Richard Thompson, Ph.D.

In Vivekananda Svami's famous lecture on Hinduism at the Parliament of Religions in 1893, he began by outlining some of the salient features of traditional Hinduism. He mentioned reincarnation, karma and the problem of evil in the material world. He went on to explain that the solution to this problem depends on seeking refuge in God. God is that one 'by whose command the wind blows, the fire burns, the clouds rain, and death stalks upon the earth.'[1] He is source of strength and the support of the universe. He is everywhere, pure, almighty, and all-merciful. We are related to God as a child to a father or mother and as a friend to a beloved friend.

Vivekananda said that we should worship God through unselfish love and pointed out that the way to achieving love of God was, 'fully developed and taught by Krsna, whom the Hindus believe to have been God incarnate on earth.[2] Through love we are to perfect ourselves, reach God, see God, and enjoy bliss with God and that on this all Hindus are agreed.'[3] However, he went on to say that in the final stage of realisation, God is seen to be impersonal Brahman and the individual terminates its separate existence by realising its identity with Brahman. Making an analogy with physical science he commented, 'Physics would stop when it would be able to fulfil its services in discovering one energy of which all the others are but manifestations, and the science of religion (would) become perfect when it would discover . One who is the only Soul of which all souls are but delusive manifestations.'[4]

The advantages and disadvantages of pure monism

Vivekananda recognised this problem and he argued that in Hindu philosophy specific forms of gods and goddesses serve as symbols to help us visualise the inconceivable. Thus he said, "The Hindus have discovered that the absolute can only be realised, or thought of, or stated, through the relative, and the images, crosses, and crescents are simply so many symbols, so many pegs to hang the spiritual ideas on.'[6]

The idea of religious imagery as a symbol for the inconceivable absolute has some useful applications in the modern age. Vivekananda was born in Calcutta in 1863 as Narendranath Datta, and he grew up during the high noon of British dominance in India. During this period European rationalism, based on the famous French Enlightenment, made a strong impact on India. Reformers like Rammohan Roy and Devendranath Tagore founded the Brahma Samaj in an effort to revise Hinduism and make it compatible with modern Western thinking.[7] This effort required solving two problems: (1) religious plurality, (2) the incompatibility between modern science and old religious beliefs.

The Vaisnava alternative given by Bhaktivinode Thakura

It is therefore natural to ask if some other solution is available to the spiritual problems posed by modern rational thought and the multiplicity of religious systems. To explore this possibility, I now turn to the life of BhaktivinodeThakura, a contemporary of Svami Vivekananda.

Bhaktivinode Thakurawas born in 1838 as Kedaranath Datta in the Nadia district of West Bengal. As a young man he acquired an English education, and he often exchanged thoughts on literary and spiritual topics with Devendranath Tagore, the Brahma Samaj leader and early teacher of Vivekananda. In due course, he studied law, and for many years supported his family as a magistrate in the British court system.

Bhaktivinode Thakura deeply studied the religious thought of his day. He scrutinised the works of European philosophers and he was greatly impressed with the devotional teachings of Jesus Christ. At first, his Western education inclined him to look down on the Vaisnava literature describing devotional service to the Supreme Lord, Krsna. Indeed, he wrote that the Bhagavat, one of the main texts describing Krsna, 'seemed like a repository of ideas scarcely adopted to the nineteenth century.'[8]

However, at a certain point he read about the great Vaisnava reformer Lord Caitanya, and he was able to obtain Lord Caitanya's commentary on the Bhagavat given to the advaita Vedantists of Benares. This created in him a great love for the devotional teachings of Krsna as presented by Caitanya.[9] Eventually he achieved an exalted state of spiritual realisation by following Lord Caitanya's teachings and wrote many books presenting these teachings to various classes of people, both in India and abroad.

A historical interlude

We can see from Jones's comments that he does not regard the story of the Pandavas as true history. Why not? For many of us the problem is that the story contains elements that are simply not credible to a person trained in the modern rational viewpoint. We know that people don't descend from demigods. All documents containing such nonsense are rejected by responsible historians and consequently objective historical accounts do not contain such absurdities. Such things never happened and our history books abundantly confirm this. Jones was clearly thinking along these lines but he was not exactly a modern rationalist. Jones was a Christian who believed fully in the Mosaic chronology based on the Bible. Table 1 shows how Jones attempted to reconstruct Hindu chronology so as to bring it in line with Christian chronology. It appears that Jones was able to scorn Hindu mythology as palpably absurd, while at the same time accepting as true the supernatural events recorded in the Bible.

Table 1. Reconstruction of Hindu chronology

by Sir William Jones[11]

It is perhaps poetic justice that the same scornful treatment that Jones applied to the Mahabharata was soon applied to the Bible. During Jones's lifetime, the 'higher' scientific criticism of the Bible was being developed in Germany and it was unleashed in England in the mid-nineteenth century. In 1860, the Anglican theologians Benjamin Jowett and Baden Powell stole attention from Darwin's newly published book On the Origin of Species by a controversial essay that rejected miracles on scientific grounds. [12] The Darwinists and the higher Biblical critics quickly joined forces, and Darwin's supporter Thomas Huxley began quoting German Biblical scholars in his essays on the interpretation of Genesis.[13] As the nineteenth century drew to a close rational, scientific scepticism became the only acceptable path for a scholar or intellectual in any respectable field of study.

Bhaktivinode Thakura was confronted with this hostile intellectual climate in his efforts to present spiritual knowledge to the young Bengali intellectuals of his day. After imbibing the ideas of William Jones and other Western orientalists from their British teachers, these young people were not at all inclined to give credence to old mythology. How then could the teachings of Krsna on love of God be presented? Bhaktivinode Thakura judiciously chose to give a partial presentation of the truth which would introduce important spiritual ideas without invoking rejection due to deep-seated prejudices.

In a lecture delivered in Dinajpur, West Bengal in 1869, he strongly stressed the Bhagavat, or Bhagavata Purana, as the pre-eminent text describing the nature of the Supreme and the means of realising our relation with the Supreme. Rejecting pure monism as a useless idea, he pointed out that God is an eternal person: 'The Bhagavat has ... a Transcendental, Personal, All-intelligent, Active, absolutely Free, Holy, Good, All-powerful, Omnipresent, Just and Merciful and supremely Spiritual Deity without a second, creating, preserving all that is in the universe.'[14] He believed the highest object of the soul was to 'serve that Infinite Being for ever spiritually in the activity of Absolute Love.'[15]

In the common-place books of the Hindu religion in which the Raja and Tama Gunas have been described as the ways of religion, we find description of a local heaven and a local hell; the heaven is as beautiful as anything on earth and the Hell as ghastly as any picture of evil ... The religion of the Bhagavat is free from such a poetic imagination. Indeed, in some of the chapters we meet with descriptions of these hells and heavens, and accounts of curious tales, but we have been warned in some place in the book not to accept them as real facts but to treat them as inventions to overawe the wicked and to improve the simple and the ignorant.[16]

Nonetheless, Bhaktivinode Thakura chose to side-step these 'mythological' aspects of the Bhagavat in an effort to reach an audience of intellectuals whose mundane education ruled out such mythology as absurd fantasy. Indeed, he went even further than this. In 1880 he published a treatise entitled Sri Krsna Samhita in which he elaborately explained the philosophy of Krsna consciousness.[17] In this book he also presented a reconstruction of Indian history similar to the one introduced by Sir William Jones to bring Hindu chronology into line with the Mosaic timetable of the Bible (see Table 1). This involved converting demigods and Manus into human kings and reducing their total span of history to a few thousand earthly years.

I have said that the Vaisnava religion came into being as soon as the creatures came into existence. Brahma was the first Vaisnava. Sriman Mahadeva is also a Vaisnava. The ancient Prajapaties are all Vaisnavas. Sri Narada Goswami who is the fancy-born child of Brahma, is a Vaisnava ... You have seen the Vaisnava religion of the beginning of the creation. Then again when Gods, men, demons, etc., have been separately described, we get Prahlada and Dhruva from the very start ... Manu's sons and Prahlada are all grandsons of Prajapati, Kashyapa ... There is no doubt about it ... that the pure Vaisnava religion began with the beginning of history. Then the kings of the solar and lunar dynasties and all great and famous sages and hermits became devotees of Vishnu.[18]

If Bhaktivinode Thakura accepted the literal truth of the sastras, how could he justify making presentations in which he denied it? His grand-disciple Srila A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada has pointed out that there is a precedent for making such indirect presentations of sastra. An interpretation of a text which adheres directly to the dictionary definitions of its words is called mukhya-vrtti, whereas an imaginary or indirect interpretation is known as laksana-vrtti or gauna-vrtti. Srila Prabhupada pointed out: 'Sometimes . as a matter of necessity, Vedic literature is described in terms of the laksana-vrtti or gauna-vrtti, but one should not accept such explanations as permanent truths.'[19] In general, therefore, one should understand sastra in terms of mukhya-vrtti.

The theology of visions

To answer these questions, let us see how we would have reformulate Vaisnava philosophy so as to make it readily acceptable to intellectuals today in late twentieth-century America. To do this we must deviate to some extent from the prevailing materialistic framework of modern science. Physical scientists tell us that the mind, with all its conscious experiences, is simply a product of the brain. If we accept this, then all religious experience, whether it be the bliss of Brahman or prema bhakti, is simply hallucination. If this is true we can forget about religion unless, of course, we like hallucinations. For an alternative viewpoint, I will turn to the psychologist William James, a nineteenth century scientist who applied the methods of empirical scientific research to the phenomena of religion. Thus his observations are still of relevance today. As a result of his studies, James reached the following conclusions:

The further limits of our being plunge, it seems to me, into an altogether other dimension of existence from the sensible and merely 'understandable' world. Name it the mystical region, or the supernatural region, whichever you choose ... Yet the unseen region in question is not merely ideal, for it produces effects in this world. When we commune with it, work is actually done upon our finite personality, for we are turned into new men, and consequences in the way of conduct follow in the natural world upon our regenerative change. But that which produces effects within another reality must be termed a reality itself, so I feel as if we had no philosophic excuse for calling the unseen or mystical world unreal.[20]

This is a philosophy that might appeal to many persons and I will refer to it as the theology of visions. It allows one to retain the idea of love of God, while at the same time avoiding disturbing conflicts between mythological tales and modern knowledge. It also appears implicitly in the work of some modern scholars of religion who study the bhakti tradition. By way of illustration I will briefly consider an article, Shrines of the Mind, by David Haberman Assistant Professor of Religion at Williams College[21], which argues that Vraja, the traditional place of Krsna's manifest lilas, is first and foremost a mental shrine, a realm that can be entered and experienced in meditation. According to Haberman, the physical Vraja, a tract of land in the vicinity of the North Indian city of Mathura, has only been a major centre for the worship of Krsna since the sixteenth century when the followers of Caitanya Mahaprabhu and other Vaisnavas 'rediscovered' the lost sites of Krsna's pastimes. Haberman states that these sites never really existed before the sixteenth century and weren't 'rediscovered' but 'projected' onto the physical landscape of Vraja from the transcendental landscape perceived in meditation.

Haberman gives a number of interpretations of what happens when a person meditates on a mental shrine. These range from the contemplation of imaginary scenes in the ordinary sense to entry into 'an eternal transcendent world which is perceptible only to the mind's eye and is reached through meditative technique.'[22] Since Haberman seems to lean somewhat towards the latter, it could be said that he is hinting at a version of the theology of visions: one can enter into Krsna's transcendental world by meditation, but Krsna never had any actual pastimes in the physical world. Physical, worldly history followed the lines revealed by modern scholarship. This means that many centuries ago in Vraja there may have been various primitive tribes following animistic cults, but there was no Krsna literally lifting Govardhana Hill.

3. What does it say about the multiplicity of religions? Are the visions reported in other religious traditions real? If not, then why is it that Vaisnava visions alone are real? If so, are there many transcendental realms, one for each religion? Or is it that people see in one transcendental realm whatever they are looking for?

4. It greatly limits the power of God. If God only appears in visions, what becomes of His role as the creator and controller of the universe, which is reduced to practically nothing if we let modern science explain the material world.

In view of the statements contained in the first four points, the conclusion drawn in the final one is almost unavoidable: we are left with a totally mundane theory that explains away religion. In the case of Krsna's lilas, this line of thinking leads us to particularly unpleasant conclusions. Thus Haberman characterises meditation on Krsna lila as follows: 'The desired end is a religious voyeurism and vicarious enjoyment said to produce infinite bliss.'[23] Such sad conclusions are avoided in the more balanced approach taken by traditional Vaisavas, who stress Krsna's roles as the Supreme Creator and the performer of humanly impossible pastimes on earth.

Shifting the boundary between myth and science

Yet if we start from the theology of visions and proceed in the inductive manner of scholars, we can see how it could serve as a stepping stone for the development of a more satisfactory theory. The starting point for this development is a story that Haberman related about the Vaisnava saint Narottama dasa Thakura. [24] It seems that Narottama was once meditating on boiling milk for Radha and Krsna. When the milk boiled over in his meditation, he took the vessel off the fire with his bare hands and was burned in the process. When Narottama awoke from his meditation, he discovered that his hands were actually burnt.

There are many stories like this, and I will briefly relate two others. In the second story, Srinivasa Acarya, a contemporary of Narottama dasa Thakura, was meditating on fanning Lord Caitanya. In his meditation, Lord Caitanya placed His garland around Srinivasa's neck. When he awoke from meditation, the unusually fragrant garland was actually around his neck.[25] In the third story a Vaisnava saint named Duhkhi Krsna Dasa was sweeping the site of Krsna's rasa dance in Vraja. He found a remarkable golden anklet and hid it, thinking it very important. An old lady subsequently came to him and asked for the anklet. It turned out that the old lady was really Lalita, one of the transcendental maidservants of Radha and Krsna. The lady finally revealed that the anklet belonged to Radha Herself, and then she manifested her true form as Lalita.[26]

What are we to make of such stories? The story of the burnt hands might be accepted by many scholars. After all, it is well known that Catholics meditating on the crucifixion of Christ sometimes develop stigmata, in which the wounds of Christ appear on their hands and feet. If meditation can somehow cause bleeding wounds, then perhaps it can also cause burns. The story of the miraculous garland goes one step further: here a tangible object is said to materialise. This may seem fantastic, but it turns out that there is an extensive literature on materialisation. For example Stephen Braude, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Maryland, has argued that many cases of alleged materialisations produced by spirit mediums are backed up by solid empirical evidence which deserves serious study.[27] If materialisations by spiritualists could be factual, why not materialistions by saintly persons?

This brings us to the third story. Although this story seems 'far out', there are many similar stories in which a transcendental personality appears to step into our material continuum, perform some action and then disappear. Another example would be the story from Caitanya-caritamrta in which Krsna, as a small boy, approached the saint Madhavendra Puri, gave him a pot of milk and then mysteriously disappeared. Madhavendra Puri drank the milk, thus showing that it was tangible. Later that night he had a dream in which Krsna revealed the location of the Gopala Deity which had been originally installed by Krsna's grandson Vajra and had been hidden during a Mohammedan attack. [28]

In studying a body of empirical evidence, we always evaluate that evidence on the basis of our limiting assumptions. In the end, the conclusions we derive from the evidence may reflect our limiting assumptions as much as they reflect the evidence itself. If the limiting assumptions change, then the conclusions will also change, even though the body of evidence remains the same.

Consider what might happen if all the available evidence regarding the history of human experience were to be studied, not on the basis of nineteenth-century rationalism but of a new science in which spiritual transformations of matter were considered to be a real possibility. The result might be a completely different picture of the past than the one now accepted by scholars. For one thing, the objections that William Jones expressed about the story of the Pandava brothers might not seem so weighty as they do from a conventional scholarly viewpoint. If higher beings can step into our continuum from another realm, then humans might well be descended from such beings. This new picture of the past might prove to be much more compatible with traditional spiritual teachings than the one that now prevails.

However, there are some indications that a broader approach to science may be developing. In the days of Vivekananda and Bhaktivinode Thakura, it appeared that mechanistic, reductionistic science was marching unimpeded from triumph to triumph, and many people believed it would soon find explanations for everything. But here in the late twentieth century, this triumphant march has been checked on many different fronts by apparently insuperable obstacles.

For example, physics looked like a closed subject in the 1890s, but in the early decades of the twentieth century it entered a phase of paradox and mystery with the development of relativity theory and quantum mechanics. The mysteries of quantum mechanics continue to inspire scientists to contemplate ideas that would have seemed outrageously mystical at the turn of the century.[29][30][31] Physics has now encountered an even more serious obstacle: the bold architects of universal physical theories are beginning to realise that these theories can never be adequately tested by experiment.[32] Thus the Harvard physicist Howard Georgi characterised modern theoretical physics as 'recreational mathematical theology'. [33]

With the discovery of the DNA spiral helix by Watson and Crick in 1953, many scientists thought that the ultimate secret of life had been revealed. Since then, molecular biologists have had tremendous success in elucidating the molecular mechanisms of living cells. But as molecular biology unveils the incredible complexity of these high-precision mechanisms, the goal of explaining the origin of life seems progressively more difficult to attain.[34]

These are just a few of the many areas in which the programme of mechanistic reductionism seems to be reaching ultimate limits as the twentieth century draws to a close. Perhaps as a result of these developments, many scientists are now showing a willingness to consider theoretical ideas and areas of research that have been traditionally taboo in the scientific community. For example, we now find organisations of professional scientists openly studying phenomena lying on the interface between physical science and the realms of mysticism and the paranormal. Examples are the International Association for New Science (IANS), the Society for Scientific Exploration (SSE), the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) and the International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine (ISSSEEM). These organisations all sponsor regular scientific conferences. Some of the phenomena studied by these groups seem very similar to 'mythical' phenomena so often reported in old religious texts and in recent accounts of religious experiences. A synergistic interaction between scholars of religion and these new scientific organisations might prove to be a valuable source of new insights for both groups of researchers.

The direct presentation of Vaisnava teachings

We have discussed how Bhaktivinode Thakura found it necessary to present a modified version of the Vaisnava teachings to young Bengali intellectuals at the height of British political and ideological imperialism. However, as the sun began to set on the British empire his son and successor, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, began a vigorous programme of directly presenting the Vaisnava conclusions throughout India. This programme was taken abroad by his disciple, Srila A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, who boldly celebrated the ancient Ratha Yatra festival of Jagannatha Puri in London's Trafalgar Square.

O my Lord, Your devotees can see You through the ears by the process of bona fide hearing, and thus their hearts become cleansed, and You take Your seat there. You are so merciful to Your devotees that You manifest Yourself in the particular eternal form of transcendence in which they always think of You.[35]

From the forefathers headed by Bhrgu Muni and other sons of Brahma appeared many children and descendants, who assumed different forms as demigods, demons, human beings, Guhyakas, Siddhas, Gandharvas, Vidyadharas, Caranas, Kindevas, Kinnaras, Nagas, Kimpuru\sas, and so on. All of the many universal species, along with their respective leaders, appeared with different natures and desires generated from the three modes of material nature. Therefore, because of the different characteristics of the living entities within the universe, there are a great many Vedic rituals, mantras, and rewards.

This statement is explicitly 'mythological', and one can well imagine how Sir William Jones might have reacted to it. However, it presents a grand picture of innumerable races and societies within the universe, all of whom are given different religious dispensations suitable for their particular situations and natures. Here the word 'Vedic' cannot be limited to particular Sanskrit texts that may be existing in India at the present time. Rather, it refers to the sum total of religious systems revealed by the infinite Supreme God for the sake of elevating innumerable societies of divinely created beings.

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