New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century: A Study of Social, Political, and Religious DevelopmentsMorrison, John
Religion
New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century: A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments
Morrison, John
Christianity and other religions; India -- Civilization; India -- Religion
What concerns us here is that in the conception of the beatific vision,
we still find ourselves in a different religious world from
ours--religion exoteric for the vulgar, and religion esoteric for the
enlightened; religion not for living by, but for a period of retirement;
a religion of spiritual self-culture, not of active sonship and
brotherhood. Far be it from me to say that at this point the West may
not learn as well as teach, for how much thought does the culture of the
spirit receive among us? How little! However that may be, this
conception of the religious life is deeply rooted in educated India. The
impersonal pantheistic conception of the Deity may be passing into the
theistic, and even into Christian theism; the doctrine of transmigration
may be little more than the current orthodox explanation of the coming
of misfortune; the doctrine of Maya or the illusory character of the
phenomena of our consciousness, it may be impossible to utter in this
new practical age; and Jesus Christ may be the object of the highest
reverence; but still the instinctive thought of the educated Hindu is
that there is a period of life for the world's work, and a later period
for devotion to religion. When dissatisfaction with himself or with the
world does overtake him, instinctively there occur to him thoughts of
retirement from the world and concentration of his mind, thereby to
reach God's presence. Very few spiritually minded Hindus past middle
life pass into the Christian Church, as some do at the earlier stages of
life. Under the sway of the Hindu idea of salvation, by knowledge or by
intense intuition, they withdraw from active life to meditate on God,
with less or more of the practice of religious exercises. Painful to
contemplate the spiritual loss to the community of a conception of
religion that diverts the spiritual energy away from the community, and
renders it practically unproductive, except as an example. Once more we
recall as typical the jogi, not going about doing good, anointed with
the Holy Ghost and with power, but fixed like a plant to its own spot,
and with inward-looking eyes. Time was that there were jogis and joginis
(female jogis) in Europe; but even of St. Theresa, at one period of her
life a typical jogini, we read that not long after her visions and
supernatural visitations, she became a most energetic reformer of the
convents.
[Sidenote: The jogi, not the brahman, is the living part of present-day
Hinduism.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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