TOWARD AN ALTERNATIVE THEOLOGY Sara Grant, 1985, at the C.P.S. Asl;lram TOWARD AN ALTERNATIVE THEOLOGY Confessions of a Non-Dualist Christian The Teape Lectures, 1989 SARA GRANT, R.S.C.J. Introduction by Bradley J. Malkovsky UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS Notre Dame, Indiana Copyright © 2002 by University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 All Rights Reserved http: I lwww.undpress.nd.edu The editor and publisher express their gratitude to the Society of the Sacred Heart, Pune, India, for permission to reprint Sister Sara Grant's Teape Lectures. Originally published by the Asian Trading Corporation, Bangalore, India© 1991 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Grant, Sara, 1922-2000. Toward an alternative theology; confessions of a non-dualist Christian: the Teape lectures, 1989 I Sara Grant. p. em. Originally published: Bangalore : Asian Trading Corp., 1991. ISBN 0-268-04219-5 (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN 0-268-04220-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Grant, Sara, 1922-2000. 2. Advaita. 3. Theology. 4. Christianity and other religions-Hinduism. 5. Hinduism Relations-Christianity. I. Title. BX4705. G6178 A3 2001 261.2'45-dc21 2001046428 This book is printed on acid-free paper. oo The relation between contemplation, theology, and praxis is an unsolved question of our time. -G. Gispert-Sauch, S.J. Contents Editor's Introduction ix Bradley J. Malkovsky Foreword xxi Ursula King Acknowledgments xxv Preliminary Remarks 1 LECTURE 1 The Questing Beast: Mainly Autobiographical 5 LECTURE 2 The Challenge of Advaita 29 LECTURE 3 Theologizing from an Alternative Experience 59 Abbreviations 99 Editor's Introduction BRADLEY J. MALKOVSKY The nineteenth and twentieth centuries have seen the publica tion of a number of notable works on Hinduism by Christian scholars. At first these books were oriented primarily to the top ics of Indology and mission, but in the latter part of the twenti eth century a sizeable number of texts have appeared which are devoted to the themes of comparative theology and spirituality. The tendency of the new literature from roughly the 1960s onward has been toward a greater appreciation of not only the challenge but also the enrichment offered to Christian thought and spirituality by the world's third largest religion.1 During the past four decades a new literary genre has also emerged within this body of literature: the blending of Christian theological reflection with firsthand experience of living Hinduism. The most famous of these works have been composed by Euro pean Roman Catholic theologians who have taken up long term or even permanent residence in India. They include Klaus Klostermaier's now classic Hindu and Christian in Vrindaban,Z Swami Abhishiktananda's (Henri Le Saux's) The Secret of Arunachala,3 and Bede Griffiths' The Marriage of East and West.4 Sara Grant's Toward an Alternative Theology: Confessions of a Non Dualist Christian is the latest-in fact the twentieth century's last-in this tradition. First published in 1991,5 this book is ix x Editor's Introduction the final version of the Teape Lectures delivered by Grant at Cambridge University in 1989. Here Grant shares her experi ence of living Hinduism and of its still vibrant ancient wisdom with Western, especially Western Christian, readers. Until her death in 2000 Sara Grant had been for several decades a well-known figure in Indian Christian theological and contemplative circles. A Scotswoman trained first in Western classics at Oxford and living in India since 1956, Grant estab lished herself as a leading voice in the Indian Church as she sought to promote the significance of the experience and con cept of non-duality (Sanskrit: advaita) for Christian faith and praxis. But before elaborating on this point I think it is worth while to briefly list some of the author's other achievements, so that the reader might gain a greater sense of the authority, both experiential and scholarly, that lies behind this little book. Anyone acquainted with liturgical and spiritual inculturation and renewal in the Indian Church inspired by Vatican II will know Sara Grant's contribution. She was an energetic partici pant in countless commissions, workshops, and seminars from the local to the national level following the 1964 Eucharistic Congress in Bombay. In the late 1960s she was the sole female member of the Commissio Technica for the renewal of seminary formation. In 1971 she chaired the Workshop on Evangelization and Contemplation at the International Conference on the Theology of Evangelization at Nagpur. The author spent three decades as philosophy professor at Catholic faculties in Bombay and Pune (also spelled Poona) and from 1977 to 1992 was the co-aciirya (spiritual head) of the Christa Prema Seva Ashram, an ecumenical community in Pune which she and others re founded in 1972.6 In 1993 Sara Grant received the Ba-Bapu Puraskar Prize presented by Gandhians in Pune (the first year it was awarded) for a life exemplifying the precepts and ideals of the Mahatma. Two years later the All-India Association for Christian Higher Education conferred upon her its Eminent Ecumenical Educator Award in recognition of her efforts in pro moting intercultural and interreligious understanding. Editor's Introduction xi In this slender volume Grant recounts her search not only for God, but for the right understanding of God, beginning with her childhood in Great Britain, continuing with her entrance into the R. S. C.J. convent novitiate, and finally with her journey in 1956 to India and to its university and ashram life. What we have here is an account of a remarkable spiritual and intellec tual odyssey that reaches its goal in the encounter of Christian with Hindu thought and spirituality. Grant thus brings a broad range of experience to the writing of this little book. I had the good fortune of living in Sara Grant's C.P.S. Ashram for about seven months when I first visited India in 1984. I knew nothing about her when I arrived in Pune, but I was soon advised by a number of theologians at the Jnana Deepa-Vidyapeeth (the local Catholic theological faculty) that any work I should undertake dealing with the intersection of Hindu and Christian spirituality would benefit greatly by a long sojourn in the presence of Sara Grant. The theologians felt it was necessary that I get some extended firsthand experience of contemplative life in India, and staying with Sister Sara at her ashram was the way to do it. I had in fact already developed a taste for ashram life only days earlier. Prior to my arrival in Pune to study Sanskrit I had spent three weeks with Father Bede Griffiths at his Sac cidananda Ashram in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. What pleased me the most about the ashram was not just the close ness to naturallife7 that the ashram enjoyed along the Kaveri River, the colorful architectural blend of Indian and traditional Christian symbols, the joyous celebration of liturgy with the · help of Sanskrit and Tamil hymnody, the simplicity of eating with one's hand instead of with utensils, but above all the spiri tual presence of Father Bede, who seemed to inspire a high level of spiritual conversation among the guests. One discussion in particular remains vividly with me. Soon after my arrival I met an Indian Jesuit novice master from the sacred Hindu city of Madurai who had brought his novices to the ashram in order to initiate them into a more ascetic and, xii Editor's Introduction from their point of view, more Hindu way of life (some rebelled at the prospect of having to begin the practice of meditation and yoga). After a number of engaging conversations with this man who had been raised a Hindu and then converted to Christ and the Catholic Church as a teenager (but who did not regard himself as a former Hindu), we took up the topic of medi tation practice. Here I no doubt revealed all too clearly the influence of my German theological training that had laid such great stress on history of dogma, theory, and conceptualization, for the Jesuit priest offered me advice unbidden but penetrat ing in its simplicity. He said, "Theology is alright, but if you want to know God you will have to learn to transcend your mind." He did not mean that theology or thinking was irrele vant. Rather, he was saying that right thinking about God must finally give way to direct experience itself, and that we must learn to avoid equating the one with the other, and that to attain such a lofty goal involved our learning to understand and control our own mind. This was to be accomplished not only through prayer, divine grace, and a deep yearning for God, but also with the help of meditation practice. Sara Grant, a lucid and rigorous thinker in her own right, would later offer me the same teaching. She taught that while we must never suppress our questioning, we must presuppose on the witness of both the Christian and Hindu traditions that the time must finally come when all thought about God is finally brought to rest by the experience of divine presence (she loved an image from Sailkara's writings in which the passive mind is compared to horses untethered and left to drink at the water) and that this liberating experience is possible even this side of death. And so I arrived at Sara Grant's C.P. S. Ashram. Unlike Father Bede's Saccidananda Ashram, which is located in a rural set ting along the banks of a sacred river, the C. P. S. Ashram is situ ated squarely adjacent to a bus terminal in Shivaji Nagar, a dis trict within the bustling, noisy, and sprawling city of Poona in the western state of Maharashtra. The challenge of daily life