Khristopanishad (Christ-Upanishad)

Indian Christian Thought Series No. 3

By PROF. DHANJIBHAI FAKIRBHAI

Author of Khrist-Gita, The Philosophy of Love, Premopanishad etc.

With a Foreword by Rev. R.H.S. BOYD

The Gujarat United School of Theology, Ahmedabad

Published by THE CHRISTIAN INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGION AND SOCIETY POST BOX 1504 17, MILLER ROAD, BANGALORE-6

PRINTED IN INDIA BY K.A. KORULA AT THE WESLEY PRESS, MYSORE

Foreword

The writings of Professor Dhanjibhai Fakirbhai have been familiar in Gujarat for some years. Many people, both Christian and Hindu, who have never heard his name, are familiar with his little book Hriday Gita (The Song of the Heart) which, published anonymously, has already sold more than 12,000 copies. I count it a very great privilege to be able to introduce his work to readers outside Gujarat, for I believe that he has done some noteworthy pioneering along the road of interpreting the Christian faith in a way which is fully Indian and at the same time fully Biblical.

Professor Dhanjibhai was born in Baroda in 1895. His father died when he was a child, and he grew up under the influence of his mother and grandmother who were very devoted adherents of their Hindu sect observing all the prescribed religious ceremonies. As a child, he was deeply influenced by the atmosphere of bhajan meetings, where religious lyrics were sung, and this early impression gave a devotional bent to his experience and thought. During these years he often listened to the discourses of various Hindu gurus, and had private talks with them.

As a boy he went to a Christian School in Baroda, and the religious instruction he received, along with talks and sermons, and in particular the influence of some visiting Evangelists, roused his interest in the Christian faith, and set him thinking about it. At the same time he eagerly read all kinds of religious books, both Christian and Hindu, The result of his study and thinking was that he decided, while still quite youthful, to become a Christian, and was baptised in the Methodist Church in Baroda.

Sadhu Sundar Singh paid two visits to Baroda, around 1918, and again about 1924, and Professor Dhanjibhai was deeply influenced by him. This close personal contact gave him new and deeper insights into the nature of the spiritual life. Another well-known figure who helped him was Dr. E. Stanley Jones, whom he came to know personally through acting as interpreter for him at various meetings. He recalls that both the Sadhu and Dr. Jones were a source of great inspiration to him in his Christian pilgrimage. A distinguished literary figure who greatly influenced him was the famous Gujarati poet, Nanalal Dalpatram Kavi, who was a personal friend and for some years a close neighbour. He and Kavi Nanalal often met to discuss literary and religious matters, including the meaning of the Christian faith.

After moving to Ahmedabad, Professor Dhanjibhai joined the Anglican Church, of which he has remained a faithful member. He has always, however, maintained vital contact with a wide circle of Hindu friends. In particular, he had many acquaintances in some of the reformed Hindu societies, such as the Prarthna Samaj, the Ramakrishna Society and the Theosophical Society. Throughout his life he has sought to maintain these contacts, and his understanding of his own Christian faith has been deepened and widened through his personal experience of other traditions.

Professor Dhanjibhai’s own training was scientific, and he eventually became Lecturer in Physics at the Gujarat College in Ahmedabad. He also served on the first Senate of the Gujarat University when this was separated from Bombay University in 1952, He has written a number of technical text-books, especially on Electricity, which are regarded as standard in this field, and continue to be widely used. He has also a great interest in general literature, and for some years was a regular reviewer of Gujarati books on science for the Gujarat Sahitya Sabha.

All the time, however, one of his deepest concerns was to find ways of expressing the Christian Gospel in such a way that Hindus would understand it and be attracted towards it, instead of being repelled by its ‘non-Indian’ features, as so often happens. He tried, for example, to make Christmas an occasion for Khrista Jayanti public celebrations, which would interest and attract Hindus as well as Christians. For about 5 years such meetings were arranged each Christmas in a public hall in Ahmedabad, and distinguished speakers of different religions were invited to speak about Christ. This practice was adopted also in several other cities like Baroda and Miraj. This was in the twenties, at a time before Gandhijiis influence had made such meetings as familiar as they later became.

But it was in the literary field that his contribution was to be especially distinctive Seeing the lack of suitable Christian literature, he gradually felt himself drawn to the task of creating a body of literature which would appeal to educated Hindus along the lines which he himself saw so clearly. At the same time, in order to deepen his understanding of the Christian faith, and to qualify himself for the apologetic task he had undertaken, he worked at and completed the external B.D. course of Serampore University - no easy task for a busy professor with many interests and responsibilities.

As his books began to appear, his reputation as an original exponent of the Christian faith grew rapidly. His Hindu colleagues knew him well and appreciated his approach, and so for a number of years he was invited to give courses of lectures in the Christian faith to the students of the Shri Mahadev Desai Social Science College in Ahmedabad (associated with Mahatma Gandhi’s Gujarat Vidyapith). The preparation of these lectures and the discussion aroused by them gave him many opportunities of thinking out and testing his ideas, and these lectures provided the basis for some of his later theological writings.

After reaching retiring age at the Gujarat College, a Government institution, Professor Dhanjibhai served for a number of years at various private Colleges in Gujarat. During this time he began a new venture. For him, it was not enough simply to write and publish books. They must be distributed. None of his writings is merely academic; they are all directed to a definite public, usually educated Hindus, and Professor Dhanjibhai was determined that his books and others like them should reach the people for whom they were intended. He therefore founded and organised a ‘Library Gift Fund’, through which a small selection of good Christian books has been offered as a gift to - and invariably gladly accepted by public libraries throughout Gujarat.

Professor Dhanjibhai’s writings, to which we now turn, all show the same practical tendency. They are written, not as essays in theological speculation, but as books with a definite practical, devotional purpose, intended for a wide reading public. Some of his earlier books are purely devotional. To this type belong Kautumbik Vedi (The Family Altar), a book of family prayers, Prarthananjali, a manual of private devotion, somewhat like John Baillie’s ‘Devotional Diary’ giving a page of prayers for each day of the month; Yuvak Prarthanamala, a youth prayer book compiled with D.G. Bailie/ More recently he has published Satat Prarthna (Prayer without Ceasing), a series of three lectures on prayer given at the Broach Christian Spiritual Life Centre,

Professor Dhanjibhai has also shown a great interest in Christian devotional lyrics Bhakta Hriday, an anthology of lyrics, consists of two parts; the first a selection of some of the best Gujarati Christian lyrics, and the second Professor Dhanjibhai’s own translation into Gujarati verse of Marathi and Hindi lyrics, in particular of some of the Abhangs of Narayan Vaman Tilak. Another devotional book has been entitled Premopanishad, and is an anthology of the writings of a number of Christian saints of all lands and ages, like Augustine, St. Bernard, Henry Suso, Ramon Lull, Samuel Rutherford, Sundar Singh, and N.V. Tilak.

In addition to these anthologies, Professor Dhanjibhai has completed the manuscript of a full-length Life of Christ entitled Prakiya Divya Vachanamrut (The Draught Divine), an arrangement of the ethical teaching of Jesus; a Life of St. Francis, and Atmakunvari, an allegorical treatment of God’s quest for the human soul, based on the story of Tennyson’s The Princess.

From the point of view of theology, and in particular of the expression of Christian truth in terms which have already acquired great religious depth in the Hindu tradition, Professor Dhanjibhai’s most significant works are probably Hriday Gita “The Song of the Heart”¹. Prem Tattva Darshan (the Philosophy of Love), and the present volume Khristopanishad.

Khrista-Gita is a pioneering attempt to present the teaching of the New Testament in the dialogue form so familiar in the Bhagwadgita. The book, which takes the form of a dialogue between the Lord and the believer (shraddhavan) is divided into twenty-three sections, each of which consists entirely of Biblical quotations, suitably arranged. (In the Gujarati version the quotations are given in Professor Dhanjibhai’s own attractive modern translation.) The first section begins with the divine Darshan - Christ’s appearance in glory to the author of Revelation. The titles of some of the other sections are Shraddha Yoga, Prema Yoga, Karma Yoga, Mukti Yoga, Gnana Yoga, Balidan Yoga, etc. The quotations are drawn entirely from the New Testament, and no distinction is drawn between Synoptic, Johannine or Pauline material. The purpose of the book is, however, devotional rather than critical, and its wide sale in Gujarat testifies to its usefulness as an introduction to the meaning of the Christian life.

The Philosophy of Love² is a very brief but concentrated essay, consisting simply of fifteen paragraphs expounding Love as the supreme principle of the religious life. God is not unknowable. He is Sat, Chit and Ananda. But beyond all these, and transcending them, He is Love. Love is shown to be the vital factor in creation. Love brings about Redemption and Christ, the Avatar, the Redeemer, is Himself Love. Love, Love Incarnate, is seen in relation to sin, to Karma, to suffering, to the New Birth, to the Yogas of Karma, Bhakti and Gnana, each of which is fulfilled and transcended in Prema Yoga. In the course of these terse, aphoristic paragraphs we are taken through the whole Way of Salvation, with a use of Hindu terminology which is both profound and simple.

The book is a very good example of the Christian use of traditional Indian religious terminology, not in an effort to impress nor in mere speculation, but in a deeply devotional and illuminating context, which is profoundly meaningful to both Hindu and Christian. There is an appendix giving Scriptural quotations in full for each section, and indeed there is scarcely a sentence in the book which is not firmly based on the Bible, though the exposition is almost entirely in Indian terms.

The present work Khristopanishad represents the author’s fullest theological treatment of the Person of Christ and the life of union with Him. The starting point is his own personal experience of Christ as God. His thought is Christo-centric, as he has no hesitation in making the unequivocal statement, ‘Christ is God’, and indeed this belief, confirmed by an illuminating personal experience of his youth, is the central point of his exposition.

‘Spiritual-being’ is another basic concept, and for the author this ‘is not an amorphous, shapeless mass; it has a form, and that form is the figure of Jesus Himself’. Man’s highest possibility is the reception of this Divine Life, through which he becomes more and more like Christ, and so rises to a new sphere of existence. When a man is filled with ‘spiritual being’, when he lives ‘in Christ’, he steps on to a higher plane of existence, and himself becomes a ‘spiritual-being’, a new creation.

Salvation (Mukti) consists in accepting the Divine Life which Christ offers us in union with Himself; in fact Christ Himself is salvation, and faith is the act of accepting this life of God into our hearts. When men accept this life they themselves become participators in the Divine Life, and this is something which affects all our human and social relationships. Christ in his earthly Incarnation was limited to one Body; but today, through the Spirit, He ‘multiplies’ Himself, living in the bodies of believers. ‘Ekosmi Bahusyam’, ‘I being One shall be many’, becomes the principle by which men share in the Life of Christ in a ‘continued Incarnation’. Here is the faith-union of St. Paul and St. John. And, with his customary practical bent, Professor Dhanjibhai goes on to show how these ‘Christ-indwelt individuals’ go out to take up His work in the world, in love and service and teaching. ‘The continued Incarnation works on the principle of the multiplying of life.’

Professor Dhanjibhai’s conception of the New Creation is never merely biological or evolutionary. The believer must at every stage be consciously united with Christ the Mukti-data. And as the believer lives the New Life, so he will in his own way share in the experience of Christ - birth and baptism, temptation, transfiguration, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension. This detailed exposition takes Professor Dhanjibhai’s treatment beyond the stage of theory to that of practical outworking in everyday life, and here is one of his greatest strengths.

The treatment of sin and evil in the section entitled ‘Negations’ is perhaps - to a Westerner at least! - the least satisfactory of the book. The author sees evil as the absence of goodness; it is banished as soon as one’s life is filled with Light and Truth. This would seem to underestimate the tremendous active power of evil. There is profound insight, however, in his statement that Self (Aham) is the great negation, the opposite of God, which above all must be driven out by the positive power of Truth. Here the root of sin is clearly exposed.

We cannot say what the final goal of the cosmic process will be. We do know, however, that ‘As creation starts with and is maintained through and in Christ, so its consummation and perfection too will be in Him’. And, as God’s will for the individual is ‘Be ye perfect’, so God’s ultimate purpose for man and society and the world must lead on to the ‘transfer’ from human history to divine history, since nature is expecting the appearing of the ‘Sons of God’.

It may be thought that there are many echoes here of Chenchiah’s theology of the New Creation, and some also of Bishop Appasamy in the section on Moksa, and Professor Dhanjibhai is, of course, aware of the work of these theologians. Yet his whole approach has its own very individual texture, behind which we can perhaps identify four leading influences. First, we must place his own anubhava, a long life of deep spiritual experience centring round the conviction ‘Christ is God’. Secondly there is a profound study of the Bible, especially the New Testament. Professor Dhanjibhai is steeped in the New Testament and rarely makes a theological statement without citing the Biblical evidence for it, as can be seen in great detail in the Appendix of the Philosophy of Love. Thirdly, Professor Dhanjibhai’s work is strongly influenced by the bhakti tradition of his early life. This is seen in all his books; his writing is never that of the speculative theologian, but always that of the bhakta. Hence, it is that he says in a few pages or paragraphs what others might expand to many volumes. All his writings have the practical aim of deepening the devotional life of the reader; it is writing comparable to The Practice of the Presence of God, or Grace Abounding or Sundar Singh’s At the Master’s Feet. To this background of Hindu bhakti; as well as to his continuing links with many Hindu friends can be traced his very interesting and illuminating use of the traditional vocabulary of Indian religion. Fourthly, Professor Dhanjibhai’s scientific training is not to be forgotten, and can be seen especially in his treatment of the ‘leap’ from the inanimate to the animate, and from intellectual life to life on the spiritual plane. His economy of style is also traceable to his scientific background.

Khristopanishad does not adequately give the author’s understanding of the Cross of Christ. There is a fuller treatment of the suffering and death of Christ in The Philosophy of Love, especially in sections 5 and 9. A few sentences may be quoted. ’In order to make atonement (prayaschitta) for the evil results of man’s deeds (Karma) and in order to counteract the effects of those deeds, this Incarnation of God endures agonies of body, mind and spirit … Forgiveness which does not involve suffering is meaningless and worthless … By coming in the form of man and being fully united with man, and for man’s sake carrying through this wonderful and fruitful work of atonement (prayaschitta), God saves man from the fruits of his own misdeeds (Karma).

I believe that a study of Khristopanishad will, for many, both Hindu and Christian, throw new light on the Person and Work of Christ, and on the meaning of salvation and the new life. It is a book to be read and re-read, so that we become familiar with its terminology and the underlying thought. When read in this way it will become not merely an interesting new book of Indian Christian theology, but a means to the deepening of the spiritual life.

April 1965 R.H.S. Boyd

Preface

This Is not a book of systematic theology nor is it in line with the accumulated theological theories. These thoughts have arisen out of personal experience and revelation. Some of these thoughts may present a new outlook on the usual subjects. When different subjects are seen as hanging together in a synthetic way, a common conception appears to run throughout, and presents the whole as a unit.

This being ‘Christ-Upanishad’ (that is a view point with regard to Christ) it is, so far as possible, confined to the teaching and being of Jesus Christ. Jesus says, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life’. For attaining spiritual life and for understanding the truth about it the way should be straightforward such that even a child can enter in and proceed on.

In speaking of the spiritual goal and its attainment Jesus is the truth, the final reality. The ‘be all’ and ‘end all’ of spiritual life is Christ Himself. The words of Christ and His disciples in the form of various symbols, similes and images raise a multiplicity of independent ideas which give a unified pattern. The analysing minds of many thinkers have further divided and subdivided these ideas till very little coherence or unity is left.

The tendency in scientific and philosophical thinking is towards synthesis and unity. In religious thinking also the focusing of divergent rays to one point should be the essential aim. One God, One Spiritual Life, and One Lord, in all, above all and through us all.

A scientific and philosophical age brings abstract thinking and conceptions to the forefront. People saturated with them go to the extent of losing their own personality and the vital sense of the universe. With too much of material contact men lose their higher self. The best remedy for this is to correlate abstract ideas and concepts with realistic spiritual values and with a concrete personality.

Man being a person and not an abstraction, his aim should be to attain fullness and perfection of personality. In the midst of shifting sands of theories and the multiplicity of concepts, to become attached to a living personality, to become Christo-centric, is to achieve a firm fixity in life,

I am very deeply grateful to Rev. R.H.S. Boyd, B.A., B.D. of the G.U.S.T., Ahmedabad for kindly writing a Foreword to this book as well as for his valuable suggestions and corrections and for arranging to get this book published.

My thanks are also due to Mr. M.M. Thomas, Director, C.I.S.R.S., Bangalore.

DHANJIBHAI FAKIRBHAI

17, Panchvati Housing Society, Ahmedabad 6. 24-1-1965

1. God and Jesus

Jesus Himself God

GOD is spoken of as existing. This is the belief in the existence of God (आस्तिकता Astikta).

The idea or conception of existence as life is well known, clear and more comprehensible than the idea of spirit, or soul, or the Absolute God is living, the Living One, the Life Divine. We are living creatures know and understand life by personal experience.

That God is one and the Only One, एक एव अद्वितमू, ‘One without another’ is an essential matter. Ordinarily men believe in a multiplicity of gods. Religions and individuals have undergone long struggles and much suffering to reach the idea of One God, the Unique and Only One. This idea is not to be held as a dogma, or creed; but it is to be achieved or realised in experience. This idea of the Oneness of God Jesus did not in any way harm or nullify nor did He make it of a doubtful meaning.

Another very important thought is that, with all His greatness, immutability and absoluteness God takes upon Himself a human form, comes in a human body, that is, He becomes incarnate, acts as a man, and, achieves uniformity with men. Still another very important idea is that God comes into the inner being of men, dwells and acts there and accomplishes harmony and co-operation with men.

God is the living one. Jesus came into the world to bring us life. He came to the world that men may have eternal life, i.e. the life of God. The Life was with the Father (God) and is manifested unto us through Jesus³.

Jesus says ‘Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father’. ‘If you knew me you would know God, the Father as well.’ ‘The Father and I are one.’ There is no idea of duality or of two Gods here. A disciple speaking of Jesus as the Logos says, ‘the Logos was God’. There is no difference or duality. A prophet of old foretelling the coming of the Incarnation as Jesus speaks of Him as ‘The Mighty God, the eternal Father’. ‘Father’ means the Eternal, Almighty and Absolute one. Jesus as the Incarnation is the Effulgence of God’s glory, the express image of God’s person, in whom God’s fullness dwells in bodily form. There is here no segregation, separation or partitioning⁴.

As God Himself in human form Jesus talks of God as ‘the Heavenly father’, or ‘the Father in Heaven’ and as ‘the One who has sent me’, and says that ‘the Father is greater than me’; however, finally He says, ‘Have I been so long with you, and you have not seen the Father? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. The Father and I are One’, Thus, Jesus in human form, though speaking of God as the Father in heaven, speaks of Himself as God Incarnate. Jesus is God, and in bodily form He is the Incarnate God, God in the form of man.

God coming and dwelling in the hearts of men is called the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jesus. Jesus said, ‘I am the Truth’, and the Holy Spirit is called ‘the Spirit of Truth’. He said ‘Unless I go the Holy Spirit will not come’. ‘I am coming back to you.’ While sending messages to groups of believers the glorified Jesus is spoken of as saying, ‘This is what the Spirit says.’ The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus.

Jesus said to the disciples, ‘I shall come and dwell in you, and so shall the Father come and dwell in you, and the Holy Spirit will come and dwell in you’.

God is spirit. The Holy Spirit is said to be the Spirit of God. Thus, God and the Holy Spirit must be one Spirit; there cannot be two Spirits of God or two Spirits in God. The Holy Spirit is said to be the Spirit of Jesus. Now Jesus cannot be two spirits; there cannot be two spirits of Jesus or two spirits in Jesus. So Jesus and the Holy Spirit are one. Jesus said, the Father and I are one. Thus, God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, are one and the same Spirit. God is spirit and the only Spirit. Jesus said, ‘The Father will come and dwell in you; the Holy Spirit will come and dwell in you, I shall come and dwell in you; abide in me and I in you’.⁵ There should be a personal realisation of the Indwelling of God as one Spirit. It is for the believer who has this indwelling in him to realise God as one in personal experience, and to have the unified idea of God; otherwise, he keeps on oscillating in pluralism. With the clear idea of God the Father, God Incarnate, and God’s Spirit dwelling in the heart, everyone should experience in himself the oneness of God. This is a simple thing for a simple man to understand and to realise.

There is a drama in which a King, desiring to win the love of a simple country shepherd girl, appears to her as an ordinary shepherd youth. In this form she can understand him and talk to him. He speaks of the King of the country as though he were someone else. Finally, the shepherd youth weds her in royal pomp and brings her to the palace. Then to her surprise the shepherd girl realises that he whom she loved as a shepherd youth is the king himself; the shepherd and the king are one, and her lover makes her a queen.

A personal experience:

During my college days I was deeply concerned about religion and God. Once as I was walking with open eyes over a road the morning sun burst into view behind some houses, and with its sudden light a voice said in my heart: ‘Do you seek God? Jesus is God’. This entered into me as a deep conviction and light. Ever since that time Jesus has been to me God, and I have never had to go back on that revelation nor do I need any other God.

God is not a principle or a Law, a speculation held as a doctrine or belief, or a philosophical axiom or dogma. God is not simply an abstract idea or conception. Man himself is not an abstraction, and he can scarcely grasp this sort of abstraction as God. Often men’s idea of God is the result of some line of thinking, or the reflection of one’s own self or a deduction or generalisation from nature and its working. The ideological conception of God is that He is a diffused ether or energy, a mere existence, a quality-less ‘It’, or a will-less Force. When man tries to speculate about God he can scarcely go beyond such abstractions. The best that men can do is to think of God as the world-spirit, identifying Him with Nature or the Cosmos or with Law or Fate. To say that ‘All-is- God’ and ‘God-is-all’ does not reveal any specific nature of God. To say that Truth is God or that God is Truth does not give any concrete manifestation. It simply equates two abstractions. God understood as some idea held by philosophers and theorists is an abstraction, and often becomes simply an idea or theory for contemplation or dreaming. One does not know how much experience one can have of such a God. No one has experienced the Ether, Akash, or the space-time continuum, nor has man a clear idea about them, because they are abstract ideas. However, light, heat, radiation and cosmic rays all come from space and are matters of practical experience and use. So also God is to be experienced by men practically.

Now, Jesus being God-incarnate, that is God manifested in human form, there is no abstraction while thinking of Jesus or in dealing with Him. There He is, Real, concrete, thinkable and dealable. He is not only ‘in’ us (as we think of our ‘soul’ as being in us) but Jesus is with us, a companion, a friend, a brother and a teacher, visible and invisible, one who is personal to us. Though He is immanent in nature and in the cosmos and also transcendent. He is with us as a person, as a real man. He is not It; He is He, not a symbol of Power or of Law and Order or an Unknown one, but He is personal to us. No one has seen God at any time; Jesus revealed Him, manifested Him and brought God into contact with us. He says, ‘Anyone who has seen Me has seen God’. Practical saints experience Jesus and enter into relationship with Him as Incarnate God. Finally, the monotheist disciples of Jesus also realised this fact and called Him, ‘My Lord and my God’. Saint John speaking of Jesus as the ‘Word,’ says, ‘What God was the Word was’; and says, ‘this is the true God’. This makes the question or problem of God a concrete one, a graspable one. To say that God is Love simply equates two abstractions; but when God so loves that He gives Himself to us as a Presence who comes and dwells with us, lives with us, and loves us, we realise that God is love. ‘It is by this that we know what love is: that Christ laid down His life for us’⁶. He identifies Himself with men, with the poorest and most needy. Then love is no longer an abstraction or mere quality, but God is love in action towards the world and towards men. Jesus as God is not a matter of theory or belief, but He is proved in experience. Jesus is not only an external manifestation, He is also an Indweller, a fact of inner experience called the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of God. These three aspects of God as Transcendent, as Incarnate and as Indweller are to be unified as one in one’s personal experience. When one experiences Jesus in oneself as the Indweller one is convinced that Jesus is God Himself, God and none else, and that God is Jesus. Jesus is God ‘the manifest and the unmanifest’ (व्यक्त and अव्यक्त). No one has seen God at any time; it is Jesus who reveals Him’.⁷

God’s Fulness

When one speculates from the material universe or impersonal nature or the abstract laws of creation one may think of God as Impersonal, that is devoid of personal qualities (Nirgun निशुण). However, since God brought persons into being. He cannot be less than a person. He may be more than that, but certainly not less. He may be Absolute, Ultimate, Infinite and Inconceivable (Agneya), but He cannot be sub-personal, less than a person or devoid of what is best in a person.

In some connections God may appear to have impersonal characteristics, but that does not exclude Him from having personal qualities as well, and His having personal characteristics cannot exclude Him from super-personal characteristics or impersonal qualities beyond the qualities of persons like human beings. An iceberg is visible above the surface of the water, while much remains under the surface. Similarly, God in His personal aspect is discerned by persons at the same time as He remains unknowable in His other aspects.

Those who talk of the Impersonal One (Nirgun) ascribe to Him such qualities as existence, consciousness or intelligence and even joy (Sat, Chit, Anand). How do these differ from the qualities (Gunas) of a person?

God may be understood as impersonal in nature, or through creation, or in history, or through contemplation or mystic consciousness. Through the prophetic and devotional experience, however, as well as through Incarnation. He is understood as personal and can be humanly contacted, that is to say we as human beings can commune with him.

Even as Avatar or Incarnation He remains the same Absolute, Ultimate, Infinite, Eternal, Almighty God. The taking on of a body does not create an impossibility for Him nor does it bring about a partition in Him.

To the monotheist, God is the one and only one, the absolute and exclusive God without a second. No one else stands on a par with Him or may be included in Him. The idea of Nirgun and Sagun impersonal and personal God, or, of duplication or multiplicity in God is an obstruction to the oneness and unity of God; and is detrimental to man’s experience of God. Just as a divided personality is harmful, so the conception of a divided Deity is also harmful. Jesus to us is God indwelling us with His Spirit.

The Incarnation of God cannot be a partial incarnation (Amshavtar अंगावतार) that is an Incomplete God, or God in part. God is always one whole, and so the Incarnation of God is also whole and full (Purnavtar पूर्णाबतार). There cannot be parts or portions of God. Jesus is God complete and full. If Jesus is God in our experience then He is the only and complete God, without a second (Ekaiv-advitiyam एकेंबादितीयम).

Human intelligence and speculation may think of God in His different aspects, attributes or activities, as for instance, God as creating, maintaining and consummating; or God as He loves man, becomes Man, and dwells in the hearts of men. But by so thinking of Him God is not partitioned out or divided into many. Functions, attributes or activities cannot create divisions in God. So it is with regard to the Incarnation. In Christ ‘the complete being of God came to dwell’. ‘The complete being of God indwells Him’. If the complete being of God is in Him, then Jesus is God and God is Jesus.⁸

The fullness of God may be more than we know of and more than is manifested. God can be more than we experience, conceive or picture. We are limited as personal beings and God may be more than our personal conceptions. He may be more than and above human personality, more than creation, more than the universe. He is all that we know about Him, and still above and beyond and more than it all. Because we are limited in our capacity to know, and in the sphere and scope of our comprehension, the possibility cannot be ruled out that God far transcends all that we can know of Him.

Some men who came into intimacy with Jesus saw some special features and lustre in him. What were they to think of him or to take him to be? Though they were strict monotheists, they saw divine qualities in him, and, the nearest approach that it was possible to make to his divinity was to call him the Messiah or Christ - the appointed King, or the Son of God, the God-like man. Yet as they came to understand him and realise him more deeply, before and after his death, they saw more fullness of God in him. Just as our conception of God, His nature and greatness has been slowly developed and recognised by mankind, especially by saintly and thinking people, so it happened in the case of Jesus. Progressively people saw in Jesus a good man, a benevolent person, a self-giving saint, a God-like man or an Incarnation of God. The more one recognises him, the more does his magnificence and magnanimity, the all-embracing Godlikeness and the fullness of God appear in him.

A man may start by taking Jesus as a human being, a lovable and a loving man. By and by he finds in him higher spiritual values, then finds him to be a personal friend and saviour. When he experiences Jesus as one indwelling in himself, as his Lord and Master, the distinction between Jesus and what he calls God vanishes. In his experience Jesus and God are one and the same.

Disciples, apostles, saints and mystics speak of Jesus as the Logos, the wisdom, the brightness of God, the express image of God. Further, they saw that He was what God was, the source and creator of all creation, the goal and consummation of all things, the fullness that fills all.

He is sometimes sensed, felt and experienced as ultra-personality, super-personality, the ultimate, infinite and eternal. He Himself said, ‘I am with you always at all places.’⁹

Jesus is not simply a presence belonging to a particular historic period. He was before history and is in history. Since the Incarnation Jesus is very clearly evident in the development and progress of human society and civilisation. He is directing history and moulding it. While He weeps over the sufferings, diseases and death of human beings. He revives them to better and new life. He weeps over the ruin and self-destruction that nations bring upon themselves, and at the same time He reconstructs new and better history out of the ruin.

Countries, continents and isolated places of the earth that lay in darkness and decay He has brought and is bringing to new light, life and progress. Those sections of men that were neglected, depressed and crushed and exploited are raised to a better state, position and culture. Jesus is King actively in history and society. He is a living personality and power in history, over history and ahead of history. To see Him working in the course of history, in the progress of society and civilisation, is to have a real vision of His living Personality and Divinity.

Jesus is at work manifesting His power, wisdom and glory in His creatorship, maintenance and guidance of creation, nature and each being. Thus, we see the cosmic Christ; we see Him as the greatest of the great and the minutest of the minute. Consider the birds and the flowers that He nourishes and clothes. Jesus is continuously changing water into vine-juice and multiplying bread for feeding. He is controlling the wind and waves and storms and the forces of nature, taming them to safeguard living beings and yoking them for the service of mankind and to bring them relief. As of old He pours life into dead bodies and revives them. Under Him continuous creation is taking place, and nature herself is lifting her veil revealing more and more beauty, might and goodness.

His progress and activity cannot be halted by putting Him into fixed systems or institutions or organisations. He cannot be tied down by men’s theories, creeds, rules, doctrines or speculations. He is ever expanding man’s intellect, other faculties and powers.

2. Spiritual Being

Essentials of Spiritual Being

A SPIRITUAL being is a living being and not a phantom or appearance, one without reality. Living existence is life. Accordingly, to be a spiritual being means to be spiritually alive, to have spiritual life. There are certain essentials for a man to have a spiritual existence. Life comes from life, that is, the spiritual birth is necessary, and that is the first essential.

Jesus is Life, the source of spiritual life, as of all life. In Him is life, and all life starts with and from Him. He imparts spiritual life. He is perpetual or eternal life. We can possess eternal life in Him, that is to say, by sharing life with Him. Through His imparted life one gains an entrance into permanent spiritual life, into eternal life.¹⁰ The spiritual life of every individual begins with the New Birth, the spiritual birth, the birth from above, that is, the birth through God. This birth is the beginning of a new spiritual entity.

One essential of a living being is breath. The corresponding function is breathing, Pran (प्राण) the wind, the pneuma. The spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit is the pneuma, the wind, who constantly and continuously breathes in and through the individual so that he lives a spiritual life and does spiritual works.¹¹

God is Light. Jesus says, ‘I am the Light’. Light is another essential for spiritual being as in the case of all living beings. The growth of trees and plants takes place through the help of light and towards light. In Jesus is life and that life is the light of men. He says, ‘No follower of mine shall wander in the dark; he shall have the light of life’. Jesus enlightens and illuminates. He is wisdom of God, the Divine Gnan (ज्ञान). This light becomes the guide, the revealer, the teacher and counsellor of the spiritual being.

Other essentials for life are bread and water that sustain and activate. Hence, Jesus says, ‘I am the bread of Life. I am the living water’. He is the bread that has come from heaven and gives life to the world. Whoever takes that bread does not hunger and whoever drinks that water does not thirst any more. He who is Life imparts all the essentials of life as well, such as the spiritual bread and the spiritual drink, and these essentials are nothing but Himself.¹²

Blood was formerly considered to be identical with biological life; in any case, it is essential for a living being. We understand its importance from the effect caused by the transfusion of blood. The blood of Jesus is spoken of as the life of Jesus. Not only symbolically or sacramentally but essentially His life-blood is circulating, purifying and enlivening the spiritual being. In short, all the essentials of spiritual life are simply Jesus Himself. He said, ‘I came that men may have life and have it fully’.

Spiritual-being is not an amorphous, shapeless mass; it has a form, and that form is the figure of Jesus Himself. This transformation of man into the likeness of Christ is like the shaping of a child in the mother’s womb, ‘You live (or dwell, or abide) in Me, and I in you’, said the Lord and thus one is transformed, taking the shape of Jesus.

Environment is another essential for spiritual being. Just as there are material, vegetable and animal kingdoms so there is the spiritual kingdom too. A spiritual being is a member or unit of the spiritual or Divine Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven, and he has to live in that spiritual environment.

The infinite value of the spiritual life of a man lies in this, that it is more than the value of the whole world. The whole world can neither buy that life nor can it be equal to that life. The importance of man’s spiritual being is that for its sake God Himself became man and dwells with him.

Without spiritual life a man is spiritually non-living, non-existent; he is spiritually a dead man. Without these spiritual life processes, man is shut off from communion with God, and from the spiritual environment. God is Spirit, and He alone can impart Spiritual Life and bring into existence spiritual being. There cannot be a spiritual life or a spiritual being apart from God. An animal or human being by itself cannot become, or create of itself, a spiritual being. Only like can produce like.¹³

A New Creation

Man, as such, is a human animal. He may be civilised, educated, cultured, refined, moral and religious; through being these, however, he does not become spiritual. He is not necessarily wicked or anti-spiritual, that is, against spirituality, but he is not spiritual, he is non-spiritual. Spirituality is in a different category altogether from mere humanity, for becoming spiritual is another creation, a new being. Spiritual being does not come into existence by education, culture, civilisation, or by virtues or religion. It is a new creation by God’s Spirit, a spiritual birth. There is no intermediate state or stage between being human and being spiritual. One cannot simultaneously be a worldling and spiritual, a carnal being and a divine being. Generally speaking human beings lie in a sub-spiritual state. Culture, virtues and character lie below and outside spirituality or spiritual life.

A man becomes a Spiritual Being only after a Spiritual Birth, that is, after the imparting of Spiritual Life to him by God. After that he belongs to the Spiritual Kingdom; till then he is only an animal in the human kingdom. No man is naturally or originally spiritual, however moral or religious he may be. With impartation of spiritual life he comes into communion and union with Divine or Spiritual Life.

Jesus does not seem to maintain anywhere that man was originally spiritual, or that by nature man is a spiritual being. He says that even the highest natural and moral man must undergo a spiritual birth in order to come into the spiritual realm.¹⁴

Virtues are not acquired and secured by much effort, struggle and practice. Rather, once the spiritual birth has taken place and Jesus becomes the Indweller, the good life grows out spontaneously from this Indwelling, which is not only ethical but spiritual. The universe or the cosmos consists of different strata or ‘Kingdoms’ as they are called in Science: (1) The physical, material and mineral stratum; (2) the biological, that is the vegetable and animal kingdoms; (3) the intellectual level, which includes the social, ethical and religious; (4) the spiritual, heavenly or Divine Kingdom. God holds dominion over all these Kingdoms, and man participates in many of them. The aim seems to be that the spiritual or Divine Kingdom should control all the others. Most forms of existence stop at one or other of these levels. There is a deadline beyond which one has no existence. When one lives in the spiritual or Divine stratum, one’s environment is heavenly or Divine. Those without the essentials of spiritual being had no spiritual life. They may exist or live in the lower strata, though not in the spiritual one. One cannot penetrate into the spiritual kingdom unless one receives spiritual life. There is a dividing line between human and divine, between man and God. That which is born of man is man, and that which is born of the Divine Spirit is Spirit. Only God can condescend to the human level or form of man as Incarnation and having given spiritual life to man can dwell in him as the Indwelling Spirit. Thus, it is possible for God to dwell or live in the spiritual being and for the spiritual being to dwell or live in God.

In the vegetable kingdom seeds or plants come into contact with soil or mineral substance and by their interaction the mineral substances are taken up, assimilated and transformed into vegetable form, branches, leaves, flowers and fruit; beauty, activity and utility result. The vegetable and mineral live and work together, but when they are separated the mineral part ceases to belong to the vegetable kingdom.

Similarly, the animal creation takes the vegetable products into its body, and as the vegetable yields, transforms the latter into parts and particles of the animal body and being. In the same way forms of energy such as warmth, heat, light and radiation playing upon mineral and other substances produce transformations in the constituent forms, properties and activities of the mineral.

Man has a body, mind or intellect, sensations, emotions, and will, also conscience, aesthetic, moral and religious sense. However, when the Divine Spirit takes possession of him, he becomes a spiritual being. Another controlling, transforming and recreative constituent takes hold of that man’s constitution, so that he becomes a new creation, a spirit-born one, a spiritual man. Then begins a transformation of his existing constituents and faculties; his mind changes into a new mind such as is in Jesus, his will coincides with God’s will, and his character is formed as Jesus shapes it through living and working in him; and he becomes a new being, a spiritual being.

3. Saviour

Man lives a human-animal life of bodily instincts and passions, of self-will and personal choice, of selfishness and grabbing. Quite evidently this is not spiritual or Divine life. Thus, many persons are not living spiritually. This sort of unspiritual or non-spiritual life does not simply consist of bad acts, words or thoughts, here and there or now and then, but it is a state, a state devoid of God-life. Such a person has no experience of union, communion or co-operation with_God.

In this state devoid of Divine light one goes on by one’s intelligence, one’s education or culture or by one’s business experience or worldly wisdom. Being without spiritual light one generally wanders in the maze of worldliness, and does not know the path that one takes. Such a man has his own will, often a very powerful will, but it is not in harmony and co-operation with, or under the control of The Divine Will. So naturally his instincts emotions and feelings have free play, which often knows no bounds. Being drunk with the idea of freedom or independence he lives a loose or godless life.

As is often the case a man may not be directly wicked. He may be of good character and conduct, and yet he may be bereft of spiritual life and light. Being without spiritual life is like a branch severed from the tree. Such a man is like a lamb wandered away from the fold into the wilderness, or like a boy, who has run away from his parental home.

Now the thing needed for a man of this type to be saved from this state is that; first, Spiritual Life should be imparted to him, and second, that he should receive that life. This life is in God, who became incarnate in Jesus and gave Himself without reserve. All those who receive Him, who yield themselves to Him, obtain the privilege of becoming the spiritual children of God, that is, of receiving spiritual life. This is their spiritual birth. The receiving of Divine Life in ourselves is faith. Faith is not a matter of acknowledging a formula, a theory or creed. It is not giving consent to a statement or principle, but it is the act of accepting the Life of God into our hearts.

Mukti or Moksa (मोक्ष), salvation, is not to be thought of with respect to sin and forgiveness only, nor is it to be considered only doctrinally or emotionally, nor is it simply a psychological or sacramental act.

When a wayward, wandering child returns to his father, the latter does not hold a trial over him, nor does he ask him to make good the losses, nor does he wait for a ceremony of confession and promises. Parental forgiveness goes ahead of all these. It was the father who was already seeking for the child and trying his best to get the child back. Coming to the father, acknowledging him and accepting his forgiveness and shelter is the child’s act of faith, his act of reconciliation.

However, the imparting of spiritual life means many things on the part of God. First, He goes out in search of men, taking upon Himself human form and dwelling among wicked people. It is also a sort of birth pang for a child. Further, imparting life to many is like the dying of a grain in the soil to produce many grains. Giving His spiritual life to an unspiritual person is like a transfusion of blood to save a man from dying. This is the picture of the Salvation (उद्धार) of men. First the Saviour imparts spiritual life. The recipient of the spiritual life values all that has been done by the Saviour on his behalf and humbly surrenders to the Lord.

We find that as the Lord Jesus healed persons or their relatives of their incurable diseases or disabilities, these persons recognised Him as their Saviour and Lord. When some were revived from death, they and their relatives took Jesus to be their Saviour and Lord. At times a miracle brought benefit or relief to some people and that brought to them the sense of His being their Saviour. When He stilled dangerous tempests, or fed many out of almost nothing, people saw in Him their Saviour and Lord.

As the Lord Jesus forgave the sins of a paralytic before healing him, He became a Saviour to him. He talked to a vagabond woman at a well, and she became devoted to Him. He accepted the sorrow and repentance of a public sinful woman and forgave her sins and she took him to be her Saviour. He called a man of despised profession to be His Disciple; He became a guest at the house of an out-caste. And such persons accepted Him as their Master or Saviour.

The Lord appeared to a murderer and persecutor (Saul) and he found in Jesus his Lord and Leader. A Roman was given a special revelation and he and his family accepted Jesus as their Saviour. The Lord appeared to a young school boy (Sunder Singh) who was on the point of committing suicide, and he took Him to be his Guru and Saviour.

The Lord Jesus has helped and continues to help innumerable people in their personal troubles, adversities, calamities, sickness and bereavement, difficulties, trials and temptations. For instance, He prayed for Peter at the time of his special trial; He also saved him from being beheaded by a King. He saved Paul from shipwreck and from death by stoning. Such experiences of being saved often come in the life of a person. The Lord Jesus saved people and continues to save in this way. As Saviour He saves constantly and continuously. He keeps us saved and safe.

Salvation is not to be understood or to be taken in a doctrinal or theoretical way. It is constantly and practically experienced in daily life. It is also a part of man’s spiritual living. God-life is life eternal. To have God-life is to have Eternal Life.

Whatever the manner of saving as shown in the examples given above, it was always connected with Jesus and was accomplished by Him. ‘Saviour’ is the English equivalent of the name ‘Jesus’, and salvation means the personal experience of Jesus.

It is said in the Bible that ‘In Jesus is Life’. ‘He gives His Life for man’. ‘He gives life to men’. Here we take ‘Jesus’, ‘Life’ and ‘man’ as a multiplicity of terms. However, the fact is that Jesus Himself is life; and for a man to have life, spiritual life, that is, to be spiritually alive, he must possess Jesus the life; Jesus must enter the man. Life is a person, and not an idea, an abstract quality or a process. This makes the matter of new life or salvation direct, simple and practical.

In the same way it is said that ‘Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ’. This does not mean that some abstract qualities or gifts were brought to earth; but the coming of Jesus was the same as the coming of grace and truth, because He Himself is truth and Divine Grace. Grace is not some magical influence, or an object, or a gift; but Grace is a person, the Lord Jesus Himself. Having Him we have divine grace.

This gives a clear view that we are not dealing with a multiplicity of qualities, abstractions or principles, but with only one Person, who is Grace, Love, Truth, who is eternal Life, who is our holiness, wisdom, power, peace and rest. These are not external qualities, helps or effects apart from Himself. Knowing Him we know all, having Him we have all.¹⁵

We think that salvation is an abstract something, or a collection of formulae, theories, dogmas, or principles, or a series of acts, or a process. People say that Jesus gives salvation, that is, He is a giver of salvation. But the fact is that salvation is not something outside Him or something beside Him. He Himself is salvation; salvation consists in the union and communion of the Saviour and the saved.

Virtues and good qualities are not possessions of a person with which he may be decorated. Virtues, peace, joy, humility, trust and mercifulness are not to be acquired by effort and practice. Jesus Himself is all these virtues and qualities; therefore, when Jesus is there all these are also present. These are the harvest of the Spirit of Jesus, the fruit of the Central Source. Once the Spirit of Christ is in a man all these spontaneously make their appearance.

The Lord Jesus said, ‘Every one who commits sin is a slave of sin. If I set you free you will be free indeed’.¹⁶ That is, He is our Mukti-data. He is our Liberator. He is our Freedom, Mukti, and in Him, we are always free. He being in us and present with us, Moksa (मोक्ष) is not something to be attained or something to come in the future. Moksa is present, now and forever.

Salvation: A Realisation of God

God the Infinite, Eternal and Transcendent may be a conception or an idea. But the invisible and incomprehensible becomes personalised, visible and intelligible by taking on a human form. But the process does not stop there. The ideal God-Person who was external now becomes united to me, a continued presence in a very intimate and inner sense, so that He being in me, and I being in Him, there is a spiritual union of the human and Divine. The Spirit of Jesus now dwells and acts in me. This is a realisation (Sakshatkar साक्षात्कार) of God in personal experience. No amount of theory, doctrine, teaching or reasoning can give this realisation of God which comes through personal experience.

4. God-Life

God-Life and Practical Life (Vyavhar)

SPIRITUAL life is divine life, or God-life. It is the life - which we share with God, and it is manifested in everyday practical dealings. ‘Even in this world we are as Jesus is’. God is love, and this love was manifested in action when Jesus lived as man. With the coming of Jesus in our hearts God’s love is poured forth in our lives. To love God is to carry on His rule of love in practice. For love to be genuine it should show itself in action.¹⁷

The Lord Jesus said, ‘As I have washed your feet, you have to wash one another’s feet’. We are not to be served by others but must serve others. Anything we do for a person, however humble he may be, we do it for Jesus. God is our Father and we all are brothers. All that we have has been received from God and is to be used according to His will and for the welfare of men.

Though a tree and its branches outwardly have different appearances, names and activities, yet internally they are one; the branches cannot do without the trunk. Similar is the being and working of God and of men in union with Him. God is not merely a fact; He is also an act. He is the living and acting one.

Jesus said, ‘God continues to work, He has not-ceased working. The Father works and so I work.’ All our works and activities are to spring from the living and working of God within. We work because God works in us. He is the real worker and the source of all our activities.

Virtues and a good life are not the result of the efforts and struggles of the individual. They are a spontaneous growth from the Indwelling Spirit of Jesus. ‘I in you and you in Me, that you may bring forth much fruit. Without Me, you can do nothing.’ This is the great principle and practice of our working. We work not our own works but the works of Him who lives and works in us. While the faculties and constituents of the human being and personality remain in existence even when the spirit of God is indwelling them, yet they are transformed and created new, and the attitude towards and use of material, physical, psychological and social objects and environment is completely reoriented so that it can be said that the earth’s wealth has changed to heavenly wealth; the human values have changed to spiritual, the extrovert and introvert have turned Christ-overt.

We work to fulfil God’s purpose and plan, and to bring glory to Him. Our acts are not performed in order to nullify the effects or results of bad acts, or to counterbalance bad acts, or to accumulate merits, or to free us from bondage, but to fulfil God’s will and to benefit the world. The works done while we are united with the Lord remain permanent.

Worship, devotion, Bhakti (भक्ति) are not for averting the anger of a deity or for trying to win God’s favour. Repetitions of prayers, Mantras or scriptures are not essential. Ceremonies and rituals, private and collective, formal or verbal prayers may have their place and usefulness. Requests, petitions, praise, thanksgiving and devotional songs may serve a useful purpose and may have their appropriate place. However, these may not essentially be devotion. Devotion is the love to God of our whole being or personality, and that love is not one-sided, but mutual, we loving God and God loving us, a reciprocal response. Bhakti means to dwell in God’s love with full trust. Devotion means devotedness, loyalty, complete surrender to and union with God’s will, full trust and confidence in God. Emotions, joy, peace, consolation, ecstasy, concentration, may become aspects of devotion. Spiritual life is not simply one part of our being and activity, it does not consist of certain observances, ceremonies, prayers or of religious professions and activities. Spiritual life in so far as it relates to set time or occasions or to particular purposes consists of the whole of life and of practical living (Vyavhar व्यवहार). That means, it does not comprise or include some activities only, while other activities are outside its pale. There can be no division of acts or works into religious and secular. Moreover, spiritual life is for one and all, and not only for some religious experts.

Some people believe in and practise a double code, one religious and the other connected with worldly affairs. This would be sheer hypocrisy. Practical life (व्यवहार) as it is to be lived in this world, is no illusion or delusion or an evil; it is part of our whole being and living. Most of our activities may roughly be put under three groups: (1) Jobs, employments, services, business, trade or labour; (2) Relations, connections with and obligations, to family, relatives, friends and companions, society and citizenship; (3) Activities for self-development and progress, hobbies and lines of interests and enjoyment, and also help to others. The essentials of spiritual-being, already described, should be fully and properly displayed in all these activities.

The God-Incarnate has lived and worked in all these three practical fields. He worked as a skilled carpenter, maintained a family (of widowed mother, brothers; and sisters). He kept connections with relatives, friends and society and religion. Lastly he had objects of interest and enjoyment, such as love of studying the scriptures, love of nature and of devotion. In Him, we possess not only a code or rule for life and conduct, but a pattern, a perfect model for practical life. Moreover, we have His power working from within to act in all these fields.

Practical life is not a double life, involving a divided personality or a divided loyalty. It is not a double-dealing, partly worldly and partly godly. It should be the consistent living of a spiritual being. The Lord said, ‘Let your “yes” be “yes” and “no” be a clear “no”’. That does not mean that one has to practise truth in some cases and untruth in others, non-violence in some cases and violence in others, religiousness on some occasions and worldliness on others, or, to be altruistic in some acts and selfish in others, to appear as something and intend something else. If one is a carpenter, then one is always honest and hard-working; if one is a son or friend, one is a loyal son and loving friend up to the end; if one is a devotee one is so at all costs.

Intellectual occupation, study, diversions and attainments are parts of practical life. Intellectual philosophising and speculations are conspicuously absent in Christ. As compared with spiritual experience and development mere intellectual display, speculation or philosophising, are of little use. This is because direct divine illumination and revelation can take their place. As the Lord Jesus said, ‘My teaching is not my own, but as the Father says to me, so I speak’.¹⁸ There is a great deal of difference between imagining and reality, between reasoning out and truth. However, this does not exclude meditation, contemplation and waiting upon God to hear His voice; and receive His guidance. ‘What is hidden from the wise and the prudent is revealed to babes.’¹⁹

In our practical life and activities Jesus is our prototype. His practical life on earth was God-Life, and that should be ours to follow. He says, ‘My aim is not my will, but the will of God. I am not alone but the Father and I; He has not left me alone, for the Father is with me. My father works and I work too. By myself I can do nothing. The father who is in me does all His work. The words that I speak are as the Father has told me to speak. All that is mine is of the Father. All that the Father gives to me comes to me’.

One should fall in line with God’s activity. God has been active and working from the beginning till now. ‘My father works and I work too.’ Everyone creates something in one way or another. The creative impulse and urge is in everyone.

I do not slave or labour for my mere physical needs, or for a boss, or for some ulterior necessity. In each and every activity, work or labour or business, enjoyment or play, one has to be conscious of God’s presence and of being aligned with God’s creative work and purpose. It should be my constant attitude that I am co-operating and creating with God according to His purpose and plan. In this way no work becomes irksome or loathsome, but it becomes pleasant, satisfying and ideal. If our work is the nurture or bringing up of children, or teaching and instructing, or attending to the sick, it is the same thing as God’s creating, providing and evolving process, or, in line with His work of development and progress. If it is gardening, farming, producing or manufacturing, constructing, art or craftsmanship, it is a part of God’s work of creating. If it is administrative, executive or official work it is under God who is a great ruler and organiser. If it is scientific, mathematical or technical work, we are co-operating with God and nature for the benefit of mankind.

God-Life: ‘Follow Me’ ²⁰

In Jesus the ideal and example of the celibate, the Brahmachari (ब्रह्मचारी) and of the House-holder, the Grihasthi (गृहस्थी) are illustrated. Over and above that the life of the Vanprasthi (वानप्रस्थी) the hermit, and the Tyagi (त्यागी) or Sanyasi (सन्यासी) that is, one who renounces all, is put into practice by Him. These states are not necessarily according to age or stage of life; as one wants to follow the Lord in these steps, one should do so at the proper time and place or according to the call of the Lord.

To be His follower does not simply mean joining a society or sect or class, nor does it mean to assent to a creed or doctrine or formula, nor does it mean simply taking up a religious job or work, priding oneself upon and propagating the excellence of His religion or teaching. ‘If any man serves me he must follow me’, says the Lord.

The Vanaprastha (or retreatment) state is essential and possible for every one who wants to follow the Lord. In the beginning of His activity the Lord Jesus went into a wilderness to fast and meditate. Then, He often used to go to solitary places, jungles, or mountain tops, lonely gardens or unfrequented places. He spent whole nights in prayer, and often remained for many days in solitude or isolation, alone or with some disciples. Besides the usual daily prayers, and devotional exercises one who wants to follow the Master, (1) should observe days of ‘retreat’ in quietness and silent prayer, in fasting, meditation, study and contemplation. (2) Real ‘Ashram life’, in quiet and isolated places or in a hermitage are helpful to devotion, contemplation and intercession. (3) Along with part-time spiritual service or religious work or teaching or other job, one may spend the rest of one’s time in communion with God, devotion, prayers and meditation alone, or even in the spiritual company of other persons of similar aim and activity.

Further, the Lord Jesus has set us an example of Tyag or renunciation and said that if anyone wants to serve Him, he must follow Him in that path.

A wealthy youth once wanted to be a follower of the Lord, and the Lord said to him, ‘Go, sell all your possessions, give the money to the poor and needy, and then come and follow me’. That is Tyag, self-emptying, the choice of poverty. To a half-hearted man with good intentions. He said: ‘You cannot go forward and at the same time keep on looking backward’. To another He said, ‘If you want to take a decision to follow me, you cannot postpone or keep on delaying’.

1. He said, ‘I have nowhere to lay my head’. ‘He who does not renounce all his possessions cannot become my disciple.’
2. ‘Man does not live by bread alone’.
3. ‘Those who hear the word of God and do it are my mother, brothers and sisters.’ ‘He who loves father, mother, brother or Sister, son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.’
4. ‘You are strangers in the world as I am.’ ‘The world will hate you and persecute you as it has done to me.’
5. ‘The man who loves himself is lost but he who hates himself in this world will be kept safe for eternal life.’ ‘He who wants to follow me should deny himself, should take up his cross and follow me.’
6. He asked those who wanted to be His companions, ‘Will you drink the cup (of suffering and death) that I am to drink?’
7. As He has laid down His life for us, so we have to lay down our lives for the brethren. This is the path of Sanyas or renunciation which Jesus has taken up and one has to follow Him on that path.

Those whom God has called to the life of a permanent celibate (Ajivan-Brahmachari आजीवन ब्रह्मचारी) live and serve in that way. They go straight to Vanprasth - retired life or to Sanyas - life of renunciation. A bachelor who keeps pining for married life is not a permanent Brahmachari. A permanent house-holder - Grihasthi - who is always buried in family affairs and business or employment is not in the line of the Master. A grihasthashramee living a self-centred, worldly life from birth till death is not a follower of Jesus. To be His follower does not mean simply to be called a Christian or enrolled as a Christian. One has to be a disciple or follower of Jesus Himself and one must follow Him in all his steps.

God-Life: The Continued Incarnation

Jesus lived for thirty-three years and a half and died a tragic death in the prime of life. His public activities are confined to about three years and to a small province only. This seems a very short personal history. At His death His followers and sympathisers were completely disappointed, and they gave up His ideas and ideals, thinking themselves to have been deluded or misled. However, Jesus had a different scheme. He did not want to be confined into one body. He wanted to live in many bodies belonging to different persons. This was a new kind of creation (एकोऽहं बहुस्याम् Ekosmi Bahusyam; I being One I shall be many). He wanted to multiply Himself. This miracle He performed by becoming present in and working through many bodies. ‘I shall come back and dwell in you’, He said to His disciples. In the Incarnation, God in Jesus entered into a human body, and so this multiplying was possible by Jesus becoming incarnated in, or entering in, many persons. These persons were granted the experience that ‘I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me’. Not only was Christ living in them; He was also working through them. This was as He had said, ‘Because I live, you shall live also’. This living of theirs is Christ-living, Incarnate-living, the continuation of the Incarnation of God-in-man.

‘We in Christ and Christ in us’; ‘Jesus dwelling in us’, such phrases express the fact of the incarnation of Jesus in us. First He shows this forth by producing much fruit, many good works, in and through us. This is a life process naturally taking place by His living in us and working through us²¹. Jesus promised that ‘you shall do greater works than what I did in and through my body’. And so the Indwelling Jesus works out His aim. His plans and purposes on a wide scale through many bodies. The single seed becomes many, and they further multiply as they fall into the ground to germinate. One by one these Christ-indwelt individuals take up the services, the tasks, the activities and the programme that He started, and follow the aims that He pointed out to them. One sets out to uplift the fallen and depressed, the despised, the outcaste and the exploited and the suppressed. Another helps the needy and starving. A third sets out to free the slaves, or the enslaved races and nations. Another uplifts the women and gives free play to children. Still another opens the eyes of the blind, physically, intellectually and spiritually. Yet another purges degradation and immorality. Another serves the lepers, the diseased and the dying. One makes real His teaching of no sword, no violence, and no war. Yet another redeems the prisoners and gives them relief. Another opens up the neglected islands, the dark continents and the isolated places of the world.

The continued Incarnation works on the principle of the multiplying of life. ‘I am the Vine and you are the branches’ said the Lord. The life-process works by growth by sprouting and branching. By this the transformation not only of individuals, but that of societies, nations and races is also achieved. The necessary condition is to allow the process to permeate from individuals to groups like the leavening of the whole dough when the leaven is introduced in one place. Leavening: is a life process. Harvesting or the multiplying of grain is also a life process. ‘I give myself for the life of the world’, said the Lord, and He illustrated this by saying that ‘A grain of wheat remains a solitary grain unless it falls into the ground and dies; but if it dies it bears a rich harvest’. Anyone may partake of the Incarnation as much as he likes and may manifest His power as much as possible. This incarnating of Jesus in an individual may reach such a stage that the man can say, ‘He who sees me does not see me, but sees Jesus, and he who hears me hears the word from Jesus. If you do not believe my word, believe for the sake of the works that I do’. ‘The work that the Father gave me to do and finish, the very works that I do, are the testimony.’ In His resurrected body (which is of a special type of constitution) Jesus lives, and, appears to His devotees as and when needed.

For the Incarnation to continue in an individual the latter should do certain things consciously and determinedly rather than in a spasmodic or partial way. Such an act is more decided and complete than when the Virgin Mary consented, yielded and dedicated herself for the Incarnation to take place through her body.

An Indian widow, Ramabai, saw the plight of Indian widows. Christ took hold of her heart and life and worked through her for those miserable ones. She became an Incarnation of Jesus for those miserable widows. Jesus coming into a life is more real and practical than the coming of a guest into a man’s house to live with him. Symbolically the Lord Jesus is the Head of the Body of His devotees (called the Church); He actually directs and governs groups of believers, and sends them messages. Further, He keeps on living in History, and in and through His servants He continues His programme and activity. He directs and controls history and shapes the destiny of nations and races, not simply as an impersonal influence, but also through persons who have imbibed His spirit, and in whom He is incarnated.

The Christ-Incarnated individual passes through experiences similar to those of the God-Incarnate Himself; these are not figures of speech, analogies or symbols but equivalent personal spiritual experiences.

Some of such experiences are as follows:

1. Similar to the Birth through Mary of Jesus is the spiritual birth of the individual variously called the New Birth or the Birth from above. The Spirit of Jesus incarnate in such men bears witness that they are the sons of God.
2. Like the Baptism of Jesus, the baptism with water and the Holy Spirit is the anointing or endowing the disciple with spiritual power.
3. The Fasting and tests in the wilderness are the victory over the body, over wild nature, temptations and evil, over the power of the world and of darkness.
4. The Transfiguration on the mountain is equivalent to rising to spiritual heights, illumination, heavenly vision and revelation and communion with those in the Divine realm.
5. Crucifixion. This is suffering for Christ’s sake, for the truth or for the good of others. It further means mortification of personal passions, desires and volitions, crucifying of self-will, aims and ambitions, a death to self.
6. Resurrection: To rise above the limits of space and time and to move in the limitless the eternal, and the permanent; to become one with eternity. The Resurrected Lord in His supernatural power is the constant companion and Indweller. The devotee is in the world but not of the world, in the body but not under the body (Ajivan Mukta आजीवन मुक्त).
7. Ascension: This is to be with Jesus in the celestial place, to see His glory, and to be enthroned in the heavenly altitude, to have a foretaste of the heavenly bliss, to be in communion with the saints and to act like a citizen of Heaven, to be firmly established in the divine state and godly communion.

Jesus experienced these, and they are now repeated in the experience of every individual in whom He lives. In a way, this process is the continued Incarnation in the disciple.

V. God and the Universe

Negations

THERE ARE some paradoxical things in existence in the universe that cast many people into perplexity and trouble and raise doubts and questioning. Man’s intelligence, wisdom or genius is not able to give satisfactory answers for them, much less is it able to solve these problems. Why is there evil, crime, sin, suffering and death in the world? Though we may not be able to answer these questions we can at least throw glances at them as we shall do in this section.

Absence of light is darkness. When light shines, darkness does not exist; darkness, therefore, is absence of light. Darkness is a negation. A shadow has no substance. Darkness has no substantial existence. Death is absence of life; where life exists death cannot be there. We say, ‘He is not alive; he is dead’. Evil is absence of goodness. Wickedness is absence of holiness. God is the One who is good; evil is a state of Godlessness. Emptiness is the absence of fullness, it is the name of a negation. Fill the space and emptiness does not exist. If one runs away from light, he is in darkness. If one turns away from goodness, he is in the evil. The world is wrong or bad as it is devoid of God. The world lies in evil because it is a Godless world. Whoever is in a Godless state is in the evil. Good men or bad men, angels and devils, are not separate creations as such, but the latter lack what the former possess. Satan or the devil is not an independent being, a counterpart of God. He is devoid of Godliness, a void without God. He was not created Satan, he took to that state. A lie is a negation, because a lie has no independent existence, it is lack of truth. A statement devoid of truth is a lie. Satan is the arch liar, one devoid of truth and opposed to truth, a negation of Godliness. Disobedience is lack of obedience, yet it is an effective opposition to obedience; similarly, evil is an effective opposition to goodness through personal or natural power.

There is no use fighting a shadow, it has no substance. Let in light and darkness disappears. Hence, it is said ‘Overcome evil by good’. Stand against Satan and he flees. Face light and your shadow falls behind you. Darkness has never conquered light. Negation has no power to vanquish that which is real. What is real has existence; what is unreal has no existence. The real exists; the unreal does not exist. God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all.²² In God there cannot be both goodness and evil. He cannot be both pure and impure. A thing cannot both be and not be. Wherever full obedience is present, disobedience has no place. With the full presence of Christ Satan gets no place. When a place is full, a void or vacuum cannot be there. When life is full of God, Satan does not get a foothold. Weakness does not exist when there is strength in the body. With health sickness cannot be present. Lose health and diseases get in. The Lord gave an illustration of emptiness. A clean and decorated empty house cannot remain vacant for long. Sevenfold wickedness comes in to occupy it.²³ Vices and bad habits occupy emptiness. Fill life with virtues and good activities and the opposite cannot find room.

Where life exists death does not occur. This is the secret of immortality (Amritatva अमृतत्व), or Life Eternal or God-life. God is the only I AM, and Egoism is its negation. Egoism (अहन्ता) is Godless void. Egoism can be dispelled by God-filled life. As John the Baptist said, ‘He must increase, and I must decrease’; or as Jesus has strongly put it ‘Deny thyself’. People pride themselves upon being agnostics. But agnosticism is Agnan (अज्ञान) ignorance that is absence of Gnan (ञान), lack of knowledge. When Gnan, knowledge, comes agnosticism passes away. So also people pride themselves upon being atheists, i.e., having a lack of God. When God shines atheism vanishes like darkness.

Lord Jesus said to the disciples, ‘You are not of the world (संसार) as I am not of the world; I have called you out of the world’. Now to renounce the world, or anything else for that matter, as a duty or as a command is irksome or painful to every one, because attraction or attachment keeps holding upon him. However, when we really see that the sweetness and glamour of the world are a passing show, are perishable and not real, we see its falseness, that it is a shadow and not substance, that it is a negation, a lie. We get an aversion to it, the attraction vanishes and renunciation of the world becomes easy. The same is true of vices of every type. They attract under ignorance; but when their false nature, the fact that they are evanescent, not lasting nor real but negations, is realised, one will not hesitate to give them up. Who would follow the will-o-the wisp, or a mirage, after knowing its deceptive nature?

Lies, hypocrisy, vices, wickedness, worldliness and evil cannot continue forever. They must come to a complete stop or an end, because such negations have no real existence. They are not lasting or eternal. Only eternal values are permanent. The weeds among the wheat are rooted out and burnt.

‘You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free’, said the Lord. When a man clings to Mithya (मिथ्या) that is, to what is not real but vain, he is under the bondage of a lie. He believes these to be substantial or lasting, but when he knows the truth about them the truth sets him free. Darkness, emptiness, lies and death have no. real existence; they have names but no substance. Pleasure and the advantages of the world, vices and sin are deceptions like the appearances in a dream. Lawlessness, disobedience, evil and impurity are the opposites of rule, obedience, goodness and purity or their absence. In the presence of the latter, the former do not remain. Certain things appear to exist for a time, but have no permanence. When we group them together, the remedy is to know the truth or the facts about them, and the truth makes us free.

Cold is always present, heat has to be produced to do away with cold. Darkness is normally there, light has to be brought in to do away with darkness. Something should be filled in to do away with emptiness. Silence is naturally there, sound is to be produced to do away with silence. To remove deadness life has to be brought in. It is not necessary to create darkness, cold, emptiness or deadness. Similarly, badness, evil, sin or Satan, disease or death do not require to be created; they are the absence or lack of something positive. The non-spiritual or unspiritual condition is normally there. To remove it spirituality or spiritual state has to be produced.

Self (Aham अहम) is the great negation, the opposite of God, the void without God. As we have an inferiority complex or superiority complex, so we have also the self-complex. We think much of self, care much for self, talk and pray for the self, we excuse and plead for the self. This knot of self must be untied or cut.

It is necessary to think only of that which is positive and real. One should not constantly think or talk of sin, temptations, self and Satan. These are negations, and our eyes should not be set on them. We should rather keep watch and pray and look to the Saviour with a fixed gaze. It is very easy and tempting to think of our own weaknesses, and to find excuses for them or plead for them.

The Goal

The origin and the final consummation of the universe are more than any evolutionary scheme can think of. They are beyond the grasp of science and philosophy, except by imaginative speculations. Jesus did not indulge in speculations regarding these. We know something about the middle portion of the universe, that is to say, about existence as it is at present, and may be tempted to glance at the two extremes, the past and the future of the universe.

God is the Existence, the ‘Sat’, the Reality, the I AM. The existence of all that is, comes into being through this original Existence. Jesus said to His disciples, ‘Because I live you shall live also’. This is true in more than one sense. Biologically life comes from life and not of itself, and so in a wider sense, existence comes from previous existence. ‘The prime source of all creation is Jesus.’ ‘All that came to be was alive with His life’, and every thing is held in existence by His power, and He is constantly at work in the universe.²⁴

He feeds every one with daily bread, in the same way as the feeding of the birds and the clothing of the flowers. No sparrow falls without His knowledge, not even one of them is forgotten before God. Even the hair of our head are all counted. No one has authority over another if it is not given from God. He has said ‘Despise not the little ones’ or ‘Even the least ones.’²⁵

Many things and beings pass away or come to an end, but that does not mean that they have no value; all live to Him. They are God’s handiwork, and He maintains them and loves them. It is, therefore, reasonable and possible to trust our lives, for their maintenance and safety, to God’s care. If this is realised, then trust in God becomes natural and obligatory. As creation starts with, and is maintained through and in Christ, so its consummation and perfection too will be in Him, who is the beginning, the middle and the final. Jesus said to men that God is their Father. Thus, He makes the relation of all creatures to God that between Father and Children, simultaneously; therefore, all creatures are brothers and sisters to one another. Jesus does not exclude Himself from this relationship, since He calls God His Father and Himself the son of God and the Son of man. Thus, there is a universal family. He sets the goal before men by saying ‘Be ye perfect even as your heavenly Father is perfect’. This is individual consummation. What the ultimate spiritual state of men will be is beyond our knowledge. If God’s Spirit is present in an individual it can go on to full growth, that means, full development to type. ‘What we shall be, has not yet been disclosed; … when it is disclosed we shall be like Him’ (i.e., like Jesus). The disciple is not greater than the Teacher, but the disciple is to be like the ‘Teacher’.²⁶

A saint with supernatural experience has said that, ‘He who is united with the Lord is one Spirit with Him’. He, gives the analogy of the oneness of the bodies of husband and wife.

We know something of the union of materials, or about the unity of thought and mind, of the feelings and will of persons, but the unity of spirits is beyond our knowledge and experience. Jesus wishes that the disciples may become one as He Himself and the Father are one. How far the union of Jesus and the believer will advance along this line is a matter not of thought, speculation or conception, but one for further experience and growth. We get some idea of such an advance from our experience of concentrated devotion, prayer, worship, selfless service and devout absorption in God. Occasionally there occur such phenomena as ecstasies, trances, visions and experience of the kind of union in which one forgets one’s separate existence or consciousness.

The union of spirit with spirit cannot be of a material or physical type like that of elements. However, it will have at least the characteristics of a person and of spirit. We know the harmony and oneness of purpose and will, of thought and feeling.

The union of spirit with the Spirit will be much more than spiritual wedding; those who are Joined with the Lord become one spirit with Him.

Nature is not left to take its course, or to chance, or to uncontrolled and random forces. God is in it. He controls, conducts and guides it, and out of confusion it rises to order, out of chaos it goes to cosmos, and moves on an upward march. Someone clothes it with beauty, utility and harmony. The grandeur, significance and development of the universe reveal the God behind nature, so that those who observe and admire nature worship the God who is in it.

History, particularly human history, manifests a long term, a vast scheme, and a ruling principle in its course and development. History may appear to run and roam like a stream, but it is not rushing downwards to an abyss. It does not behave like unwinding clock-work or a spring toy. Again and again intelligent persons appear and genius comes to the forefront to lead and lift and to change the course of history for the better. Through certain great people God seems to be inspiring, working and guiding. These we call saints, prophets and spiritual teachers. God sends thinkers, reformers and preachers. World-teachers, sacrificers and martyrs come upon the scene to help the course of history, and God Himself becomes incarnate to lead history onwards and upwards.

The development of men on the spiritual side is itself a unique co-operation of God with men, Like gravitation some Divine pull raises man to higher spiritual levels and experiences.

Here, we are not trying to seek proofs for God’s existence: we simply perceive, admire and worship God in the full course of nature, history and human personality. There is a border-line between natural history and human history, and perhaps we cannot identify the transfer from one to the other. However, this may give us an idea of the transfer from human history to divine history, since nature is expecting the appearing of the sons of God.

A Concluding Note

UPANISHAD means a mystical teaching or a discourse on spiritual secrets. In Krishtopanishad (Christ-Upanishad) the main points are these:

1. Jesus is God Himself, the Absolute, the Incarnate and the Indwelling God.
2. Man, natural being has to become a spiritual being by receiving the Divine Life of God. In this way man receives the spiritual nature of God.
3. Salvation (Mukti or Moksa) is not a process or an achievement of man himself. Man has constantly to be related with the Muktidata the Saviour to be kept saved in all matters.
4. Man’s practical life on earth should be a spiritual or godly life as a continued Incarnation of Jesus.
5. All that is real will move towards perfection, but all that is unreal or deceptive will drop out. Man will have an advancing life of union with God, the extent of which is beyond our conception.

Fakirbhai, Dhanjibhai, 1895- Khristopanishad (Christ-Upanishad) With a foreword by R.H.S. Boyd. Bangalore, Christian Institute for the Study of Religion and Society, 1965.

16, 44 p. 19 cm. (Indian Christian thought series, no. 3)

1. Christianity and other religions - Hinduism.
2. Jesus Christ Hindu Interpretations.

Indian Christian Thought Series

No. 1. My Theological Quest - Bishop A.J. APPASAMY No. 2. Ananyatva - Sri MARK SUNDER RAO

Price: Rs 2