place later than Philo, there was already in his time a strong tendency in that direction. In Job and Proverbs we see Wisdom working with God in the creation of the world. The teaching of Philo regarding the Logos combined elements from Hellenic as well as from Old Testament sources. In Greek thought the Logos was. the immanent reason and more or less took the place of a Divine Creator. Philo, of course, could not fully accept such a doctrine. To him, therefore, the Logos is a means of explaining how God works in the world. Because of this fundamental difference between the Greek and Jewish points of view, there is a certain inconsistency in Philo’s teaching about the Logos, which he sometimes makes out to be only an attribute of God and at other times an independent and personal being. The Fourth Evangelist was doubtless strongly influenced by current Greek ideas about the Logos, particularly by those of Philo. But if he was influenced by Greek philosophy, he was loyal to Hebrew tradition as well; and his thought must have been shaped also by Old Testament ideas about Wisdom and the Word of the Lord.’

The doctrine of immanence has received emphasis in Hindu Bhakti Literature, though in a form quite different from the Greek doctrine which we have sketched. Many and emphatic are the assertions which speak of God as present zz the world and zz man as the Antaryamin. The Bhagavad-Gita says:

“Iam seated in the heart of all and from me come memory, knowledge and reason.’ ”

* For an account of the doctrine of the Logos see the article on' The Logos’ by Dean W.R. Inge in the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics.

‘The Lord dwells, O Arjuna, in the heart of all beings and is whirling them by His supreme power as though they were mounted on a machine.’ *

Commenting on a similar passage, Ramanuja interprets it thus: ‘I am seated as the soul of all beings, who constitute my body. The soul is that which is the entire support, ruler and enjoyer of the. ‘body.’?

From these and other passages, which might easily be multiplied, it is quite clear that the doctrine of immanence forms an important element in Bhakti thought. The explanation for this is no doubt to be found in the fact that Bhaktas seek to reconcile two different ideas, of which one is an eagerness to attain the closest possible intimacy with God, and the other, the conviction that God and man are different. The only way in which God and man, though separate, can come into the closest possible contact is the realization of an indwelling God.

But neither an account of the Greek doctrine of the Logos, by which the Fourth Evangelist is likely to have been influenced, nor that of the Hindu doctrine of immanence with which we in India are familiar, can explain what exactly the Evangelist meant when he used the term Logos. We have the great difficulty of dealing with an original and independent thinker who ‘did not tie himself down to accuracy in fact. This we know from the way in which he treats the material already given in the first three Gospels. He omits certain details, adds certain other details, rearranges incidents in a different chronological order and tells us | of new miracles. One who is led by a sense of truth to make such changes in the narration of facts, so that they may more adequately represent truth, may be expected to take greater liberty still with the thoughts. and speculations of men. We know that in some respects he has departed widely from such _ philosophical. teaching about the Logos as we may expect, after careful historical study, to have influenced. his thought. While availing ourselves of as many clues as historical criticism can provide, we ought to. seek to understand his meaning in the light of his own writings. His thoughts are intimately related; if we can understand this relation, we shall understand their inner meaning.

‘There was the true light,’ says the Evangelist, “even the light which lighteth every man, coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was. made, by him and the world knew him not.’ The Fourth Evangelist seems to be concerned mainly with the immanence of Godin man. It is that which stirs him deeply. He would certainly not say with Kabir:

‘If I say that He is within me, the universe is. ashamed.’ '

‘John does not despise matter as unable to contain God. His doctrine that eternal life or the life of fellow- * Songs of Kabir, Tr, by Rabindranath Tagore, New York,

1917, p. 53. This book seems to be not an exact translation, but a free rendering, ship with Christ can be attained now, while still in the body, bears witness to his conviction that the realm of matter is a possible medium for enjoying God. Again, he says that the Logos became flesh and that He manifested Himself clearly to men. Here we have an emphatic evidence of the fact that He recognizes the physical as an effective means of manifesting the Divine. And yet he has not, like many mystics,: sought to see God everywhere, ina running brook or in a bronze image as much as in the heart of man. This is because, philosophical as he is in his outlook, he feels strongly that morality is necessary in order to see God. He seems to have a more exalted notion of the human body as a possible temple for God than of matter in general.

‘And the world was made by Him.’ It will be noted that this is a repetition. In the prologue the © assertion has already been made, ‘All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that hath been made.’ Why then should this truth be repeated here? In a piece of careful argument like the prologue, the repetition cannot be taken as meaningless redundaney. We must ask for its inner significance. A possible interpretation is that it is meant to make more exact the statement ‘ He was in the world.’ The idea of His being in the world might lead to the supposition that God is the sum-total of the energy and the life inthe world. To prevent sucha misconception the author goes on to add, ‘And the world was made by Him.’ To him God is Antaryamin, without, however, being exhausted in the universe.

He exists in, and yet beyond, the world. This interpretation fits in well with the general tenor of the Johannine teaching but not so well with this particular context. The verse is putting forth an explanation of how the Logos was the light and yet how men did not know it.

The commentary of the Bhakti philosopher, Ranga- Ramanuja, a follower of Ramanyja, throws out an idea which helps us to understand the meaning of the Fourth Evangelist. It is that He enters the created world so that men might perceive Him more clearly. Commenting on the verse in the TZaztliviya-Upanisad, “Having created that, He then entered the same’? he says:

‘If asked “‘ The Lord is continually pervading everything. What is this ‘entrance’ at the time of creation?” the answer is: ‘‘It is the condition in which He who pervades everything, becomes fit to be known perfectly in each distinctive thing, as the calf in the womb of

the cow.” ’* ‘The illustration in the last sentence seems to mean that as the calf, already present in the cow, comes out in definite form and becomes an object of clear perception, so the world manifests clearly the Creator who dwells in it.

On this point Sankara too, whose view is generally so opposed to the Bhakti standpoint, agrees in the main with Kanga-Ramanuja. His extensive comment on the same verse in the Upanisad, may, for the sake of clearness, be summed up thus: As this passage in the Upanisad begins with a reference to the knowledge of the Supreme One, we ought to say that its real meaning is that the Supreme One can be known only in the heart of the world. The Supreme One has no form but shines in contact with other things. Itis ‘this shining in the hearts of individual beings which is here called ‘ entrance.’ +

The central idea of both these comments, that the aimmanence of God in creation is for the sake of clearer perception, is stimulating and offers us a clue for understanding the progress of thought in the prologue. _ By being in the world, the Logos illumines it. We here

‘see a further reason why the prologue dwells with such ‘peculiar emphasis on creation. It is not merely to ‘show that Christ existed before the world was made, nor merely to show that He was the supreme Agent in creation. Both these are important facts which should be understood before we can really understand His exalted character. But the emphasis in the prologue on creation is also to demonstrate the ‘fact that God’s purpose to reveal Himself through creation could not be realized and that, therefore, He ‘had to use another and more effective means of ‘making Himself known to men. That way is the Incarnation. The Evangelist states that God is present in the world, that is the world of men, so that they may understand Him clearly. And yet they have not understood Him clearly. ‘He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.’ This thought he repeats and emphasises further = “He came unto his own, and they that were his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.’ Because men have not understood Him, even though He is immanent in them, He has ‘ become flesh.” The incarnation thenis a more effective means of showing God than mere immanence..

We may be puzzled by the use of the past tense in the statement, ‘ He was in the world.’ Then is He not in the world still? Is not God always immanent in man? This difficulty, however, ceases to exist when we remember that the first thirteen verses of the prologue are meant to describe the Logos before His Incarnation. That is why the past tense is so largely used throughcut the passage. Not that the author does not believe in an indwelling God now. There is ample evidence in his writings to show that he believed in an indwelling God who operates now as before the Incarnation. Before the Incarnation, He who was the light was Himself not properly seen and instead of illumination there was ignorance.

And so He ‘ became flesh and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father) full of grace and truth.’ With rare insight John identifies the historic Jesus with the immanent Logos and tells us, with a boldness. which would have shocked the philosophers of his day, that the Logos became flesh. His distinctive contribution is that he sees in Jesus the visible and concrete manifestation of the Logos. The Logos who was with God from eternity, the Logos who created the worlds in the dim beginnings of time, the Logos who is in the world and illumines it— behold that Logos is Jesus! The Logos, whose silent and mysterious work is as wide as the universe and as long as eternity, is none other than the Jesus whose words and deeds during His Incarnation have become the source of endless inspiration to men. It does not seem as if the Evangelist wanted to limit this experience ot beholding His glory—an experience so very different from the ignorance of the world which cid not know Him—-to the contemporaries of Jesus. The vision of the Logos in His glory, which is made possible by His becoming flesh, stands open to our gaze even after His earthly life is over. The men who lived in the time of Jesus felt and experienced His presence in a peculiarly intimate way. Theirs was the privilege of behoiding with human eyes the incarnate Logos and of having intercourse with Him in word and deed, but the Incarnation was not meant merely for them. Such a stupendous event in the spiritual history of mankind could not have been so narrow in the sphere of its work. In all ages men behold the Logos in the historic Jesus and in His endless presence in the hearts of men, a presence made more clear by His manifestation in time. The love of Jesus which wins our hearts, His peace which stills the violent storms of our souls, His wisdom which teaches us the right with unerring insight,

His power which helps us to triumph over sin—these are the veritable characteristics of the Logos. The immanent Logos is no stranger, of whose real nature we are ignorant, but is One of whom we know much; for in the Jesus of history and experience we behold His unutterable glory. The thought that the Logos became flesh thus sheds new light on Him, bringing Him within the reach of our understanding and feeling, and on Jesus, revealing in Him a loftiness of nature ‘unperceived before.

But if Christ is already immanent in man as a Spiritual fact, what is the real teaching of the Gospel which seems to point to Christ’s abiding in us as the highest experience of religion? This difficulty seems to be felt in the verse: ‘He came unto his own and they that were his own received him not.’ If they received Him not, in what sense were they His own? If they were His own, they would continue to be His own whether they received Himor not. If they become His own as a result of receiving Him, they could not have been His own before they received Him.’ The same difficulty confronts us when we are told that those who are born of God are spoken of as being given the right to become children of God. If they are born of God they are already children of God and

1 Jn view of the general tenor of the passage, I am inclined to interpret ‘His own’ as all men who are begotten of God and not as the Jews only. On this point however, see Godet: op. cit. vol. i,; p. 352.

there would be no necessity to give them the right to. become the children of God. Thus we have in the Gospel three lines of thought which really move in the same direction: men in whom the Logos already dwells are exhorted to abide in Him so that He may abide in them; those who are His own are expected to receive Him; those born of God are given the right to become children of God. The paradox implied here is made clear by other passages in the Gospel. The prologue speaks of the immanence of God in man, but the real significance of this immanence is understood only in the later chapters. In the assertion about the indwelling Logos we see as. it were the foot-hills of a mountain range. It is only as we get into the heart of the mountains that we can see at close range their towering peak in all its magnificence. As he goes on writing, John takes us to the heights of Christian experience and asks us. to gaze on the exalted Christ who rests in individual human hearts with majesty and love. We shall see that in his later chapters John wants us to reach a loftier sense of immanence.

The prologue however suggests here an illustration which throws light on this difficulty. The illustration is that of a father and hisson. In Hebrew thought, the word ‘son’ indicates possession of the same character as in the expression ‘sons of light’, which means those who have the character of light. The physical relation between father and son can never be changed, but the kinship between them is fully realized only when to this physical fact is added the recognition of certain moral obligations and duties. Though it is quite true that the father never ceases to be the father and the son never ceases be the son, whatever either of them may do, the relation between them is really determined by moral, just as much as by physical, facts. Father and son are father and son only when they carry out the moral obligations consequent upon the physical kinship. To use the phraseology of the prologue, though a man is his father’s own, he has to receive his father; though born of his father, he has to gain the right to become his son.

This embodies the important idea that every man, though indwelt by God, has to relate himself to God. They that are His own are expected to receive Him. The indwelling Logos does not do away with the functioning of a man’s self. It may illumine the self, quicken it into new activity and impart vigour to it, but never does away with it. God is in all human souls in the sense that the minimum functioning of men’s capacity is dependent on Him. But all men have to attain toa full experience of the indwelling God in the sense that they have to attain to a maximum functioning of this capacity, such maximum functioning being only possible with Divine illumination and strength. Every man who lives does so because of the God within. But there is a good deal of difference between the inner life of an ordinary man and that of a man of God. In the quality as well as in the intensity of his inner life, the latter stands high above the former. His thoughts are so much nobler, his feelings are so much more exalted, his decisions are directed to ends so much higher. Not merely do the activities of his mind move among nobler themes but they do so with an intenser force. The ordinary man, on the other hand, does the minimum of living. His mental life is more or less busy with the needs of the body. Itis within a man’s power to say whether he wants the God within to function at His highest or at His lowest. The limitation is not imposed by God upon Himself but is placed upon God by man and those physical instincts and impulses for which he himself or his ancestors may be responsible. It is man who must decide whether he will allow his mind, with whatever capacity it may have, to be fully or partially indwelt by God.

Hindu Bhaktas realize that if the God within puts an end to all human functioning, there would be no separateness of personality and consequently no rapture of Bhakti. Bhakti arises when man, who is: not God, but in whom God dwells, seeks with eager love to attain a full experience of that God. It is not enough to recognize the fact of the indwelling God. Sucha realization by itself might easily Jead to the thouzht of a Being who is immanent equally in all things, inanimate as well as animate, bad as well as good. Itis not enough to recognize that man has to make a definite effort to experience God. Again such a recognition by itself might end in nothing more than in a stern moral discipline. But the two doctrines must be brought together. It must be recognized that God is already immanent in the soul and that yet man has to endeavour to make this immanence a fuller and richer spiritual experience.

As the Bhagavata-Purana puts it: ‘Thus the Supreme One, unlimited and beloved, is naturally present in one’s own mind. Him we must worship with joy, refraining from all other pleasures.’ *

In the words of Appar: ‘IT ever cry Lord, Lord! The Lord himself is inseparable from my mind. Keeping the Lord ever in my mind, I will never forget the Lord.’ *

The initiative in man’s religious experience is always. taken by God. ‘ He lighteth every man coming into the world.’ ‘Hecame unto his own.’ This conviction that it is God who first calls us and implants in us deep and strong longings for Himself is often found in the Johannine writings.» We do not endeavour with our unaided effort to attain Him, but He floods our path with light and leads us on to Himself. It was not we who chose Him and made Him our own, but His gracious choice rested upon us and His hand beckoned to us. Wedid not love Him first but He loved us first, and how deep and immeasurable and eternal is that love! Heit is who

1 Bhagavata-Purana, 2.2.6.

2 Appar: ‘IsanIsan.’ The southern school of Vaisnavas, however, maintain that as a kitten is taken hold of by its mother and carried to a place of safety without any effort on its own part, so the devotee makes no effort, but God’s grace does everything for er icin wane 16; 1 John iv. 10, 19.

awakens in us Bhakti and does not cease until we attain a real and full experience of the living God. On this point Hindu Bhaktas too have strong convictions. Appar, the Tamil Saiva saint, sings: ‘I did not know myself at all, Nor did I know my God. When He knew me as His servant, I knew Him as my God.’ *

Nammalvar, the Tamil Vaisnava saint, asks: ‘I cannot say, I will approach Him and compel Him to dwell in me. He Himself comes, with yearning for me, And dwells in my body and mingles with my life. Is it possible for Him now to leave me?’ ”

There are occasionally lines which seem to imply that man and not God begins the process. ‘ Even though,’ cries Sundarar, ‘ Thou dost not hold to me, I will hold to thee.’ But these rare utterances donot shake the conviction that it is God who, out of His abundant grace, first makes the devotee His own.

If God it is who calls us first, uttering His summons in the depths of the soul where He is immanent, John is never tired of repeating the great and wholesome truth that every one comes within the magnificent and all-embracing gesture of His grace.* Our passage contains the words: ‘ The same came for witness that he might bear witness of the light, that a// might believe through him.’ And again: ‘There was the true light, even the light which lighteth every man, coming into the world.’ Belief in Christ is, according to the Fourth Evangelist, the one supreme condition for entrance into the bliss of divine fellowship, but this belief in Christ is not beyond any one’s capacity. Again, our passage declares emphatically: ‘But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.’ It may seem at first sight as if this reference to being born of God as the first step in the acceptance of Christ removes belief in Him from the reach of every one. Tf every one who is born of God alone believes in Christ, it may well be that some are begotten of God and others not. The condition then depends not upon man butuponGod. Hf (od alone can awaken in men love for Christ, He may, in His mysterious grace, choose to do so in some but not in others. But being begotten of God is not some mysterious, spiritual process, reserved for a chosen few, but is another name, lofty and significant, for the inherent God-given capacity in all men to respond to the Divine Will working within them. Any interpretation which places limits upon the operations of God’s grace would be inconsistent with the Johannine doctrine that God is love. If God is love, He cannot well awaken in some the longing for Himself and leave others in the darkness of their own desires. Nor can we in any other way “understand the tender and kindly John writing with such vehemence of those who do not believe in Christ. If special grace is needed for believing in Christ, those who do not possess it are not to be blamed. It is ‘because every man has in him the power to accept Christ that John writes with such feeling against those who deliberately fail to use that power. The idea that God awakens love for Himself in the ‘soul by being immanent in the world confirms further this interpretation. The immanence of God is no random fact, present here and absent there. The corporate character of John’s thinking, for which we shall have evidence all along, comes in here as well. ‘There is a solidarity and coherence about the immanence of God. The whole world, in other words all mankind, is indwelt by Him and there are no jxidividuals who are left out of the gracious sweep of His love. Further, that God calls the soul by dwelling in it ‘means that His call is no external thing. It occurs in the depths of the personality and affects vitally all the choices and doings of men. And it is not a single event, but a summons which is continually repeated. With his endless patience, He keeps stimulating in man a longing for Himself, making the human heart His home. Because of His constant indwelling in us, Bhakti shall ever continue to well up in our hearts. Then why are some people good and some people wicked? To thisthe Fourth Evangelist would say: Itis true God is in every soul. But the presence of God in the soul does not do away with man’s responsibility.

Man can either accept or reject a full experience of this indwelling God. Inthe words of our text, he can either ‘receive the Logos or not receive Him, The words ‘as many as received Him’ imply that it is possible for every one to accept God. Theonly explanation, then,. for some men rejecting Him is that they have chosen to use their will in that way. Using their will to reject. the full experience of the God within, they go from bad to worse, their own deeds bringing upon them the necessary retribution. Good men, on the other hand, accept the God within and go from strength to strength, their deeds naturally and inevitably causing an enhancement of goodness. Those who decide to ignore the oft-repeated voice of God are soon lost in the mazes of their own decision and, wandering farther and farther away from Him, shall finally find themselves. enveloped in the gloom of utter darkness. But those who steadily seek to obey the God within and to listen to His voice of love, ever stimulating them to goodness, will find themselves led, by the momentum of their own decision, nearer and nearer the realms of light, where finally they shall stand in the full blaze of His Divine presence.

It should be noted here that Ramanuja seeks to explain the difference between good men and bad ina somewhat similar way: ‘ That man who acts with the determination to be wholly on the side of the Supreme Person, the Lord blesses, by Himself creating in him a taste for such actions only as are a means of attaining Him and are extremely good. But He punishes the man who acts with the determination |

to be wholly against Him by creating in him a taste for such actions as stand in the way of attaining Him and lead him downward.’ *

But this determination to be devoted or opposed to God arises, according to Hindu Bhaktas, from a man’s previous karma. It is his karma which enables him either to have or not have Bhakti. The importance of karma in determining the genesis of Bhakti is thus expressed by Tayumanavar:

‘The flower in blossom has its fragrance, its bees. But not the bud still cold with dew.’

Though fragrance is inherent in a flower the moment it comes into existence, this fragrance does not spread until the flower blossoms and when the fragrance does spread, bees swarm around the flower. Thus itis also with the human soul. From the first moment of its existence divine energy is hidden in it, but this divine energy is revealed only when the soul is ‘ ripe,’ that is, when it has experienced in different embodiments, appointed by the grace of Siva, the whole effect of its works, those which are really its own and those which have been laid upon it by the Lord. ‘hen He unites with the soul. Thus Heis like the bee, and the soul like the flower in blossom.”

In thus speaking of karma as the factor which conditions God’s grace, Hindu Bhaktas take away from man his immediate responsibility. It is true a man is held responsible in Hindu thought for his previous karma, but when the data for our previous karma are so doubtful and vague, such a sense of responsibility has little meaning. The evidence for former karma being -of theslenderest kind, any acquiescence in its fruit becomes a kind of resignation, entirely different from the decisive attitude we take towards actions performed in this life and of whose nature we are thoroughly aware. John is extremely wise in laying stress on the fact that God’s abundant grace is infinite, neither His own partiality nor man’s previous karma putting any limit to His grace; what we do now is all that matters.

The first characteristic of Johannine Bhakti, then, is that it is primarily men’s response to God. God is in men energizing them and illumining them. He is their life as well as their light. All of their capacities— physical, intellectual, moral, spiritual—are given by Him. He not merely gives them these capacities but. abides always in them flooding them with light, so that they may make the best use of these capacities by relating them steadily and effectively towards Himself. His indwelling in men, though meant to give thema ‘vivid perception of Himself, may not always be clear and distinct. The Light that is in man may be dim and flickering or may even be turned into darkness, It is not the fault of the Light, but the fault of the medium through which the Light shines. So this Light chose to shine fully and with all its glory and effulgence through a perfect medium—Jesus—by beholding whom we behold God perfectly. The Light in Jesus is not uncertain and dim, as in the hearts of © men, but it is full of beauty and truth. It shows men clearly the path along which they should walk.

But it is for men to decide how they will use their capacities. They may either listen to the God who is imperfectly in man but perfectly in Jesus and attain to a deeper and deeper realization of His indwelling presence, or they may stifle His voice and set out ona career of their own, using their capacities for purposes other than those for which they were _teally meant. By an inevitable law the choice and the deeds which follow confirm them more and more surely in the path of love and devotion to God, or in the path of self-will and destruction away from God. Not some external bond, over which man has no control, but men’s inner choices and deeds make them either the sons of light or the sons of darkness. Men’s response to God covers not merely one supreme moment of choice but a continuous walking in the light. This important characteristic of Bhakti places on men the main responsibility. And responsibility is at the basis of aJl morality and religion. It is the stuff out of which personality is formed. It is quite reasonable that the Bhakta who seeks a personal relation between man and God should start with clear convictions on this matter. If Bhakti is determined by karma for which we are not responsible, it cannot be the deep personal relation it ought to be. A river ought to be pure at its source as well as all along its course. If at the very source its waters are not clear and lucid but muddy, how can we expect it to become a refreshing stream? Therefore the Johannine idea that from the very beginning Bhakti is man’s genuine and voluntary— and therefore personal—response to God gives us a pure source. Itis only such Bhakti that can deepen into a full and intimate life of fellowship with God.