[Advaita-l] Inter Religious Dialogue - Part 2

[Sivakumar Ramakrishnan]

Sadara praNAm,
A timely and informative posting indeed.
The hidden agenda of the Christian priests
had already been understood by many of
our acharyas and acted in their own ways
and as per the demand of the hour.
In Kerala Sri Vidyadhiraja Chattambi Swamikal,
the senior among the two great social reformers,
the other being Sri Narayanaguru Swamikal,
had shown the fallacies in the Bible by bringing out
a work entitled 'A Cross sectional Analysis of
Christianity'.Swamiji's arguments were so strong
that the Christian priests who fond it impossible to contest them bought
all the copies and burnt it!
A very clear warning about the danger in the view prevailing today as
'secularism' can be seen in
'Dialogues with the Master' in which Sringeri Acharya
Sri Chandrasekharabharathi Swamikal details it.
An entirely different approach can be seen in
the work 'The Second coming of Christ' by
Sri Paramahamsa Yoganandaji of 'An Autobiography
of a Yogi'fame.Going through it we feel that The Bible
is nothing but the wisdom of the east put across in a
language understandable to the disciples of Jesus.
It is written as commentary of 'The Holy Science' by SriYuktheswargiri, The
Master of Sri Paramahansa Yoganandaji,is the seminal work
in Sanskrit sutra on which the above title is based.
Accordingly the Church also brings in changes in their
'attire'.In Kerala you can see lamps and Dhwajastambhas in a church seeing
it one may
mistake it to be a Hindu temple!
Any way those of us who could realize the plot
should caution our society about it.Yet "our weakness for flattery,
disunity and the
crustacean tendency to pull our own down"is of course
a handicap.
Namaste.
*sivakumarr.
*
On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 1:18 PM, Rajaram Venkataramani <
rajaramvenk at gmail.com> wrote:

> *War Office for Inter-religious dialogue
> *As a special department of the Roman Curia, Pope Paul VI, in 1964 set up
> the Secretariat for Non-Christians, a body that would decide, regulate and
> monitor the Catholic Church’s relations with other religions;
> inter-religious dialogue was going to be the medium of this communication.
>
> In 1988 however, Pope John Paul II transformed the innocuous secretariat
> into a full-fledged ministry and the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious
> Dialogue (PCID) came into being. Working closely with the Protestant World
> Council of Churches, the PCID was mandated to promote study of other
> religions and also promote persons capable of dialogue. From 1988 onwards
> the PCID would work closely with another important Vatican ministry,
> Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.
>
> To emphasize that inter-religious dialogue did not mean the white church
> was stepping back from evangelization or that it was re-thinking its
> ultimate objective of converting the whole world to Christianity, the papal
> encyclical and the PCID commentary on Redemptoris Missio, which came forth
> a year later, make the intention behind inter-religious dialogue amply
> clear:
>
> Inter-religious dialogue is a part of the Church's evangelizing mission.
> Understood as a method and means of mutual knowledge and enrichment,
> dialogue is not in opposition to the mission ad gentes; indeed, it has
> special links with that mission and is one of its expressions.
>
> All of this has been given ample emphasis by the Council and the subsequent
> Magisterium, without detracting in any way from the fact that salvation
> comes from Christ and that dialogue does not dispense from evangelization.
>
> In the light of the economy of salvation, the Church sees no conflict
> between proclaiming Christ and engaging in inter-religious dialogue.
> Instead, she feels the need to link the two in the context of her mission
> ad gentes.
>
> I recently wrote to the bishops of Asia: "Although the Church gladly
> acknowledges whatever is true and holy in the religious traditions of
> Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam as a reflection of that truth which enlightens
> all people, this does not lessen her duty and resolve to proclaim without
> fail Jesus Christ who is 'the way, and the truth and the life.
>
> Indeed Christ himself "while expressly insisting on the need for faith and
> baptism, at the same time confirmed the need for the Church, into which
> people enter through Baptism as through a door." Dialogue should be
> conducted and implemented with the conviction that the Church is the
> ordinary means of salvation and that she alone possesses the fullness of
> the means of salvation. (Redemptoris Missio)
>
> Within a year of Redemptoris Missio, the PCID, created specially as the
> Vatican government ministry in charge of inter-religious dialogue, issued,
> in May 1991, the defining commentary Dialogue and Proclamation. The
> commentary on Redemptoris Missio left no one in doubt if inter-religious
> dialogue with other religions cancelled evangelization and religious
> conversion of non-Christians.
>
> It is 25 years since "Nostra Aetate", the declaration of the Second Vatican
> Council on the Church's relationship to other religions, was promulgated.
> The document stressed the importance of inter-religious dialogue. At the
> same time, it recalled that the Church is in duty bound to proclaim without
> fail Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, in whom all people find
> their fulfillment. (PCID, Dialogue and Proclamation, Rome 19, May) 1991)
> http://www.vatican.va
>
> The Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue comprises of thirty
> members who constitute its apex body and fifty advisers who are called
> ‘Consulters’. These consulters are experts and specialists in religious
> studies and inter-religious dialogue. Francis Clooney, a Jesuit priest is a
> regular visitor to India. In Chennai he had made great advances in
> penetrating the Srivaishanava mathams.
>
> Such is the monumental ignorance of important Hindus about the politics of
> religion that Clooney was a welcome visitor in several Srivaishnava homes;
> Chennai’s Srivaishanava scholars fought among themselves for the honour of
> teaching Clooney the nuances of Srivaishnava texts. Clooney is the author
> of several books on comparative religion and Srivaishnavism.
>
> The writer is convinced that Clooney is quite possibly one of the fifty
> Consulters of the PCID to implement the war strategy called inter-religious
> dialogue. Monumental ignorance and towering arrogance have always done the
> Hindus in. Our enemies know our weakness for flattery, disunity and the
> crustacean tendency to pull our own down.
>
> There are three levels at which this Christian strategy called
> inter-religious dialogue is held - at the level of local churches, at the
> national level and international level. Dialogue by local churches is not
> the concern of this column; but the participation of Hindus in these
> pre-determined national and international dialogues is not only a matter of
> deep concern but also merits severe criticism.
>
> Dialogue implies two sides. On one side is the army of the PCID with or
> without the World Council of Churches waging war for the white church. The
> white church must engage Hindus in dialogue to further the diabolic agenda
> that was hidden behind the smiley mask; but which Hindu? By speaking to
> which Hindu will the white church’s agenda be effectively fulfilled? And
> what was the hidden agenda of inter-religious dialogue?
>
> *The Hindu penchant for inter-religious dialogue
> *The PCID and World Council of Churches have no use for dialogue with the
> writer and the writer’s Hindu neighbors. If the agenda of the white church
> and the white state had to be effectively implemented, then Hindus with
> whom the Vatican had to engage, had to be influential Hindus, politically
> powerful Hindus and Hindus of great pre-eminence in Hindu society.
>
> The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha between
> the two of them wield formidable influence on the Hindu nation. The RSS was
> the first to be bitten by the inter-religious dialogue bug. In-house
> intellectuals and important functionaries in the RSS organized and
> participated in inter-religious dialogues with Muslims and Christians -
> with nothing tangible for Hindus coming out of them.
>
> It Islam will not give up jihad and if the church will not give up
> religious conversion, what is there to talk about with the adherents of
> these religions? But a very large section in the RSS and its other
> affiliate organizations had very strong reservations about the entire
> exercise and mercifully, after the change of guard in the leadership of the
> RSS in 2009, this grand expedition seems to have come to a deserved end.
>
> Keeping channels of communication open among all sections of the Indian
> populace is vastly different from participating in this Christian jamboree
> called inter-religious dialogue. The RSS has always kept communication
> channels open with all sections of the Indian populace, with all political
> parties and with all shades of opinion and ideology. That is conduct
> befitting an organization seen to be the voice of Hindu society. But it is
> not for the RSS to endorse a stratagem devised by the Vatican and the World
> Council of Churches to get the Hindus to let their guards down.
>
> What the RSS may never have known was that the thirty members of the PCID
> spread across continents are mandated to travel extensively to meet with
> local church leaders and important members of the laity who would have been
> trained to participate in inter-religious dialogue; these individuals and
> groups which would have accepted RSS invitations for dialogue and those at
> whose invitation the RSS participated in dialogue would all have been
> directed by the invisible hand of the PCID.
>
> The RSS may not have succeeded in procuring any tangible result in favor of
> Hindus from these dialogues but it is just as certain that they would not
> have surrendered Hindu interests either. Until 2002, the PCID could engage
> Hindus in inter-religious dialogues only at the level of local churches.
> The year 2002 was a turning point for inter-religious dialogue; the HDAS
> came into being in 2002 and the PCID carried inter-religious dialogue or
> inter-faith dialogue as it is commonly known in India to the international
> level.
>
> In part two of this series we saw how inter-religious dialogue, with
> Christian NGO foray into organized charity and service, a new paradigm in
> public discourse in politics of religion enforced by the white state
> (Europe and America), marked the new era in the church’s evangelizing
> mission.
>
> US enforced and UN mandated obligations of member-states to abide by the UN
> charter on human rights came with the add-on that freedom of religion was
> inherent to human rights. Freedom of religion in turn came as a package
> deal with the church’s right to undertake religious conversion of
> non-Christians. The entire edifice of inter-religious dialogue was intended
> only to legitimize through dialogue this pointed and well-aimed predatory
> political discourse on human rights, freedom of religion and right to
> religious conversion.
>
> To the best of this writer’s knowledge, Hindus who participated in the
> white church crafted inter-religious dialogue exercise have not managed to
> loosen or shake even a single brick of this edifice. On the contrary,
> Hindus who participated in this PCID initiative have surrendered Hindu
> interests or endorsed the white agenda or remained helpless spectators in
> the drama.
>
> The HDAS is an august assembly of Hindu dharma gurus from different
> sampradayas with a long and hoary lineage. It is these sampradayas which
> give Hindu Dharma its character and its continuity. The roots of every
> Hindu lie in the village, village temple, jaati, kula, kuladevta and varna
> of his forefathers. A Hindu’s roots also lie in the matham, matahthipathi,
> adeenam, and sampradaya of his forefathers. The HDAS is thus the most
> important and influential Hindu body in the country today and the custodian
> of Hindu interests.
>
> Knowing the church’s genetic propensity to prey upon the best and brightest
> among its target victims, the PCID zeroed in on the HDAS for its
> inter-religious dialogue expedition. We may never know the process by which
> it was decided to appoint a non-member as Convener of the HDAS; the writer
> believes that a group of individuals within the country and outside, who
> had decided that one of the tasks of the HDAS would be to engage with a
> certain kind of groups and institutions, influenced a powerful section
> within the HDAS to agree to a English-speaking sanyasi as Convener.
>
> It is after 2002 when the HDAS came into being that PCID’s inter-religious
> dialogue with Hindus acquired international dimension. A detailed critique
> of the HDAS in five parts where every resolution agreed upon or endorsed
> has already been undertaken by the writer. Hindus participating in these
> dialogues have agreed in principle to religious conversion, have conceded
> that right to freedom of religion is inherent to human rights, have
> conceded that the United Nations is the ultimate custodian and protector of
> human rights and freedom of religion around the world and that Hindus in
> India must hold inter-religious dialogues with Islam and the Church in the
> spirit of the May 2006 Vatican meeting on religious conversion.
>
> *The enemy as monolith
> *When Pujya Swami Dayananda Saraswati feels compelled to explain Hindu
> worship to the Jews as not being idolatrous, when the Convener of the HDAS
> feels compelled to declare that he will fight to defend the right to
> freedom of religion of every Christian and Muslim, when Shri Advani feels
> compelled to condemn the angry retaliation by our tribal people against the
> Christians of Khandamal for killing a Hindu dharma guru, when Hindus at the
> Vatican meeting in Italy accept that Hindus have been as guilty as Islam
> and Christianity for crimes against people, then we know that the Vatican
> war doctrines Ad Gentes and Redemptoris Missio have succeeded even beyond
> the Vatican’s wildest beliefs.
>
> At these inter-religious dialogue meetings we have actually accepted the
> Abrahamic tenet that worshipping idols or idolatry is a terrible wrong and
> so we are not idolatrous. Despite the rapid and alarming incursions of the
> church and Islam in our public spaces, in spite of the alarming change in
> the religious demography of our coastal villages, border districts and
> entire districts, regions and even states, Hindus have still not summoned
> the will to move away from these coercive and imposed idioms on religious
> conversion and intyer-religious dialogue.
>
> Despite knowing the cancerous role played by Muslim and Christian charity
> organizations with foreign funds, Hindus like Sri Sri feel compelled to
> extol the service activities and charity work of Christian NGOs at
> inter-religious meetings, to members of the PCID from Rome!
>
> Important Hindus suffer from the fatal Arjuna-weakness for failing to see
> the enemy as a monolith. Arjuna saw Bhishma, Dronaand Kripacharya as
> individuals and not as important warriors of the adharmic Kaurava army.
> Srikrishna’s Bhagavad Gita is only about instructing Arjuna to see the
> enemy as a monolith and wage war against him in his entirety.
>
> Gandhi’s stubborn insistence on Hindu-Muslim unity in the face of repeated
> jihadi attacks the Hindus, Gandhi’s stubborn insistence that we must not
> consider every British person as our enemy effectively imposed the
> Arjuna-weakness on Hindus within the INC and outside it of not perceiving
> our enemies as a monolith. The only way we could have averted vivisection
> of the Hindu nation was for a Hindu uprising against the Muslim League’s
> demand for vivisection in the name of their religion.
>
> The war stratagem of Inter-religious dialogue as crafted and implemented by
> the Vatican and World Council of Churches is succeeding in turning our eyes
> away from our enemies and the threat they pose to our dharma and dharti
> through religious conversion, occupation of public spaces and flow of
> foreign funds for their political objectives to Islamise and Christianise
> the Hindu nation.
>
> Inter-religious dialogues have forced our leaders to concede every
> principle, policy and tenet which furthers religious conversion, promotes
> NGO activity in the guise of charity and service, and stopped us from
> taking effective measures to combat and destroy this cancer.
>
> The RSS has stepped back from this exercise. It is a mind-boggling thought
> that the Sankaracharya of Puri or the Mathathipathi of the Pejawara Matha,
> Udipi or the Mathathiptahi of the Sri Ahobila Matham, all members of the
> HDAS would actually agree with the Vatican that Hindu dharma is as guilty
> as Islam and Christianity or that the right to religious conversion is
> inherent to human rights, or that idolatry is wrong and that Hindus, to
> assuage Jewish religious sensibilities accept we are not idolatrous or that
> they, the tallest religious leaders in Hindu dharma agree to abide by the
> UN charter on human rights. And that is why the HDAS fielding its
> non-member Convener to speak on its behalf is like Gandhi speaking on
> behalf of the entire Hindu community in India.
>
> The HDAS must officially reject every resolution endorsed and passed which
> have the potential to weaken us in our war against these two Abrahamic
> religions. We may never know the forces which created the HDAS in 2002 and
> for what purpose. But having created it, Hindus who understand the dirty
> war of politics of religion must strive to make the HDAS serve the cause of
> Hindus on Hindu bhumi. The HDAS has no need for inter-religious dialogue,
> has no need to endorse foreign idioms, foreign concepts and foreign agendas
> which have nothing to do with Hindu dharma and dharmi.* *
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-- 
*sivakumarr*