Michael Amaladoss

All through history groups of people have been in contact with each other through migration, trade or conquest. Cultures and religions have encountered each other and influenced each other. The world religions spread across many cultures and cast their roots in them even when they pretend to discourage such a process. As meta-cosmic religions they integrate local cosmic religions. Aloysius Pieris suggests that when two religions encounter each other their search for integration may take three forms: synthesis, syncretism or symbiosis. Synthesis creates a new religion combining the elements of two other religions. Syncretism mixes indiscriminately symbols and other elements from the two religions. Symbiosis integrates the two religions in a meaningful way. In practice this means that one religion integrates elements from another religion in a harmonious way without losing its basic identity. We shall keep this framework in mind as we discuss examples of religious practices from India. Our exploration will make clear the criteria by which we identify the process that is operative in a particular case. In keeping with the method of contextual theology I shall start with some examples – data – and then reflect on them. Let me evoke three examples without comment. My comments will come at the end.

Popular Religiosity
The first example that I want to evoke is that of the practices of popular religiosity. Practices of popular religiosity can be of three kinds. There are practices of popular devotion around Jesus, Mary and other saints and during the celebration of festivals. These are different from ‘official’ rituals and practices. The people sing their own songs and use their own prayers. They may use Indian musical instruments. They may even dance. They integrate traditional ritual practices. They employ Indian material for decoration. They may dress the statues in an Indian way, dressing Mary with an Indian silk sari, for example. These practices do not pose a problem from our point of view. All they actually do is to add an Indian colour, even if it is not ‘official’. A second kind of practices happen at the time of rituals that celebrate the cycles of life (birth, initiation, marriage, death) and of nature (agricultural, like sowing and harvesting or seasonal, like spring and monsoon). At such times rituals of cosmic religiosity are used. Killing of goats and sharing the meat in the sanctuary of a saint will come on the borderline between these two practices.

1. For the distinction between cosmic and meta-cosmic religions see Aloysius Pieris, An Asian Theology of Liberation. (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1988), pp.71-73.
2. Aloysius Pieris, Fire and Water. (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1996), p.66.
3. For an earlier reflection on syncretism, see Michael Amaladoss, “Syncretism and Kenosis: Hermeneutical Reflections in the Indian Context” in Dale T. Irwin and Akintunde E. Akinade (eds), The Agitated Mind of God. (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1996), 57-72. Cf. also R.J. Schreiter, The New Catholicity: Theology between the Global and the Local. (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1997), pp.62-83; Jerald D. Gort, Hendrick M. Vroom, Rein Fernhout, and Anton Wessels (eds), Dialogue and Syncretism: An Interdisciplinary Approach. (Grand Rapids: MI: William Eerdmans, 1989); Peter Schineller, “Inculturation and Syncretism: What is the Issue?”, Internatinal Bulletin of Missionary Research 16 (1992) 50-53; R.J.Schreiter, “Defining Syncretism: An Interim Report”, Ibid. 17 (1993), 50-53.
4. See Thomas Bamat and Jean-Paul Wiest (eds), Popular Catholicism in World Church. Seven Case Studies in Inculturation .(Maryknoll: Orbis, 1999).

Let me illustrate the second kind of practice with an example from my experience. Some years ago my father died. At the time of the funeral I had celebrated mass in front of the house. But before the body was taken to the cemetery a traditional ritual was performed. My Sister-in-law (the daughter-in-law of the diseased) was asked to hold a measuring vessel full of paddy. She placed it on the head, the breast and the feet of my father. She did it three times. Then she was led into the home and the paddy was emptied in a corner of the living room. An oil lamp was lit and placed over the paddy. Then the body was taken for burial. The paddy and the lamp remained there for three days till the end of the period of mourning. It could have been five or seven or more days. People who came late to offer their condolences to the family did so (by weeping, for instance) in front of the paddy with the lamp. The people who performed the ritual may not be able to explain the meaning of it. But an anthropologist with some knowledge of symbols may offer the following explanation. The paddy is food and symbolizes life. The paddy touching the body of the dead person and then taken into the home symbolically keeps back the life (spirit) of the person even as the body is take to the cemetery. It represents the presence of the person in the house for the mourners.

The third kind of practice refers to rituals of healing. One evening I visited the home of a friend. As a priest, I was asked to bless the small child who had been sick for a few days and also the house so as to ward off evil spirits or the ‘evil eye’. In the course of the conversation I found out that when the child got sick they first went to a medical doctor. As the fever did not abate after a couple of days, as it should have done, they went to the Church to light candles and pray before the statue of Mary. Then they went to a Muslim shaman, known in the area as having the power of countering the effects of the ‘evil eye’.

Liturgical Inculturation
My second example has to do with liturgical inculturation. When the Second Vatican Council opened the door to the possible inculturation of the liturgical rites in various cultures, the Indian Church integrated ‘twelve points’ including dress, postures, gestures, materials used, etc. They were approved by the Congregation of Divine Worship in the Vatican. These twelve points included the waving of lamps, incense and flowers at various moments of the liturgical action. The chants that accompanied the various liturgical actions included the syllable “OM” which is usually found in the chants of the Hindus in worship and meditation. Around the same time a national theological seminar suggested the use of readings from the scriptures of other religions in the liturgy. This was forbidden by the Vatican even before a formal application was made. Small groups however use such texts, not in the official liturgy, but as part of their reflection and prayer in community. All these practices have been decried as being syncretistic by a small group of people in the Church. Many officials in the Church either discourage or control such practices even today.

5. See Selva T. Raj and Corinne G. Dempsey (eds), Popular Christianity in India. Riting Between the Lines. (Albany,NY: SUNY, 2002).
6. See Michael Amaladoss, “Sickness, Spirits and Society: The Meanings of Healing”, in Walking Together. (Anand: Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, 1992), pp.26-38.
7. See J.A.G. Gerwin van Leeuwen, Fully Indian and Authentically Christian: A Study of the First Fifteen Years of the NBCLC. (Bangalore: NBCLC, 1990).
8. Cf. D.S.Amalorpavadass (ed), Research Seminar on Non-Biblical Scriptures. (Bangalore: NBCLC, 1974)

Methods of Prayer/Sadhana
My third example has to do with deeper forms of inter-religious encounter. Even before the Second Vatican Council, there were efforts to encounter Hinduism at a spiritual/mystical level. Jules Monchanin and Henri Le Saux, two priests from France, founded an ashram in Thannirpalli, South India, in1950. Many other ashrams were started later. The ashram movement lead people to explore different Indian methods of prayer. Some took to Yoga and others to devotional practices like the Bhajan, which is a repetitive chant of a prayer. A popular example of such integration was Anthony D’Mello who proposed various methods of prayer in a book with the title Sadhana. The use of such methods was however discouraged by a document from the Vatican Congregation of the Divine Faith. Besides, people were warned about the books of Anthony D’Mello. Henri Le Saux or Swami Abhishiktananda (as he was better known in India) was attracted by the Hindu vision of the advaita (non-duality). He sought to experience it. Towards the end of his life he said that he had experienced it. He has narrated his quest, his experiences and his doubts in his spiritual diary. He had one disciple, called Marc. Marc was jointly initiated in the waters of the Ganges by Swami Abhshiktananda and a Hindu Swami Chidananda of the Sivananda ashram of Rishikesh. When Swami Abhishiktananda died, some of his friends in France wondered whether he had ‘become’ a Hindu, though others stoutly defended his Christian identity.

These are three types of experiences that I would like to reflect on the following pages.

Religion and Culture
One key that is often used to understand such phenomena is the distinction between religion and culture. In India, this distinction is as old as Roberto de Nobili. Till he came to India conversions to Christianity was confined to the fisher-people of the coastal areas of South India. When they converted to Christianity they also became culturally Portuguese in the names they took, the dress they wore, the food they ate, etc. De Nobili wanted to reach out to the religious elite of Hindu society. He insisted that Indians could remain Indians when they became Christian. He distinguished between socio-cultural customs and religious ones. He said that the Indian Brahmins whom he tried to convert could keep their tuft of hair, the thread over their shoulders and the ornamental dot on their foreheads. He considered them as marks of their social status and not symbols of Hindu belief. De Nobili criticized and condemned Hinduism as a religion vigorously.

9. J. Monchanin and Henri Le Saux, A Benedictine Ashram. (Thannirpalli: Shantivanam, 1951).
10. Sadhana: A Way to God. Christian Exercises in Eastern Form. (Ligouri,MO: Ligouri/Triumph, 1998)
11. Cf. Letter on Certain Aspects of Christian Meditation, October 15, 1989. Acta Apostolicae Sedis 82 (1990) 362-379.
12. Cf. Notification Concerning the Writings of Fr. Anthony De Mello, S.J., June 24, 1998. Acta Apostolicae Sedis 90 (1998) 833-834.
13. Henri Le Saux, Ascent to the Depth of the Heart. The Spiritual Diary of Swami Abhishiktananda,(Delhi: ISPCK, 1998).
14. Swami Abhshiktananda explains this in The Further Shore. Delhi: ISPCK, 1984.
15. Cf. Roberto de Nobili, Preaching Wisdom to the Wise. (St. Louis,MO: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2000)

He was opposed by other missionaries who accused him of introducing Hindu religious symbols into Christianity. The dispute went up to the Vatican. In spite of various ups and downs the policy of De Nobili was largely practiced by the Jesuits. The distinction between religion and culture was used to allow practices that were not obviously Hindu. The distinction will mature into Indian cultural practices and Hindu religious ones. Thanks to De Nobili, Christianity in Tamil Nadu, South India, remains one of the most inculturated in the country. At the time of the celebration of life and natural/seasonal cycles, popular religiosity flourishes, side by side with official rituals. While the priests are in charge of the official rituals, other ritual specialists (a Catechist, for example) or the people then take over. The priests normally ignore or tolerate these. If they are part of popular devotions or festivals they may half-heartedly or enthusiastically encourage it. The reason is the active participation by the people which brings crowds to the Church. Often the people ‘Christianize’ the rituals by the addition of a sign of the cross or of a prayer like the ‘Our Father’ or even the Creed.

The same distinction between religion and culture was used when ritual gestures like the aarathi (waving) of flowers, incense and light were integrated into the liturgy after the Second Vatican Council. It was pointed out that waving of flowers, incense and light was also used on secular occasions as gestures of honouring some one. They are Indian cultural rituals, not Hindu religious ones. The fact that Hinduism may use them on the occasion of Hindu worship to honour the Gods and even give them a Hindu religious meaning does not make them Hindu. They remain Indian and so available for use also by Indian Christians. Underlying the religious meaning given to them in a religious context, they have a basic human, social meaning that can be reintegrated in a Christian religious context. This argument lead us to the next step.

Reinterpretation of Symbols
While culture and religion are not the same and can be distinguished in a formal way, they also interact in various ways. Religion is not totally distinct from culture. It is rooted in culture. It is a dimension, perhaps the deepest one of culture. Both are systems of meaning and they coexist precisely by adapting to each other. Aloysius Pieris distinguishes between cosmic and meta-cosmic religions. Cosmic religion’s search for meaning is immanent to the cosmos. It relates to the various elements in nature like the sun and the moon, the mountains and the rivers, the fire and the wind, though it may see them as animated by spirits. Its view of the world is religio-cultural. The distinction between religion and culture is not too neat. They interact constantly. Meta-cosmic religion sees the ultimate meaning of the world in an immanent-transcendent being or principle. This is discovered by a special experience, like that of the Buddha, or by revelation, as in Christianity and Islam. It transcends culture. It can relate to many cultures, like the World Religions. One culture can relate to more than one meta-cosmic religion, as in India, for instance. The distinction between religious and cultural elements is easier to see in a meta-cosmic religion, though even here there is a lot of interaction in practice.

16. Cf. Francix X. Clooney, “Roberto de Nobili’s Dialogue on Eternal Life and an Early Jesuit Evaluation of Religion in South India” in John W. O’Malley (ed), The Jesuits : cultures, sciences, and the arts, 1540-1773. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), pp.402-417.
17. See Michael Amaladoss, Beyond Inculturation. Can the many be One? (Delhi: VIEWS, 1998)
18. Aloysius Pieris, Fire and Water, 66.

Symbols, like language, are constructs of a culture. Unlike concepts, symbols have a double meaning structure. They can have multiple, even opposite, uses. For example, fire can symbolize the ardour of love: we speak of a warm welcome. Fire can also symbolize the destructive force of anger. The meaning of symbols therefore have to be interpreted in the context in which it is used. Religion does not create its own language and symbols. It borrows them from the culture, but gives them a new meaning in the religious context. Given this articulation between culture and religion, symbol and meaning, it is possible that a symbol used with a particular meaning in a given religious context, can acquire another meaning in another religious context. Of course the new meaning must coalesce with the first level meaning of the symbol. Fire, for instance, cannot symbolize coolness. Gestures like washing and imposition of hands and material like food have different meanings in different religious rituals.

Let us now apply these distinctions to the symbol ‘OM’. It is understood basically as the tone of primordial sound, the manifestation of waves of energy. It can be seen as the sound form of deep breathing. Yogis speak of the ‘OM’ welling up from the depths as a person starts to breathe deeply. Both the Buddhists and the Jains use it in their prayer formulas. But they do not give it any special meaning. For the Hindus, ‘OM’ is the primordial sound symbol of the Absolute. In their cosmology, it is the first evolute of the Absolute, before other elements come into being. It is the purest, non-denominational, symbol of the Absolute. All the sects of Hinduism, Shivaites and Vaishnavites, would use it as a symbol of the Absolute. It is not a sectarian symbol. In the Christian tradition we speak of the Word as the first self manifestation of the Absolute (Father). The Word is the non-denominational symbol of the Absolute. Some Christians familiar with the Indian tradition, therefore, feel that ‘OM’ can be used as the sound form of the Word and, therefore, the symbol of the Absolute. Some would go further and say that the sound ‘OM’ contains three elements: A+U+M. It starts with the ‘A’, prolongs itself in the ‘U’ and finds completion in the ‘M’. It is three-elements-in-one. So they see ‘OM’ as the symbol of the Trinity.

Can the Christians use ‘OM’ as a Christian symbol? Why not? What they are doing is that they are taking an Indian symbol, so far used in the various Indian religious traditions, but are now giving it a new meaning in the context of their own faith. They are not taking the symbol with the meaning given to it in Jainism-Buddhism or Hinduism. They are re-interpreting it, giving it a new meaning, in the context of their own faith. I think that they have the right and the freedom to do so.

Limits to Freedom
Such freedom however can have limits. Some symbols may be closely associated with the mythological narratives or the history of a particular religion. Most mythological narratives relate to the struggle between the forces of good and evil and the eventual victory of the good. As such they can be ideally reinterpreted by any religion. But many believers consider history what others may look upon as mythology. It is the foundation of the religious identity of the community. Figures like Rama and Krishna, avatars of Vishnu, are objects of faith for the Hindus. I do not think that another religion like Christianity can take these figures and re-interpret them in its own context. It will be offensive to the Hindu believers and upsetting to the Christian believers.

19. Cf. Michael Amaladoss, “Symbols and Myatery”, The Journal of Dharma 2 (1977) 382-396.
20. See Swami Abhishiktananda, Saccidananda. A Christian Approach to Advaitic Experience. 2nd ed. (Delhi: ISPCK, 1984)

An Indian Christian artist, Jyoti Sahi, often depicts the risen Jesus as a dancing figure – dancing out of joy and fulfillment. For a window in the chapel of the National Biblical, Catechetical and Liturgical Centre in Bangalore he had designed a simple figure that would look like a dancing Nataraja at first sight, though it lacked all the other symbolic elements that form part of the actual Nataraja image. After some time it was judged by people that, though it could be explained, it may scandalize simple people. So it was removed. This recalls Paul’s advice to the Corinthians, not to eat the meat offered to the idols, not because it was sacred to the idols that were not true, but because of the scandal that it might cause to simple believers. But we must point out that a careful explanation can eventually do away with the scandal.

The limitations that go with such mytho-historical symbols, however, are not applicable to symbols that come from nature like the tree, water, light, the sun, the moon and the starts, the sky and the wind. These do not belong to any one culture or religion. They can be used by all religions. An Indian painter or artist might think more spontaneously of an oil lamp in Indian style than a candle.

Religious Symbols
We can now take one step further, beyond the distinctions between culture and religion and symbol and meaning. Pieris suggests that a meta-cosmic religion, as it spreads across many cultures, does not totally replace the local cosmic religion, but rather integrates many of its elements. He speaks, therefore, of a process of in-religionization, besides inculturation. The elements of cosmic religion are integrated into a new totality in a new religious context. What happens is that the meta-cosmic religion focuses on the transcendent. It speaks more of the ‘other world’ than ‘this one’. Its official rituals tend to refer to transcendent mysteries. It leaves large areas of life in this world free for traditional rituals. The seven sacraments of the Catholic Church, for instance, mark some moments of the life cycle of persons in community, not all of them. They ignore totally the agricultural and seasonal cycles.

21. Consider however that Jesus was pictured as Orpheus in the ancient Church.
22. Pieris, Fire and Water, 67

Besides, many of the rituals of cosmic religion also aim at celebrating and stabilizing the social order, besides religious faith. The rituals around birth, initiation, marriage and death spell out mutual relationships and responsibilities of different people in the wider family and in the village. This is the reason that the official rituals of the Church do not totally satisfy the people. They complete them with many other rituals taken from their own culture and cosmic religion. Since cosmic religion refers to ‘this world’, it need not contradict the meta-cosmic insistence on the ‘other-world’. Healing, for example, is an acute need of the people. The sacrament of the anointing of the sick is, in actual practice, limited to the dying. This leaves the field open to other rituals and ritual agents to meet the needs for healing. A prayer or a blessing does not satisfy the ritual-hungry people. Rituals that ‘touch’ the body can themselves be elements of healing. The horizontal, social dimension is also as important for healing, especially in psycho-somatic illnesses, as the vertical, spiritual one. So people adapt traditional rituals for the purpose. In the process they may relate them to a particular saint, or to a special sacred place. They may add signs and prayers that Christianize the ritual. The ritual itself is borrowed from cosmic religiosity. There is nothing wrong in this. After all, washing with water, a communal meal, anointing with oil or imposition of hands were not directly revealed from heaven. They were borrowed from Jewish usage and given new meanings by the Christians. Similarly symbols and rituals from Greco-Roman religio-culture were also later integrated into the liturgy. So there is no reason to object to the integration of other cosmic religious symbols and rituals in the Christian popular tradition.

Such integration can be better understood if we look at the structure of rituals. Rituals are community symbolic actions. They have a three level structure. Let us take the ritual of Christian Initiation. At a ritual level, the main symbolic action is washing with water together with the profession of faith. At the social level, the main symbolic action is the admission of an individual to the Christian community. At the religious of mysteric level, this admission of an individual to the community of Christian believers symbolizes the person’s being reborn in the Spirit and becoming the child of God.

The Ritual of Baptism
Rebirth in the Spirit

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Becoming a member of the Christian Community
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Washing with water and the profession of faith

At the ritual level the actions symbolize purification and commitment in faith. In turn these ritual actions symbolize the adhesion to the Christian community. This whole symbolic complex indicate the rebirth in the Spirit. The pivotal element in this structure is adhesion to the Christian community and the spiritual meaning given to it. Symbolic actions at the ritual level can change.
The Baptisms of desire or of blood (martyrdom) are considered as substitutions for the rite of washing. The ritual of washing itself meant repentance in the baptism of John. It still means purification from sins in Hinduism and can be repeated. Thousands of Hindus throng the sacred rivers at auspicious occasions. But the Christians use it as an initiation rite. So it is a community that specifies the particular meaning of a symbol by integrating it in a particular socio-religious context. Such ‘symbolization’ should not contradict the basic human meaning of a ritual. But this basic human meaning can be further specified and enriched in its own social and religious (faith) context by the community.

We could go a step further. Cosmic religious symbols may be as much cultural as they are religious. So there is no problem in integrating them. But what about symbols from other religious traditions? As long as other religions were considered as untrue and devilish any integration of their symbols and rituals would have been unthinkable. But today we believe that the Spirit of God is present and active, not only in the human hearts of individuals, but also in other cultures and religions. If this is so, this Spirit must be manifesting itself in their personal, social and historical experience, in their scriptures and narratives, prayers, rituals and symbols. It is true that every religion is not merely the manifestation of the Spirit of God.

23. See Michael Amaladoss, Can Symbols Change? Variable and Invariable Elements in Sacramental Rites. (Bangalore: Theological Publications in India, 1979).

It is also the response of the humans to the self-manifesting God. So it is bound to be affected by human limits and sinfulness. (This is also true of the Church.) Therefore, a discernment is indicated, not wholesale rejection. In inter-religious encounter, then, even between meta-cosmic religions, we can be open to mutual influences and even borrowings at the religious level. The official view of other religions today looks on them as preparations, guided by the Spirit, that have to find their fulfillment in Christianity. They have the ‘seeds of the Words’ that will find their fullness in the Word that is in the Church. This paradigm of ‘preparation-fulfillment’ is challenged by many theologians today. But even remaining within that paradigm the other religions have ‘good and holy elements’ that can be integrated into their ritual and symbolic tradition by the Christians.

Being Hindu-Christian
When we compare meta-cosmic religions, we tend to do so from the outside in the manner of scholars doing comparative religion. Or we look at other religions from the vantage point of the missionaries who come from different lands. We can think of another stand point from within. For me, an Indian Christian, Hinduism is not an ‘other’ religion, as it is for a foreign missionary. It is the religion of my ancestors. God has spoken to my ancestors through it. It is part of my tradition. I have my roots in it. I could say that I have two roots: Hinduism and Christianity. I will not fully find myself till I can discover and integrate the riches – God’s gifts and human creativity – both these traditions have given to me. I am not any more looking at Hindu scriptures, symbols and rituals from the outside as ‘other’, but from within as ‘mine’. Obviously I cannot have my feet in two boats at the same time. I will have to find a personal integration. Being a Christian, my integration of other religious elements will be around my experience of Jesus. I do not have to reject the Christian historical tradition. But I will have to see that the Christian and Hindu traditions interact within me and my community in a creative manner. I will then be not only an ‘Indian Christian’, but a ‘Hindu-Christian’, my main identity being Christian. What I say here about Hinduism in my own personal case can be applied by others to Buddhism, Islam, Tribal, Dalit or other religions, depending on where their roots are. Most missionaries, in spite of the ‘incarnational’ paradigm of mission, do not reach the point where they can look on another religion as their own. Swami Abhishiktananda is a rare example of someone who felt called to the Hindu experience of the advaita and recognized that tradition as his own.

I think that a number of Christians in India in the 20th century, especially those living in the ashrams, were, and are, following this path. They inspire themselves by reading the Hindu and other religious scriptures. They sing the devotional hymns of the saints of other religions. They use methods of meditation like the Yoga or Viapassana or Zen. Some of them may see them as steps leading to deeper Christian prayer. Others may see them as valuable methods of contemplation in themselves. Some speak of having Hindu or Buddhist gurus. It is also true that we can come across people who are Christian-Hindus, rooted in Hinduism, but feeling themselves to be disciples of Christ in many ways. Mahatma Gandhi claimed to be one of those.

24. John Paul II, The Mission of the Redeemer, 28.
25. See, for example, Jacques Dupuis, Christianity and the Religions. From Confrontation to Dialogue. (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2002).
26. This is shown by the subtitle of his Journal (Diary): “Christian monk-Hindu sannyasi”.

Beyond Symbiosis
We seem to have reached the limits of inter-religious integration with people who claim to be Hindu-Christian. Is it possible to go beyond this? The experience of Swami Abhishiktananda seems to indicate a further step. When he founded a Christian ashram together with Jules Monchanin, their aim was to witness to Christian mysticism in an Indian context, hoping to attract Hindu seekers to find fulfillment in the Christian experience. In keeping with this goal one of his first books – Saccidananda – started with the advaitic (non-dual) experience of a South Indian Hindu sage, Ramana Maharishi and tried to show how it can find fulfillment in the Christian experience of the Trinity. His contact with Ramana Maharishi, however, had made a powerful impact on him. So, leaving his ashram frequently he went to Thiruvannamali, where Ramana Maharishi was, and sought to have the advaitic experience. Ramana was not very communicative. After his death, Swami Abhishiktananda found another advaitic guru in Swami Gnanananda. He was helped by many other Hindu teachers along his way. Finally he did have the advaitic experience. To the end of his life he was faithful to his Christian identity, celebrating the Eucharist and praying the psalms. If we read his diary what strikes us is his continuing attempt to integrate his Christian and advaitic (Hindu) experience. He did not find it easy. Once he had had the advaitic experience, he did not think that it can find fulfillment in the experience of the Trinity. Sometimes he speaks as if the advaitic experience is beyond all particular religious experiences including the Christian one. And yet, he was not ready to abandon his Christian experience. I am sure he found it still meaningful. Yet he was hesitant to reprint his book Saccidananda, though he finally did it with a new introduction. A few months before his death he had a heart attack. After that the tension between his two experiences seemed to have disappeared. He did not write much after that to share with us his perspective. But from a few remarks that he made it seems to me that he just accepted the two experiences – Christian and advaitic – as different and no longer sought to subordinate one to the other or see one as being fulfilled by the other. He had two experiences of the Absolute in tension. He did not achieve a symbiosis, an integration, much as he would have liked it. How do we understand this experience?

27. Cf. Dennis Gira and Jacques Scheuer (eds), Vivre de plusieurs religions. Promesse ou illusion? (Paris: L’Atelier, 2000).
28. Cf. M.M.Thomas, The Acknowledged Christ of the Indian Renaissance. London: SCM Press, 1969.
29. See note 16 above. See also Swami Abhishiktananda, Hindu-Christian Meeting Point – Within the Cave of the Heart. (Delhi: ISPCK, 1997).
30. Swami Abhishiktananda, Guru and Disciple. An Encounter with Sri Gnanananda,A Contemporary Spiritual Master. (Delhi: ISPCK, 2000).

We had been talking about how a particular religion can encounter a new culture or a cosmic religion or another great religion and how it can integrate elements from them into itself without losing its identity. With Abhishiktananda we are before a situation in which it is not possible to integrate the other religious experience into one’s own religious framework. These are two different experiences. They cannot be subordinated, one to the other, in a hierarchical or partial-whole or preparation-fulfillment framework. Their different identities have to be respected. We do not believe in many Absolutes. There is only one Absolute. But different religious groups seek to experience this Absolute in different ways, according to their own historical, cultural and religious traditions. The different ways are like different languages. One language cannot be subsumed into another. Some may be able to speak both languages, but not at the same time. Each language has a framework that has to be respected.

One of the theories that theologians propose to make sense of the pluralism of religions is ‘Theo-centric’ pluralism. This is opposed to ‘Christo-centrism’. Swami Abhishiktananda did not propose a ‘theo-centric’ theory of religions. He did not speak about other mediators besides Christ. But he would rather say that God, who is Father-Son-Spirit for us, is also beyond all ‘name and form’. This is the apophatic tradition. The advaitic tradition reaches the Absolute, not through another mediator who is in competition with Jesus, but through a different path. Swami Abhishiktananada would have suggested that Jesus himself had such an advaitic experience of the Father. The prayer of Jesus in John 17 seems to indicate this. It also shows that Jesus was keen to share this experience with the disciples. Swami Abhishiktananada would not be equating or comparing his experience with Jesus. At the level of advaitic oneness we are beyond all ‘name and form’. At the level of ‘name and form’ we have the different religious experiences. The advaitic experience is not particularly Hindu. But it is Hinduism that leads him to it. I know that all this sounds very complicated. Perhaps we need not go deeper into this for our purpose here. I would only like to say that Swami Abhishiktananda was not simply a pluralist. At the same time he was not able to integrate his different experiences in a symbiosis around Christianity, which was his basic identity. I think that his experience would be better indicated by the term ‘harmony’.

Syncretism or Harmony
It is time now to get back to the examples with which I started. Among the various experiences which I recounted I wonder whether I would call any of them syncretistic. There are people who seem to treat the various religious symbols and rituals as objects in a super-market. They will try one thing or another till they receive satisfaction. There is no commitment to a particular way. There is no attempt at integration. They do not have a clear sense of identity, at least in this particular situation. The phenomenon that is called ‘New Age’ may fit this description. It may be called syncretistic. These people do not have roots in any religion. They try out various things. They pick and choose. They build up their own practice with elements taken from various sources. I do not see such a relativistic attitude in any of the examples I have given above.

Perhaps the story of the couple who go with their sick child to a doctor, a priest and a Muslim shaman may need some explanation. There is no problem about their going to the doctor and to the priest and the Church. But there may a question about their going to a shaman. The Church does speak about the ‘evil spirits’. It has official exorcists. But they do not practice very much. That is why people go to shamans, Muslim or Hindu. This happened to me more than twenty years ago. Today, probably, they would go to a Christian ‘charismatic’ healer who claims to free people from ‘evil spirits’. No one would consider this a syncretistic practice. I am not entering here into a discussion about the worldview underlying this phenomenon, particularly the belief in ‘spirits’. I only point out that, given contemporary understanding, such a practice need not be considered syncretistic.

The ritual at the funeral is very significant. It emphasizes the idea that at death, the body returns to the earth, but the person does not disappear into thin air. We believe in the communion of saints. The Church approves the honouring of the ancestors. People who are dead remain linked to us in various ways. We can relate to them and they can relate to us. The ritual I described celebrates this. I do not see anything un-Christian about it. It can be easily integrated into a Christian funeral rite.

The rituals of popular religiosity mostly represent phenomena of symbiosis. The people have a ‘sense of faith’. They know to integrate traditional rituals into a new faith framework. There may be occasional exaggerations. But they disappear or corrected over the years. The only problem is that they are not official and the elite in the community look down on them. But it is the problem of the elite, not of the people. The people find their rituals quite meaningful. It is the elite who accuse them of syncretism. Such accusations come from a narrow fundamentalist perspective. Fundamentalism can take two forms.

Some people closely identify the cultural elements in which they express their faith with the faith itself. They do not make a distinction between religion and culture. Or they give a privileged and normative place to one particular culture. Many officials in the Church give such a privileged place to the Judaic and Greco-Roman cultures. They may even identify them with Christianity. So any effort to integrate other cultural elements into the Christian ritual is seen as syncretistic. Today a lot of lip service is paid to the need for inculturation. But at the same time every effort is made to preserve the ‘substantial unity of the Roman Rite’. These people are not basically open to other cultural symbols except as external decorations. They see syncretism every where. These are cultural fundamentalists. For example, I used to know some people in India who would consider candles Christian and oil lamps Hindu.

Then we have the religious fundamentalists. They think that their religion is the only true one. Anything that comes from another religious tradition is immediately characterized as untrue, evil and devilish. For them, interpretation is an unknown art. But after the Second Vatican Council, we have a more positive view of other religions. Besides, now we see also the possibility of integrating symbols and rituals from other religions, but interpreting them and giving them new meanings and connotations in our faith context. We remain rooted in our identity. But we enrich ourselves from various sources. Sometimes our own complex identity as Hindu-Christian may urge us towards such an integration.

31. See the chapter referred to in note 6 above for a discussion of this point.
32. For the impact of Greece and Rome on early liturgy see J.A.Jungmann, Public Worship. A Survey. (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1957); Theodor Klauser, A Short History of the Western Liturgy. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979).
33. See Varietates Legitimae, (January 25, 1994), 36.
34. Cf. M.M.Thomas, Risking Christ for Christ’s Sake: Towards and Ecumenical Theology of Pluralism. (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1987).

There are however areas which are not very clear still. Swami Abhishiktananda offers us an example of this. I think that the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith was aware of a tension when it sought to discourage people from trying out methods of concentration and contemplation from Asian religious traditions like Yoga and Zen. Some Christians try to use these methods as preparation for prayer in so far as they can quieten your mind and help you to concentrate on your own religious symbols. But the method itself – Zen is also derived from the Yoga – leads one to experiences beyond ‘name and form’. Then it becomes a challenge to ‘integrate’ them in the framework of the ‘name and form’ (namarupa) of Christianity. We have had an apophatic tradition in Christianity. At the apophatic level one can only remain silent. A way of looking at this situation positively is that very few people will reach this level and the Spirit of God will certainly guide them. There are, however, people who propose Yoga and Zen as natural, human, Godless religions. They seek to give natural explanations of the symbols of various religions. I think that we have to be wary of these people. Human experiences are constructed in some way. Intentions are important. They make our identity. This identity today can be hybrid. But even hybridity has to come to some sort of cohesion in every person and community. Such cohesion, however, need not exclude complexity and tension.

Conclusion
In a post-modern world pluralism, with globalization and increasing migration pluralism is a fact of life. We can no longer live in our ghettoes guarding our secluded identities. Hybridity of all kinds is inevitable. That is why some modern theologians see syncretism as a positive process and reject the kind of pejorative connotation that is normally attached to it. Calls to avoid syncretism and claims to guard the unity of the community by safeguarding its identity may be one way of exercising power through control. Pluralism will mean decentralization and this is seen as a threat by those who are at the centre. The unity that they would like to safeguard is the identity as they see and live it. They do not mind people practicing parallel religion or multiple religiosity, provided a façade of unity is kept in official rituals which they dominate and control.

At the beginning of this paper, quoting Pieris, I mentioned synthesis, besides syncretism and symbiosis. Are there are examples of synthesis, in which a third religion emerges out of the interaction of two other religions? The emergence of a new religion is not a common occurrence. I do not know whether some of the Independent Churches in Africa will qualify for this. But in India, Sikhism can considered a synthetic religion, born out of the encounter between Hinduism and Islam. Like Islam it has no images. Its religious practice is centred round scripture and its ritual recitation. But scripture itself contains many devotional poems of Hindu saints. Even today many Hindus feel a sense of fellowship with Sikhism.

35. Cf. Michael Amaladoss, “Double Religious Belonging and Liminality”, Vidyajyoit Journal of Theologicl Reflection 66 (2002) 21-34.
36. Cf. Paul Lakeland, Post-modernity. Christian Identity in a Fragmented Age. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997).
37. Cf. Robert J.C.Young, Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race. (London: Routledge, 1995).
38. See Robert J. Schreiter, The New Catholicity. Theology between the Global and the Local.

Religions have grown through their interaction with other cultures and religions. Buddhism was born in India as a protest against Vedic Hinduism. But Hinduism progressively absorbed the apophatism and ahimsa of Buddhism so that the latter disappeared from India. Shankara was accused of being a crypto-Buddhist when he championed his theory of the Advaita (non-duality). The Mahayana tradition of Buddhism emerged under the impact of the popular religiosity and tantric practices of North India, Tiber and China. Islam developed the Sufi tradition in interaction with Hinduism. Hinduism itself went through a reform inspired by its contact with Christianity. Christianity did not encounter any challenging meta-cosmic religion till it came to Asia. It was easy for it to integrate, by subjugating, the cosmic religions of Europe, Latin America and Africa. But a true encounter with developed religions like Hinduism and Buddhism in Asia may challenge it to change and grow in unforeseen ways. This can be threatening. At least some Christians are not ready for this. So they keep warning people about syncretism.

One of the reasons may be the logical approach which Christian thinking had inherited from Greek philosophy. Logic is guided by the principle of contradiction. One thing is not an other. Reality is looked at through a dichotomous prism: ‘either–or’. Identity involves exclusion. I am not the other. Such exclusion involves that any coming together of the opposites is seen as a denial of identity and unity. I think that this is the fear that is behind easy apprehensions of syncretism. People in the East tend to look at reality, not in terms of ‘either-or’, but ‘both-and’. Their approach is inclusive and integrative. Their sense of identity is rooted, but open. They are ready to hold opposites in tension. They easily move from affirmation to apophatism, but holding on to both. They are less afraid of syncretism.

What is basic to Christian identity is the relationship to God manifested in Jesus. The symbols and rituals in which this relationship finds expression do not really matter.

If we really believe that God’s plan is to “gather up all things”, to “reconcile all things” then encounters with cultures and religions leading to symbiosis and harmony would be normal. Deeper encounters may lead us to explore newer dimensions of experience beyond ‘name and form’.

39. Cf. Jung Young Lee, The Theology of Change. The Christian Concept of God in an Eastern Perspective. (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1979), pp.49-66; David L. Hall and Roger T. Ames, Anticipating China. (Albany,NY: SUNY, 1995).
40. Speaking of sacramental rites the Council of Trent spoke of their ‘substance’ as being unchangeable. (Neuner-Dupuis, The Christian Faith – 1990, 1324) The Second Vatican Council specified this ‘substance’ as “divinely instituted’ (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 21). Theologians suggest that only two rituals qualify to be so unchangeable: washing with water in Baptism and the community eating and drinking together in the Eucharist. See Michael Amaladoss, Do Sacraments Change?

Michael Amaladoss, S.J.
Institute of Dialogue with Cultures and Religions,
Chennai, India.