Reconciliation of Races and Religions — 22 – [Part V. A Series of Illustrative Studies Bearing on Comparative Religion]: Religious Teachers of the East; Reform of Islam; Synthesis of Religions.
Hard as it must be for the adherents of such different principles to understand each other, it is not, I venture to think, impossible.
And, as at once an Anglican Christian and an adopted Brahmaist, I make the attempt to bring East and West religiously together.
RELIGIOUS TEACHERS OF THE EAST
The greatest religious teachers and reformers who have appeared in recent times are (if I am not much mistaken) Baha-'ullah the Persian and Keshab Chandra Sen the Indian.
The one began by being a reformer of the Muḥammadan society or church, the other by acting in the same capacity for the Indian community and more especially for the Brahmo Samaj--a very imperfect and loosely organized religious society or church founded by Rammohan Roy.
By a natural evolution the objects of both reformers were enlarged; both became the founders of world-churches, though circumstances prevented the extension of the Brotherhood of the New Dispensation beyond the limits of India.
In both cases a doubt has arisen in the minds of some spectators whether the reformers have anything to offer which has not already been given by the Hebrew prophets and by the finest efflorescence of these--Jesus Christ.
I am bound to express the opinion that they have.
Just as the author of the Fourth Gospel looks forward to results of the Dispensation of the Spirit which will outdo those of the Ministry of Jesus (John xiv.
12), so we may confidently look forward to disclosures of truth and of depths upon depths of character which will far surpass anything that could, in the Nearer or Further East, have been imagined before the time of Baha-'ullah.
I do not say that Baha-'ullah is unique or that His revelations are final.
There will be other Messiahs after Him, nor is the race of the prophets extinct.
The supposition of finality is treason to the ever active, ever creative Spirit of Truth.
But till we have already entered upon a new aeon, we shall have to look back in a special degree to the prophets who introduced our own aeon, Baha-'ullah and Keshab Chandra Sen, whose common object is the spiritual unification of all peoples.
For it is plain that this union of peoples can only be obtained through the influence of prophetic personages, those of the past as well as those of the present.
QUALITIES OF THE MEN OF THE COMING RELIGION (Gal.
v.
22) 1. Love.
What is love?
Let Rabindranath Tagore tell us.
'In love all the contradictions of existence merge themselves and are lost.
Only in love are unity and duality not at variance.
Love must be one and two at the same time.
'Only love is motion and rest in one.
Our heart ever changes its place till it finds love, and then it has its rest....
'In this wonderful festival of creation, this great ceremony of self-sacrifice of God, the lover constantly gives himself up to gain himself in love....
'In love, at one of its poles you find the personal, and at the other the impersonal.'
[Footnote: Tagore, _Sadhana_ (1913), p. 114. ] I do not think this has been excelled by any modern Christian teacher, though the vivid originality of the Buddha's and of St. Paul's descriptions of love cannot be denied.
The subject, however, is too many-sided for me to attempt to describe it here.
Suffice it to say that the men of the coming religion will be distinguished by an intelligent and yet intense altruistic affection--the new-born love.
2 and 3. Joy and Peace.
These are fundamental qualities in religion, and especially, it is said, in those forms of religion which appear to centre in incarnations.
This statement, however, is open to criticism.
It matters but little how we attain to joy and peace, as long as we do attain to them.
Christians have not surpassed the joy and peace produced by the best and safest methods of the Indian and Persian sages.
I would not belittle the tranquil and serene joy of the Christian saint, but I cannot see that this is superior to the same joy as it is exhibited in the Psalms of the Brethren or the Sisters in the Buddhistic Order.
Nothing is more remarkable in these songs than the way in which joy and tranquillity are interfused.
So it is with God, whose creation is the production of tranquillity and utter joy, and so it is with godlike men--men such as St. Francis of Assisi in the West and the poet-seers of the Upanishads in the East.
All these are at once joyous and serene.
As Tagore says, 'Joy without the play of joy is no joy; play without activity is no play.'
[Footnote: Tagore, _Sadhana_ (1913), p. 131. ] And how can he act to advantage who is perturbed in mind?
In the coming religion all our actions will be joyous and tranquil.
Meantime, transitionally, we have much need both of long-suffering [Footnote: This quality is finely described in chap.
vi.
of _The Path of Light_ (Wisdom of the East series).
] and of courage; 'quit you like men, be strong.'
(I write in August 1914. ) REFORM OF ISLAM
And what as to Islam?
Is any fusion between this and the other great religions possible?
A fusion between Islam and Christianity can only be effected if first of all these two religions (mutually so repugnant) are reformed.
Thinking Muslims will more and more come to see that the position assigned by Muḥammad to himself and to the Ḳur'an implies that he had a thoroughly unhistorical mind.
In other words he made those exclusive and uncompromising claims under a misconception.
There were true apostles or prophets, both speakers and writers, between the generally accepted date of the ministry of Jesus and that of the appearance of Muḥammad, and these true prophets were men of far greater intellectual grasp than the Arabian merchant.
Muslim readers ought therefore to feel it no sacrilege if I advocate the correction of what has thus been mistakenly said.
Muḥammad was one of the prophets, not _the_ prophet (who is virtually = the Logos), and the Ḳur'an is only adapted for Arabian tribes, not for all nations of the world.
One of the points in the exhibition of which the Arabian Bible is most imperfect is the love of God, i. e. the very point in which the Ṣufi classical poets are most admirable, though indeed an Arabian poetess, who died 135 Hij.
, expresses herself already in the most thrilling tones.
[Footnote: Von Kremer's _Herrschende Ideen des Islams_, pp. 64, etc. ] Perhaps one might be content, so far as the Ḳur'an is concerned, with a selection of Suras, supplemented by extracts from other religious classics of Islam.
I have often thought that we want both a Catholic Christian lectionary and a Catholic prayer-book.
To compile this would be the work not of a prophet, but of a band of interpreters.
An exacting work which would be its own reward, and would promote, more perhaps than anything else, the reformation and ultimate blending of the different religions.
Meantime no persecution should be allowed in the reformed Islamic lands.
Thankful as we may be for the Christian and Bahaite heroism generated by a persecuting fanaticism, we may well wish that it might be called forth otherwise.
Heroic was the imprisonment and death of Captain Conolly (in Bukhara), but heroic also are the lives of many who have spent long years in unhealthy climates, to civilize and moralize those who need their help.
SYNTHESIS OF RELIGIONS
'There is one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all.'
These words in the first instance express the synthesis of Judaism and Oriental pantheism, but may be applied to the future synthesis of Islam and Hinduism, and of both conjointly with Christianity.
And the subjects to which I shall briefly refer are the exclusiveness of the claims of Christ and of Muḥammad, and of Christ's Church and of Muḥammad's, the image-worship of the Hindus and the excessive development of mythology in Hinduism.
With the lamented Sister Nivedita I hold that, in India, in proportion as the two faiths pass into higher phases, the easier it becomes for the one faith to be brought into a synthesis combined with the other.
Ṣufism, for instance, is, in the opinion of most, 'a Muḥammadan sect.'
It must, at any rate, be admitted to have passed through several stages, but there is, I think, little to add to fully developed Ṣufism to make it an ideal synthesis of Islam and Hinduism.
That little, however, is important.
How can the Hindu accept the claim either of Christ or of Muḥammad to be the sole gate to the mansions of knowledge?
The most popular of the Hindu Scriptures expressly provides for a succession of _avatârs_; how, indeed, could the Eternal Wisdom have limited Himself to raising up a single representative of Messiahship.
For were not Sakya Muni, Kabir and his disciple Nanak, Chaitanya, the Tamil poets (to whom Dr. Pope has devoted himself) Messiahs for parts of India, and Nisiran for Japan, not to speak here of Islamic countries?
It is true, the exclusive claim of Christ (I assume that they are adequately proved) is not expressly incorporated into the Creeds, so that by mentally recasting the Christian can rid himself of his burden.
And a time must surely come when, by the common consent of the Muslim world the reference to Muḥammad in the brief creed of the Muslim will be removed.
For such a removal would be no disparagement to the prophet, who had, of necessity, a thoroughly unhistorical mind (p. 193).
The 'one true Church' corresponds of course with the one true God.
Hinduism, which would willingly accept the one, would as naturally accept the other also, as a great far-spreading caste.
There are in fact already monotheistic castes in Hinduism.
As for image-worship, the Muslims should not plume themselves too much on their abhorrence of it, considering the immemorial cult of the Black Stone at Mecca.
If a conference of Vedantists and Muslims could be held, it would appear that the former regarded image-worship (not idolatry) [Footnote: Idols and images are not the same thing; the image is, or should be, symbolic.
So, at least, I venture to define it.
] simply as a provisional concession to the ignorant masses, who will not perhaps always remain so ignorant.
So, then, Image-worship and its attendant Mythology have naturally become intertwined with high and holy associations.
Thus that delicate poetess Mrs. Naidu (by birth a Parsi) writes: Who serves her household in fruitful pride, And worships the gods at her husband's side.
I do not see, therefore, why we Christians (who have a good deal of myth in our religion) should object to a fusion with Islam and Hinduism on the grounds mentioned above.
Only I do desire that both the Hindu and the Christian myths should be treated symbolically.
On this (so far as the former are concerned) I agree with Keshab Chandra Sen in the last phase of his incomplete religious development.
That the myths of Hinduism require sifting, cannot, I am sure, be denied.
From myths to image-worship is an easy step.
What is the meaning of the latter?
The late Sister Nivedita may help us to find an answer.
She tells us that when travelling ascetics go through the villages, and pause to receive alms, they are in the habit of conversing on religious matters with the good woman of the house, and that thus even a bookless villager comes to understand the truth about images.
We cannot think, however, that all will be equally receptive, calling to mind that even in our own country multitudes of people substitute an unrealized doctrine about Christ for Christ Himself (i. e. convert Christ into a church doctrine), while others invoke Christ, with or without the saints, in place of God.
Considering that Christendom is to a large extent composed of image-worshippers, why should there not be a synthesis between Hinduism and Islam on the one hand, and Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity on the other?
The differences between these great religions are certainly not slight.
But when we get behind the forms, may we not hope to find some grains of the truth?
I venture, therefore, to maintain the position occupied above as that to which Indian religious reformers must ultimately come.
I do not deny that Mr. Farquhar has made a very good fight against this view.
The process of the production of an image is, to us, a strange one.
It is enough to mention the existence of a rite of the bringing of life into the idol which marks the end of that process.
But there are many very educated Hindus who reject with scorn the view that the idol has really been made divine, and the passage quoted by Mr. Farquhar (p. 335) from Vivekananda [Footnote: Sister Nivedita's teacher.
] seems to me conclusive in favour of the symbol theory.
It would certainly be an aesthetic loss if these artistic symbols disappeared.
But the most precious jewel would still remain, the Being who is in Himself unknowable, but who is manifested in the Divine Logos or Sofia and in a less degree in the prophets and Messiahs.
