HINDU-CHRISTIAN DIALOGUE REQUIRES SENSITIVITY TO OTHERS
BANGKOK (UCAN) January 30, 2003 An Indian theologian recommends that the Church in India outgrow its colonial Church image by becoming a "local church" with its own identity, for only in that way can Christians resolve tensions with Hindus. Jesuit Father Michael Amaladoss* recently offered this counsel at a symposium organized by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate to discuss "Searching for Deeper Relationships among Believers." About 70 participants, mostly Oblates from Asia and Oceania, attended the Jan. 19-21 conference in Sam Phran, some 30 kilometers west of Bangkok. Father Amaladoss, who works with the Institute of Dialogue with Cultures and Religions in Chennai, 2,095 kilometers south of New Delhi, asserted in his symposium talk that Church authorities block serious efforts at inculturation.
…The refusal of Christianity to become fully Indian culturally and administratively, in spite of all the talk about inculturation, plays into the hands of the Hindutva forces. In recent years some Hindu groups have indulged in violence against Christians and their churches in different parts of the country. The Hindu-Christian encounter in such a context is more violent than dialogical. Dialogue becomes difficult, if not impossible… *see I 18.
The riches of the Upanishadic reflection or of the Bhakti tradition or of the Yogic techniques… is the dimension of interiority and concentration that seems to attract many Western Christians to oriental methods of prayer like yoga and Zen. It would be a mistake to equate these oriental methods with the Western methods of prayer and contemplation. Because in the oriental traditions there is an effort to integrate the world and the body with the spirit. Yoga is a good example. There is an effort to live in harmony with nature and the cosmos. Through breathing and posture there is an attempt to integrate the body with the spirit. When the person con -centrates on a visual or aural or verbal image it is the whole person that is involved, not merely the intelligence. The experience looked for is one of total integration. The Absolute itself is experienced not as an "Other" but as the deepest centre of oneself. Hence the Upanishadic phrase: the Atman is Brahman: the centre of my self is the centre of the universe. One realizes one's rootedness in the Absolute. One loses one self, one's ego.
It is an advaitic relationship… Yogic: Pertaining to yoga, a Hindu system of contemplation for effecting the union of the human soul with the Supreme Being. END
NOTE: Complicated? Read more about Fr. Amaladoss in my reports on CATHOLIC ASHRAMS and INCULTURATION OR HINDU-ISATION ? You will understand his ‘theology’ clearly.
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