Note: This article is subjected to revision if anyone would kind enough to point of contradictions and theological inconsistencies. Thanks.
The word ‘Gospel’ or ‘Good News’1 was introduced by Augustine, says Yancy.2 It has three important aspects: Incarnation; Atonement and Resurrection. All three can be accepted only by faith and no scientific rationalism will endorse them. They also are alien to Hindu Worldviews. Though avatar, prayaschitta and punarjanmam come closer to those three Mukti Vedic aspects, still they are not the same. One might through a process of ‘text torturing’ could try to accommodate within Hindu Scriptural tradition all of them. But in my personal opinion this will distort the textual context and will do injustice to both the Scriptures [Mukti Veda and Indian Scriptures]. The so-called Fulfilment theology promoted by J.N. Farquhar {LMS Missionary, [The Crown of Hinduism] though was eagerly embraced by so many Indian evangelicals, one should not forget that when MV talks about Mukti Nath [MN] Fulfilling the ‘covenant’ promise of God, He was carrying out what was prophesied about Him in Purva Veda [PV]. He fulfilled God’s promise to redeem, restore and reconcile the world through His life and mission and no way this comes close to any Hindu scriptural views.
For me Romans 5:8 gives a brief but profound summary of the Good News. We need to read and understand the full immediate context from verses 6 to 11. What Sevalal [Paul] says in a short form as a sutra in 5:8 needs to be elaborated with proper interpretation. This is the problem that is stated in short sutra form. Fortunately, in Mukti Veda [MV], except Proverbs, no such short sutra formulas were given. When we quote any one verse to share our view, we should keep this in mind. Otherwise, it will lead to all kinds of speculative interpretation going against the immediate context of the verse {within that chapter though Sevalal never wrote each separately but a single letter which later was divided based on verses and chapters} and over all context of the book and entire MV.
Though the English translation uses the word ‘shows’ and Hindi ‘pragat’, I prefer the word ‘demonstrated His love’ in the physical body of the Lord. In this verse one can see the purpose of God, the mission of the Lord and our need. But all the three points need to be elaborated to understand the core teaching of ‘Good News’.
But what is this ‘Good News’ depends upon each individual bhakta to workout in her own way based on her personal experience with the Lord. Somehow, she encountered the ‘Good News’ in her life and that will always remain a unique experience to her. As she makes progress in her bhakti with a slow understanding of the Mukti Vedic teachings, that could help her to accept the message of that Good News. So, any one time uniform theoretical explanation [or dogmatic statement] would not serve the need of every bhakta of the Lord.
In my life my search for a Guru ended in MN. Then I tried to understand His life and teachings going back in history by slowly reading and understanding MV. Still there are several unresolved and unresolvable questions and contradictions I found in MV. They might remain till the end of my life. But my present bhakti and Mukti are not going to change or be affected by various theories/theologies about Good News. My reason refuses to accept all that my bhakti believes. My bhakti refuses to submit to the demands of my reason.
In the Lord I found the answer to my question: why I cannot live a perfect life, at least up to my expectation even for one day. To my surprise MV, by diagnosing the problem pointed out clearly that it is because of my personal moral failure and I cannot blame anyone or anything other than me [neither a devil or Kala, karma or even God]. That diagnosis became my mukti3 and not all the Mukti Vedic facts that explains how the Lord gave that Mukti through His life and mission viz., Incarnation, atonement, and resurrection. Mukti means deliverance. For me this Mukti that MV promises already begins in this very life that I live in this mortal body and not merely a utopian Paradise that I might enter after my death.
Even if the Lord was not an incarnation but only merely an avatara and his atonement is the prayaschitta for my moral lapses [not to remove the sin in principle] and resurrection is nothing but a utopian promise to give consolation to the present suffering in this world, still my bhakti in the Lord and the Mukti I received is not going to change.
So, whichever might be the Good News to an individual that she received in his/ her encounter with MN, that is the Gospel for her. And one should begin from there when one tries to understand the teaching of MV.
For example, Sevalal remained as a Jew not giving up his Jewish identity, though he single handedly liberated the Good News from the Jewish captivity. And when he wrote his letters though he addressed the needs of both Jews and non-Jews, he never let down one at the expense of another. That is why when he was addressing the mandali at Rome, he had to keep in mind the mixed nature of it, with the added fact that he neither founded it nor visited it. On the one hand he has to talk about the ‘promise of God given to the prophet’ to help his Jewish audience to understand [as they are familiar to the ‘promise of God’ and ‘prophets’]at the same time making it as the ‘Good News’ rather than a covenant fulfilment as the non-Jews won’t know or understand what that covenant was. All through his life he walked on a tight robe keeping the balance between his Jewish inheritance and the needs of the non-Jews followers of the Lord.
One has to keep this in mind when one tries to understand Sevalal’s letters and his message. Particularly in Romans he has done a remarkable balance. Several scholarly works are available for us to go in depth. For each one has to work hard individually.
3-6-2023
The next important thing regarding the Good News is that it never gives treatment to the symptom but prescribes medicines to the disease. Like a doctor it can only prescribe the medicine but only the patient has to take the medicine. According to MV the sin in principle viz., the sinful nature within us, not sins in work in the sense of moral lapses of commissions and omissions is the decease. All the moral lapses of commissions and omissions are the symptom. Our own Indian religious worldviews give various reasons for the moral lapses due to ‘maya’ ‘karma’ or ‘avidya’. But the difference is that in Indian traditions prescribes various means to overcome it, primarily working out one’s own way to overcome the moral lapses to prepare to attain Mukti either removing the avidya to realize that atman is Brahman {in advaita philosophy} or depending upon the grace of God in various bhakti traditions. At the same time, it also gives hope to blame someone else rather than accepting personal responsibility like karma, kala or even God or treat it as divine play [Leela] postponing in future births by working out through individual karma.3 However, MV never accepts those outside facts or consider it as divine play. Of course, the story narrated about the origin of the sin in principle looks more like a mythology. But the first eleven chapters in Genesis are more the collective consciousness of human story than any historical incident. To all the questions related to how sin entered in God’s good creation or who created the first karma could never be answered with clear cut answers.
At the same time, MV assures that all is not lost because something went wrong. Humans were created in God’s IMAGE. Though it was corrupted yet not completely lost. The symptom for this is the consciousness within us [Romans chapter 2:15]. That is the inner witness or voice which we cannot ignore. That is also the sign that humans can respond to the call of God to regain the lost status. Of course, Indian religious traditions also insist on the very divine nature of atman. But there is no unanimity in this though that is the overall belief by most of the Hindus. Well, I am not sure what it means when MV says that we are created in the IMAGE of God? Does it mean that we share only in his divine nature and not in essence. But it is the accepted as Mukti Vedic view that we as created beings never share with the essence of God but only reflects His nature. Well for practical purposes I don’t break my head regarding all these philosophical or theological hair-splitting analyses on this subject.
When my house is burning, my only priority is to escape from it. Not sitting inside to analyse what was the cause of the fire and what would be the outcome when the house would be completely burnt down. I will think about all these later and my first priority is to escape from the fire by any safe way. Later I can analyse and create my own theories about the incident. Similarly, when I was struggling not knowing the answer to the question, ‘why I cannot live even up to my own creed’. MV helped me to understand that I am morally responsible for my failure and prescribe the treatment to the disease and not to the symptom.
Another important teaching of MV is that this Mukti cannot be worked out individually but only in relationship with oneself and others. Forgiveness and reconciliation have two dimensions—with God and with fellow human beings. Unless I forgive others, God won’t forgive me; unless I reconcile with others I cannot reconcile with God. So, I cannot have a private personal bhakti without reconciling with fellow humans and God simultaneously. Though God initiated the reconciliation with Him, I have to work out it through my reconciliation with others whom I estranged.
Good News is a unique message and we cannot find any parallel to it in any other worldviews. Though in the name of contextualization or fulfilment theology one tries to compare the various aspects of Good News with selected aspects in other worldviews, still they are not the same. One can find the Compassion of Bodisattva4 in the Love of God to send His Only Son; vicarious death as a prayaschitta in the story of Shiva drinking poison5 to save the devas or Rama going to the forest to uphold dharma and Incarnation in various avatars. But none of them will either contextualize the Good News or fulfil the Covenant promise of God.
This is also a personal challenge for me to accept an alien worldview completely outside of my Indian religious traditions. But there is no other option but to accept and try to accommodate within my Hindu worldview to enhance my bhakti in the Lord. Either I have to accept the unique message of the Good News or reject it but I cannot dilute it in the name of contextualization or fulfilment theology.
Of course, each bhakta never would have encountered the Grace of God by clear understanding of all the various aspects of the Good News. In her journey she would have begun from any one of her felt needs—power encounter, healing, guilty consciousness [which is very rare], miracles, etc. etc. But she cannot stop there alone. In order to grow more and more in her bhakti, she should have a deep understanding of the Good News.
Rarely one can accept the Good News after a clear intellectual understanding based on these various theological aspects of it. There might be few exceptions. But most of us began our journey with any one or few felt needs. In my case the so-called ‘guilty conscience’ thinking about my failure to live up to my own creed. However, it should be understood that in general we don’t have guilt conscious as part of our worldview but only shame conscious. Even when one feel guilty, most of the time it is related to some moral lapses and one can remove it by doing some prayashchit.6 But what MV talks about the prayaschitta of the Lord as a propitiation for our sin has nothing to do with the moral lapses but because of my disobedience by doing the very same thing that God instructed me not to do. But the story behind this incident couldn’t be strictly a historical event but a collective consciousness of our nature. But my point is that whether it was a myth or collective consciousness or real incident, that gives the background for us to understand the covenant promise of God about which Sevalal talks in Romans 1:2. If Manu [Adam] disobeyed the command of God, I disobeyed the dharma of God which is given in my consciousness viz., why I fail to live up to my own creed.
Of course, this is irrational and not part of my Indian worldview. But the cry of a wretched sinner who struggled with a guilty conscience not because of her moral lapses7but unable to find a solution helped me to understand my own inner struggle. Of course, this is not the systematic way I first understood that particular verse in Romans 7:15. But that verse diagnosed my disease and prescribed the solution in verse 7: 24 and 25. With limited understanding of those verses I made a commitment to follow the Lord accepting Him as my Guru. Initially I never made any commitment. But I decided in my mind that if He proves that He is the kind of guru whom I was seeking then I will become His disciples; otherwise, I am not going to lose anything by reading and giving a trial to know more about him by following him for some time. But in the past more than 43 years He never failed me once though I never remained a true disciple. But the more I obeyed the more He revealed His true nature Who God should be—if at all there is a God. Because my Guru becomes my God and even if there is a God then He is my Guru. Other than Him I cannot understand a God.8 As I often say, to get answers for spiritual crises one should begin from oneself and not from God to understand Her or to have Her darshan’. It is an upward journey beginning from me and not a downward theology trickling from God to reach my brain to understand.
So Good News has various dimensions that one needs to understand, but starting from the point where she received it in her life. No one theory or formula would help us to understand it in totality of what God has done through the Lord for us.
4-6-23
1 The context of this article is to understand the word ‘Good News’ that Sevalal talks about in Roman 1:2 as we were doing a discussion in a study group on Romans.
2.. …It was Augustus, in fact, who first borrowed the Greek word for “Gospel” or “Good News” and applied it as a label for the new world order represented by his reign…. (p.33)…Jesus’ biographers would also borrow the word gospel proclaiming a different kind of new world order altogether….— Philip Yancey, Jesus I never Knew, Secunderabad, O.M. Books (1995), Reprint 2004, pp.33-34
3.. {at the same time several Hindu Scriptures also warns that this human life is the ‘door’ for Mukti =manyshya lokam muktit dvaaram and warns not to miss the opportunity postponing to some other future births. See chapter ‘Doctrine’ Living Dialog.]
4…the Bodhisattva$ was thought of as a spirit not only of compassion but also of suffering. In more than one source we read the vow or resolve of the Bodhisattva, which is sometimes expressed in almost Christian terms:
“I take upon myself…the deeds of all beings, even of those in hells, in other worlds, in the realms of punishment…. I take their suffering upon me, … I bear it, I do not draw back from it, I do not tremble at it, … I have no fear of it, … I do not lose heart…. I must bear the burden of all beings, for I have vowed to save all things living, to bring them safe through the forest of birth, age, disease, death, and rebirth. I think not of my own salvation, but strive to bestow on all beings the royalty of supreme wisdom. So, I take upon myself all the sorrows of all beings. I resolve to bear every torment in every purgatory of the universe. For it is better (p.277) that I alone suffer than the multitude of living beings. I give myself in exchange. I redeem the universe from the forest of purgatory, from the womb of flesh, from the realm of death. I agree to suffer as a ransom for all beings, for the sake of all beings. Truly I will not abandon them. For I have resolved to gain supreme wisdom for the sake of all that lives, to save the world.” [Vajradhvaja Sutra quoted in Santideva’s Siksaasamuccaya, tr. Bendall and Rouse, p. 256f.]
The idea of the Suffering Saviour may have existed in some form in the Middle East before Christianity, but features like this are not attested in Buddhism until after the beginning of the Christian era. The Suffering Bodhisattva so closely resembles the Christian conception of the God who gives his life as a ransom for many that we cannot dismiss the possibility that the doctrine was borrowed by Buddhism from Christianity, which was vigorous in Persia from the 3rd century A.D. onwards. — A. L. Basham, The Wonder that was India, Delhi, Rupa & Co., (1954) 1990, pp.277-78
$…Bodhisattvas (persons on the path to becoming Buddhas) …. — Thomas R. Trautmann India: Brief History of a Civilization. New Delhi, Oxford, 2011. p. 105
5 When Devas and Asuras were churning the sea of milk to extract Amrit to have immortal life, as the poison [alakala] came out, Siva, in order to save them, drank it. But Parvathi stops it by pressing his throat which remains there permanently making him to have a blue neck and he received another name ‘Neelakandan’ viz., one who has a blue throat.
6.. [as we found in Romans 7:15 ff, with similar cries in Indian Scriptures though doctrinally different {janami dharmam nache nivarti; Kulam pollan, gunam pollan; kuriyum pollan, athakena prayityooi etc., papoham, papa karmaham, etc. about which I elaborately shared in Living Dialogue under ‘Sin’]
7. I read a news that One Inspector several years of his retirement committed suicide leaving a note that as he feels guilty and escape from a pricking conscience to send an innocent man to jail for life to close a long pending case. Unless he closes it before his retirement it will affect his promotion and retirement benefits including increased pension. But after his retirement his act was constantly daunting him. Finally unable to confess his mistake openly as it will bring shame to his profession and to family, he committed suicide. In such a scenario a bhakta of MN would honestly confess his mistake, seek remedy for it and even would go to jail for his wrong doing than committing suicide. Because his death in no way would help that innocent man to be released from jail, as it would be a long process which most of the Police department would prefer to treat as a closed case. As it is an open secret that several thousands of under trials and innocent people are languishing in jail as their cases were never closed. And his suicide might have brought an end to his personal agony, but no way going to remove the bolt that he brought to his department and family. This happened in Tamil Nadu. But as I don’t have that paper cutting, I cannot give reference to it.
8 This is a complicated statement. If I deny the existence of a separate God other than my Guru, then what about Trinity that MV talks about. Well, these belong to the theological realm and I don’t mind much about it. I accept it as part of the teaching of MV. This debate ends here for me.
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