Christianity and India

"Christians living in Kerala astutely relate the Christ to the Vedic tradition."

Christianity in India is about as old as Christianity itself. In the south, in the Tamil province, especially, the cult of the Christian is especially well developed. In parts of India it easily adopted the Brahminic mode of expression. Syrian Christians living in Kerala engage in casting their horoscopes for example, and astutely relate the life of the Christ to Vedic traditions. In some regard, Christian-ways in these regions are ubiquitous; in turn it gives culture to India.

 The deeply imbedded notion of the Avatar inspires many. Through divining the personality of the Christ, Indians see the Christ as something of a Supreme Being, incarnated, come to earth to save mankind. The idea of wrong, of sin is overlooked. In this type of salvation drama, Christ, the Avatar is most appealing. Sabrania Bharati, a Tamil poet of national prominence and a Shakti devotee wrote:

My Lord expired on the Cross

and ascended in three days.
Beloved Mary Magdalene

 saw this happen.
Friends! Here's the esoteric sense.
The gods will enter us
and guard us from all ills 

if we transcend pride.
 

Mary Magdalene is Love,
Jesus the Soul.
The outer evil destroyed,
the good life sprouts.
She praised the radiance 

in that golden face.
That was the love of Magdalene,

ah, what joy!
If Sense is bound to the Cross of Truth,
and crucified with nail austerity,
Jesus of the strengthened soul 

will rise as the boundless sky

Magdalene is Eternal Feminine,
Jesus Christ is deathless dharma,
Draw we close to the symbol:
look, an inner meaning glows.

The poet does not mean to give a philosophical view here. Instead he is deeply moved to record his experience in poetry, the song of words. Praising the image of the Christ upon the Cross, he attempts to reconcile this image with the sure knowledge of deep suffering, of passion. Why should there be so much suffering? Is the persecutor Pilate to be the ever source of this suffering? What remains now of godliness, of mercy, of holiness? The heart in ascension rises and opens to the eternal, to hope.

How, muses the poet, shall we coax, the Lord of Hosts to enter our consciousness, making us the carriers of the imperishable Dharma? With Mary Magdalene as love incarnate, love then is the entrailing of the gods to combine the human with Jivatman and Supreme, the Paramatman.
Where love is expressed, smallness falls away; there lives instead the Divine, for God is Love, we learn. The Supreme responds to the sincere strivings of the Human being.

Another Indian of great repute, Sri Aurobindo also felt the indescribable pull towards the imagery of  Christ upon the Cross. Affected by the story of The Divine Comedy,  Dante who remarks with simple clarity, 'in His will is our peace,' reflects the view of Aurobindo equally himself.
Aurobindo freely engaged the life and gospels of the Christ in his own writings. For Aurobindo, the Christ represented the ideal, the strivings of the One to completeness, to wholeness. The Avatar, he believed, was significant for man's spiritual progress, for his ultimate ascension. In his epic poem, Savitri, he writes about the Christ as Avatar in a step towards human unity.

Transformation, Siva and Shakti

"Transformation is the process of evolution of the consciousness through its three main levels of development... predominantly masculine in character... It is a woman's journey as much as man's." --Transformation by Robert Johnson

"Man evolves from acting instinctively to putting his psychic energy under the control of his ego. Then he must evolve further, to place his psychic energy under the control of the Self," writes Robert Johnson in his book, Transformation. Nineteenth century writer and poet, Henry Thoreau wrote extensively of transformations in his writings, Walden Pond.
To many of his time, Thoreau was a genius, a wonder, inspiring people who were now living urban lives to recollect the simplicity they had before, and what was now a challenge before themselves. His writing is a chronicling of a complex man's desire to restore 'simplicity to life through Mother Earth and natural living.'

Johnson writes about his first visit to India as a young man; he was told to expect horrors, deprivations and extreme poverty, corpses lying about on the public streets. He found all this darkness to be true, and he discovered something quite wonderful: there was great joyfulness all around despite this ever present darkness. People were, to his eye, unmistakably happy.
He latter learned that the roots of the word 'happy' are from the verb infinitive, to happen. Happiness he writes, is 'simply what happens.' Simple man lives in this state of happiness; for them it is the rejoinder to both their interior lives and the reality of the exterior, happening world around them.

Falling back upon the Judeo-Christian motif of the Garden, Johnson traces the development of men from the time that they are driven forth from their free, simplified, garden world, robbed of their child-like existence. He asserts that in agrarian societies everywhere, in measured degrees, most people are to be left permanently in simple consciousness. Yet today's complexity and formal education have become so highly valued, many are zealous champions of its development.
In contrast, the India he encountered, the Indian society he experienced was one of Caste, with Brahmins at the top and the Untouchables at the bottom. This system, he noted, keeps the majority of people in Simple consciousness. And while it has its flaws from the Western point of view, Johnson finds advantage in the reduced stress and anxiety in their daily lives, that it "overall avoids mass neurosis prevalent in Western societies."

Using stories familiar to Western readers, Johnson writes of Faust, Mephistopheles, Hamlet and the idea of the personal 'shadow,' the un-lived, concealed parts of the personality. Some have called the shadow a representative of the road less traveled; the ins and outs one may have chosen at different points in their life, but didn't or have not chosen to pursue.
He argues that contrary to assumptions, the shadow is not all grim, all darkness; rather it is the source of much gold, much good in the creative endeavors. The shadow engages one in the art of retrieving those facets of life that are full, meaningful, and maybe what is missing from the daily grind. While some perhaps deduce this all to mean that the shadow is subversive, dark or evil existing life, Johnson disagrees.
He sees the Shadow as an important element to finding ones' wholeness, to completing oneself. By this process, and it is a process, one may redeem oneself; the shadow provides energy and paradox, important components for redemption, the "do over chance" in life.
 
For some it creates so much energy that there is the sense of brilliance, it burns fire, a blinding light. "This is not unlike the manifestations of Siva, Indian God of Destruction, who appears as paradox for the Western mind." 
 The end is what creates the beginning, the empty becomes full again, are two such examples of paradox. "It is only when Brahma, God of Creation and Shiva are together present" that wholeness becomes loving, Shakti.

A passion for Life

"You are the secret of God's heart."

There's a spirit awaiting your presence. Enter into it. Find what you may about life, love, yourself. Make your motto courage. "Know that love and tenderness are not powerless; patience and tolerance can produce tremendous change.
Yet these energies have to be used, not in submissiveness or resignation, but in passion," writes Deepak Chopra in his book, The Path to Love.

A passion for life is a passion for wholeness, for unity. It is the recognition that the world contains all things, side by side. Passion is the freedom to choose, to live in experience the things that are essential to a human existence.
This passion for unity is a passion for the male and female contained within the self. Like the marriage of Siva and Shakti, both the male and female are within, and both are vital.

"For men this may be the advent of tenderness, nurturing and trust. Having a woman always to supply these qualities is not enough. Male attributes of force and violence have become grotesquely exaggerated in this world because men leave the feminine energies to women...Vulnerable may be then seen as a human quality, not a weakness that makes a man only half a man. Competition based on ego will diminish...the ability to cooperate increases...Spiritually man is the complement of woman... By welcoming Shakti, a man truly is Siva."

In the Judeo-Christian tradition woman is made from man's rib, therefore at creation, the two are one. They join again in marriage and become one,  flesh of my flesh, reads Christian scripture. It is to be seen that in spirit, and in the ultimate reality, man and woman are alike, whole and unified, each with their unique emphasis. He and she joins to form 'we'.
 The world has not claimed there to be too much tenderness, too much friendship or love. The continued separation of creation, forces into opposition that which is destined to be together. Alienation becomes the tragic result, resulting in various self-destroying behaviors.

Chopra writes further, "A woman needs to allow herself however much time it takes to use Shakti energy to accomplish what has been reserved for the male ego. Shakti runs in everyone, but women have been given their femaleness [and unique creative ability] to accentuate the difference between themselves and Siva."

The ways of Shakti are the solution for many.  Allowing these spiritual realities to suffuse the self is the key to a whole, unified way of life, befitting of a human person.

The Marriage of Shakti and Siva
"Our minds," says Chopra, 'are conditioned to seeing male and female as polar opposites. It is totally inadequate to call Siva male and Shakti female since these terms limit God, who is limitless [in creation].
Siva and Shakti have been married together since the dawn of time. They are the divine whole that chooses to express itself by taking the appearance of male and female. You and I may do the same thing: my body may be male, my inner identities, spirit; thus by taking on Shakti, my whole soul includes both Siva and Shakti." paraphrased

Qualities of Siva and Shakti:

* Siva is silence. Shakti is power.

* Siva is creative. Shakti is creation.

* Siva is love. Shakti is loving.

"These qualities are not opposites, they are complements. The Vedic teaching is that out of the "divine sexual act, the world was born; therefore the feminine as the birth giver, is the natural vehicle of power... The silence of Siva who has no need to intrude, conquer, overcome, or aquire. 
Although he is called the 'destroyer of worlds' in the Bhagavad-Gita, what is meant is that Siva absorbs the universe back into himself at the end of creation. 
Siva, one of the three primal gods of India, along with Brahma and Vishnu conceive a particular form of the divine. Siva is best understood as a silent awareness that permeates everything. The creative potential of Siva is greater than any single expression, even that of galaxies or the world itself."

How can this be? It may be seen through a practice sometimes called second attention working through the sixth sense, intuition, sometimes also called sight or gift. In reality there are continuous signals everywhere which may be perceptible at any time through an intuitive or meditational process.

"The Indian mind is not linear,' writes Chopra. 'It finds no contradiction in making Siva the destroyer and all knowing creator.'
'Siva wants to be known. It is the god's greatest sign of love. Entering into passion, you express your own nature and nothing less."

The Avataras of Vishnu

Vishnu, Hindu god, declares in the Bhagavad Gita that whenever dharma declines and the purpose of life is forgotten or set aside, he will manifest on earth. Vishnu declares he is born in every age, a human birth with human parents; his mission is to protect the good, to counteract evil and re-activate dharma for those fallen asleep in the world.

With this statement, Hinduism declares itself to be a salvific faith, a messiah not entirely unlike the Judeo-Christian belief. Vishnu carries out his intercessions innumerable times though not always in human form, of incarnations or avataras. Vishnu is thought to take on a disguise at times to bring dharma where it is most needed.The earliest avataras are most associated with the primeval ocean, water long seen as a symbol of life. Avataras also represent primordial chaos whose arising in Hindu philosophy is thought to be a prerequisite to the development of an orderly cosmos derived from earlier chaos.

The pantheon of avataras in modern Hinduism are: Matsya, the fish; Kurma, the tortoise; Varaha, the boar; Narasinha, the lion; Vamana-Trivikrama, the dwarf-colossus; Parasurama, Rama with the axe; Rama, the most famous of avatars, demon king-killer; Krishna, the most important of Vishnu incarnations, despot eliminator; Buddha, rids the earth of evil doctrines without exception; Kalkin, the final avataras, futuristic, will usher in a new age when manifest.

The Hindu sects of Vishnu follow a doctrine of a supreme being, a Brahman; his avatara is Rama who represents the epitome of manhood and human aspiration. In his female aspect, Vishnu is referred to as Shakti, who represents the goddess Lakshmi. As previously mentioned here, there are two distinct views of Vishnu delineated by geography.

Another important movement of believers are the Bhakti, the devoted ones. These persons see Vishnu with uncompromising devotion, a mystical, total union which may be attained by contact with the mortal intermediary of his avatara, Krishna. Typical devotions include sung or chanted expressions of adoration. The movement has strong links with Buddhism, primarily Tantric sects such as Sahajayana whose founder was Krishnacarya. Author Patrick Bresnan writes of this and more in his book, Awakening, the History of Eastern Thought.