The Direct Disciples of Sri Ramakrishna

373 SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2013
Sin, Jesus Christ And Vedanta

Swami Sunirmalananda
The Direct Disciples of Sri Ramakrishna

Swami Bhuteshananda
Divine Wisdom
Teachings of Swami Brahmananda

Why do I insist that you devote yourselves heart and
soul to the Lord? When we were your age, Sri Ramakrishna
kept careful watch over our spiritual practices. In youth the
mind is like unbaked clay, and can be moulded into any shape.
Your minds are still young and pure; they have not been baked
in the fire of worldliness; therefore, they can be easily directed
towards God. If the mind is moulded now, you will achieve
your purpose; you will not be troubled by distractions.
The mind is like a packge of mustard seeds. If the seeds
are once scattered, it is difficult to gather them up again.
Likewise, when the energies of the mind have been scattered, as
one grows older it is very difficult to collect them and turn the
mind toward God.
MakeGodthebeallandendallofyourlife.Devote
yourself sincerely to realising him, and you will be free from all
sorrow and pain. You will inherit eternal happiness. Man
seeks happiness in the world, but does he find it? In his mad
pursuit he toils hard and runs hither and thither after many
objects, only to find shadows after all. His life ebbs; he dies in
vain. Leave these fleeting pleasures of the world behind you;
give your mind to God, be devoted to him, and you will find
real happiness. Devote your mind to the world and to the
pleasures of the world, and great will be your suffering; devote
your mind to God, and great will be your joy.
Continued on the inside back cover
373 SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2013
Contents
194
Prayer (Editorial)
197
Sin, Jesus Christ And Vedanta

212
Faith, Reason And Realisation

Swami Adiswarananda
223
God Is Also Mother :

Female And Male Religions
Hans Torwesten
231

Swami Bhuteshananda
235
Sankaracharya: Life And Teachings

Swami Dayatmananda
240
Programme
ISSN 1355 - 6436
Editorial
Prayer
Om, Lead us from the Unreal to the Real.
Lead us from Ignorance to Illumination.
Lead us from Death to Immortality.
Om Peace, Peace, Peace.
Prayer is the wing wherewith the soul flies to heaven, and
meditation the eye wherewith we see God. (St. Ambrose).
A Devotee: "Then what is the way, sir?"
Master: "Prayer and the company of holy men. There is another way:
earnestly praying to God. God is our very own. We should say to Him: 'O
God, what is Thy nature? Reveal Thyself to me. Thou must show Thyself to
me; for why else hast Thou created me?"
here is none who does not pray at some time or other in

his life. Every breath of every creature is a prayer for life,
knowledge and happiness; every desire is an
unarticulated prayer to a higher power. So long as we are
imperfect our every wish is an ardent prayer.
In the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna we find the word
Prayer occurring more than ninety times. Sri Ramakrishna
gave great importance to prayer as a spiritual discipline. Again
and again he has given us the assurance, God listens to prayer
if it is sincere.
Prayer plays a very important role in human life. It is an
expression of a want, a desire for fulfilment. So long as there is
a feeling of limitation and helplessness our life is an act of
ceaseless prayer.
What is prayer?
Prayer is an appeal by the finite to the Infinite, by the visible
to the Invisible. It is also a communion with God; it establishes
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Prayer
a relationship between the soul and the omnipotent Almighty.
Prayer is really religion in practice.
Prayer is man's natural function. Even the primitive people
used it. Every religion preached it. Even rationalistic Buddhism
had to bend before it.
Prayer is a most intimate conversation between God and
man. Prayer, said William James, is the ' intercourse with an
Ideal Companion. It is talking to God directly. Great mystics
remain in the state of perpetual prayer. To them God is more
real than the external phenomena. Other men take God on faith
and pray to Him.
Prayer is a consistent and continuous out-pouring of the
devout heart at the feet of the Most High. It unites man with
God and leads him from the worldly life to the spiritual life. A
life of prayer enables man to establish a personal relationship
with God, and enter into close communion with Him. As one
proceeds in such a life, one realizes that one's relationship with
the Eternal Spirit becomes more and more abiding and tangible,
and one's heart gets attuned to the Silence.
Prayer is faith in exercise. A man prays for material or
spiritual benefit, for expressing his gratitude or for strength to
carry out his responsibilities.
Prayer is an act that creates a mental condition which does
away with the dead-weight of life and helps the soul to soar
high to discover subtle and higher truths.
Prayer is total and complete resignation to God. Faith is
recognition of a Higher Power and Its loving expression, while
prayer is resignation to that Higher Power and utter
abandonment to Its will. The devotee lets go of his ego
completely and says, ' Not my but thy will be done', ' Not I but
Thou.
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Prayer
Prayer is not mere wishful thinking. It calls up the latent
powers in us and gives us the strength to overcome our
lethargy and other obstacles.
Swami Vivekananda explains: By prayer one's subtle powers
are easily roused, and if consciously done, all desires may be fulfilled
by it; but done unconsciously, one perhaps in ten is fulfilled.
Prayer makes a man thoughtful, introspective, humble; and

above all he rouses faith in himself and becomes steady and
strong. Prayer helps us overcome temptations to sin; helps us in
strengthening of our will, and our capacity for development of
character, service to others, and finally devotion to God.
Prayer is indispensable. A life without prayer is a life
without a heart. Prayer plays the most important part in mans
life. All greatness is the result of ardent prayer. Prayer itself is
an independent path to God.
Are prayers answered? All prayers? Is there a right way to
cultivate prayer? These points will be discussed in our future
editorials.
(to be continued)
Swami Dayatmananda
Give up worldly enjoyments and completely resign yourself to the
Lord. You cannot love God and the world at the same time. If you want
God, shun temporal pleasures. Ask yourself: "What is it I want? Do I
want this fleeting life of transient pleasures, or do I want the eternal bliss
of everlasting life?" When a man has renounced all worldly cravings and
regards God as his own, God is very near. Such a man binds God to him
with the fetters of love. Think of him as your very own. Pray to him,
"Lord, reveal yourself to me !" God cannot remain unmoved by the pleas
of such a devotee. He hastens to him and takes him in his arms. Oh, how
inexpressible is that joy! How boundless that bliss! Only he can know
who has had that experience, compared to which all worldly pleasures
seem insipid and worthless.
Swami Brahmananda
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Sin, Jesus Christ and Vedanta

A
I
pple did it
t's a beautiful morning. You wake up with pleasant feelings,

with excellent plans for the day. But the very first person you
meet remarks: 'Ah! You are so ugly!' or, 'Oh! You are worthless'.
How will that day go for you? One negative thought, and your
life can be ruined. Now, imagine your being constantly called a
sinner. First of all, you yourself aren't happy with your life, and
are constantly ashamed about some of your past deeds quite
unnecessarily though. Though they may be trivialities, they keep
on haunting you. Adding insult to injury, you are branded a
sinner. To add more insult to injury, you are told that you are
damned eternally. To add chilli powder to the the injury, if you
are told that this is the only life, the only chance for you, and that
you have misused this 'only chance' by being a sinner, how would
you feel? Imagine your fate on the Judgement Day, when 'He will
separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the
sheep from the goats. He will set the sheep on his right hand, but
the goats on the left.... Then shall He say unto them on the left
hand, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared
for the devil and his angels.... And these shall go away into
everlasting punishment.'1 How will you feel? It's no wonder
psychiatrists, psychotherapists, psychoanalysts and others are
having a roaring business now. It's no wonder, again, that
antidepressants are sold like chewing gum as was in the past.
There is existential hollowness, though superficial peals of
laughter cover it.
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Sinners! This very word is terrible, and it seems to have been
with us since the 'beginning'. Who is to blame? Yes, that cursed
apple is to blame, for, 'Through their disobedience, Adam and
Eve effectively decided matters for their entire progeny. For the
sin-nature and the ensuing threefold death has as a consequence
been passed on ever since to all mankind through the process of
normal human procreation (with the sole exception of the virginborn Messiah). For this reason, every other human being is
steeped in sin at birth....'2 Further, 'As soon as they sinned, Adam
and Eve instantly experienced spiritual death, physical death and
eternal death.... Through their disobedience, Adam and Eve
effectively decided matters for their entire progeny.'3 Thus we are
all born sinners. However, that is not the end of the story.
The Thirty Coins.
It would be too cruel to say this, but the evil intention of Judas
Iscariot, who gave away Jesus Christ to the priests of the
Sanhedrin for thirty pieces of silver,4 became indirectly
instrumental in saving humanity from sin. Even evil intentions
finally yield good results, perhaps. Nobody would ever praise
Judas for his evil deed; he threw away the silver pieces and
hanged himself. Yet, his evil act was part of a divine drama to
save humanity from sin, because Jesus is said to have died on the
cross for humanity's sake. The 1st Corinthians says: 'For since
death [came] through a man, resurrection of the dead also [had
to come] through a man. For just as in Adam, all die, so also in
Christ, shall all be made alive.'5 Thus, two individuals were
responsible for something vital and supremely important in
human life. While Adam, though being our progenitor, made us
sinful, his exact opposite, Jesus, saved us from sin. 'For as in Adam
all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.'6 So far so good. But the
story is not yet over.
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Christians are not yet totally free from sin, or so they say, for
the simple reason that there are still churches, priests, bishops,
and confessionals in all catholic churches. There are still
thousands of priests listening to and digesting horrible stories of
sin regularly (though nowhere in the Bible is there mention of
such a system), and granting absolution continuously. Also there
are thousands of churches of other denominations doing some
different things for the same reason. Let's not forget that there are
still billions waiting for the Judgement Day in the graves and
outside them. When that day comes, this is what is going to
happen. St Matthew is eloquent here when he says: 'Just as the
weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the
end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will
collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and
they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be
weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like
the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears
listen!'7 The Eastern Orthodox Church, whose concept of sin is
better, goes a step further to say that there shall be not one but
two "last" judgements. The first, forty days after death, when the
soul will be sent to a suitable waiting place to wait for the second
Christ's arrival. The second, when there comes the Second Christ
and the general judgement takes place. Protestants have their
diverse opinions about the judgement day, but the generally
accepted view is that all the dead from throughout human history
will be resurrected and divided into the purgatory goers and the
heaven goers. So, the story is not at all over.
The Way to Salvation
Isn't all this complicated? Because Eve induced poor Adam
to eat the forbidden fruit, we are all born sinners. Somehow we
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were saved by Christ's sacrifice, but here come our own mortal
sins to torment us. Though priests (Catholicism) and the
'justification by faith alone Sola fide' (Protestantism)-seem to save
sinners, there is the final judgement waiting. If someone thinks
that meritorious deeds can save the sinner, the Protestant will say
no. You cannot win God's grace by any means. God bestows His
grace according to His will. (Even the Catholics say this.) At the
most, according to Protestants, you have a little free will to either
reject or accept that grace. Of course, meritorious deeds are good,
but they are not conditions of justification. As the faith declares:
'Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, died for our sins and was raised
again for our justification.8 He alone is the Lamb of God who takes
away the sins of the world.9 This cannot be otherwise acquired
or grasped by any work, law, or merit. Therefore, it is clear and
certain that this faith alone justifies us.'10 Catholics hold that God's
grace acts in two ways. Sanctifying grace works from within and
'sanctifies' during baptism, when the soul becomes the child of
God, but, one mortal sin, and the person becomes a sinner again
and is cut off from grace. Actual grace gives a boost to the will
to act. (Some thinkers reverse the actions of the two types of
grace.) Yet, through sacraments (of which the sacrament of
reconciliation or penance is vital), reconciliation with God takes
place, grace comes again, and the soul can avoid sinning. Yet that
does not end the story. God's grace, according to Catholics, is
conditional (but not according to Calvin) and is not earned.
Nobody can earn God's grace, for it's a free gift from God. So
Christian scholars declare: 'Once we have repented of our sins
and admitted them to our God, we must be absolutely convinced
of our immediate restoration into the full good favour of God.
[However] Confession does not necessarily mean that we will not
experience any consequences stemming from our sins, for they
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may result in both natural repercussions and a course of divine
discipline. But it does mean that we have been forgiven them
immediately upon confessing them, and that our fellowship with
our Lord has been restored.'11 It's like two individuals quarrelling
and a middleman restoring peace. The quarrelling ones shake
hands, but that does not end the anger.
Sometimes the thought comes: If we are condemned as
sinners, if there is no hope, why religion, why churches, why all
the trouble? Nothing will change because mortal sins are our
undoing. If, on the contrary, Christ has saved us from sin, if we
are freed now, why think of churches and religion and sin and
purgatory? Again, if God's grace is His gift which is not deserved
nor can be earned, why religion, why churches, why all the
trouble? The situation is indeed sad. When one sees people
seemingly happy walking, talking and eating well but with
the negative thought that they are sinners, firmly rooted in the
subconscious, one feels sorry for them. So, the Christian
theologian's story of sin is not all that simple.
Hamartiology: Science of Sin
Hamartiology is the science of sin. 'Hamartia' is the Greek
word for sin. Sinfulness, according to Christianity, is our natural
tendency born with Adam. What is this sinful tendency
according to Christianity? Scholars in Hamartiology answer: 'By
the term "sin nature" is meant the inherent, innate, indwelling
sinfulness possessed by all of Adam's descendants (with the sole
exception of the virgin-born Son of God), which leads to the
committing of personal sins.'12 Can we not shake off this sinful
tendency, at least as Christ himself made the ultimate sacrifice
for our sake? Christian scholars reply: 'The term "sin nature" itself
is our shorthand for the corrupted physical body we now occupy.
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... If we say that we do not possess sin (i.e., a sin nature which is
producing personal sins), we are deceiving ourselves, and the
truth is not in us.'13 Dr Robert Luginbill says in his introduction
to the book, Hamartiology: The Study of Sin: 'A proper
understanding of the biblical teachings about sin is crucial for
every believer in Jesus Christ. Sin is a subject that while it is
generally understood by Christians in the broad sense, is often
not properly comprehended in its particulars. We must
understand that Christ died for our sins and that our sins have
been washed away by the "blood of Christ". We must also
understand that personal sin separates us from God, and that, as
long as we occupy these bodies of flesh, sin will always be
"crouching at the door" in ambush for us. The failure to strike a
proper balance between these two critically important realities,
of sin forgiven positionally in Christ on the one hand, but, on the
other hand, remaining an experiential problem for believers as
long as we remain in this world, is at the heart of many incorrect
opinions about the biblical subject of sin.'14 What is forgiven, what
is not, what is grace, what is not is all confusing. To live inside
the dark cloud of sin always, and eternally waiting for the
Judgement Day to come, is perhaps more difficult.
Christ and Sin
What did Jesus Christ himself do and say about sin? What
was Christ's attitude towards sinners? To answer this, there is a
wonderful parable. In this parable, Christ reveals his heart: here,
one sees the most touching testimony of God's love for man. 'How
think ye? If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be
gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into
the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? And if so
be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that
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sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray. Even
so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of
these little ones should perish.'15 Why, because 'the Son of man is
come to save that which was lost.'16
Jesus Christ never has harsh words for sinners. No
condemnation ever! Yes, he seems to use some harsh words
against the Pharisees and Sadducees the so-called protectors of
religion, but who were not.17 These Pharisees and Sadducees have
come in newer forms subsequently and have, down the centuries,
been tormenting the innocent millions threatening them of dire
consequences for their "sins", and rendering them helpless by
saying that neither their merits nor good deeds can bring God's
grace. Further, they are doing the same things which their earlier
counterparts did and whom Christ scolded severely. Jesus has
very strong words for such middlemen. He has also used some
harsh words to warn humanity against committing sins, because,
'Woe unto the world because of offenses!'18 He appears to have
"threatened" the negligent of consequences of eternal
damnation.19 This 'threatening' is seen in an instance when Jesus
tells, as if narrating a futuristic parable, as to what the King would
do when He comes to judge. His motive there is to awaken human
beings to the service of the living gods, fellow human beings and
to purify themselves. 'Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have
done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done
it unto me,'.20 Yet Jesus is not cursing the sinner here. He never
insults the fallen. He has supreme love and compassion. This is
the difference between the prophet and the religion that
developed around his name.
We have already narrated the most touching example of
God's love for the lost sheep. Here's something which shows his
compassion further. 'Then came Peter to him, and said, "Lord,
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how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Till
seven times?" Jesus saith unto him, "I say not unto thee, until
seven times: but, until seventy times seven."21 If an ordinary
individual is told to forgive "490 times" ('seventy times seven'),
that is, hundreds of times, imagine how many times God forgives
us seven trillion times seven, possibly? Eternally, possibly? Where
then is the question of eternal condemnation? Where is the
question of falling from grace at all? Jesus had harsh words
against sin and sinful tendencies, and painted pictures of dire
consequences, as our Mythologies do in order to uproot the
deep-rooted sinful tendencies. His concern was to save people
from the path of error and bring them to the path of truth. To
humiliate sinners is the negative attitude. Being a prophet, Jesus
would never have done that. The very advent of the Incarnation
is a manifestation of love for the erring beings. So, Jesus, who
walked on the land like a hero, only gave positive ideas. What
were the positive ideas that Jesus gave? We saw two examples
already. Forgetting the herd, God runs after the lost sheep and is
satisfied only when it is brought back to the fold. Further, Jesus
asks people to love all: 'Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou
shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto
you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to
them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use
you, and persecute you.'22 These are positive words indeed. These
inspiring words are to goad Christians to perform good deeds.
So, when the Incarnation himself goads us to do good deeds, they
are certainly pleasing to Him and are valuable. Thus when God
is pleased, His grace flows, for a certainty. Further, while
hamartiologists say that the very possession of the body means
we are sinners, Christ seems to say that this body is there to serve
others. Furthermore, God's compassion and love for the erring
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ones is so strong in these words: '...for He maketh His sun to rise
on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on
the unjust.'23 If Jesus said these things, he also practised them, for
the prophet's life and teachings are non-different.
The Power of Faith
Jesus was strongly averse to judging others. While the
Pharisees and Sadducees of the faith busy themselves in branding
millions as sinners; and while the Church went to such an extent
as selling indulgences to absolve people of sins, Jesus said: 'Judge
not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye
shall be judged.... how wilt thou say to thy brother, "Let me pull
the mote out of thine eye," and, behold, a beam is in thine own
eye?'24
We have seen that both Catholics and Protestants say that
God's grace can never be earned thereby leaving millions of
helpless people in the lurch, for neither are their good deeds of
any value, nor will their merits bring His grace. It all depends on
His will. Yet, in Jesus Christ, we see something different. This is
how. Disease and suffering are due to sin. In his lifetime, Jesus
healed hundreds of souls of numerous ailments. In several
instances we see Christ healing the sick ones of impossible
ailments, but remarking thus: 'Your faith has made you whole.'25
Deep within the so-called sinner who is ailing, there is the element
of faith, which Christ awakens. That faith heals. Here, faith does
not mean that verbal acknowledgement, like 'I believe in the
Bible.' It's not like a child's saying, 'I believe in ghosts.' It is a
deep-rooted, innate power of the soul. This faith is strengthened
through meritorious deeds, prayer etc.
The Centurion incident is remarkable there is no better
incident than this one. Though a man of great importance and
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power, the Centurion was humble, and his humility is made
manifest in diverse ways. He had so many soldiers at his disposal;
but yet, the Centurion had himself come to seek Christ's grace
not for his family but for an ailing servant! He did not want
Jesus to take the trouble to go all the way to his house, unworthy
that the Centurion thought he was, but to bless the servant from
where Christ was. Jesus was so pleased with the Centurion's faith
that he praised him thus: 'I have not found so great faith, no, not
in Israel.'26 Christ told him: 'Go thy way; and as thou hast believed,
so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the
selfsame hour.'27 The servant was healed even without Jesus'
going there at all, just because of the Centurion's faith. Here,
again, we see how the merits of the Centurion made God shower
His grace upon him. This is one of the most important incidents
in Christ's life because a third person, a servant, who did not even
know Jesus perhaps or have any faith in him was healed just
because of his master's faith in Christ. Ramanuja's system of the
path of Self-Surrender tells us how God's grace is showered on
the individual who surrenders, and also upon his associates.
Such was the importance Jesus gave to faith. The Incarnation
or prophet comes only to establish faith faith in oneself and faith
in God. Here, we see Christ insisting on faith in oneself. He seems
to say: 'Your faith has made you whole! Have more faith, and you
can overcome more difficulties and win the war of life.' The
importance which Jesus gave to faith is most evident in this
incident. Once, his disciples could not heal or drive out the devil.
They wanted to know why they had failed. Jesus said: 'Because
of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a
grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove
hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be
impossible unto you.'28
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Christ: The Vedantin

What does all this show? Is Christ pointing his finger at the
powerlessness, helplessness and worthlessness of the sinful man,
rolling in sins? Or is Christ showing to the world the power of
the individual and the power of faith in oneself and in God,
whatever his present state of life might be blind or lame? The
power of faith removes every obstacle, shows Christ! This was
how Jesus looked at sin, the sinner, disease, suffering, and so on.
This is called Vedanta. What does Vedanta teach? 'Ay, let every
man and woman and child, without respect of caste or birth,
weakness or strength, hear and learn that behind the strong and
the weak, behind the high and the low, behind every one, there
is that Infinite Soul, assuring the infinite possibility and the
infinite capacity of all to become great and good. ... None is really
weak; the soul is infinite, omnipotent, and omniscient. ... Teach
yourselves, teach every one his real nature, call upon the sleeping
soul and see how it awakes. Power will come, glory will come,
goodness will come, purity will come, and everything that is
excellent will come when this sleeping soul is roused to selfconscious activity.'29 These are Swami Vivekananda's immortal
words. 'Amritasya putrh children of everlasting bliss,' is what
Vedanta calls living beings, while Christianity insists that beings
are born in sin, are sinners, and are helpless creatures. Christ,
however, was different. He showed the power of the individual
to overcome obstacles. According to Vedanta, shraddh, faith, is
proportional to the strength of the personality-as much the faith,
so much is the power of the personality. Awaken this dormant
shraddh, which has gone to sleep due to the evil effects of
negative ideas, says Vedanta. Thus, giving positive ideas and
making even the most worthless worthy of honour is one thing.
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Instilling negative ideas systemically and making the most
worthy souls worthless is another.
If there is weakness, delivering weakness is not the solution,
but delivering strength. If a person falls, cursing him is not the
solution. This was the positive approach Jesus Christ had. He did
not say, for instance, that 'blessed are the poor people'. He said:
'Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven.'30 What does this mean? Heaven, that is, God, who lives
there, belongs to the spiritually weak, also the so-called sinners.
How? They know they have erred, and are seeking God. This is
the approach of all avatars and prophets towards life. Thus, till
now we saw that the approaches of some theologians and Christ
are different towards life and its fundamental questions. The
sublime words of Christ about the 'sinful woman' say it all: 'He
that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.'31
He never condemned. He never discarded anyone as impure or
bad. He embraced the weak and the miserable. This is Vedanta.
Sin: A Different View
Sin never leaves Christianity, but the idea Christ had about it
and the later Christians have about it, appear to be different. In
fact, Christians have been spending a lot of time in arguing about
certain things like the Immaculate Conception, for instance. If
only they had compared Mother Mary with the mothers of other
Incarnations like Sri Rama, Krishna, the Buddha, and so on, they
would have easily understood the concept. Similar is the case
with sin. Though scholars have explained this concept repeatedly,
it has become more and more complicated with the passing of
time. What could be the idea of 'sin'? The Hebrew words for sin
are chatah (error, missing the mark), pesha (transgression) and
avone (transgression or ignorance). Error is going against the set
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pattern or law, and against God's will. Now, to err is human. Even
if it is considered infernal, sin should not demand eternal
damnation, because God came to save, and everyone needs a
chance to change. So, the idea is different.
Maybe we can look at Sin from the Vedantic angle. Is Sin a
misinterpretation of the theory of karma, because Hamartiologists
say that the very possession of the physical body shows that we
are sinful? Perhaps. Perhaps the idea of 'sin' could be somewhat
akin to the idea of karma but largely misinterpreted by
theologians. 'As you sow, so you reap,' is the well-known law of
karma. Karma means action, karma-phala means the result, and the
effects of this result could be either good or bad, depending on
the deed done. If your eating chilli is karma, the burning tongue
is the karma-phala. You can perform both good and bad karma.
And you can perform karma both for worldly as well as spiritual
ends. Nobody can evade work or karma. The very system makes
us work, and everything we do is conscious or unconscious work.
Karma, however, is not fatalism as it is generally understood but
is something positive. Karma is not talking about the past, but
living the present moment correctly. Yes, our sufferings are the
results of our past karma, but our happiness too is the result of
past karma alone. Most importantly, karma and its result are both
inert and don't produce results of themselves. God is the bestower
of the results of karma. This point is important.
Vedanta, which has a perfectly positive approach to life and
spirituality, declares that karma means opportunity. Whatever
you might have done in the past, whatever may be your state of
life now, it can change. Begin now! Just do good. Serve others
without looking for accolades or rewards. Soon, the past bad
karmas are wiped out and you begin to glow, grow and rise up.
Karma gives this positive outlook of life.
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In Christianity, sin is a negative concept, considered only as
something bad which leads to bad effects. It blocks the evolution
of the soul. Further, Lutherans oppose the idea that good works
and merits will cancel past sins. So there is no hope. This only
means that the meaning of sin is limited and narrow. In Christ,
however, the idea of sin is different. His was the Genesis way,
which says: 'If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But
if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it
desires to have you, but you must rule over it.'32 Do what is right
and you can keep away sin. Good karmas prevent evil tendencies.
The Vedantin, Christ, said exactly this when he ordained that
we must love our enemies, love them that curse us, and so on. He
wanted us to forget the very idea of sin and have faith, be positive,
look positive, think positive and do positive deeds. Remember
his parable of the man who sowed good seeds and how wicked
ones planted seeds of Tares unknown to him.33 Remember the
story of the planting of the mustard seed. Good deeds not only
remove weeds but also give enormous benefits. Vedanta teaches
exactly that. Vedantic teachers are, in a way, really carrying the
real message of Christ door to door. Vedanta does not believe in
judgement etc, but it teaches yoga, meditation, selfless action,
prayer, and such other practices to burn away the accumulated
karmas and be liberated in this very life. We are divine and
infinite, but are bound due to ignorance, and through selfless
actions, prayer, meditation or discrimination, we can be free.
Speaking of ignorance, we come to the 'original sin'. Adam's
story, the idea that his eating the forbidden fruit cursed the entire
humanity with sinfulness, could be allegorical. That story is
perhaps related to primordial ignorance or avidya, and it is well
known that the avatar or incarnation comes to remove our
ignorance and show us the way. Thus, Christ's death and
210
resurrection reveal the immortality of the soul. However the gist
of the whole thing is to do good, for, 'Not every one that saith
unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but
he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.'34 And
where is this Kingdom of Heaven? 'The kingdom of heaven is
within you.'35
References:
1 St Matthew, 25: 33, 34, 46
2 Dr Robert D. Luginbill, Hamartiology : The Study of Sin, p. 7
3 Same, p. 6, 7
4 St Matthew, 26:15
5 Ist Corinthians, 13: 20-22 6 Ist Corinthians, 15 :22
7 St Matthew, +3 :40-43 8 Romans 3:24-25.
9 St. John 1:29
10 St Mark 13 :31
11 Same, p.126 12 Dr Robert D. Luginbill, Hamartiologyp. 17
13 Same, p. 18
14 Same, p. 2
15 St Matthew, 18 :12-14
16 St Matthew, 18 :11
17 St Matthew, 3 :7 and 23 :13-35
18 St Matthew, 18 :7-9
19 St Matthew, 25 : 31-46
20 St Matthew, 25:40
21 St Matthew, 18 :21-22
22 St Matthew, 5 :43-44
24 St Matthew, 7:3-5
25 St Mark, 5 :34
29 Swami Vivekananda, Complete Works, Vol.3, p. 193
30 St Matthew, 5 :3 31 St John, 8 :7 32 Genesis, 4 :7
33 St Matthew, 13 : 24-30
35 St Luke 17:21
211
Faith, Reason And Realization

Swami Adiswarananda
(Continued from the previous issue)
he arguments in support of faith and those in support of
reason do not establish the superiority of one over the
other, and therefore do not resolve the controversy.
What, then, should be the way? Can spiritual quest and
scientific outlook go together? Must one discard reason altogether
in order to have faith? Would the faith that suppresses honest
doubt be considered sincere? Or should one cultivate skepticism
in order to be spiritual?
THE PERSPECTIVE OF VEDANTA

Vedanta harmonises faith and reason in the background of
realisation. The contention of Vedanta has several points of
emphasis, the first of which is that the validity of Truth depends
neither on faith nor on reason but on Its realisation in life.
The reality of God is not contingent upon the negation or
affirmation of scripture or reason. Religion is realisation.
Realisation of Truth is neither scholasticism, which delights in
logical postulation, nor blind faith in any creed or dogma or
miraculous event, nor ethics tinged with emotion.
Realisation is more than believing or reasoning. Believers in
faith run the risk of being deluded by their emotions, and
believers in reason by their intellectual preferences.
There is a difference between the realisation of Truth and Its
conception, between what we believe emotionally, comprehend
intellectually, and really feel spontaneously.
Blind faith depends on theological evidence, while unbridled
reasoning relies on unrestrained skepticism. The extreme form of
212

the first is dogmatism, which often claims to know everything
about God, and the extreme form of the second is the philosophy
of atheism, which believes more in the denial than in the
acceptance of Truth.
Such faith or reason can never give us the certainty of inner
conviction. An aspirant may master all the arts of reasoning, or
study all the sacred texts, and yet remain an atheist or an agnostic.
The core of the realisation of Truth is not 'seeking but 'seeing',
and 'seeing' begins where 'seeking' ends. The Upanisadic
exhortation is 'Do not seek God, but see Him.' It is seeing through
the eye of integral vision, in which our entire self participates.
Merely believing in the existence of God is neither seeking Him
nor seeing Him. Such a belief or faith is neither conviction nor
realisation but mere opinion. It is neither stable nor valid because
it is not supported by reason and personal experience. Mere
reasoning, on the other hand, because it is intent on seeking, is
unable to see that which is self-evident. Realisation is seeing the
Self-revealed. It is revelation and becomes possible when the
instruments of perception are cleansed.
God, according to Vedanta, has two aspectsmacrocosmic
and microcosmic.
Seeing God in everything (the macrocosm) begins with seeing
Him as one's indwelling Self (the microcosm). Our perception of
the Real depends on what we believe to be the nature of Reality.
What we perceive outside is the reflection of what we see within
ourselves. The macrocosm and the microcosm are built on the
same plan. The goal of spiritual quest, according to Vedanta, is
liberation. Liberation does not mean going somewhere we have
not been before or acquiring something that we did not have
before. It is a state of 'being', as distinguished from the
feverishness of compulsive 'becomings'. It is unitive vision, by
which one sees one's own Self in all and all in one's Self. The state
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Swami Adiswarananda
of liberation is that of perfect freedom, which transcends all
varieties of perceptionmoral, intellectual, and spiritual. A
liberated soul is not just a knower of Truth, but is the very
embodiment of Truth. He is neither a theologian who believes in
creed and behaves as if he knew everything about God, nor a
philosopher who indulges in speculation. He is neither a
traditionalist who clings to orthodoxy, nor a futurist who lives in
the days yet to come. The free soul communes with the Truth and
is not content with either describing It or gathering facts about It.
Realisation of Truth proceeds from an inner maturity or
evolution, which begins with the dawning of faith. Faith matures
into conviction through reasoning and discrimination ;
intellectual conviction about Truth inspires the mind toward
uninterrupted concentration, and this concentration culminates
in the final revelation of Truth.
Vedanta accepts both reason and faith as instruments for the
realisation of the ultimate spiritual goal. There cannot be genuine
faith without reasoning and discrimination.
On the other hand, one cannot discriminate Truth from untruth
unless one has implicit faith in the Truth. Neither faith nor reason
singly can give any finality to the real nature of Truth. The
realisation of Truth is possible only through the co-operation of
both. The testimony of faith without the foundation of inner
conviction is mere conjecture, while the conclusions of reason
unsupported by personal experience only indicate that which is
not Truth, since the ultimate Reality, infinite and incorporeal,
defies all attempts of the finite human mind to define and know
It.
The Upanisads indicate the ultimate Reality as the imperishable
Absolute, the eye of our eye, the ear of our ear, the very ground
of our being, which cannot be grasped by the discursive intellect
or described by words. All our attempts to describe the Ultimate
214

end in profound silence. 'He who knows he knows, knows
nothing, because nobody knows the Knower.' The vision of the
Ultimate varies from individual to individual, depending on the
spiritual seeker's disposition of mind. Our realisations of the
Ultimate indicate how It appears to us and not what It really is
in Itself. These realisations have been described by the various
religious systems as communion with God, union with Him,
samadhi, nirvana, and so forth, and Vedanta considers them to be
like different photographs of a cathedral or temple taken from
different angles of vision. Each is true and unique but never
complete.
The second point of emphasis is that realisation of Truth must
be direct and immediate. Our ordinary perceptions are indirect
because they are experienced through the instruments of the
senses eyes, ears, nose, skin and tongue. Such experiences are
neither direct nor immediate, and they are often vitiated by the
imperfections of the instruments of perception. For example,
imperfection in a person's eyes may lead him to see an object
doubled or disfigured, or the perversions of his mind may make
him see and feel something in a distorted way. Direct perception
of the ultimate Reality is neither unconscious nor conscious. It is
superconscious and is reflected in the mirror of the pure mind
free from all attachments and aversions. Superconscious
realisation of Truth is known as intuitive realisation.
According to Vedanta, there are three instruments of
knowledge: instinct, reason, and intuition. Instinctive experiences
are automatic and unconscious, such as breathing, the beating of
the heart, and the circulation of the blood. In such activities the
I-consciousness remains dormant.
Reason is the mature form of instinct. The vision of reason is
wider than that of instinct.
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Swami Adiswarananda
One's I-consciousness becomes active when one uses reason
as an instrument of knowledge. The experiencer in this state is
able to separate himself from the act of experiencing as well as
from the object experienced. Experience through reason is,
however, not direct because it is conditioned by reason. It is an
experience which is conscious but not spontaneous. It is not a
decisive realisation because it is not supported by the entire self.
We reason about a thing until we are convinced about it and are
able to see it directly. An experience conditioned by and
dependent upon reason is, therefore, not founded on the absolute
certainty of realisation. Intuitive realisation is the mature form of
reason and is always amenable to reason. The vision of intuition
is the widest. It is superconscious, direct, and immediate. Intuitive
realisation never conflicts with the experiences of relative facts,
just as the adulthood of a person does not negate his childhood.
Realisation is intuitive because it is neither inferential nor
impulsive.
Intuitive experiences are marked by three characteristics. They
are universal; they do not disturb or contradict reason; and they
are conducive to the welfare of all beings. Intuitive realisation of
Truth is inspirational. It is the direct vision of the tranquil heart
negatively corroborated by reason. That which is absolute Truth
cannot be realized except through the heart, but Its realisation is
established only when all possible alternatives to It are negated
by reasoning. The ideal knower of Truth is a free soul who has
transcended all pairs of opposites, such as pleasure and pain,
good and evil, virtue and vice, which are the various polarities
and rigidities of the mind.
The proof of genuineness of intuitive realisation is not anything
private or mystical; its surest indication is the transformation of
character. As a tree is known by the fruits it bears, so is a knower
of Truth to be recognized by the total transformation of his
216

character. Such a knower of Truth becomes the very embodiment
of Truth, living and moving under Its spell.
For him the experience of Truth is not only spontaneous but
also continuous.
This Realisation, according to Vedanta, has two aspects, jnana
or subjective experience, which is inner, and vijnana, which is the
objective realisation of the same through living. Realisation
becomes complete when what is intuitively experienced within
the heart manifests in the form of spiritually creative, spontaneous
actions in everyday life. The depth of an aspirant's spiritual
realisation is always proportional to the degree of spiritual
creativity he has achieved. Intuitive realisation is possible only
when an aspirant has been able to overcome the mind, which by
nature is restless, turbulent, obstinate, and not easily subdued by
reason. Such overcoming of the mind is never possible without
the practice of intense spiritual disciplines.
There are skeptics who often look upon any such practice of
spiritual disciplines to overcome the mind as a form of
conditioning and obedience to the injunctions of the scriptures as
self-indoctrination. The traditions of Vedanta, however, contend
that superconscious realisation is never possible unless the mind
is pure and free from all attachments and aversions, that is, free
from all conditioning. The mind and the senses, already
conditioned by various habits and preconceived ideas, are to be
deconditioned by the practice of spiritual disciplines.
Nevertheless, the direct perception of Reality is not something
that is produced by the practice of spiritual disciplines. It is a
revelation. Truth is revealed in the mirror of the heart when it has
been thoroughly cleansed. Prayer and meditation, sacraments
and ceremonies, vows and austerities, cannot give us the vision
of Truth, they can only help us to remove the coverings of the
mind. They are only means to enable the aspirant to pursue his
217
Swami Adiswarananda
path of reasoning until the Truth is realized, for when the Real is
experienced directly all reasoning comes to a stop and all doubts
are stilled forever. We no longer reason about that which we
directly perceive.
Vedanta emphasizes that reasoning must be supported by the
practice of four disciplines. The first of these disciplines is the
practice of discrimination between the Real and the unreal. That
which is Real is characterized by Its unchanging character, Its
continuity and Its universality. Vedanta describes this Reality as
Brahman, or the Absolute, all-pervading pure Consciousness.
It is non-dual, infinite, incorporeal, and immutable, and is the
Reality of both the macrocosm and the microcosm. The world of
diversity is an appearance and Vedanta designates this
appearance as Maya. Brahman and Maya are not two realities but
one inseparable reality.
Neither are the two aspects ever in conflict; they complement
each other. The shadow of an object has no meaning without the
object to which it belongs; similarly, the world of Maya is
inexplicable without the knowledge of Brahman. Liberation,
according to Vedanta, is this very knowledge of Brahman, and we
are all moving towards this liberation, consciously or
unconsciously.
The three basic aspirations of all living beings are: to exist
eternally, to know the unknown, and to be happy. The fulfilment
of these three aspirations is attained only through the knowledge
of Brahman, since Brahman is of the nature of ExistenceKnowledge-Bliss Absolute. While the ignorant think that it is
difficult to attain the knowledge of Brahman, the knowers of
Brahman declare that it is not possible to remain eternally
ignorant. So long as one has not realized Brahman, one confronts
It everywhere as the inexorable law of cause and effect.
218

The second discipline is the practice of the renunciation of that
which is intellectually perceived to be unreal. It is the habit of the
average mind to cling to something emotionally even though
convinced about its unreality intellectually. Through the practice
of renunciation the aspirant must overcome the habit of emotional
clinging.
The third discipline is mastery over the mind, which involves
its control and regulation. No control is ever possible without
regulation. To achieve control and regulation of the mind and the
senses one must have one-pointed devotion to the quest of Truth
and be endowed with fortitude, which is even-mindedness under
all conditions; implicit faith in one's spiritual worthiness and in
the spiritual hypothesis; contentment ; self-settledness ; selfcontrol; and concentration. The fourth discipline is intense
longing for Truth. All spiritual practices and all reasoning become
futile unless one feels a deep inner longing for the realisation of
Truth. The third point of emphasis of Vedanta is that the validity
of spiritual realisation depends upon three tests: sruti, or
testimony of the scriptures; yukti, or reasoning ; and anubhuti, or
personal experience. Any one of these singly may enable a seeker
to attain the probability of Truth, but not Its final certainty. Such
certainty can be attained only when all three tests are applied to
verify the validity of such Truth.
Scriptures, Vedanta emphasizes, cannot be taken to be
exhaustive accounts of Truth. They are merely suggestive.
Scriptures have no value for the ignorant since they have no
interest in them. They are equally of no use to the knowers of
Truth because they have realized the Truth directly in their lives,
and are therefore no longer dependent upon the scriptures.
Scriptures are what Sri Ramakrishna indicates as almanacs which,
although they forecast rain, do not contain the rain. They are
useful insofar as they are considered to be testimonies of the
219
Swami Adiswarananda
experiences of the past knowers of Truth. But to believe in such
testimonies without verification through reason and personal
experience is like believing in the beliefs of others, which cannot
serve as an inspiration for life. Therefore, an aspirant is advised
to dwell on the essence of the scriptures and align his life
accordingly. In the words of Sri Sankaracarya, what has been
described by numberless scriptures can be put forth in half a
verse: 'Brahman alone is Real, the world is illusory, and the
individual and Brahman are identical in essence.' Sole
dependence on reasoning for the certainty of Truth, however,
often leads one to intellectual rationalisation. Reasoning works
well only when it is directed towards a goal and supported by
the practice of the four disciplines. Unless the mind of an aspirant
is free from all attachments and aversions, his reasoning is bound
to be conditioned by these and thus prove futile and inconclusive.
The efficacy of reasoning as an instrument of knowledge depends
not merely on its perfection but also on its right use. According
to Vedanta, the right use of reasoning is its rational use as
opposed to irrational use. Rational use calls for sincerity of
purpose and honesty of doubt. The goal of reasoning is to dispel
doubts and help one to discover the Truth for oneself, but no
reasoning, however perfect, can dispel doubts which have no
rational basis.
Rational doubts are always sincere, plausible, and relevant.
Irrational doubts, on the other hand, are irrelevant, unreasonable
and obsessive. Such doubts, which are rationalized expressions
of the doubter's emotional and intellectual fixations, frustrate and
defeat the very purpose of reasoning.
Rational use of reasoning initiates a process of positive and
creative thinking and such thinking is free from the pressures of
any tradition, authority, convention or emotion. In contrast,
irrational use of reasoning is negative and, therefore, uncreative,
220

and cynical. It is a form of compulsive skepticism that is often
prone to raise a doubt merely for the sake of doubting. The
watchword for the rational use of reasoning is 'exploration', while
that for its irrational use is 'manipulation'.
The traditions of Vedanta mention three types of reasoning:
vada, jalpa, and vitanda.
Vada is academic reasoning, the goal of which is to discover
Truth without having a bias for or against the hypothesis. This
type of reasoning seeks to establish the fact by highlighting the
merits of such a hypothesis. Jalpa is that type of reasoning in
which the main purpose is to defeat the arguments of the
opponent by any means, rational or irrational. It is reasoning in
a dogmatic and negative way. The third type of reasoning,
vitanda, seeks only to lay bare the defects of the opponent's
contentions without trying to suggest an alternative hypothesis.
The vitanda type of reasoning may also take the form of chala,
which is a rejoinder that seeks to wilfully misinterpret the
arguments of the opponent, or nigraha, the purpose of which is
to give arguments in such a way that they will not be understood
by the opponent even though repeated several times.
Reasoning in Vedanta is not arguing. Neither is it reasoning
with any bias for or against the hypothesis. It is a process of
rational discrimination between the Real and the unreal. Absolute
Reality is affirmed by negating all that is relative.
The contention of Vedanta is that an average mind is subject
to habitual doubts, preconceived ideas, and personal sentiments.
Unless guarded by reason it can easily lapse into inertia and
delusion. There is no way of dispelling these prejudices of the
mind except through reasoning. Vedanta exhorts an aspirant to
scrutinise the meaning of Truth and to make a critical estimate of
what he has realised to be true.
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Swami Adiswarananda
While reasoning by itself is inconclusive, scriptures by
themselves cannot dispel doubt nor evoke conviction. The
methods of valid
knowledge according to Vedanta are:
perception, inference, verbal testimony, comparison, postulation,
and non-apprehension.
But no one of these singly, nor several together, nor all of them
in combination can decisively establish the finality of Truth,
which is transcendental.
The last resort for an aspirant, therefore, is his personal
experience. But even personal experience by itself is not to be
considered enough, for one's personal experience can be
deceptive, temporary, reflected, or false. In view of the
insufficiency of the various instruments of knowledge, Vedanta
contends that the validity of any direct experience of Truth can
be assured only when it is corroborated by scriptural testimony
and affirmed by reason.
(Reprinted from Prabuddha Bharata, April 1981 )
You cannot live a continent life unless you devote yourself to

God, and without continence realization of God is impossible.
Unless you realize God you will not find happiness, and without
happiness life is vain. Therefore I beg you, my dear children,
struggle, make an effort, and soon you will find faith and
devotion awakening within you. You will be blessed by the vision
of God, and you will become the heirs of immortal bliss.
Swami Brahmananda
222
God is Also Mother : Female And Male Religions

Hans Torwesten
(Continued from last issue)
e must here come to speak once again of the inner

relationship between mother worship and mysticism. It
is not a coincidence that Orthodox (male) theology has always
strictly refused to recognise a supra-personal Ground behind the
three divine persons of the Holy Trinity, which would at the same
time round off the Trinity as a fourth entity. Psychologists like
Jung have often drawn attention to these connections. Odd
numbers such as one and three are traditionally always male,
while even numbers such as two and four are female. The fact is
that in Hinduism on the one hand there are very many pairs
which express an original polarity (Shiva-Shakti, Purusha-Prakriti,
etc.) and on the other hand Turiya is strongly emphasised, the
fourth (absolute) condition, in which all trinities are dissolved
(waking state, dream state, dreamless state; the three gunas Tamas,
Rajas and Sattva; the Trimurti Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, as well
as the three components of OM: A-U-M), points to a femalemotherly basis, in which it is above all a question of fullness,
completion and totality, while the male trinity, as it is so strongly
emphasised in Christianity, has something pointed about it,
something that has to assert itself through activity and has already
separated itself from the Ground.
So many connections arise out of this. The male-female key
does not in fact fit everywhere and one should not overdo it, but
it nevertheless makes an essential contribution to understanding
religious attitudes. It becomes clear that there must be great
differences, sometimes indeed stark contradictions in which it
223

is naturally easier for female dominated religiosity to tolerate the
other, even sometimes to incorporate itself, than the prophetical
male structured attitudes, which seem unable to exist without a
certain aggressiveness and conversion rage.
The religious currents, in which the female dominates and is
at least prevalent, are not ashamed of sensual expression and
markedly include the visual element in their worship like
Roman Catholicism, the Eastern Church, Mahayana Buddhism
and especially Hinduism. It is however these same religious
currents which also lean towards mysticism, and the word mystic
comes from myein which means: closing the eyes. The revelling
in sensual colours and forms is thus balanced by the negative
way, which goes beyond all images to the non-image, to the
emptiness, to the formless Brahman, to the desert of divinity.
This tendency to transcend all forms is not to be confused with
the attack on images by the male Protestant line, because for the
latter the naked One of mysticism is just as repulsive as the most
sensual representation of holiness.
That which the eye represents for the Catholics is the ear for
the Protestants in which connection one must of course be
aware that there are very many mixed forms of these types.
The Protestant listens to the word: the revealed word of Holy
Scripture, the word of the preacher. For this reason absolute
priority is given to the words of the divine service and the
withdrawal or even avoidance of rituals, sacraments, physical
substances not to speak of sensual decorations of churches.
It is of course not a question here of classifying one approach
as right and the other as wrong. The barrenness of the
Protestant attitude, which seems to appeal especially to the people
of the northern countries, has its advantages. One can even go so
far as to say that listening is superior to seeing, it is nobler, as
Meister Eckhart said. It seems not to distract one so much from
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Hans Torwesten
the essential as images often do, it seems not to be so endowed
with Maya, but makes us more ethical and adult. The revelling in
images, the contemplation of Baroque ceilings has something
childish about it, and in deliberate exaggeration one could say
that pictures are only something for the illiterate.
And yet the deliberate turning away from all images and the
exclusive turning to the word contains great dangers. It very soon
involves the over-evaluation of the rational, which in the end
dries religion out from within. The Protestant religion has
developed above all into a religion of the head, and it is no
wonder that at its fringes it again and again turns into a blind
rage of sectarian emotionalism, while the Catholic religion makes
a much more balanced impression in this regard.
One often cannot avoid the impression that the anti-sensual
attitude is often an open or even secret hatred of the female. If
Protestantism likes to call Rome the whore of Babylon, there is
in this on the one hand an expression of a justified criticism of
the excesses of the papal court, but also a hatred of all the rest of
the religion of joy in creation, which in ancient times was
connected with the dominance of the Great Mother and of which
one can still find traces here and there in Catholicism. The radical
Protestant attitude, which finds expression for instance in a
thinker such as Kierkegaard, is hostile towards Eros and as
precisely because the father image is too much of a burden for
it has never found a relaxed relationship towards the female.
This begins with the Old Testament, to which Protestantism
refers not by chance much more often than does Catholicism.
The pure religion of the triumphant Jahwe must always be
raised above the neighbouring fertility religions, which often have
enough female characteristics. The struggle of the prophets
against the cult of images is at one and the same time a struggle
against the female. We do not wish in any way to assert that these
225

pagan rites and cults were superior to the religion of the Chosen
People. The historical necessity was undoubtedly, at least among
us in the West, on the side of the biblical religion, the monotheistic
simplicity and effectiveness of which forced the female-motherly
cults completely into the background and the underground. Yet
that which at a certain stage in development of human
consciousness is driven back, must be won back at the later stage
in a higher form, so that it can come to a synthesis. In this regard
it is a great advantage that in Asia the female soul of our planet
earth could unfold at a high spiritual level, so that we do not now
have to start again from the old fruitfulness rituals of the
Canaanites or the Babylonians, if we set out on the search for our
female amplification. Not a few East-West contrasts are covered
with the problem of sexual polarity(just like many North-South
conflicts). One does not need to be particularly bright to see a
connection between Western imperialism and male claims to
superiority. Just as the astonishing progress of Eastern mysticism
is a clear proof that the male Western megalomania is itself slowly
going astray, and that female-motherly values are again being
expressed, (such as in connecting oneself to earth in
meditation,) and given more attention. Not only has outward
economic growth now come to its limits, but also the internal
male craziness, which thinks it can endlessly exploit female
nature and carry on in this way for ever. It is indeed still true
today that man is more than just a species, which can find
satisfaction in the repetition of its natural form. He is a venture,
which continually transcends itself, and it is exceptionally not
just a sample of male megalomania, if I say that in history to date
it has been the man who has achieved this transcendence. Woman
is about which for instance Simone de Beauvoir so much
complains- merely by her physical constitution more confined to
nature and species, and she has so far concerned herself above all
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Hans Torwesten
with the continuation of the human species, while the man, all
the more freely on this female-motherly basis, which bore
everything, could arrange his attempts at transcendence, in order
to free himself from natural necessities. He did this in the East
above all as an ascetic and yogi, in the West as a scientist and
technician in which connection there were and are also
numerous overlaps. It is common to both attitudes that they are
not content with the existing situation. The homo faber in the
West was concerned to structure the world freely and consciously
according to his own ideas, and in doing so he first investigated
the laws of nature, then exploited them in order finally to go
beyond them. For the ascetics and yogis it was also above all a
question of the male control of nature. He did not want to wait for
ages until evolution perhaps in a natural way at some time in
the future deposited him on gentle waves on the shore of
transcendence and it was questionable whether it would ever
do this. It even seemed to him more likely that it would hold him
fast in the cycle of birth and death. So he wanted to force the
process, to shorten it so radically as to escape the net of Maya as
quickly as possible.
There is thus a male element also in the Eastern mystical
tradition, especially in the Indian spiritual zone, but it does not
express itself in external overwhelming exploitation of nature,
but rather in a flight from nature in regard to which we leave
aside the control of nature by magical occult yogic powers. For
the Western observer Eastern mysticism, in spite of the male
heroic asceticism, has female features: its meditative reposing in
oneself, its ability to wait (in spite of its impatience to attain final
liberation), its self-withdrawal, its silence. Indeed, the final goal
of the traditional yogi to dissolve into infinity, seems for the
Westerner to point rather in the female-motherly direction. It is
not by chance that for Western progress optimism, which is often
227

regarded as the secular inheritance of Judaic-Christian religion,
Time is of great importance and therefore also history and the
future dimension. One can conceive of time, which stretches out
in front of one, as male, but Space on the other hand as female.
Time has something aggressive and overcoming about it, it is not
content with what exists, is looking for something new that has
never been there before, it wants to be different tomorrow from
what it is today. Space, on the other hand, has something
load-bearing, something endlessly fruitful about it. It becomes
pregnant with numberless possibilities, but it does not seek
them, they are simply brought forth. Linear time has a goal, specie
does not. It is true that both of them, space and time, are aspects
of the female Maya, and Kali is often regarded as the allconsuming Time, in whose jaws all appearances are again ground
down to naught (similar to the jaws of the cosmic Krishna, who
in Chapter 11 of the Bhagavad Gita also appears as Time in its
frightful aspect). But in this case it is more a question of cyclic
Time, which similarly to Space in the prophetic religions and their
secular offspring, escapes this cycle of nature, and like an arrow
seeks to develop more and more forwards and upwards.
Typically these male orientated religions regard creation
almost always as a short one-off adventure, as a single-minded
run from point A to point B. Also the historical progenitor or
founder and the prophet looking into the future play a big part
in these religions, while the female religion of infinite space
understands itself as an Eternal Religion. This must in no way
be rigid, it can be very lively and full of new surprises, as the
Ground, from which all these possibilities burst forth, is
inexhaustible. Yet this female religion knows nothing completely
new; everything that is at any time manifested was already
contained beforehand in the womb. Shakti, the Divine Mother,
228
Hans Torwesten
may make even the most daring cosmic dance steps, and yet
remains always the same.
It will be one of the main tasks of the near future to transcend
the seemingly unbridgeable opposites of these two different types
of religion. Such a transcendence is also and particularly in the
interest of the female, because both types of religion basically do
not do justice to it. In the male dominated Western religion with
its stress on time and progress the female-motherly aspect is often
regarded as only a primitive initial step, which has to be overcome
by manly consciousness. The latter regards itself already as
transcendence, as the high point and fulfilment of development.
It can indeed still further perfect itself, but encounters nothing
more that calls it into question unless it is a father-gods
super-ego. If the woman does not in such an atmosphere waste
away, she has to try to keep up with man, make his values and
goals her own. It is true that in such a society man gladly asserts
that woman must remain a woman, indeed he treasures her above
all when she stays in her reservation, in the confined area of
the kitchen and the family, but woman rightly suspects that in
this high regard for the natural female there is also mixed a
little contempt. She wants to prove that the mere round of nature
is not enough for her, that she basically seeks the same goals as
the man and that she has so far not attained them, because man
has not given her the chance. Today much of this is changing, and
woman takes the place of man in many places. This trend is
positive in that it indicates that human beings as such again and
again exceed themselves, women not less than men. If one denied
women this endeavour, one would deny her humanity. She
would be forever condemned to being a mere piece of nature,
still indeed very necessary, especially for the progressive man,
who now and then has to recover from his progress on her bosom,
but basically is only carried along as a simple necessity of nature,
229

which allows him more and more to long for complete
transcendence. She would always remain something completely
different, the alien, who could never with man completely master
the future. With all the negative things, which we have so far said
about the Western civilisation dominated by Western values
and there will be more to say about this we should not forget
that this society has at least made it possible for woman largely
to free herself from being a mere generic term and become a
person an important positive move, which must certainly be
carried into the new age. Now the question arises as to whether
the female contribution only consists of what man in any case
already contributes or to express it in other words, is woman
nothing more that mans late-coming follower? And to where
does the so hotly fought for freedom of personal development
stretch for the modern person, whether man or woman only
further and further into an empty transcendence? The
existentialist pathos of the forties and fifties can no longer satisfy
us today, people again look for their actual roots and their
metaphysical background and it is at this point that the openness
of the female space reveals itself, so as to incorporate this newly
awakened urge for human freedom and make it become fruitful.
In the context of an eternal religion, as embodied in
Hinduism, woman has it easier and more difficult at one and the
same time. The great, all-encompassing timeless bounds of unity
and perfection certainly has something female about it, but it also
very quickly becomes a cage also and in particular for the
woman. While Western society has developed a dynamic, which
in the end has also benefited women, the roles in an eternal
religion seem established for ever.
Translated by John Phillips
(To be Continued)
230

Swami Bhuteshananda
(I am often asked to speak on the direct disciples of Sri
Ramakrishna whom I had the privilege to meet. To speak about
them is difficult, because in their presence I used to be too
overwhelmed to remember clearly everything that happened.
Only in the case of a few with whom I had the good fortune of
coming in close contact do I remember many things clearly.)
SWAMI BRAHMANANDA
met Swami Brahmanandaji much before I joined the Order
formally in 1923. I used to meet him now and then as a young
devotee. I was staying in an ashrama which was not formally
affiliated to the Order, but swamis of the Order, including many
direct disciples, used to come to that ashrama very often. There I
got opportunities to meet Swamis Abhedanandaji, Turiyanandaji,
Subodhanandaji, Premanandaji, and Adbhutanandaji. My
memory of the last two swamis is too faint because my contact
with them was very short. Even in the case of others the contact
was of short duration, and I do not clearly remember much of
what happened when I met them.
When I met Swami Brahmanandaji (fondly called just
'Maharaj') I was a school student. I first visited Belur Math in the
year 1917. That means I could meet Maharaj off and on for five
years until his passing away in 1922. At that time, because of my
immaturity, I did not have sufficient courage to ask him
questions. He appeared to me to be too big a personality to be
approached on intimate terms. He was, of course, kind to all of
us and particularly to the youngsters. We seldom saw him
engaged in abstract religious discussions. He used to mix with us
231

youngsters like one of us. He would joke and make everyone
laugh. We were always aware that this simple, fun-loving swami
who was making himself so easily accessible to us, was no
ordinary person. We knew it was a rare privilege to be able to sit
at his feet and listen to whatever he said. He was very fond of
talking in a light vein most of the time and this appeared
somewhat strange to newcomers. I shall give one example.
One day Atulbabu (Girish Chandra Ghosh's brother) brought
a friend with him to meet Swami Brahmanandaji. The friend had
heard a lot about the spiritual greatness of Maharaj.
Unfortunately, throughout the period Atulbabu and his friend
were near Maharaj, he was speaking on light, humorous subjects.
Atulbabu felt a bit embarrassed and also anxious, wondering
what impression his friend would carry home. Anyway, when
they were leaving, Maharaj casually mentioned to Atulbabu's
friend, 'You see, occasionally we speak about religion also.' His
friend later told Atulbabu, 'Today for the first time m my life I
met a person who is filled with pure joy.' Maharaj carried that
atmosphere with him wherever he was. This was his way. One
could never know what his approach would be toward a
newcomer.
Swami Brahmanandaji had great attraction for Bhubaneswar,
a place he considered highly conducive to spiritual practice. So
he started a monastery there. In those early days, Maharaj spent
most of his time in deep meditation. I will tell you an incident I
heard from Maharaj's attendant.
There was a hotel nearby where pilgrims from different parts
of the country stayed when they visited Bhubaneswar. Not
everyone came for pilgrimage, of course. Many came for just
sightseeing or to experience the quiet of a little town, away from
the din and bustle of city-life. It seems three young men from
Calcutta were staying at the hotel and they asked the manager
232
Swami Bhuteshananda
about the places worth visiting. He mentioned the names of the
prominent temples there and told the young men that they could
also visit in the town a branch of the Ramakrishna Order. Then
he shared with them the local gossip. He said, 'The head of the
monastery (meaning Maharaj) lives in a princely style. His
hookah is made of gold. The monastery has a big campus.' The
young men said, 'It's outrageous that a monk should live in such
a luxurious way. Why don't you people teach him a lesson?' The
hotel manager said, 'Oh my God! That's unthinkable. A lot of big
guns visit the place and I don't have the courage to say anything
against the swami.' 'All right, then,' the young men said. "We are
not afraid of anybody. We shall go and teach him a lesson.' At the
monastery Swami Brahmanandaji was sitting in the parlour with
his attendants. It looked like he was expecting somebody. He told
his attendants not to disturb him when the visitors came. Indeed,
after a few minutes the three young men arrived. They were taken
to Maharaj's room, offered seats, and the attendants came away
closing the door behind them.
What exactly happened inside the room the attendants didn't
know. They only heard peals of laughter. After sometime the
young men took leave of Maharaj and returned to the hotel. The
manager asked them how they had found the princely swami.
The young men replied, 'For the first time in our lives we have
seen a really great man. He exudes love, sympathy,
understanding. It was an experience of a lifetime.' This was
typical of Swami Brahmanandaji. He sometimes impressed
people by his mere silence, sometimes through amusing talks
and, when he chose to do so, through his spiritual teachings.
Whatever might be the contents of Maharaj's talk, all who met
him carried a deep impression of his spiritual personality. So
when we went to him as boys, we did not have the courage to ask
him questions. Just seeing him was enough. That gave us enough
233

fulfilment and joy. It was enough to fill our minds with love and
respect for him and these have remained with us undiminished
all through life.
Swami Brahmanandaji was also very mischievous. When he
and his brother disciples were once staying at Balaram Babu's
house, Maharaj refused to go for bath in the nearby Ganga. He
told his brother disciples, 'Today I am not feeling well. My
stomach is upset. So I won't go to the Ganga for bath.' So the
others went for bath. After they returned they waited, as usual,
for breakfast which the ladies of the house were preparing. When
it seemed to be getting late, one of the members of the family went
to the kitchen to enquire the reason for the delay. The ladies were
aghast. They said, 'We sent the breakfast long ago.' A young girl
came to Maharaj and asked him, 'Didn't you see, Maharaj, that
we brought the breakfast in this big plate here?' (They used to
bring it on a large plate, with portions separated on the plate
itself.) Maharaj said, "Yes, you did bring the breakfast. But I was
so hungry that I managed to finish the whole thing.' Hearing this
everyone had a good laugh and the ladies rushed inside to get
ready a second round of breakfast! The swamis with whom I had
close contact for several years were Swami Saradanandaji, who
initiated me into spiritual life, and Swami Shivanandaji, with
whom I could stay at Belur Math in my early monastic days.
(To be continued)
(Reprinted from Vedanta Kesari, November 1977)
Meditate and dive deep. As you dive deep, you will know that God alone is real
and that everything else is unreal. When, through spiritual practices, a little
awakening comes, do not mistake that for the goal. Do not stop ! Move onward !
Light ! More light ! Go deeper and deeper. You must see Him face to face, and talk
to him. Enough of study and argument! Now gather the forces of your mind and
direct them toward God and God only. Plunge into the ocean of Bliss. Do not
sacrifice eternal joy for the sake of ephemeral pleasure.
(Swami Brahmananda)
234

Swami Dayatmananda
(Continued from May-June Issue)
ankaracharya had innumerable great disciples who also

became his co-workers. When the greater part of the Indian
plains had been converted to his views, he felt a call to visit
Kashmir, in those days a land of great culture and learning. In
Kashmir there was a temple dedicated to the goddess Saraswati
known as the Sarada Peetha. It was also renowned as the Sarvajna
Peetha, the seat of the highest learning. The custom there was to
place the most learned man on this seat and crown him as the
sarvajna, i.e., he who is well versed in all branches of knowledge,
both sacred and secular.
Ascending the Sarvajna Peetha at Kashmir
Sankaracharya had felt an intuitive call to visit Kashmir. His
disciples like Padmapada and also many pundits requested the
Great Master to accept the challenge. There were four gates, in
the four directions which led to the interior of the temple where
the goddess Saraswati resided. Each gate was guarded by a
learned Pundit of a particular school of philosophy. Unless one
was able to defeat these Pundits in debate, one was not allowed
to pass through the gates. Sankara defeated all the scholars
belonging to various schools of philosophy easily; for he was none
other than the incarnation of Siva. The great Master stood in the
very presence of the goddess. The Pundits of Kashmir accepted
Sankara as the foremost of the learned.
One may doubt whether Sankaras disciples are exaggerating
the greatness of their Master. There is no need to entertain such
doubts, for in our own days we have the shining example of
Swami Vivekananda. When Swami Vivekananda needed a letter
235

of introduction to the Parliament of Religions, Prof. John Wright
wrote thus: "To ask you, Swami, for your credentials is like asking
the sun about its right to shine." In fact the Swami felt in his heart
of hearts that the Parliament of Religions held at Chicago in 1897
was arranged for him only.
Sankaracharya stayed at the temple for a few days and
worshipped Goddess Sarada with great devotion. Then he went
to Sreenagar along with his disciples. Here he held discourses on
the various branches of philosophy and preached the truths of
Advaita Vedanta to the local people.
Then he moved to Kashmir where the king of Kashmir made
necessary arrangements for the stay of the Acharya and his
disciples. At Sreenagar there was a temple dedicated to Bhavani,
the consort of Lord Siva. Sankara is said to have worshipped the
goddess here and composed the beautiful hymn Soundarya Lahari.
Liberating his mother
During this period one day the Acharya suddenly came to
know of his mother's illness in Kalady, and her impending death.
He remembered his promise to his mother that he would be at
her bedside at the time of her death. He then travelled through
air by his Yogic powers and reached his mother's side quickly.
His mother was beside herself to see her beloved Sankara. She
was extremely happy to see her son again after a lapse of about
twelve years. With the idea of liberating her, he sang a hymn in
praise of Siva. It is said the attendants of Siva appeared on the
scene and Sankara requested them to escort his mother to the
world of Shiva. But his mother was terrified at the sight of their
ferocious appearance. Sankara then sang a hymn in praise of Lord
Vishnu. Immediately, the attendants of Vishnu appeared on the
spot and took away the mother's soul to the abode of Lord Vishnu.
236
Swami Dayatmanada
These two hymns came to be known as Siva Bhujangam and Vishnu
Bhujongam.
(We need not cherish doubts as to how one can give liberation to others.
We may recall how Sri Ramakrishna and Ramana Maharshi granted
liberation to their mothers at the time of their passing away. Ordinary
people cannot do this. But great souls like Sankaracharya can certainly
bestow liberation on others at their will.) Sankara then did the last
rites himself and started another pilgrimage to the North of India
along with his disciples. This was his last trip.
Towards the End
Sankara's work was now almost finished. He had written his
commentaries and original works. He toured many parts of India
several times and had broadcast the sublime teachings of Advaita
Vedanta. He had vindicated the truth of the Vedas, " Brahman
alone is real. All is Brahman. The human soul is that Brahman,
not separate from It." It was now left for his disciples to protect
and propagate the work.
In course of time Sankaracharya with his disciples reached
Badarikasrama. He was pleased to see that regular worship is done
at the temple. He stayed there for a few days and worshipped the
Lord there. From Badarikasrama the Acharya with a few of his
disciples went to Kedarnath. Here he felt that the time for his
departure from the world was drawing near: he was only
thirty-two by then. He decided to give up his body at this sacred
Kedarnath.
Sankaracharya then called four of his distinguished disciples
and entrusted them with the work of establishing four Vedanta
Centres in the four corners of the country. (just like Sri Ramakrishna
who charged Swami Vivekananda with the establishment of the
Ramakrishna Order)The Acharya commanded Padmapada,
Suresvara, Hastamalaka and Totaka to establish four Maths
237

(Vedanta Centres) at the four corners of India. Jagannath Puri,
Sringeri, Dwaraka and Jyotirdham became these four Math
centres.
The disciples then requested the Master to leave his last
message for all humanity. Sankaracharya then recollected the ten
verses which he had earlier chanted when he met his Guru
Govindacharya at their first meeting. He then chanted the ten
verses in his nectar-like voice.
I am not earth, I am not water.
I am not light, I am not air,
I am not ether, I am not sense organs,
Nor am I a combination of these,
Because they do not always exist.
I am simply Shiva the Self.
Sankara said that in these verses one would find the essence
of all Vedantic teaching. Hearing these verses all who were
present near the Great Master felt highly elevated. Their minds
ascended to a higher plane and were filled with indescribable
Bliss. They could not feel the grief of the impending separation
from their beloved Master.
Sankara ordered his disciples to spread the sublime Truths
of Vedanta to all the people (For the welfare of the many, for the
happiness of the many).
Then came the last pilgrimage. Sankara went into the
Himalayas. At the foot of a snow-capped peak he blessed his
disciples, and disappeared. This was the last ever seen or heard
of the great sage. At thirty-two years of age, he entered into the
Blissful state of Brahman.
Sankaracharya is not dead, the Soul is divine, deathless. He
is living and his work is still thriving. The monastic Order
established by Sankaracharya is thriving and thousands of sincere
aspirants are taking to monastic life, becoming monks and are
238
Swami Dayatmanada
striving for God realization. The commentaries and the
innumerable works of the Great Master, like the great
Vivekachudamani and other sublime writings, are being studied
by spiritual aspirants and scholars alike both in the East and in
the West. The Advaita doctrine preached by the Great Master is
unsurpassed even today and represents the highest pinnacle of
thought ever reached by the human intellect.
(To be continued)
What is the use of wandering about from place to place?

Have you not seen hundreds of such wandering monks?
And what have they achieved? Are you to become like
them? Swamiji did not want you boys to be like these
wandering monks. He founded this monastery toward one
Great end: and that is to realize God. Consider that, and try
to live your life and mould your character accordingly. The
spiritual practices of one single man are enough to make a
monastery vibrate with holiness. Oh, what a wonderful
spiritual atmosphere there was at the Dakshineswar temple
when Sri Ramakrishna was living there! The moment our
boat touched the steps of the landing stage we felt as if we
had reached heaven itself!
Swami Brahmananda
239
Programme for September - October 2013

Sunday discourses begin after a brief period of meditation,
at the
Ramakrishna Vedanta Centre, Bourne End at 4:30 pm
Tel: 01628 526464 - www.vedantauk.com
Sep
Katha Upanishad 1
Sep
Katha Upanishad 2
Sep
15
Katha Upanishad 3
Sep
22
Katha Upanishad 4
Swami Shivarupananda
Sep
Oct
29
6
Day Retreat
Patanjali Yoga Sutras 30
Swami Dayatmananda
Oct
13
Durga Puja
Oct
20
Patanjali Yoga Sutras 31
Oct
27
Katha Upanishad 5
Swami Dayatmananda
Day Retreat
With Swami Dayatmananda and Swami Shivarupananda
at the Vedanta Centre, Bourne End, on 29th September
from 10:00 am until 7:00 pm
Note: Children are not allowed at the Retreat.
Please bring (vegetarian) lunch to share.
Durga Puja
Sunday 13th October
at Bourne End at 4:00 pm
240
Continued from the front cover
No matter what riches you may possess, no matter what

prospects you may have for living a happy and prosperous life,
you still will not find lasting happiness. Pain follows pleasure,
and every action brings its own reaction. Nothing lasts, but the
one true happiness which is to be found in God.
You are boys young boys. Your minds have not yet
received any worldly impressions. If you can struggle now, you
will be able to escape life's sorrows and miseries. Never forget
the ideal of human life. We have not inherited this human birth
to waste it in eating, drinking, and sleeping like animals. Since
you have been born as a human being, spurn all worldly
enjoyments and resolve to realize God. Never waver in your
purpose, even if it means to die in the attempt. Enjoy the
ecstasy of devotion and spiritual practice now, and then enter
the doors of infinite bliss forever. The most important aim in
spiritual life is the attainment of God's grace. The breeze of
grace is always blowing; unfurl your sails.
Vedanta
is a bi-monthly magazine published, since 1951, by the
Ramakrishna Vedanta Centre, Bourne End, Buckinghamshire
SL8 5LF, U.K.
Phone: (01628) 526464
www.vedantauk.com
Subscription rate for 6 issues: 9 or $17.50 post free.
Editor: Swami Dayatmananda
Editorial Adviser: John Phillips
1.50
You are young; this is the time to practise spiritual

disciplines. What can you do when you are old? Develop
love in your heart and you will achieve everything.
Where is your early enthusiasm? You seem to be quite
satisfied with your present condition, but I tell you, do
not remain satisfied with yourself as you are now.
Contentment with the external conditions, yes, but never
be contented with your state of spiritual growth. Become
dissatisfied. Try to move ever onward in your search. Do
not stop until you have found the diamond mine !
Swami Brahmananda
A registered Charity

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373 SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2013

Sin, Jesus Christ And Vedanta