The following is an excellent article
written by Kevin Allen. Before
converting to Orthodoxy, Kevin was a Hindu practitioner. He hosts a weekly radio show over at Ancient Faith Radio (a great resource for
anyone interested in becoming Orthodox, or for Orthodox who want to know more
about their faith).
Can
Orthodox Christianity Speak to Eastern Religions?
Kevin
Allen
I recently had a
conversation with a dear Eastern Orthodox priest, whose twenty six year old son
had left home the day before to live indefinitely at a Buddhist monastery. He
was heart broken. His son was not a stranger to Eastern Orthodoxy or to its
monastic tradition, having even spent two months on the holy mountain of Mt.
Athos.
His son's journey is not
an isolated event. Eastern religious traditions are a growing and competing
force in American religious life. Buddhism is now the fourth-largest religious
group in the United States, with 2.5 - 3 million adherents, approximately
800,000 of whom are American western "converts"? There are actually
more Buddhists in America today than Eastern Orthodox Christians! The Dalai
Lama (the leader of one of the Tibetan Buddhist sects) is one of the most
recognized and admired people in the world and far better recognized than any
Eastern Orthodox hierarch? Have you looked in the magazine section of Borders
or Barnes and Noble lately? There are more publications with names like
"Shambala Sun", "Buddhadharma", and "What is
enlightenment?" on the shelves than Christian publications!
In addition to losing
seekers to eastern spiritual traditions (many of them youth), eastern
metaphysics has also seeped into our western cultural worldview without much
notice. They are doing a better job (sadly) "evangelizing" our
culture than we Eastern Orthodox Christians are!
The Lord Himself commands
us clearly "that repentance and remission of sins (baptism) should be
preached in His name to all nations" (Luke 24:47). Buddhists (of which
there are many sects) and Hindus live among us in America in ever-growing numbers,
in our college classrooms, on our soccer fields, and in our "health
foods" stores - they are right in our own backyards! They are a rich,
potential "mission field" for the Eastern Orthodox Church in the
United States. Unfortunately with few exceptions, like the writings of Monk
Damascene [Christensen] and Kyriakos S. Markides, we are not talking to this
group at all.
As a former Hindu and
disciple of a well-known guru, or spiritual teacher, I can tell you Orthodox
Christianity shares more "common ground" with seekers of
non-Christian spiritual traditions of the east than any other Christian
confession! The truth is when Evangelical Protestants attempt to evangelize the
eastern seeker they often do more harm than good, because their approach is
western, rational, and doctrinal, with (generally) little understanding of the
paradigms and spiritual language (or yearnings) of the seekers of these eastern
faiths.
There are three
"fundamental principles" that Buddhists and Hindus generally share in
common:
1.
A common "supra-natural" reality underlies and
pervades the phenomenal world. This Supreme Reality isn't Personal, but
Trans-personal. God or Ultimate Reality in these traditions is ultimately a
pure consciousness without attributes.
2.
The human soul is of the same essence with this divine
reality. All human nature is divine at its core. Accordingly, Christ or Buddha
isn't a savior, but becomes a paradigm of self-realization, the goal of all
individuals.
3.
Existence is in fundamental unity (monism). Creation isn't
what it appears to the naked eye. It is in essence "illusion" and
"unreal". There is one underlying ground of being (think
"quantum field" in physics!) which unifies all beings and out of
which and into which everything can be reduced.
What do these metaphysics
have in common with our Eastern Orthodox Faith? Not much, on the surface. But
in the eastern non-Christian spiritual traditions, knowledge is not primarily
about the development of metaphysical doctrine or theology. This is one of the
problems western Christians have communicating with them. Eastern religion is
never theoretical or doctrinal. It's about the struggle for liberation from
death and suffering through spiritual experience. This
"existential-therapeutic-transformational" ethos is the first connection
Eastern Orthodoxy has with these traditions, because Orthodoxy is essentially
therapeutic and transformative in emphasis!
The second thing we agree
on with Buddhists and Hindus is the fallen state of humanity. The goal of the
Christian life according to the Church Fathers is to move from the
"sub-natural" or "fallen state", to the "natural"
or the "according to nature state" after the Image (of God), and
ultimately to the "supra-natural" or "beyond nature" state,
after the Likeness. According to the teaching of the holy Fathers the stages of
the spiritual life are purification, illumination and deification. While we
don't agree with Buddhists or Hindus on what "illumination" or
"deification" means (because our metaphysics are different) we agree
on the basic diagnosis of the fallen human condition. As I once said to a
practicing Tibetan Buddhist: "We agree on the sickness (of the human
condition). Where we disagree is on the cure".
Eastern Orthodoxy -
especially the hesychasm (contemplative) tradition - teaches that true
"spiritual knowledge" presupposes a "purified" and
"awakened" nous (Greek), which is the "Inner 'I'" of the
soul. The true Eastern Orthodox theologian isn't one who simply knows doctrine,
but one "who knows God, or the inner essences or principles of created
things by means of direct apprehension or spiritual perception. " As a
well-known Orthodox theologian explains, "When the nous is illuminated, it
means that it is receiving the energy of God which illuminates it..." This
idea resonates with eastern seekers who struggle to experience - through
non-Christian ascesis and/or through occult methods - spiritual illumination.
They just don't know this opportunity exists within a Christian context.
As part of their spiritual
ascesis, Buddhist and Hindu dhamma (practice) emphasizes cessation of desire,
which is necessary to quench the passions. Holy Tradition teaches apatheia, or detachment as a means of combating the fallen
passions. Hindu and Buddhist meditation methods teach "stillness".
The word hesychia in Holy
Tradition - the root of the word for hesychasm - means "stillness"!
We don't meditate using a mantra, but we pray the "Jesus Prayer".
Buddhism, especially, teaches "mindfulness". Holy Tradition teaches
"watchfulness" so we do not fall into temptation! Hindus and
Buddhists understand it is not wise to live for the present life, but to
struggle for the future one. We Orthodox agree! Americans who become Buddhist
or Hindu are often fervent spiritual seekers, used to struggling with foreign
languages (Sanskrit, Tibetan, Japanese) and cultures and pushing themselves
outside of their "comfort zones". We converts to the Eastern Orthodox
Church can relate! Some Buddhist and Hindu sects even have complex forms of
"liturgy", including chant, prostration and veneration of icons!
Tibetan Buddhism especially places high value on the lives of (their) ascetics,
relics and "saints".
The main difference in
spiritual experience is that what the eastern seeker recognizes as
"spiritual illumination", achieved through deep contemplation, Holy
Tradition calls "self contemplation". Archimandrite Sophrony
(Sakharov), who was experienced in yoga (which means 'union') before becoming a
hesychast - monk and disciple of St. Silouan of the holy mountain wrote from personal
experience, "All contemplation arrived at by this means is
self-contemplation, not contemplation of God. In these circumstances we open up
for ourselves created beauty, not First Being. And in all this there is no
salvation for man."
Clement of Alexandria, two
thousand years ago wrote that pre-Christian philosophers were often inspired by
God, but he cautioned one to be careful what one took from them!
So we acknowledge the
eastern seeker through his ascesis or contemplative methodologies may experience
deep levels of created beauty, or created being (through self-contemplation),
para-normal dimensions, or even the "quantum field" that modern
physics has revealed! However, it is only in the Eastern Orthodox Church and
through its deifying mysteries that the seeker will be introduced to the
province of Uncreated Divine Life. It is only in the Orthodox Church that the
eastern seeker will hear there is more to "salvation" than simply
forgiveness of sins and justification before God. He will be led to participate
in the Uncreated Energies of God, so that they "may be partakers of the
divine nature" (II Peter 1:4). As a member of the Body of Christ he will
join in the deifying process, and be increasingly transformed after the
Likeness! Thankfully, deification is available to all who enter the Holy
Orthodox Church, are baptized (which begins the deifying process) and partake
of the holy mysteries. Deification is not just for monks, ascetics and the
spiritual athletes on Mount Athos!
Eastern Orthodoxy has much
to share with eastern spiritual seekers. Life and death hangs in the balance in
this life, not the millions of lives eastern seekers think they have! As the
Apostle Paul soberly reminds us, " ... it is appointed for men to die once
but after this the judgment." (Heb. 9:27).
May God give us the vision
to begin to share the "true light" of the Holy Orthodox Faith with
seekers of the eastern spiritual traditions.
References
1. Makarian Homilies;
Glossary of The Philokalia
2. Hierotheos Vlachos, Life after death; 1995; Birth
of the Theotokos Monastery
3. On Prayer; Sophrony; pages 168-170
Kevin Allen, a former Hindu
practitioner before becoming an Eastern Orthodox Christian, is also the co-host
of the Internet radio program "The Illumined Heart" which is
broadcast weekly on Ancient Faith Radio (www.ancientfaithradio.com).
© 2007 Kevin Allen.
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