SIR,—Your most interesting article on " Christian Mysticism in India
" in last week's Spectator raises questions of far- reaching import, not merely as to the principles on which Christian Missions should be carried on in India, but also reminds us how the person of our Lord, Who is the Alpha and Omega, and " in whom dwelleth all the irkipeuecce of the Godhead bodily," may be obscured by the contentions of ecclesiastics and theologians, and so faith in a self-made orthodoxy take the place of reverent faith in God.
As I have the pleasure of personal acquaintance with the Swami Dharmananda, and am in correspondence with him, I may add some details which I think will arouse a widespread interest in him, and in the very great movement going on in educated India, to whom he bears witness that " Jesus is the Son of God." This testimony is all the more remarkable as coming from a man who only six months ago made his first public profession of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore has not had the experi- ence of men which would enable him to present his own deep convictions in a way which would be less liable to misappre- hension.
It must be kept in mind that in speaking of Yoga he was speaking to a Hindoo audience, whose highest idea of the super- natural life was the Yogi life, and therefore, in speaking of our Lord as the perfect " Son of Man," he would naturally use terms which would convey to them that he was the realisation of the highest ideal. But I do not think that his desire is to preach an Indian mystic Christianity any more than Paul, when addressing a Pharisee audience, and saying "I am a Pharisee," meant to preach Pharisaism.
In Calcutta last March he said in my presence, with deep con- viction: "If any man be in Christ he is a new creature ; old things are passed away, all things are become new." His burning desire is to show that Christ is the realisation of Oriental religious aspirations. He quotes from the Vedas (in p. 19): " There is no remission of sins without atonement," and from the Taitiriya Brahmana : "Atonement taketh away sins." From the Rigveda, that "the Prajapati sacrificed himself for the sins of the world" ; and that Sayanacharia, the commentator in the Rigveda, writes that "Prajapati is the Saviour, and He alone can give salvation." From the Aiteriya Brahmana he quotes : "This sinful world can only be crossed over by the ' Ship of the Word.'" From the Vedanta: "The Word is God." Then the Swami quotes John i. 1. From the Rigveda: "He [God] made Himself a man, and assumed the form of a man." Again, in the Hindoo Sutras: "He died and by His death overcame death." The Swami then quotes Hebrews ii. 14: "That through death He might destroy him that had the power of death." On p. 13, for the Jews, he says : " The other day I proved to you that Jesus was the Son of God, the coming Messiah of the Jews." For the Sikhs he points out that in the Grantha He (Jesus Christ) is twice mentioned as the Great Eesha (Christ) of Christianity, and once as identified with liar (Hari) God. For the Mahommedaus he points out that half the Koran is taken from the Bible, and that in the Rowgat-as-Safa, which is to Mahommedans what the Talmud is to the Jews, it is said: "He was not a man, He was with God, and from God He came forth." To the Parsis he says that what is wanted is not the external fire, but the fire which purifies the heart. In a word, that Christ is the answer to all aspirations.
. Without unduly trespassing on your space I could not give an idea of the fervency and brilliancy of his personal testimony to Christ. His second lecture on the Bible is equally remarkable. I quote only two or three passages. He says:—" It is the trans- cript of the Divine mind, the unfolding of the Divine purpose, the revelation of the Divine will. The Bible is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. This Book is filled with sanctifying power to my own soul. To you it may be a book for the exercise of dialectic skill—to me it is the Word of God."
I am quite aware that, very naturally, some missionaries and others may be afraid to receive him on account of his Yogi teaching, and thus there might be a schism, as there has been, alas ! so often in Christendom. But I would very humbly point out that, as he " confesses with his mouth the Lord Jesus, and believes in his heart that God hath raised him from the dead, he will be saved," and that he, like the Eunuch, who believed " that Jesus is the Son of God." has a right to be received into the Church of God and its fellowship. Not even in the Nicene Creed, or the Apostles' Creed, which, according to the Lambeth Con- ference, was to be the baptismal symbol, was faith in certain ecclesiastical limitations or theological definitions outside those Creeds required as a preliminary condition to being received into the Church.
I would venture to say that his unhesitating adhesion to the "Inspired Word of God" is a better guarantee of his attitude God-ward than any acceptance of formularies, which in England do not seem much to bind their professed adherents, either within or without the Established Church.
I earnestly hope and believe that many of your readers will join with me in the desire that this Yogi and Sanyassi who for Christ's sake is leaving his family and friends, the two thousand high-caste disciples who reverenced him, and the association of very many centuries, will not be cold-shouldered by any Christian " because he followeth not us " ; but that those who believe in "the forgiveness of sins" will equally enter into " the communion of saints," and thus witness that they are "all one in Christ Jesus," that the world may believe that "the Father hath sent" Him.
—I am, Sir, &c., RADSTOCZ.
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