By Dr. Subhasis Chattopadhyay –
Roman Catholics and Hindus are terrified of silence and its life-giving and life changing power. When one religion speaks to another, without silence, our inner chatter damages the conversation. Interreligious dialogue was never meant to be a cultural war or a war of ideas. Instead of putting forth our own ideas of what the other religion is about or, what dialogue should be; we ought to listen to the Other with respect. This silent act of listening to the Other is known as dialogue.
Love in silence of the Other is interreligious dialogue. If I am not silent, I will not be able to hear you. It is that simple. Both Hinduism and Roman Catholicism have a long-shared tradition of silent meditation. We Hindus tell the beads in silence, and we call it japa. Roman Catholics during Holy Mass and at home have times of silent prayer. It is during this silence that a Hindu family and a Roman Catholic family are truly in communion with each other in the best sense of interreligious dialogue. As the popular saying goes — those who speak, do not know.Those who know, do not speak.
My own tradition from within Hinduism is of Shakta worship. ‘Shakti’ is misunderstood as being the feminine aspect of the Supreme Godhead. Actually, Shakti is cognate with power, and It is the Power of God. It is an attribute of God. In this tradition we have to divinise the body. One needs to be a bit technical here. Within the Christian economy of salvation, the body is often associated with the negatively connotated sarx. But in Bengali Shakta worship, the body has to be seen as Christ commanded us to prepare the body — as an abode of His Father, qua, in this case, as a divinised Being in the here and now.
By this, we mean the Heideggerian dasein, which is no longer death-oriented, but following the greatest Christian theologian of the last century, Karl Rahner SJ, this new dasein to be used in Shakta worship is God-intoxicated and thus, life oriented in the here and now. This transformation of the being struggling for self-actualisation in the here and now can only be possible through silence. It is in silence that generations of holy women and men have transformed their bodies into fit receptacles for Shakti. It is in this cradle of silence that ordinary Hindus have become extraordinary and began to reflect Shakti, or the Power of the Supreme Godhead in the here and now. Shakta worship is centred on chaste householders and therefore, has yet to be explored by celibate Christian clergy and Religious.
Unlike Advaita Vedanta (non-qualified non dualism), Bengali Shakta worship is a very well- established path which hundreds of householders and monks follow. They visit the siddha-peethas like Tarapith at Birbhum and Dakshineswar temple to practice their ascesis. This ascesis is based on the bulwark of silent prayer. The Shakta worshipper moves in this world as if s/he does not belong to this world. The need to give up kith and kin is not there — one is called to be perfect while within the warp and woof of this passing world where we all, both Hindus and Christians, are just sojourners. Unless there is an effort to tap into this silence of the Hindu Shakta practitioner, there cannot be a successful dialogue between Christianity and Hinduism within Bengal. Bengal is the seat of Shakti worship. We worship God as Durga. Unless we Hindus engage with the deep silence of cloistered women and men in Bengal, the interreligious dialogue will fail. Silence is the bulwark of both Hindu and Roman Catholic spirituality.
If we can be silent, not in an angry way, we will not stray from perfection. We will follow the injunctions of Christ to never judge others so that we are not judged. A Yogi is someone who does not get disturbed, nor does s/he disturb others. The paths of both Roman Catholicism and Hinduism lead us to become Yogis. The Bhagavad Gita says that a Yogi is silent in the face of blame and praise — not a Stoic silence. Rather, a Yogi has transcended the dualities of praise and blame. This is the purpose of silence. The ontic beginning of interreligious dialogue is silence, but mere silence is never the telos.
But interreligious silence aims at liberating the human person in the here and now. This is the result of deep silence leading to deeper listening. This is why Thomas Merton enter the Trappist monastery at Gethsemani and this is why so many Hindus, married and celibate, keep ‘maunvrats’ or, spend lives of silent service.
Dr Subhasis Chattopadhyay has a Ph.D. from the University of Calcutta on Patristics, Theology and Theodicy in Cormac McCarthy and Stephen King. He has further qualifications in Biblical Theology and separately, in Hindu theology.
This article appeared in The Herald (June 7-13) Kolkata issue.