|
|
VOLUME VIII, Number 2
July- December 2018 
Viraha
Love in Separation
« Its flames are a blazing fire! » (Cant 8:6)
« I have dealt with the myth of the God Kṛiṣna,
which demonstrates astounding parallels to the history and character of Jesus,
and is of great importance for interreligious dialogue » (Benedict XVI)[1]
One wonders what the foreign traveller might observe today, on arrival in Vṛindāvan, a small town on the banks of the river Yamunā in the heart of the Braj country? Looking beyond the revolting filth common to all Indian towns, might he be seized by the ardent faith of the pilgrims flocking in from the surrounding countryside and from much further afar? Might he be both irked and attracted by the rampant modernization which year after year pushes up shimmering tower blocks for rich Delhi dwellers in search of peace and quiet? Or else, might he get caught up in the great spiritual business which is increasingly overlaying all the Hindu sacred sites?
To a mere passer-by, Vṛindāvan remains disappointingly opaque… but anyone willing to linger longer will gradually begin to perceive the mystery of the place, as reflected in the faces of all the devotees of Kṛiṣnalost in intense prayers, repeating the Name of the Beloved over and over. For Vṛindāvan is far more than a geographic reference on a map; it is truly a “landscape of the soul” into which one needs to enter wholeheartedly, having let go of everything that could hold one back.
Few mystics have sung the glory of this place with as much incandescent fervor as did the blind bard Sūrdās, who lived on the cusp of the 15th and 16th centuries. Sadly, this name is practically unknown outside India; and few indeed are those who have read the booklet written about him by the French indologist Charlotte Vaudeville (1918-2006). It encloses a number of poems drawn from his huge volume called Sūr-Sāgar – literally “Sūr’s Ocean”. The title “Pastorales” of the French text might put off a reader not attracted to shepherdesses and herds of cows. For sure, it is about the cowherds – that caste among whom Kṛiṣna dwelt before his true royal identity was revealed. And yet, way above the naivety of its language, this poetic work is the unveiling of one of the highest Indianspiritual paths, the path of viraha – love in separation – for which, still today, thousands of Hindus are ready to forsake everything in order to remain forever in Vṛindāvan where this path has been taught and lived right up to its paroxysm.
Though he might be somewhat tuned into Hindu spirituality, a foreigner cannot have but a very partial acquaintance with it, since it is one-sidedly filtered by the kind of teachings on Vedānta given through yoga ersatz forms studied mostly by people in search of ‘wellbeing’ and ‘personal development’. It is a fact that Vedānta – and in particular the unequalled heights to which Śaṅkara took it in the 8th century – is one of the deepest traits of the Hindu quest. Who indeed could remain unmoved by this ascetic path which, with almost barbarous violence, bans all signs and images in order to lose itself in the Nameless, Formless Absolute beyond all? Yet India, carried by it insatiable desire to attain “the further shore”, has displayed this same inner violence when treading other paths, particularly the path of bhakti so beautifully spelt out in the words of the ancient Tamil sage Tirumūlar: “The ignorant say that love and God are two; they do not know that love itself is God. Whoever knows that love itself is God shall rest in love, one with God”.[2] Then, many centuries after this magnificent statement was formulated in South India, the bhakti path of devotion found a new lease of life in the North of the country, precisely in Vṛindāvan; this is attested in the 16th century Bhāgavata Mahātmya: “I was born in Dravida, grew up in Karnātaka, was honoured here and there in Mahārāṣtra, but in Gujarāt I begun to grow old. There, due to the effects of the dreadful Kali Age, the hypocrites caused injury to my limbs. Since this condition lasted for a very long time, I became […] weak and lifeless. Then I reached Vṛindāvan, I became again young and beautiful”.[3]
Bhakti comes from the Sanskrit root bhaj meaning: “ to share, partake in, belong to, be part of.” In this way, once he wholly belongs to Him, the devotee partakes in the mystery of his Lord. It is literally a divine sharing where man and the Absolute are but one –, that consummation of unity which is the goal of all Indian spiritual paths. The viraha unremittingly sung by Sūrdās is not only the highpoint of bhakti but also its most paradoxical manifestation, for here, union is accomplished only through the unbearable pain of separation.
The pages that follow hope to be a mere foretaste of the nocturnal splendor of this path, far too little known in the West.[4]
The whirlpool of love
At the time he composed his thousands of poems, Sūrdās was able to draw inspiration from the great storehouse called the Bhāgavata Purāṇa,[5]written between the 7th and 10th centuries, and especially from its tenth volume entirely dedicated to Kṛiṣna. Nowadays the Divine Cowherd is one of the most popular figures in Hinduism, seen as an avatāra of Viṣṇu; he spends his childhood among the cow herdsin Vṛindāvan before reclaiming his throne at Mathurā. Another famous text, the Bhagavad-gītā, written at the beginning of our era, presents Kṛiṣna as the charioteer of Prince Arjuna in the heart of the battle narrated in the epic poem Mahābhārata. Yet elsewhere, in Gujarāt, one is reminded of the antique city of Dvārkā, now submerged, over which he reigned before leaving this earth to which he had come to re-establish the sacred order, dharma, that had been put in peril in sundry ways[6].
Of this multifaceted life, Sūrdās picked only the Vṛindāvan episodes on the banks of the Yamunā. These begin briefly with his childhood spent with his adoptive parents, and move on to his adolescent adventures with the shepherdesses known throughout India under the name gopī. The accounts of their thwarted love stories enabled him to expound the path of viraha.
The autumn full moon bathes the opening scene of these immortal love plays. Whilst their husbands and masters are in deep slumber, the sixteen thousand gopī –who of course represent the bhakta, the devotees of Kṛiṣna – set off for the woods in answer to the call of their desire: “Fired by their love for Śyām[7], all the women left in a stir! Not a word of this secret did they breathe to their masters. In the middle of the night, these women escaped from their houses, crowds of them”.[8] In the folly of their urge to find the love of their heart, they cry out: “We have forsaken our nearest and dearest […] Woe to this life far from You! [...] What we seek is the sweetness of Your smile, from which springs this longing”.[9] And even more boldly: “We have no care for vice or virtue: henceforth, come what may!”[10]
Then “contemplating this happy forest”, Kṛiṣna “put his lips to his flute and played a tender melody”.[11] This divine music transports the sixteen thousand gopī in a whirl of love, the rāsa-līlā[12] in which the Lover multiplies himself so as to embrace each one of them at the same time: “It’s an ocean of beauty wherein waves rise and swell”.[13] Even some of the cowherds grazing their herds nearby cannot resist the intoxicating strains of that music: “a single note, – and each one is lost in the exquisite melody of His flute”…[14] Before going further we need to pause briefly on the Sanskrit word rāsa-līlā,composed of līlā, which is a divine play between the Lord and His devotee, in which there is no reference to non-duality leading to a dissolution of ‘otherness’, as is the case in Śaṅkara’s Vedānta. Rāsa on the other hand confers a unique connotation to this spiritual experience as it designates the essence or savour. Here, beyond theoretical knowledge, it is a question of tasting and experiencing, and thus, as the bhakti path tells us, of acquiring the Real Knowledge.[15] Our language does not posses the richness of Italian, which permits a play of words between sapore (to taste or savour) and sapere (to know). Yet, in all that follows, it is a question of taste, even if it may prove a very bitter taste…
Among the sixteen thousand gopī, one of them attracts very special favours from Kṛiṣna, to such an extent that she is forever associated with Him in all the statues through which India worships this eternal couple. Her name is Rādhā and, in this night of love, the two lovers appear to be inseparable: “At will, they dance together in a mad embrace; they stamp their feet to mark the rhythm and sing out their heart’s delight”.[16] And yet, Kṛiṣna has decided to lead His chosen one through the narrow footpath of tears and, this first time, he escapes from her sight; thus she, together with all her companions, is condemned to seeking Him in the depths of the forest. “Then the Lord disappeared: he deserted His beloved”.[17] At this stage, Sūrdās immediately reveals to his listeners (his poems were sung) that this separation serves no purpose other than to purify her love, – for true devotion, bhakti, alone can strip away from a human being the selfishness, self-centeredness and pride into which he has – so to speak – been plunged since the day of his birth. This is why Kṛiṣna states: “I am the Non-Manifest, Unborn, Undivided Being – but Rādhā has not known this mystery! […] When there remains only a single soul for two bodies, then all duality has been abolished. But if a human being harbours pride, in him I cannot abide…”[18]
This first test of separation – viraha – leads Rādhā to experience deep depression and floods of tears. Here, Sūrdās has re-transcribed almost word for word the unforgettable verses of the 12th century Sanskrit text Gīta Govinda[19] written by Jayadeva. Yet he discards the work’s movingly erotic descriptions of Kṛiṣna’s loves. “See, He the Charmer, Gopāl, has abandoned me: the pangs of separation have seized my whole body”[20] moans Rādhā; then she falls silent and no longer replies to the questions that come: “Why did you fall down so distraught? Why don’t you open your eyes?”[21] To make her think that her Lover had returned, all the gopī “start chanting ‘here he is! here he is!’ in order to console their friend…”[22] Rādhā speaks once more: “I go hither and thither in search of my Beloved, consumed by the desire to see him again… […] This time, if I find him just for an instant, I shall not let him part from me”[23] but once more: “She cries out and calls ‘Kṛiṣna!’ and then falls down, her body gone all stiff….”[24] One of the final statements of this distraught woman, – the person referred to as a virahini –,is also one of the most deeply troubling, – all the more so if, instead of perceiving in her the experience she had gathered over her sixteen thousand former lives, one dared to understand that this is Rādhā’s endorsement of the pain borne by sixteen thousand gopī, due to a true mystical substitution: “In a single body, for your sake, I have endured sixteen thousand pains, and Rādhā’s soul has traversed each body… […] My body is prey to the fire of separation that destroys pride”.[25]
Yet, during that clear autumn night, the separation was short-lived: Kṛiṣna reappears and consummates his marriage to His Beloved beneath the benevolent gaze of all the gopī as well as the gods and goddesses in the sky. As a token of love and a bond He reveals to her the secret of his līlā, his divine play: “Thou art dearer to me than my own life […] Smiling, I dwelt deep in your heart: it is I who gave rise to this play”.[26] Now, the chorus of all who attended this sylvan wedding can exclaim “A single soul inhabits their two bodies: what a marvel of love and tenderness!”[27]
A messenger is sent
Anyone reading the Sūr-Sāgar for the first time might have thought that it ended here with a touching epithalamium but, as soon as the party was over a new chapter opens with the gopī’s cry: “We are enamoured of Mādhav, and now he has gone away without a word!”…[28] This is typical of the spiritual path described by Sūrdās: the lovers’ reunion and marriage are not the end of the journey but the mere beginning of it, the prologue to the most painful stages awaiting them. Up to now, the devotee has been guided through the stripping of his ego: henceforth it remains for him to live out the true bhakti in the incandescent light of viraha – the separation from the Beloved becoming the very condition of his life. And no sooner has the Bridegroom disappeared on the wedding night, that the chorus of gopī, who yesterday were so joyful, now changes to a great desolate lament: “How strange, this pain of separation! Only one who has experienced can comprehend it: the torment of loneliness is unbearable!”[29] And, concerning those who exclaim that “the separation from Śyām is a devouring blaze”[30], a single desire possesses them: to behold once more the face of the Beloved: “O Son of Nanda[31], grant us the grace of Your Sight! Our hearts yearn for Your presence, and our eyes are parched for the want of Harī’s beauty”.[32] Also, from then on, all the landscapes of the Braj once shimmering with beauty and joy, become an empty desert of solitude wholly prey to the pain of viraha – the consuming fire which, in the absence of Kṛiṣna’s face, reduces everything to ashes.
These heartrending laments draw us into the core of the Sūr-Sāgar and to the heights of bhakti in the form bestowed by viraha. In composing these unforgettable verses still capable of moving us today if we are blessed to hear them sung on temple forecourtsor on the wayside, Sūrdās was able to have recourse to the virah-gīt, the ‘songs of absence’ which in his day were very popular in North Indian villages. And above all, he found inspiration in the spiritual teachings of his contemporary, Vallabha (1479-1531) whom he met in Vṛindāvan and from whom he received the essence of Krishnaite devotion enclosed in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa[33]. Like the majority of the great Indian philosophers, Vallabha came from the South but grew up and remained in Benares up to his death, whilst spending years on visits to the great places of pilgrimage throughout India. From his earliest childhood, this Telugu Brahmin was initiated to his people’s great spiritual tradition through study of the Veda and the Upaniṣad as well as of Śaṅkara’s (788-820) commentaries on the Scriptures which constitute the basis of Vedānta. Vallabha was also introduced to the vision of the other masters of Vedānta: Rāmānuja (1017-1137), Madhva (1197-1276) and Nimbārka (13th century) who softened Śaṅkara’s harsh non-duality by the more emotional vein of bhakti. Vallabha,through his commentaries on the sacred texts, developed the suddhādvaita (pure non-duality). His puṣti mārga,in which loving adoration is centered on theChildKṛiṣna,was not initially the privilege of monks, as in Śaṅkara’s path, but was open to all men and women overflowing with bhakti.On the other hand, Vallabha’s life crossed that of another great spiritual master of that time, one of the greatest exponents of the path of bhakti: the Bengali Caitanya Mahāprabhu (1486-1533) who set off in search of the places associated with Kṛiṣna’s līlā, and so sparked the spectacular development of Vṛindāvan. With special permission from the Muslim Emperor Akbar (1542-1605), impressive temples were built of the same pink granite employed exclusively for the construction of mosques and other royal edifices. Thus it is in the highly Krishnaite context of the time that Sūrdās inscribed his work, with a very special focus on the pangs of separation undergone by the gopī after Kṛiṣna had had to leave the woods of Vṛindāvan in order to go to kill Kansa and re-establish dharma (righteousness).
Let us here take up the thread of the story. Kṛiṣna is now installed on the royal throne of Mathurā, and even if the gopī compare Him to the big black bees which buzz from flower to flower, He has nothing in common with a fickle lover and he, too, is seized by the pain of exile: “Only once I see the people of the Braj again, will joy return to my heart”.[34] In order to allay somewhat the pangs of separation, he decides to send Uddhao to the bereft women of Vṛindāvan with the mission of teaching them about their true nature: the Invisible, Ineffable, Omnipresent Being, which the great Indian tradition has designated as Brahman, who ultimately has no qualified form (saguṇa) but is essentially Unqualified (nirguṇa). Once again, just as before in his first separation from Rādhā before the episode of their wedding, Kṛiṣna wants to lead them to love Him, not by worshipping His face, but by contemplating His Ineffable Mystery. Thus Uddhao becomes the conveyor of the most traditional Shankarian Vedānta and Yoga to the gopī. “Hear me O gopī, hear Harī’s message. Go into trance and become absorbed in meditation: such is the message He sends you… He is Non-Manifest, Eternal, Infinite, filling each of the bodies; without comprehending the Supreme Reality there can be no salvation – this is what the Scriptures teach us! Detach yourselves from the ‘Qualified’ and meditate on the ‘Unqualified’ with unfailing concentration: thus shall you overcome the pain of separation and attain the Supreme Being…”[35].
However, Sūrdās writes that “hearing this awful message drove the gopī to despair”[36] and, far from being satisfied with Uddhao’s misleading mystical consolations, the shepherdesses seized the idea of revealing to him the true spiritual path, the only one which recognizes the Absolute in the splendour of his face: “You come to talk of yoga to the women of the Braj! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? You think you are something – but you have no common sense if you act that dumb!”[37]; “You can keep your knowledge of the ‘Unqualified’ for yourself, Uddhao! [...] It’s for the face of Śyām, radiant as the moon, that our eyes are parched!”[38]; “Why are you praising this dried up yoga devoid of tender love? […] These our eyes which have contemplated the lotus eyes of Mohan with his entrancing face, would you have us shut them?”[39].
The most precious pain
There are few pages in which one finds such a final condemnation of Vedantic wisdom and of Yoga as in the humorous poetic passages in the Sūr-Sāgar that make up the chapter entitled “the Messenger of the Bee”. In this series of ever more scorching verses, each reply spat out by the gopī, in refusal of the teaching that Uddhao tries to push down their throats, spells out the superiority of the virah-prem, ‘love in separation’ as a spiritual path: “People in the Braj are beginning to snigger – quick, hide your “yoga” You strut about hither and thither to display your ātma-Brahman[40], the one hidden in each of the bodies! You parade with your ‘Qualified-Unqualified’ under your arm: but nobody wants it! But ah! the story of Love, one has to have suffered that to know it… As for you, withered up as you are, what can you know of that? Go ask the people! See their suffering! You are a noble messenger come from a noble city, but your noble intelligence has sunk into the sea”.[41] By an astonishing reversal of roles, the teacher becomes the taught when he is grappling with the true “authority of suffering” which the gopī reveal to him: “Are you not aware of the distance between the pain of absence and meditating on the Absolute? […] Why then do you call to drowning men to hang on to the foam?”[42]
The description of the path of viraha here gives rise to poems that are no doubt among the most beautiful ever composed in India and indeed in the world, for what experience can be more universal than that of pain and separation? “Nights, the torture of love is so intense that no heart can rest, in house or in forest; days, our eyes watch intently down the road, sending streams of tears down the breast. Even now we harbour the hope the pain will ease, but our stock of sighs is vanishing as we count the days of the awful separation that will cause us longing women to leave behind our bodies”[43]; “What kind of love is this love of ours? For our bodies still remain, though Harī has gone […] They’re pierced and pierced by the arrows of separation as they fill and fill, thinking of the time he said he’d come. Life and death have become two heavy burdens”[44]; “Harī lives in our hearts, so you say, but day and night our eyes burn for him – our eyelids never rest: we scan the four directions, scorched by fire of separation”.[45]
Such is viraha,the religion of Love in its highest form. It is a ceaseless meditation on the guṇa,theBeloved’s features and qualities; this meditation becomes more and more painful at every stage because the Beloved has disappeared. Nonetheless, the more acute the suffering, the more intense becomes the love that unites us to Him, for it is precisely the crucible in which every trace of the ego that separates us from Him is finally burnt to cinders: “For Kṛiṣna’s dark body, for His radiant lotus face and for the sweet joyful laughter from His mouth, – it is for a glimpse of That that our eyes are dying of thirst”.[46] Thus we may easily understand how the gopī, with a sweep of the hand, refuse all the paths that would have them concentrate solely on an ineffable Absolute, nirguṇa, – that is, literally, having no guṇa, no attribute nor quality. With a pinch of humour, all the adepts of Vedānta are whooshed away in the direction of Benares on the banks of the Ganges: “All the supporters of the ‘Unqualified’, they are in Kashi, in the city of Shiva”.[47] In Vṛindāvan on the banks of the Yamunā, the river of love, there is but a single spiritual path, the one in which pain is the most precious experience, for it is the hallmark of an unshakeable devotion (bhakti) towards the Lord, whatever the cost: “Uddhao, it is in separation that one truly loves! […] Whoever has embarked on the path of love, takes no heed of pleasure or suffering!”[48]
The Western reader might stand open-mouthed when confronted with such a radical stance making viraha not only the final flowering of bhakti, but even, such as the gopī taught it to Uddhao, the only way open to the lovers of Kṛiṣna. Indeed, such a radical spiritual path need in no way pale before the path in which Śaṅkara makes all material duality dissolve into the One-without-a-second, the Light of the eternal Brahman. It is no doubt a faculty peculiar to India, to at the same proclaim that ‘Truth is One’ and that, in order to attain it, ‘there are many paths’. And so, it is a vertiginous path of “love in separation, in which the devotee, for whom nothing exists any longer but the Lord with Whom he is intimately united, yet feels the excruciating pains of separation from Him”.[49] The luminous lines written by the Jesuit Pierre Fallon (1912-1985), whose ministry in the Bengali Hindu context of Calcutta was remarked for its intellectual excellence, state that « the viraha (pangs of separation) is itself the highest form of union possible for the bhakta who, as jīvanmukta (liberated but still alive), is still tied to a material body, still deprived of the final and blissful videha-mukti (heaven)”.[50] Charlottte Vaudeville used similar terms to describe the viraha path which, as opposed to Sankara’s non-duality leads to mokṣa (freedom from web of saṃsāra) right in this life-time and this body (jīvanmokṣa): “In this world there is no remedy for the pain of loneliness: the gopī have chosen to experience this torment and therein lies their dharma, their own religion, and the very essence of their devotionwhich, according to Sūrdās, constitutes the most perfect expression of Krishnaite bhakti”.[51] If then“this beautiful triumph of bhakti overYoga, ofthe feminine heart over the false wisdom of the savants”[52]carries with it no other destiny for Kṛiṣna’s lovers than to be wandering souls consumed by pain, one is brought to the understanding that the sole reason for the existence of Creation, – an eruption into duality that Śaṅkara relinquished into the realm of illusion or māyā – is to enablethe līlā to be enacted as a play of love and pain between the Lord and his true lover. Tears are what make it possible for a human being to survive, by quieting the inner fire, thus preventing it from totally destroying the one who is prey to its flames. This is how the gopī describe it to Uddhao the messenger: “Make him show us some mercy, some love. Go tell Harī everything – tell him how things are moving along in the Braj these days. Go and tell him what your eyes have seen – the burning of this forest fire – for how can we ourselves describe the pain our hearts are bearing? It brings us too much shame. Once, long ago, we wanted to end it all, but then we’d get the wish to see him again, and now if our bodies are still not dead from burning, it’s only thanks to tears we’ve shed for Sūr’s Lord”.[53]
Thereupon Uddhao went back to Kṛiṣna, this time bearing the gopī’s message to their Beloved – telling the love and pain with which they are filled by the trial of separation from Him: “How can one speak of what is happening in the Braj? Listen, Śyām, how they pass their days, the people who live there without you. Cowherd girls and cows, cowherds and calves with grimy faces and emaciated limbs – they’re utterly bereft, like lotuses whose petals have been lost to the assault of winter snows. Wherever I would go, they’d all come out to see me, wanting to know how you are, and love has made them so sick at heart that they’d cling to my feet to keep me from leaving”.[54] The emissary himself is lost for words to describe the incandescence spilling over from the hearts of the inhabitants of Vṛindāvan:“O Harī, how to describe the pain of the Braj? [...]By their sighing, gopas and gopī revive the flame of the glowing embers of separation”.[55]But the one who had setout to spread the teachings of Vedānta does not return unscathed: now he himself is a convert to viraha-prem,the path of love in separation which knows no other joy and no other pain than to recall each one of the attributes (guṇa) of the Beloved: “I had come to teach them the ‘Unqualified’ and here I am, an adept of the ‘Qualified’”.[56] This is why Uddhao could close his report to Kṛiṣna with the words: “Blessed, blessed are those women of the Braj who have no other support than You! On beholding the overflowing love there, I was stunned; I stood stock still, like an owl”.[57] “O Mādhav, hear how they love, there in the Braj! For a whole six months I watched and meditated on the love of the gopī: not for a single moment did they remove Śyām from their heart. […] Once I’d I witnessed their love, I found all wisdom lacking in taste!”[58]
However, Uddhao’s tale is not the final outcome of the Sūr-Sāgar: Sūrdās added one last chapter in which he relates the almost surreptitious return of Kṛiṣna to the Braj, many years later. He was then reigning in far-off Dvārkā and was accompanied by his new spouse Rukminī. We need to remember that Kṛiṣna himself suffered from being far from Vṛindāvan: “Only once I see the people of the Braj again, will joy return to my heart”[59];and in a way, the pain of viraha which filled the gopī is a partaking in Kṛiṣna’s pain at being separated from them. This, as we have said, is the real meaning of bhakti: partaking in the Divine Mystery – in the divine life and divine feelings, let us boldly state – so that in the final consummation, devotee and Lord become as One. This final Unity pervades the briefly exchanged glance in which Kṛiṣna beholds Rādhā for a last time, – a brief sunny interval in the gloom of daily exile: “When Mādhav finds Rādhā again, Rādhā and Mādhav, Mādhav and Rādhā are but one being! […] Smiling, He said to her, ‘You and I are a single being’ and, so saying, He sent her back to the Braj”.[60] Following these few instants of chaste intimacy with his chosen one, He went on to meet the gopī and delivered his final teachings: “Harī said to the women of the Braj: ‘I hold the Braj dear above all else! Never was I far from you, I have always been close to you… If anyone cherishes Me, I in turn cherish her with equal tenderness: My devotee is to Me as My own image in the mirror!’ As He spoke, he embraced each one of them, His eyes brimming with tears…”[61] Sūrdās, in concluding his immense tome of poems, now delivers the key of this līlā of love and of pain: “Yet, was there ever separation? No, it was merely so in appearance: forever, Kṛiṣna’s heart belongs to the Braj, and the heart of the Braj to Kṛiṣna”.[62] Here we have the other aspect of this unique truth of perfect devotion Bhakti which up to now had found expression only through the experience of viraha:that the separation and pain were but the proofs of the Lord’s mysterious Presence in the heart of His devotee purified by ceaseless weeping. Only those can know it, who have suffered that burning love and who have drained its bitter cup to the dregs. Henceforth, because they have explored one by one the pangs of separation, they truly know God – without the remotest danger of falling back into themselves. Pure bhakti is their nature now: a fiery tension, an ocean of love, a gaping emptiness silently permeated by a Presence…
The Bridegroom is taken away
In the figure of Kṛiṣna and all the forms of devotion he generated, there lies a powerfully erotic theme that is both poetic and mystical. Herein we find a specifically Indian trait which is ‘to choose everything’ – as Thérèse of Lisieux would have put it – to call everything into play, and do all in one’s power in service to the ceaseless spiritual quest. However India is not alone in employing erotic language to describe man’s ultimate path; it would seem that on the contrary, among the many mystical traditions throughout the world, only a minority have not used this state as a kind of jumping-off board – not so as to remain wallowing in the flesh, but in order to spring up towards the highest peaks of the Spirit by concentrating, purifying, and transfiguring one of the noblest expressions of life swirling within the human being. Yet in comparison with the poems of Jayadeva in his Gīta Govinda, the verses of Sūrdās display a sober containment of eroticism, as if the blind bard of Vṛindāvan had sought to record a mere outline of it by simply reproducing its two major lines of force: the presence, and, especially, the absence.
As we are now opening out our enquiry into different mystical traditions, this is a good moment to take a closer look at Sufism. Going beyond the legendary encounter between Sūrdās and the young Muslim Emperor Akbar, – renowned for his broad welcome to all religions –, it is indeedquite natural to draw a parallel between Krishnaite Mysticism and Sufism, since each of these paths developed almost concurrently in North India, witness to the fact that religious and cultural intermingling are the most fertile soil for the destiny of humankind. We might be reminded of the unforgettable love stories of Leyla and Majnun which have traversed the various regions of Islam, inspiring marvellous ghazals and other Sufi poems. In everyday Urdu, the word “majnun” has become a term that specifically designates someone who is madly in love until death, such as the noble Bedouin Qays, whose fiery gaze transfigured Leyla’s almost ordinary appearance, leading him to worship her with ever more incandescent love whenever she was physically absent, for it was at that precise moment that he beheld the True Beauty of Leyla … We might also speak of the dhikr (the act of remembering Allah) and of samāʿ (listening to praises of the Divine) which lead the Sufi on to fanā,the annihilation of his human personality and his absorption into God. It suffices to quote from Islam two wonderful passages – volcanic eruptions –,the first of which is by al-Ḥallaj (858-922) who, in his Dīwān,had begged “the night of his abandonment to fall, now, be it slowly or suddenly, no matter, so long as it is He, my Friend:”
“Silence, deafness, thin speech
Knowledge, discovery, emaciation
Clay then fire then light
Coal then shadow then the sun
Rough then smooth then desert
River then ocean then dryness
Drunk then sober then love
Nearness then abundance then kindness
Gripping then loosing then erasing
Parting then joining then effacing
Taking then denying then pulling
Describing then revealing then clothing
Words for those for whom
This world is not worth a farthing”.[63]
The second is the unforgettable lament of the ney –the reed flute–with which Rūmī (1207-1273) opens his Masnavī:
“Listen to the reed, how it is complaining.
It is telling about separations.
‘Ever since I was severed from the reed field,
Men and women have lamented.
I want a heart torn, torn from separation,
So that I may explain the pain of yearning’.
[…]
The reed’s cry is fire… it is not wind!
Whoever doesn’t have this fire, may be nothing!
It is the fire of Love that fell into the reed.
It is the ferment of Love that fell into the wine.
The reed is the companion of anyone who was severed from a friend.
Its melodies tore our veils.
Who has seen a poison and a remedy like the reed?
Who has seen a harmonious companion and a yearning friend like the reed?
The reed is telling the story of the path full of blood;
It is telling the stories of Majnun’s love”.[64]
For those whose spiritual tradition asserts that: ‘stern as death is love’ (Cant 8:6), Sūrdās’ poems and his path of viraha will not seem totally foreign, and thus it is in the Christian world that we wish to end our journey through the land of exile. In the course of the preceding pages, the reader has surely been reminded of the Song of Songs: “I opened to my beloved, but my beloved has departed, gone. I sought him but I did not find him; I called to him but he did not answer me” (Cant 5:6). Or even these even more dramatic verses may have come to mind: they are the opening lines by John of the Cross (1542-1591) – Sūrdās’ faraway contemporary in the Spanish Golden Age – in his splendid Spiritual Canticle:
“Where have you hidden, Beloved,
and left me moaning?
You fled like the stag
after wounding me;
I went out calling you,
but you were gone”.[65]
One would wish to quote the entire poem, especially in its original tongue, but we shall only add two other stanzas, still from the opening passage:
“Why, since you wounded
this heart, don’t you heal it?
And why, since you stole it from me,
do you leave it so,
and fail to carry off what you have stolen?
Extinguish these miseries,
since no one else can stamp them out;
and may my eyes behold you,
because you are their light,
and I would open them to you alone.”[66]
For most of his poems, John of the Cross wrote impressive commentaries in which he expounded his spiritual doctrine, at the cost of losing therein some of the intensely mystic quality which only poetry can express. In relation to our present enquiry it would be useful to re-read a few lines in which the Spanish Carmelite saint explains the first stanza– “Adónde te escondite, Amado, y me dejaste con gemido?”[67] and takes us back to the initial pain inflicted on the soul by the disappearance of the Bridegroom, – on the soul who: “being wounded by her love […] has still to suffer the absence of her Beloved and is not yet loosed from her mortal flesh that she may be able to have fruition of Him on the glory of eternity”.[68] Here, John explains that« [the Spouse] hides and reveals Himself, as the Beloved is wont to do in the visits which He makes to the souls, and in the withdrawals and absences which He makes them experience after such visits”.[69] In almost clinical fashion, he spells out the suffering born of the separation from the Beloved: “There comes to pass in the soul this grief that is so great, inasmuch as when God inflicts upon the soul that wound of love its will rises with sudden celerity to the possession of the Beloved, Whom it has felt so near by reason of that His touch of love which it has experienced. And with equal celerity it feels His absence and is conscious of sighing thereat, since in one and the same moment He disappears from the soul and hides Himself, and it remains in emptiness and with the greater sorrow and sighing according to the greatness of its desire to possess Him”.[70]
In these lines we can almost hear the poems of the Sūr-Sāgar and rejoice in such hidden harmonies that bring together spiritual beings beyond spaces and beyond times, signalling a secret unity of the human spirit in its insatiate quest for the Absolute. Nevertheless, we shall take care to avoid the trap of levelling down all the characteristics specific toeach spiritual tradition to obtain a fallacious unity – a kind of ‘Mystics International’ – whose anthem is always sung in opposition to – and with intent to discredit – the traditions and institutions to which these fiery beings belonged. Moreover, for a Christian, there lies a great temptation to cause the new wine which the Christ came to serve to the wedding guests to turn into vinegar[71]… But let us get back to John of the Cross who, still in his commentary on the first stanza of his Spiritual Canticle, says:“this affliction and sorrow for the absence of God is wont to be so great in those that are approaching ever nearer to perfection, at the time of these Divine wounds, that, if the Lord provided not for them, they would die”.[72] It is interesting to note here that the suffering caused by the separation is only temporary: it pertains to the spiritual state of the beginners, or rather, to the few chosen souls who “approach the state of perfection”. For these, the day will come for the betrothal preceding the spiritual marriage: “And upon this happy day, not only is there an end of the soul’s former vehement yearnings and plaints of love, but, being adorned with the good things […] she enters into an estate of peace and delight and sweetness of love”.[73]
Pain, then, is but a stage towards the fullness of the Presence of the Beloved in mystic marriage. It is quite astonishing to note at this point that the spiritual itinerary laid out by John of the Cross is on practically every count the exact opposite of that of Sūrdās. The Christian mystic goes from the absence to the presence, from suffering to infinite delights, whereas the path of viraha runs in the opposite direction: – from presence to absence, and from the whirlpool of rāsa-līlā to the bitterest tears which sear the devotee with pain. It would be wiser to cease all comparison here, for we are looking at very different spiritual worlds. Should a Christian however be tempted to sneer and proclaim that Hinduism holds no promise other than hellish torments, one would need remind him that more than one great saint of the Church experienced to the full Christ’s words addressed to Silouan the Athonite (1866-1938): “keep your soul in hell and do not despair”. One such is Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897) whose very last months of her brief existence seemed to her like “travelling through a tunnel” leading to a “wall rising up to the heavens and covering the starry firmament”.[74] Indeed, the young Carmelite confided this to her spiritual brother, a missionary in China: “the thought of eternal beatitude hardly thrills my heart” for “suffering has been my Heaven here upon earth”.[75] Even closer to our time, we might recall the ‘Saint of Darkness’[76], Mother Teresa (1910-1997) who for five decades was cast into an inner exile beyond all spiritual consolation – “terrible pain” about which she wrote that it “has never made me desire to have it different. – What’s more, I want it to be like this for as long as He wants it”.[77] There are no doubt other names one could quote, though God alone knows who are the souls He has immolated in order to enable them to in a way participate in the mystery of Redemption of the world. Moreover here, the pain of separation which inhabited both Thérèse of Lisieux and Teresa of Calcutta should not be considered only from a mere personal angle as a ‘night of the senses’ and a ‘night of faith’, such as John of the Cross described them. It is more appropriate to connect their inner suffering to the suffering of mankind, not only because the latter is separated from God, but also because painful exile has become a commonplace condition for modern man. Here we are dealing with a redeeming separation, leading Thérèse of Lisieux to say shortly before her death, that she was “from now, seated at the sinners’ table”, and Teresa to write that: “The physical situation of my poor left in the streets unwanted, unloved, unclaimed – are the true picture of my own spiritual life, of my love for Jesus”.[78] So what, then, is this substitution by total identification with the other’s pain, if not a true ‘participation’. There is a good reason for having stressed that the root of the term “bhakti” lies in the Sanskrit ‘bhaj’: ‘to participate in’. Were we not surprised at Rādhā’s cry: “In a single body, for your sake, I have endured sixteen thousand pains, and Rādhā’s soul has traversed each body”?[79] Here, it is almost as if India unknowingly drew close to the mystery of Redemption – and the Buddhist world continues to state this mystery in the great prayer of the Bodhisattva: “For as long as space endures and for as long as the world lasts, may I live dispelling the miseries of the world”.[80] All these testimonies from the Christian world and elsewhere ought to lead us to contemplate with deep reverence and extreme gratitude the Lord’s elect souls, who, unbeknown to us, are called to love Him in the sufferingof separation so that they, in an infinite merger, may be united with the painful destiny of all Mankind.
Furthermore, we might reverse our perspective to perceive this painful nocturnal love filling certain saints as a participation in God’s very own suffering – He who was the first to feel the viraha on the evening of the first sin when He scoured all of Paradise calling to his child: “Adam, where are you?” (Gen 3:9). One who associated himself with the divine agony of the Eternal Father whose Son has left for the abysses of death was Francis of Assisi who went so far as to welcome the scars of the most searing love – he, the Poverello, whom tradition is wont to depict roaming the countryside, blind from weeping, and crying out: “Love is not loved!” That is exactly what it is to “have the same attitudethat is also in Christ Jesus » (Ph 2, 5), according to Paul’s exhortation to the Philippians. And it is the hallmark of great saints to completely enter into God’s open heart and commune with the “great [painful] love he had for us” (Eph 2:4). Perceiving God in this way as being the first bereft, the first abandoned, had often led me to read the Song of Songs back to front, no longer perceiving the beloved as the human soul, but as God himself, gone in search of whom his “heart loves” (Cant 3:1). Lastly, although Christianity seems to be unsurpassable in this domain, it would still appear that India had glimpsed – as in a mirage – the mysterious way in which man can participate in the suffering and sense of abandon felt by God, as expressed by Kṛiṣna to Uddhao; “Only once I see the people of the Braj again, will joy return to my heart”.[81]
Thus, our reading of Sūrdās’ poems and discovering of the path of viraha can bring new light to bear on certain Christian destinies and authentic spiritual paths, and other lives that remain hidden in the night. What one hopes for from a true ‘emulation of sanctity’[82] between religious traditions is a fresh look at the particular features of each one. In examining the theme of viraha as a spiritual accomplishment there lies however no intent to question John of the Cross, insofar as he himself, as well as a number of authorized authors in his wake, added an inflection to the postulated succession of three stages: – beginner, proficient, and perfect, – which probably were originally outlined by Origen. What is more, in a rare confidence concerning his mystical life, the great Alexandrian also had recourse to the term ‘absence’ to hint at his own spiritual experience: “The bride then beholds the Bridegroom; and He, as soon as she has seen Him, goes away. He does this frequently throughout the Song; and that is something nobody can understand who has not suffered it himself. God is my witness that I have often perceived the Bridegroom drawing near me and being most intensely present with me; then suddenly He has withdrawn and I could not find Him, though I sought to do so. I long, therefore, for Him to come again, and sometimes He does so. Then, when He has appeared and I lay hold of Him, He slips away once more; and, when He has so slipped away, my search for Him begins anew. So does He act with me repeatedly, until in truth I hold Him and go up, leaning on my Beloved’s arm”.[83] In addition to what has been said about pain as a participating in God’s suffering, according to Saint Francis of Assisi, or in suffering mankind, as for Thérèse of Lisieux and Mother Teresa, we need to return once more to the incandescent fire in Origen’s imperishable legacy to the Church. Whilst being aware that this requires further argumentation, we shall here make do with a passage of his seventh homily on Leviticus which, many years later, caused the monks of Clairvaux to tremble as Saint Bernard read it to them. In this homily, whilst commenting on Jesus’ promise at the Last Supper that “he would not drink the fruit of vine until the days when he will drink anew in the kingdom of his Father” (Matt 26:29), Origen gave a striking explanation of the painful passion to which the Christ submits himself today and continues so right up to the return of the last sinner: “At this very moment my Saviour is grieving over my sins. […] How then could he, the advocate for my sins, drink the wine of joy while I grieve him by my sinning?”[84] Such is the “passion of love” endured by the Saviour, causing Him continuous suffering for our sake; the passion which, elsewhere, had brought Origen to ask himself whether “the Father […] in some way suffers” and come to the conclusion that “the Father himself is not without suffering. When he is prayed to, he has pity and compassion; he suffers the passion of love and comes into those in whom he cannot be, in view of the greatness of his nature, and on account of us he endures human sufferings”.[85] In another passage of this same seventh homily on Leviticus, Origen opened up the field of vision to the entire extended Church (thus avoiding the trap of the selfish ‘my soul and my God’ into which self-styled spiritual seekers fall far too often) and he was bold to make the saints participate in God’s suffering: “For not even the Apostles have entered as yet into their joy, but they must wait till I become a sharer in their joy. Nor do the saints when they leave this world receive the full reward of their merits, but they stand in wait for us, tardy and sluggish though we may be. There can be no perfect joy for them while they still weep over our truancy and grieve for our sins”.[86] Each of these luminous observations tell us that we are far from being done with our exploration of the fields of Christian mysticism, especially when it is firmly rooted in genuine solidarity with the entire body of the Church and the destiny of the world, – a solidarity which, we may be bold to state, is one of the features of what is properly Christian. No doubt there are sainthoods, joys and pains still unknown and un-tasted by us. Also, let us not forget that the Song of Songs does not end with the enjoyment of a couple in which the lovers take possession of one another, but on the contrary, its closing passage is the poignant call from the bride to her Beloved, as if no true love existed outside separation and the inextinguishable desire to be reunited: “Go away, my Beloved, like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of spices!” (Cant 8:14).
Above all, it is my wish that this journey through the Hindu landscapes of the Braj, as well as the few incursions into Christian mysticism that in its own way bears witness to love in the painof separation, might shed new light on an enigmatic phrase which Christ addressed to his disciples as an indication on how to behave during His Blessed Passion, revealingHis infinite love for the Father though He is in the abyss of abandon[87]: “But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day” (Mk 2:20). First He was taken away on the Cross, then through the Ascension into heaven, and thus, separation from the master became the daily condition of the disciple, who is called again and again to spiritual fasting from the Beloved Presence: « Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven » (Acts 1:11).
Viraha, love in separation, – that is exactly what it means to fast in our darktimes whilst we hope for the return in glory of the Bridegroom, when God will be “All in all” (1Cor 15:28)
Translated by Caroline Malcolm
Notes
[1] Benedict XVI, Last Testament in his own words, London: Bloomsbury, 2016, p. 111.
[2] Tirumūlar, Tirumantiram 257.
[3] Bhāgavata Mahātmya, I, 47-49. The great names in bhakti in North India are those of the saints: Ravidās (1414-1526), Kabīr (1440-1518), Gurū Nānak (1469-1539) the founder of Sikhism, Sūrdās (1478-1573), Mīrabai (1498-1557), Tulsidās (1532-1623). Cf. John Stratton Hawley, Songs of the Saints of India, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998; Charlotte Vaudeville, Myths, Saints and Legends in Medieval India, New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
[4] I am largely indebted to my Brahmin friend Pandit Brij Mohan Tiwārī, for the lines that follow: I spent wonderful afternoons listening to him telling me about the bhakti which he lives so intensely. I dedicate this text to him as well as to my parents who for so many years loved one another in separation.
[5] Sūrdās was surely taught the Bhāgavata Purāṇa by his Master, Vallabha, to whom we shall have occasion to return. This work lies at the heart of Krishnaite mysticism and furnished him with the main stages of the love drama so magnificently amplified in his Sūr-Sāgar. In the course of this study, we shall supply the corresponding references in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa.
[6] Cf. Bhagavad-gītā IV, 7-8: “When righteousness (dharma) is weak and faints and unrighteousness exults in pride, then I manifest myself on earth. For the salvation of those who are good, for the destruction of evil in men, for the sake of firmly establishing righteousness, I am born from age to age”.
[7] Kṛiṣna has a huge variety of names such as Śyām, Harī, Gopāl, Mādhav, Mohan… The convention is that, unless we indicate it otherwise in this text, all these names refer to Him.
[8] Soûr-Dâs, Pastorales (translated into French by Charlotte Vaudeville), Paris: Gallimard, 1971, p. 89. From now on we shall cite this work using the initials CV.
[9] CV 93.
[10] CV 94.
[11] CV 100.
[12] The rāsa-līlā is also described in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa X, 29.
[13] CV 101.
[14] CV102.
[15] Indian tradition, especially through the unsurpassable commentaries bestowed by Abhivanagupta (10-11th centuries), places the aesthetic experience of rāsa alongside the highest spiritual experience given to man.
[16] CV 107.
[17] CV 109. Cf. Bhāgavata Purāṇa X, 30-31.
[18] CV 109. This statement might appear to contradict what we shall subsequently explain concerning the two paths of the « Non-Manifest »and the « Manifest », of the UnqualifiedAbsolute (nirguṇa Brahman) and the Qualified Absolute (saguṇa Brahman) which convey the great divide between the Vedānta spiritual path and that of bhakti. In India, however, things are never that simple, especially not with regard to Western logic’s principle of non-contradiction. In reality, the path of bhakti ultimately recognizes the supreme « Non-Qualified »(nirguṇa) character of the Absolute; several sants (the great exponents of bhakti in North India between the 15th and 18th centuries) worshipped the nirguṇa Brahman; one such is Kabīr, the great Saint of Benares. No doubt – yet here again we should avoid hasty generalizations – the most notable difference between bhakti and Vedānta lies in the question of non-duality between a human being and the Absolute.
[19] B. Stoler Miller, The Gītagovinda of Jayadeva. Love Song of the Dark Lord, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 2007.
[20] CV 110.
[21] CV 110.
[22] CV110.
[23] CV 111.
[24] CV 112. Here, we recommend a comparative reading of the fourth and sixth chapters of Jayadeva’s Gīta Govinda in which the Sanskrit draws on all its skills to describe Rādhā’s suffering.
[25] CV 113.
[26] CV113. Cf. Bhāgavata Purāṇa X, 32.
[27] CV 119.
[28] CV120.
[29] CV121.
[30] CV 123.
[31] Nanda and Yaśodā were two cowherds who became the adoptive parents of Kṛiṣna, entrusted to them by his real father Vasudeva in order to protect him from the vindictiveness of his maternal uncle Kansa, who reigned as a despot over Mathurā.
[32] CV124.
[33] In his book X, dedicated to the tale of Kṛiṣna, the Bhāgavata Purāṇa refers four times to the viraha experienced by the gopī separated from their Beloved (cf. Bhāgavata Purāṇa X, 46, 5; X, 47, 27; X, 47, 29; X, 47, 53). Yet, by comparing these with the preponderance given to this theme in the Sūr-Sāgar, which in a way « overstates » the pain, we may easily understand that the viraha constitutes the essence of Sūrdās’ spiritual message.
[34] CV 127.
[35] CV129.
[36] CV129.
[37] CV 130.
[38] CV132.
[39] CV 133. Here it is interesting to note to what extent Sūrdās has distorted the teaching of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. In this work, the passages that deal with Uddhao’s visit to the inhabitants of the Braj (X, 46) and to the gopī (X, 47), the latter are portrayed as being wholly satisfied with the teachings transmitted by Kṛiṣna through the words of His emissary, revealing that the fire of viraha is extinguished once the identification of Kṛiṣna with the Supreme Being is grasped (X, 47,53), since the gopī can never be separated from their Lover who is manifest in the entire universe (X 47, 27). Sūrdās did not accept such a philosophical consolation of the pain felt by the sorrowful women.
[40] ātman and Brahman are the two central concepts of Vedānta. ātman is the innermost principle within man. Brahman is the Absolute beyond all, the ground from which springs everything. Following on from the Upaniṣad, Śaṅkara expounded the identical nature of ātman and Brahman: to realize this is to obtain mokṣa, the much sought-after mystical liberation.
[41] CV 134.
[42] CV 135.
[43] Sūrdās, Sūr’s Ocean (translated by John Stratton Hawley), Cambridge: Murty Classical Library of India, 2015, p. 457.
[44] Sūrdās, Sūr’s Ocean, p. 461.
[45] Sūrdās, Sūr’s Ocean, p. 463.
[46] CV 136.
[47] CV 138.
[48] CV 139.
[49] R. de Smet-J. Neuner, Religious Hinduism, Mumbai: Saint Paul’s, 1997, p. 308.
[50] R. de Smet-J. Neuner, Ibidem, p. 308.
[51] CV 58.
[52] CV 58.
[53] Sūrdās, Sūr’s Ocean, p. 513.
[54] Sūrdās, Sūr’s Ocean, p. 535.
[55] CV 141.
[56] CV 140. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa did not intend Uddhao’s conversion to the path of viraha; still, it attributes to him this confession made to the gopī: “By the wholehearted love that ruled you because of your separation (viraha) from the Transcendental Lord, oh glorious ones, you have done me a great favor” (X, 47, 27).
[57] CV 142.
[58] CV 143.
[59] CV 127.
[60] CV 144-145.
[61] CV 145.
[62] CV 58.
[63] al-Ḥallaj, Dīwān (translated by Louis Massignon).
[64] Rūmī, Masnavī, I, 1-6; 17-25.
[65] John of the Cross, « Spiritual canticle A », stanza 1.
[66] John of the Cross « Spiritual canticle », stanzas 9 and 10.
[67] “Where have you hidden, Beloved, and left me moaning?”
[68] John of the Cross, ‘Spiritual Canticle A’, Stanza 1, exposition (1), in The complete works of saint John of the cross, London: Burns Oates & Washbourne LTD, 1934, p. 31.
[69] John of the Cross, ‘Spiritual Canticle A’, Stanza 1, exposition (7), p. 34.
[70] John of the Cross, ‘Spiritual Canticle A’, Stanza 1, exposition (10), p. 35.
[71] I have dealt at length with the question of Christian mysticism in the light of mystics from the other religions, in another book. Cf. Yann Vagneux, Co-esse. Le mystère trinitaire dans la pensée de Jules Monchanin – Swâmi Parâmârubyânanda (1895-1957), Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 2015, pp. 461-542.
[72] John of the Cross, ‘Spiritual Canticle A’, Stanza 1 (13), exposition, p. 37.
[73] John of the Cross, ‘Spiritual Canticle A’, Stanza 13 (1), exposition, p. 75.
[74] Thérèse of Lisieux, Manuscript C.
[75] Thérèse of Lisieux, letter to Father Adolphe Roulland, mep, from July 14th 1897.
[76] Letter of Mother Teresa to Father Neuner from March 6th 1962. Cf. Cf. Mother Teresa, Come be my light. The private writings of the ‘Saint of Calcutta’, New York: Doubleday, 2007, p. 230.
[77] Letter of Mother Teresa to Father Neuner from May 12th 1962. Cf. Cf. Mother Teresa, Ibidem, p. 232.
[78] Letter of Mother Teresa to Father Neuner from May 12th 1962. Cf. Cf. Mother Teresa, Ibidem, p. 232.
[79] CV 113.
[80] Shantideva (7th century), Bodhicaryāvatāra X, 55.
[81] CV 127.
[82] Letter from Jules Monchanin to M. Divien around 1950: “I would like to see between Hindus and Christian a climate not of ignorance and mutual scorn, neither that easy form of syncretism that rounds off all corners and reduces everything to a rather flat moralism, but of true philosophical emulation, and above all, an emulation of sanctity” in Jules Monchanin, Ecrits Spirituels, Paris: Le Centurion, 1965, pp. 101-102.
[83] Origen, Homily 1 on the Song of Songs, 7.
[84] Origen, Homily 7 on Leviticus, 2.
[85] Origen, Homily 6 on Ezekiel, 6.
[86] Origen, Homily 7 on Leviticus, 2.
[87] To further develop this idea that the Passion is the maximum extent of the Son’s love for the Father whilst in the abyss of separation from Him – and also in a way, the maximum extent of the love Christ showed to men in the darkest depths of sin, which in essence is separation – we may refer to Hans-Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988) and his theology of the Holy Spirit at the time of the Cross and the descent into Hell. On the subject ofthis Spirit of Love that unites Father and Son in separation (Trennung), we shall only quote two texts: “It needs to be brought out that the divine abandonment (Gottesverlassenheit) of the Son during the Passion is one mode of His union with the Father in the Holy Spirit” (Hans-Urs von Balthasar, La dramatique divine IV. Le dénouement, Louvain: Lessius, 1996, p. 234). “It is in the Cross and the abandonment (Verlassenheit) of Jesus that the distance (Distanz) between the Son and the Father is made clearly manifest for the first time, and even the Spirit, which joins both by forming their ‘We’, in revealing theirunity, takes the appearance of pure distance” (Id., La dramatique divine III. L’action, Louvain: Lessius, 1996, p. 296). We could draw other stimulating thoughts from the theme of viraha in order to deepen the theology of the Eucharistic Presence to which Christ calls us to love Him in physical absence and with intensely ardent faith, as sung by Thomas Aquinas in his Adorote devote: “Visus, tactus, gustus, in te fallitur, sed auditu solo tuto creditur”. |
 Yann Vagneux is a French priest who came to India in 1997 and and since 2011 has been living in Varanasi, where he tries to carry forward the spiritual heritage of Jules Monchanin, Henri Le Saux, and many others met along the years. In Varanasi he is particularly connected with the world of the Brahmin pandits and students of that sacred city. |