CHAPTER TW O

  TOWARDS A REFINED

CHRISTIAN ADVAITA

            Just as we have looked at Griffiths' evaluation and understanding of religions based on the characteristics of the three particular phases in his own life, we undertake here to situate his own experience and articulation of advaita in his life. Since advaita is something that has intimately to do with a non-dual experience of the whole cosmic reality , including oneself, it would be no exaggeration to claim that it will have a significant effect on his own personal life. That is precisely what happened. After he suffered a stroke in 1990, he became even more personally convinced and mature in his personal assimilation of advaita. So it would be better for us to subdivide his experience of advaita, into four phases in his life instead of the normal three, as we have been doing till now. In the last phase (1990-1993), we shall see the final flowering and integration of advaitic insights in his own life.

            The procedure in this chapter is first to introduce the significant term advaita from the context of general Indian philosophy with special reference to _a_kara (also spelled as Shankara , A.D. 788-850). Then we try to trace Griffiths' advaitic insights in his life phases. In the first phase, we can only trace some elements of advaita, and it is just before his death that we find its culmination. So schematically we can divide his life phases and his articulation of advaita as follows:

Phases of Life            Views of Religion            Notion of Advaita

1. Catholic            Individuality                   Initial Advaitic Traces

2. Monk            Fulfillment                     Initial Articulation

3. Advaitin            Complementarity             Christian Advaita

                                                            Living out Advaita

            Basically we trace the meaning of advaita from dvaita . Dvaita means two or duality, and, since a is a negating prefix, advaita means not two or not dual. This implies a relationship which is not two, not dual. This has to be differentiated from monism. We can say, in short, that philosophically advaita is used to denote a relationship (therefore not pure monism) which does not lead to duality. This concept was perfected by _a_kara in the ninth century AD. Basically it expresses a relationship between God and world or between God and soul, that is between j_v_tman and param_tman . Classically this relationship or t_d_tmya would imply possessing that as one's deeper self. T_d_tmya could be studied in terms of non-reciprocity, dependence, non-separatedness, non-otherness and distinction as given below.

T_d-_tmya : The Non-reciprocal Relation Between J_v-_tma and Param-_tma.

            Since the absolute self is the total Cause of the universe, both its up_dh_na (cause giving rise to reality ) and nimitta k_ra a (efficient cause), it is immanent in its effects as Illuminator,¹⁴³ as supreme Witness (S_k in )¹⁴⁴ and Indwelling spirit (Antary_min ).¹⁴⁵ So _a_kara holds that the relation between the world and Brahman and individual soul and Brahman is one of t_d_tmya . This term t_d_tmya could be translated as `identity'. Etymologically it means that (tat ) as one's _tman,¹⁴⁶ that is, the world of soul has that as its _tman. That is, Brahman is considered as being the innermost reality of its effects but not identical with them. Having shown the non-difference or non-duality of cause and effect, _a_kara wants to speak about the various characteristics of this relation. He maintains that in spite of the non-difference of cause and effects, we cannot insist on an absolute equality of characteristics. "If absolute equality is insisted on. . . . The relation of up_dh_na cause and effect would be annihilated."¹⁴⁷ The non-difference of cause and effect does not do away with the superiority of the cause. Some of the characteristics of this t_d_tmya (non-difference) are:

            Non-reciprocity : The relation of the effect to the _tman is not mutual. There cannot be a relationship of mutuality between the cause and effect. "The effect has its _tmans in the Cause, but not the Cause in the effect."¹⁴⁸ Thus "the apparent world has Brahman for its depth [or ontological] nature and not vice versa."¹⁴⁹ So this relation is one-sided. There exists only a logical relation from cause to effect, whereas from effect to cause there is a metaphysically real relationship. This creatureship is intrinsic to creatures but creatorship is only extrinsic to creator.

            Dependence : Effect has no existence apart from the cause. It is totally and ontologically dependent on the cause. "It is an accepted principle even in the world that an effect is intimately dependent (anuvidhayin ) on its Cause."¹⁵⁰ 

            Non-Separateness: Non-separateness is due to the total, ontological dependence upon the cause. "All the created beings abide within the Puru a, for every effect rests within its cause."¹⁵¹ "The effects with all its qualities do not exist without the _tman of the Cause either now or before its actual beginning."¹⁵² 

            Non-Otherness : This denies otherness strictly understood, that is, mutual foreignness, heterogeneity and ontological independence from its cause. If beings are considered as `other' with regard to Brahman, they would be independent absolutes. There would be no satk_ryav_da (effect pre-existing in the cause). Being would be ontologically unrelated as the nine substances of the vaise ika and the prakriti and puru a of the S_mkhya philosophy . For _a_kara non-otherness is non-existence apart from the cause. He says it is impossible to bring an effect which is different from its cause.¹⁵³ "There exists in the past, present or future not one thing simply other than the _tman, simply non-_tman, separated by space or time, utterly subtle, disconnected and remote."¹⁵⁴ 

            Distinction: Though _a_kara insists on the non-difference of Cause and effect, he denies at the same time their absolute identity. The immanence of the up_dh_na (reality giving cause) into its effects is brought out by saying that the effect exists through the _tman of the cause. He also stresses that the effects are always superseded by their inner cause and thus inferior to cause. Hence it is distinct from it. If absolute equality and identity were insisted on, the relation of cause and effect would be done away with.¹⁵⁵ 

            The philosophical complexity that emerges from an attempted rational understanding of advaita ¹⁵⁶ is best shown by Griffiths through the characteristics of intuitive knowledge and love. Where love is deep and mutual, it is proper to claim that the two loved ones are neither one (that is, submerged into one) nor two (that is, separated individa). Their mutual interdependence and interaction give rise to a wholeness that is greater than the mere sum of their parts.¹⁵⁷ This is the fundamental intuition lying behind Griffiths' formulation of Christian advaita. Such an understanding of advaita is applied both to the divine mystery of the Trinity – that is, to the relationship that exits between the Divine persons in the Trinity¹⁵⁸ – and to the mystery of the relationship between the God and soul/world. Besides that of love, there is also, according to Griffiths, a relationship of knowledge within the divine mystery and between the world and the soul.

            The primary adversary in Griffiths' attempts at formulating a Christian advaita is the `pure' or `strict' advaita, which is nothing but pure monism. The pure advaita is an interpretation that the divine mystery is in itself undifferentiated and beyond all possible relationships since it is the "One without a second,"¹⁵⁹ and it is all and it is beyond all. The most tragic consequence of such a view of advaita is the fact that it ultimately leaves no possibility for the real existence of either the soul or the world. Differentiation, according to this interpretation, is merely an illusion born out of ignorance and is to be eliminated with the final enlightenment.

            His reflections upon the advaita as a philosophy and as an experience of the divine mystery have significant and far-reaching impact not just on his personal life. It draws him further towards a vision of how the different religions converge and how the cultures of the world may move beyond mutual distrust and competition towards mutual co-operation and complementarity .

FIRST PHASE (-1931): INITIAL ADVAITIC TRACES

            The primary intuitions of Griffiths about advaita can be traced even to his early writings and to his early experiences with nature, though in a very germinal form .¹⁶⁰ Here of course, if we be allowed to speak of some advaitic insights, it would be at a very initial and undeveloped level, specially in relation to nature, as in the poets and philosophers of romanticism. We could also trace it to the epistemological union between knowledge and the knower.

            Thus a basic foundation of advaita lies in our daily experiences at a depth level. Hermeneutically speaking, there is a union in every significant knowing; a link between the knower and the known. Between the known and the knower there is a kind of union or "connaturality"¹⁶¹ which the knower has with the known through the medium of knowledge. This could be extended to the spiritual level to claim that there is a fundamental relation between the experience and the experienced, even in the experience of self-transcendence in a unitive knowledge or in a loving surrender. Again there is another sort of non-duality between the very process of knowing and that of loving. For at the depth level, there cannot be true knowledge without some sort of intimate love and conversely there cannot be genuine love, without at least some sort of knowledge. "This is essentially a mystery of love. When two people love one another they do not lose their distinction of person , they become more fully personal."¹⁶² In this way we can claim that there is a non-duality between the act of knowing and the act of loving and this relationship continues between the knower and the known and between the lover and the loved. This intuitions of advaita in any relationship have been with Griffiths throughout his life. In that significant experience of the evening walk,¹⁶³ when he felt so much one with the nature, elements of advaitic experience could be traced. Still it would be an exaggeration to claim that he could then consciously articulate such an experience in advaitic categories. But the germinal experience, which was only latent at that time, bore its mature fruit later with his deeper encounter with Hinduism .

SECOND PHASE (1931-1968): INITIAL ADVAITIC ARTICULATIONS

            Griffiths had been in close contact with Ved_nta philosophy ever since he reached India in 1955.¹⁶⁴ His many encounters with exponents and interpreters of Ved_nta in Bangalore led him to a deep admiration for and a nagging skepticism of Ved_nta. It is this ambivalent reaction which could be perceived even in his own formulation of a Christian advaita .

            Positively, in his writings of 1960s, he acknowledges that the Hindu witness to advaita is vitally significant for all, including Christians. This experience of advaita is for him a mystical intuition and not just a metaphysical conclusion about the human soul being in the center of a relationship to the divine mystery . Negatively, it was evident for Griffiths that advaita, as it is commonly understood and practiced, with its denial of the world realities, was not fully acceptable to him.

            Further, it is interesting for us to see how Griffiths describes the early encounters with advaita , in the first stage of his life in India . He is certainly positively oriented. He describes this advaitic experience as:¹⁶⁵ 

            [U]ltimately an experience of the soul in its inmost depths; through it we get beyond the world of the sense, beyond our imaginations, beyond all the world of thought which always occupies us, until we reach the inner center where the soul is resting in itself. Maritain calls it an "experience of the substantial being of the soul," the soul in its ground of reality .

            This advaitic intuition of the soul resting in itself is "a very great thing"¹⁶⁶ for him and has, he holds, nothing suspicious about it. So he vehemently disagrees with R.C. Zaehner's critique of advaita as a doctrine whereby the soul is being "closed" in itself, that is, in "isolation" leading to the "deadest of dead-ends."¹⁶⁷ With regards to this opinion of Zaehner, Griffiths affirms:¹⁶⁸

            I agree with Professor Zaehner that the Hindu experience is an experience of the soul in itself, beyond image and concept in the "ground" of its being, but, so far from its being "closed," I would maintain that it is precisely in this "ground" that the soul is "open" to all beings. So far from a "dead-end," it is a living point, which opens on the infinite. In other words, it is at this point above all that man is open to God.

            Meanwhile Griffiths draws on "the extraordinary fertility" that this advaitic experience has shown in the course of human history to support his claims for the validity of such an experience . This sort of an experience of the soul in its very "center" beyond all images and concepts, which is described as a realization of the non-dual reality , is actually an encounter with the divine mystery .¹⁶⁹ He has absolutely no quarrel with it. Though Hindus and Buddhists may describe this experience quite differently, according to Griffiths, their realizations are fundamentally the same. The general orientation toward the interior life implicit in such a realization is what Christians can learn from them. At the same time Christians also have to offer some significant correctives and modifications to the Eastern religions in this experience.

Growing Awareness of Advaita

            At this second stage, it is obvious, that Griffiths has come to relate to the advaitic tradition much more closely. This has a profound impact on his own personal life. We first see his direct encounter with advaita and see how he differentiated between the actual experience of advaita and the various interpretations that follow from this experience. He does it in order to distance himself from many (even prominent) interpretations of this basic experience , which he feels are defective. In the next step, we try to follow Griffiths in articulating his own convictions of a Christian advaita. Committed to his Christian vision of society and of the world, he does take a reserved attitude towards the monistic trends in advaita and vigorously rejects the pure advaita which affirms the absolute identity between Brahman and the soul. On the other hand, he denotes this union by the term `mutual co-penetration.' In formulating his own Christian vision, he is very much influenced by Eckhart 's mystic vision of reality . Finally, in the Trinity , with its positive understanding of the person , he sees an articulation of his own growing view of advaita.

            In this second phase, Griffiths differentiates between the `experience ' and the `interpretation ' of advaita in Hinduism in no uncertain terms. He affirms that "[t]his Hindu experience, though it has various interpretations which may not be altogether adequate, is a very great thing."¹⁷⁰ Further, for him the defects and weakness of advaita are actually due to the distorting interpretations that follow from the positive experience of advaita. Since Indian philosophy does not have an adequate way to describe the relationship between the world and the divine, the experience of non-duality overshadows the reality of differences. This actually removes the ground for any relationship that could occur, be it between the divine and the world or between the param_tman or j_v_tman . So the obvious danger of such an interpretation is that it undercuts and relativizes reality. Griffiths sees in _a_kara such a radically devastating position. This ninth century philosopher, said to be the founder of advaita Ved_nta , is supposed to represent a view according to which all differences are to disappear in the experience of non-duality, confirming the unreal status of the real world. In fact, the entire world of experience, the world of difference, is a misperception of a `superimposition' upon the non-dual reality and is actually m_ya (illusion) . When one is awakened through mystical discipline and recognizes this fact of m_ya, the dream of this world of appearances disappears and the true reality, Brahman , is experienced.¹⁷¹ 

            As Griffiths notes, within Ved_nta tradition itself there are various diverging views and oppositions to this pure advaitic position of _a_kara. Some other schools within Ved_nta tried to defend a personal God and to deny such a strict interpretation of m_ya and the world. The Vi_i _dvaita or "qualified non-dualism" of Ramanuja (11^th century) and `dvaita' (dualism) of Madhva (13^th century) are examples. The bhakti (devotion) tradition also emerged as a reaction to the strict Ved_ntic interpretations.

            As opposed to _a_kara (interpreted classically), Griffiths is more attuned to the early 20th century sage from Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo Ghose. For Aurobindo, in a genuine spiritual awakening, rather than dissolving like a dream or illusion, the world will actually be taken up, transformed and experienced as consisting within the divine mind itself. Griffiths says that in Aurobindo's philosophy "there is a wonderful synthesis, based on the Ved_nta , of ancient and modern thought. In him the values of being and becoming, of spirit and matter , of the One and the many, of the eternal and the temporal, of the universal and the individual, of the personal God and the absolute Godhead, are integrated in a vision of the whole, which has never been surpassed in depth and comprehensiveness. In the integral yoga of Sri Aurobindo the values of matter and human consciousness and the experience of a personal god are not lost in the ultimate reality , the divine Saccid_nanda . Matter and life and consciousness in the human being are seen to be evolving towards the divine life and the divine consciousness, in which they are not annihilated but fulfilled."¹⁷² Further, he asserts that this is the Christian advaita . Nevertheless, Griffiths remains skeptical. He is not sure if Aurobindo's system adequately resolves the fundamental issue of the relationship of the world to the divine mystery .

            So Griffiths maintains that "[f]or the Ved_nta the problem always arises that if the world is conceived to be real it is never adequately distinguished from God, so that it falls into pantheism, that is to say, the world is considered to be divine; or if, like _a_kara, it is determined to preserve the purity of the divine nature, then it is compelled to deny the reality of the world."¹⁷³ 

            From these reflections, it could be inferred that two issues which Griffiths tries to see in his advaitic vision are the relationship with the Godhead and the reality of the world. To emphasize this is the next step as Griffiths goes on to formulate a Christian vision of Ved_nta .

First Expressions of Christian Advaita

            Two Primary Differences. As already indicated, it is Griffiths' fundamental intuition that reality is non-dual. This non-duality is to be confirmed not only by his own personal, contemplative experience s but also by the general Christian experience . At the same time he thinks that Christianity can contribute to and enrich the understanding of advaita mainly in two ways:

            a. By introducing the relationship of love that exists between soul and God;

            b. By affirming that the reality of this world is to be taken seriously.

            Firstly, Griffiths holds that the relationship between the soul and God cannot be one of total identity, whereby the soul loses itself completely in the Divine. Even in the highest communion with God the individual does not cease to exist, does not just dissolve into the Ultimate. Griffiths articulates this position quite emphatically:¹⁷⁴ 

            For the Hindu and the Buddhist , . . . in the ultimate state there is an absolute identity. Man realizes his identity with the absolute and realizes that this identity is eternal and unchangeable. In the Christian view man remains distinct from God. He is a creature of God, and his being raised to a participation in the divine life is an act of God's grace, a gratuitous act of infinite love, by which God descends to man in order to raise him to share in his own life and knowledge and love. In this union man truly shares in the divine mode of knowledge, he knows himself in an identity with God, but he remains distinct in his being. It is an identity, or rather a communion, by knowledge and love, not an identity of being.

            This basic distinction could be traced back to the differing concepts of interiority between Hinduism and Christianity . "For the Hindu interiority consists in a progressive detachment from everything both external and internal, leading to the isolation of the soul in its pure interiority. But for the Christian, interiority begins with repentance; it is the discovery of the abyss which separates the soul from God. But with this discovery goes the discovery of the love which bridges this abyss. Thus the soul in the interior abyss of its own being confronts God in the abyss of his being."¹⁷⁵ Griffiths stresses the aspects of love, knowledge and relationship that are involved in such a state. Such a union would not be characterized by the drop-ocean analogy , according to Griffiths.¹⁷⁶

            At the same time Griffiths acknowledges that there are diverse views in Hinduism regarding the relationship between soul and God. But he agrees that the pure advaitic doctrine of _a_kara predominates among the Hindu elite. So he affirms:¹⁷⁷ 

            We can say that there is a continual tension in Indian spirituality in its aspiration after union with God. On the one hand there is the doctrine that in the ultimate state all differences disappear, so that the soul and God are one in absolute identity of being; on the other hand there is the belief that the soul and God are really distinct and that in the ultimate state of bliss there is communion but not identity. But it must be said that today the tendency is to hold that whatever differences may exist in the relative sphere, in the ultimate state the advaita doctrine of _a_kara has the last word and all differences disappear.

            Secondly, Griffiths is convinced, following his Christian commitment, that the world has to be understood as real. Such a corrective is needed in his opinion to prevent the dangers of monism and pantheism. In the former, the reality of the world is lost in God, and in the latter the transcendence of God is lost in the world and God becomes subject to the vicissitudes of time and space. Christianity , for Griffiths, is a reconciliation between these two extremes.¹⁷⁸ Concretely Griffiths refers to the Christian doctrines of creation and incarnation which would be beneficial to resolve the difficulties found in advaita . The doctrine of creation supports a clear delineation between the Creator and the creature. Even admitting the "analogy of participation ," the differences and distinction between the Creator and the creature can never be totally eliminated. So Griffiths could boldly assert: "The world is not an emanation from God nor an appearance of God, but a creation; a relative mode of being dependent on his absolute Being, existing temporally not eternally and dependent for its existence no less than for its essence on him. It is this doctrine which gives that reality to the world, distinct from God yet totally dependent on him, which Ramanuja