Wisdom and Devotion
Dr. Harvey Cox, a liberal Protestant theologian at the Harvard Divinity School, observes:
"Almost every religion I know of has formulae, prayers, chants or hymns,
in which the repetition of sound, is used for a devotional purpose...But I
think that these criticisms of chanting or repetition of prayers as somehow
mentally destructive are frankly some of the most uninformed and ignorant of
the criticisms I've come across.
"These sorts of criticisms cannot possibly by made by people who know
anything about the history of religions, unless they want to come right out
and say that they're against all religion, or all devotional practices, all
prayer -- which I think many of them are. At least they ought to be honest
and not conceal their personal bias under allegedly scientific language."
Religious scholar Dr. Thomas J. Hopkins similarly observes:
"One of the things that is most striking about the Bhagavata Purana (Srimad
Bhagavatam), for instance, is not just the quality of its devotional
statements, but also the rigor of its thought. It is not just a kind of
romantic devotionalism devoid of intellectual content. It's a very
systematically conceived, very scholarly statement of the devotional life.
That combination of emotion and intellect, which has been so often separated
in religious traditions, is very consistently kept together in the
devotional movements, and particularly the Vaishnava (worship of Lord
Vishnu) devotional movement.
"Many traditions lack this balance. Take, for instance, Sankara and his
intellectually powerful Advaita (pantheist) philosophical tradition. There
you have a very strong intellectual tradition, but almost no concern for the
development of spiritual emotion. On the other side, you have certain
Christian, especially Protestant movements -- charismatic or pentacostal
movements -- which have tremendous emotional engagement, but very little
attention to the life of the intellect. The Vaishnava devotional movement,
on the other hand, has always kept these two things together...
"If you look at the points at which any religious tradition is really
powerful, they are usually those points at which these various elements have
been kept together. If you look at the lives of the great Hasidic Rebbys,
for instance, you see that they were people of intellect and spirituality,
and also practical wisdom. They didn't separate these different elements.
"Also look at the greater saints of the Roman Catholic tradition, someone
like St. Teresa. She was certainly a great mystic, certainly a person of
deep spiritual emotion, but she was also one hell of an organizer! She put
together an entire monastic order with its own complete institutional
structure. She knew not only how to pray to God, she knew how to keep books
-- and she didn't see any conflict between them. This is the quality that
certainly came across with A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada...
"The descriptions in the Vishnu Purana and the Bhagavata Purana of the
features of the Kali-yuga say that this age is characterized by a
fundamental corruption of the basic institutions of society. There is
upheaval in social life, religious life, the economic, political, and legal
structure, education -- everything. The leaders of society are corrupt and
exploit the citizens. There is a wholesale degradation in the quality of
human life.
"This is a description of every age of social chaos that's ever existed
anywhere in the world. In every one of those ages, or at least in many of
them, there have been movements of devotional or personal experience which
have moved in to fill up the void in people's lives.
"The counterculture era was a period when the problems of society were so
obvious and so visible that you couldn't ignore them. We were fighting a
crazy war, we had a crazy president, the whole society was riddled with
contradictions in values and standards, and nobody was providing any kind of
guidance or discipline...
"But there's nothing new about all of this. Throughout history, new
religious movements have been feared and persecuted, not only because they
challenge societal values, but because they often do not conform to the
religious status quo. American history is full of examples of religious
persecution. Joseph Smith and the Mormons were kicked out of New York state
and went to Missouri. Then they were burned out of Missouri and had to go
further west. All of this happened because they had strange beliefs and were
following odd practices and so people simply didn't like them.
"Right now you're sitting here in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in the
middle of a wide range of sectarian groups -- every conceivable variety of
Amish, Mennonite, and Brethren -- all of whom are here because they were run
out of some other place. They came because it was safe here."
Steven J. Gelberg (Subhananda dasa) asks: "There are very strong elements of
renunciation and asceticism both in the gospels and the epistles. We're told
to be 'in the world but not of it,' to serve God rather than 'Mammon,' to be
concerned with things of the spirit and not of the flesh, and to 'pray
incessantly.' When a Hare Krishna devotee actually engages in this sort of
world-renouncing asceticism and spirituality, he is viewed as being under
some sort of insidious 'mind-control.'"
Dr. Hopkins responds: "...if you look at the groups that have that have been
persecuted in the western tradition, you'll find that almost invariably the
accused have been, by their own principles, ascetical and world-renouncing,
following some kind of very rigorous puritanical teaching. So it is not at
all surprising that a group like yours should rouse the suspicion and fear
that you do."
Steven J. Gelberg (Subhananda dasa) asks could bhakti (devotion to a
personal God) be considered one of India's most important gifts to the
world?
Dr. A.L. Basham responds: "Yes, I would say so. Of course, from a purely
quantitative, historical point of view, we'd have to say that Buddhism was
India's most significant gift to the world... bhakti is a very important
gift of India to the world if the world will accept it..."
Stephen Knapp writes in his 1992 book, The Universal Path to Enlightenment,
that even after Constantine made Christianity the official religion of Rome,
philosophical debates continued:
“Nestorius accepted the humanity of Jesus and described Mary as the mother
of Jesus rather than the mother of God. The third council of the Church at
Ephesus, in 431, condemned the ideas of Nestorius and exiled him to the
desert of Egypt in 435, but his theories continued to spread into Persia,
India, and on into Central Asia and China.
“Such controversies in the Church continued, and led to different
conclusions and the formation of different sects. Even today we can see the
almost unlimited variance of Christian sects and churches, each of which has
its own ideas as to what is the nature of Christ, what is the soul, what is
heaven, and so on. And each one thinking they are better than all of the
others.
“Another interesting point regarding pagan influence that may be very
surprising to some is that the crucifix was not exclusively a Christian
symbol. Prior to Christianity, history shows that the cross was an
auspicious and mystical symbol amongst ancient Babylonians, Indians,
Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Druids, and even Laplanders and Scandinavians.
“The crucifix was also known in ancient Mexico, as discovered by the Spanish
monks who first went there. They were told that the Son of God,
Quetzalcoatl, died on the cross for the sins of mankind. Even Tertullian, as
late as 211 AD, wrote that the Christians neither adored nor desired
crosses, and criticized the pagans for doing so and for putting a man on the
cross as well. For pagans, the cross was a sign of eternity.
“In the first several centuries of Christianity, Jesus was represented as a
lamb, or as a shepherd with a lamb over his shoulders. It was not until the
6th synod of Constantinople that it was decided that the symbol of
Christianity, which was confirmed by Pope Adrian I, would be represented
from that time on as a man crucified on the cross. In fact, the earliest
instances of any artwork that illustrates Jesus on the cross can be traced
back only to the eight or ninth century. Thus, the Christians adopted the
crucifixion as a symbol from the pagans.”
When asked, “Why is the symbol of Christianity the cross?” in 1967, A.C.
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada replied, his eyes watery and sad:
“When I think of Lord Jesus on the cross…” He shakes his head. “No. That is
not a symbol for devotees. Devotees do not want to concentrate on that, on
their master’s sufferings. But actually the body of Christ was spiritual. He
felt nothing therefore. Like Krishna and Bhishma on the battlefield. When
Bhishma’s arrows struck the Lord’s body, they were feeling like kisses. The
Lord’s body is never material. It is a great offense to think like that.
There is one Aquarian Gospel saying that Christ went to India, I believe.”
Dharmasetu dasa (David Bridges) a disciple of Srila Prabhupada, commented in
1985 as to how morbid the cross is as the symbol of Christianity: “…If he
(Jesus) had been hung, you’d see a *noose* out in front of every church!”
My friend and godbrother Raul Pedraza (Bhuta-brit dasa), a disciple of Srila
Prabhupada serving as a lay person or congregational member, disagreed. He
said according to the Rosicrucians, the cross is a mystical symbol.
My friend and godbrother Ted Puckett, also a lay person, said that since
Raul (Bhuta-brit dasa) was once initiated (ordained) by Srila Prabhupada, he
should be studying Srila Prabhupada’s books — not the Rosicrucians!
Steven J. Gelberg (Subhananda dasa) describes the bhakti movement as "quite
open and liberal."
Return to: Articles
