Edited by Chatgpt
One constant challenge for some Hindu bhaktas is how to reveal to their family about their newfound bhakti in the Lord. I too faced a similar struggle and know several bhaktas who went through the same crisis. When this question arises, my general advice to such bhaktas is this:
1. Approach Gently: Never give any wrong impression in the beginning. Once you irritate or give a wrong impression, it becomes very difficult to change their attitude. Avoid using Christian technical terms that you learned from Christians or the church, as your parents may not understand them and those terms might not help you communicate properly. Don’t gather your family and bombard them with messages in the name of sharing your faith. You are not calling a board meeting to present your plan to them. Never preach; many converts think that preaching is the best way to present their bhakti in the Lord or witnessing. In other words, never use the Western method of sharing your faith. In India, it won’t work, especially with your own family members.
2. Live Your Bhakti: Go step by step through your life. Try to live a normal life as a child, but develop your own sadhana through which you can convey your bhakti in the Lord. For example, read Muktiveda every day even in the presence of your family members, but also keep a copy of the Gita and Quran. If they ask about it, tell them that you find very useful teachings in Muktiveda and are also interested in reading major scriptures of every faith. Spend a few minutes in prayer, even in front of your family shrine. Some may object to this, but it can be part of your sadhana while living with your parents.
3. Integrate, Don’t Separate: Don’t worship separately or have a separate personal shrine while living with your parents. Use the infrastructure that is part of the home for your sadhana. After marriage, when you start your own family, you can have a separate shrine.
While living with parents, you can read your scripture anywhere in the house—in the veranda, garden, etc. but doing it before the family puja room is the best way not to impress but have reverence for family tradition. Remember one can eat food sitting anywhere in the house, as many now do sitting before TV in the living room. But no one will eat it in the restroom or in the bathroom.
4. Avoid Imposing Views: Never try to push your views on them in the name of sharing your bhakti or preaching the gospel—especially to family members and particularly to your parents. The first thought that will come to their mind is, “This boy who walked nakedly before us is now preaching to us.” Don’t comfort yourself by saying “No prophet is accepted or respected in his own home.” That context is completely different.
5. Perform Your Dharma: Continue to do your dharma as a daughter, son, sister, brother, friend, and neighbor. Use any good opportunity for subtle dialogue. Don’t think that you should witness to the Lord only through your life because your family members know you well, and however much you try, you cannot impress them through your lives alone.
Understanding Witnessing
Here, I would like to share my view about this so-called “witnessing for the Lord.” We may think that through our life we are witnessing for the Lord, but the question is: Do our family members realize it or recognize it? They have never had this concept of “witnessing” for any god through one’s life. This concept is foreign in the Hindu context, where witnessing typically means becoming a witness in court.
Take me for example. I have served my parents faithfully as a son from the beginning. After becoming a bhakta of the Lord, I never tried to do anything to anyone as if I were witnessing to the Lord through my seva to them. My family views my seva to my mother as a natural dharma, not as an act of witnessing for the Lord. It’s an obligation, an inherent duty, not a special manifestation of the “Love of the Lord.” Serving my mother is not witnessing for the Lord but an opportunity given by God to serve her as her son.
When my brother visited us two weeks ago, during a conversation about suffering, he said, “I don’t know whether your Christianity believes in rebirth or not.” I politely told him, “I have nothing to do with Christianity.” I didn’t explain further because if he cannot understand after observing my life for over 38 years as a Hindu bhakta, what can I say about others? The moment we mention Jesus or Muktinath, the first thought that comes to a Hindu’s mind is Christianity. This negative impression is a historical reality. We need to help them understand our bhakti in a non-threatening way to avoid closing their hearts and minds.
Critique of Dialogue and Witnessing
Even the so-called “dialogue” arranged by Christians with Hindus is often seen as indirect evangelism. Hindus understand it as a subtle Christian preaching about their religion. In the secular world, when Hindus interact with people of other faiths, they don’t perceive it as Christians witnessing for their god. But any organized dialogue by Christians is seen as an attempt to preach their religion.1
We need to distinguish between theoretical missiology and ground reality in India. Christians may think they are witnessing or keeping a ‘Christian Presence’2 through dialogue, but Hindus perceive it differently. Understanding this difference is crucial for genuine and respectful interfaith interactions.
Traditional Christians may not understand that living as a witness for one’s god is not a common concept in Hindu families. Quoting bhakti saints like Meera, Thyagaraja, and Thukaram as examples of witnessing lives is misleading because their lives were elevated by followers or hagiographers after their passing, often to highlight their sanctity.
We need to unlearn many things from the Western or Westernized church if we want to live as normal Hindu bhaktas of Bhagavan Muktinath. Even many Hindu bhaktas have misunderstood this. But they are slowly realizing their mistakes, particularly when living with their families. It’s crucial to discard the false assumption of living as a silent witness for the Lord through our lives and seva to family members where such witnessing is neither understood nor recognized.
Witnessing to Our Own Consciousness
After writing this, I continued reflecting during my night walk. Does this mean there is no place or hope for witnessing in our life? The answer is yes, but this witnessing is to our own consciousness. It’s a benchmark for a bhakta to measure her bhakti when interacting with others. It helps her come to terms with her own failings and shortcomings. Thinking we live a witnessing life for others can become a burden and unsustainable. Witnessing should remind us of our moral failings, as Tom Wright says, “we are all overdrawn at the moral bank.”3 Witnessing for the Lord should be a personal measure, not an external burden.
Conclusion
When a new Hindu bhakta requested that I pray for him as he began forty days of prayer to share his devotion to the Lord with his family members, I shared my views, which I recorded above. I then told him, with real concern, “This is how we learn to imitate many aspects of the Christian tradition, copying their model. The Muktiveda never provides a patron for us to imitate but only offers principles to use according to our needs. I insist that there is nothing wrong with such prayers, where the number becomes more important than the prayer itself. For example, after a few days, you will begin to count and think about the remaining days in such prayers (if it involves fasting, then I need not mention the necessity of counting the days). What is so important about that number—even if we find it in the Muktiveda? It reflects the cultural expression of their religious activities, but there is nothing inherently special or holy about it. Even imitating certain sadhanas for forty days is quite normal in the Hindu world and is sometimes called ‘Mandalam.’ But a bhakta of the Lord should never think that there is a need to do it for a specific number of days just because such events are mentioned in the Muktiveda, like the Lord fasting for forty days or Christians observing Lent for forty days.
So, after you have completed the forty days, suppose you feel that you need to continue that prayer; what happens to the significance of the number 40? Or, due to some reason, if you have to stop after 35 days, will it be a failure? But if you believe that the intention of your prayers is to receive proper guidance from the Lord about sharing your bhakti with your parents, then God has already answered your prayer through our conversation. Now you know what you should or should not do. So, even before you start your 40 days of prayer, hasn’t God answered your prayer? Then, should you continue or abandon it?
We need some discipline in our lives, particularly when it comes to sadhana (spiritual discipline). But when discipline degenerates, it becomes legalism.
We need to distinguish between theoretical missiology and ground reality in India.
Db, Gurukulam, Revised on 2-6-2024
1 See more on this, Francis X. Clooney, SJ, The Future of Hindu-Christian Studies: A Theological Inquiry, New York, Routledge, 2017
2 P. 1 par 3 ‘…only if I am different, only if I am holy, can I exercise a Christian presence which is healing and redemptive.’
Here you have given real theological depth to the criticism of ‘identification’ which treats this as ‘identity’. So much talk of ‘identification’ makes no reference to holiness at all.
Oh! What a vast subject you have raised here! It could be a major contribution to current Missiology.—(Letter 389 2 March 1973).— Graham Kings, Christianity Connected: Hindus, Muslims and the World in the Letters of Max Warren and Roger Hooker by (New Delhi, 2002, Indian Edition, ISPCK, 2017) p. 313
–‘The Christian presence which is healing and redemptive’ is only an ideal missiology not a ground reality, at least in India.–db
3 Tom quoted it from another writer but never gives reference to it. He continues, “The thought of being sufficiently ‘deserving’ for any task at once makes us search our consciences and discover, no doubt all kinds of things which might well disqualify us for whatever task is at hand.”— Revelation for Everyone, ISPCK, New Delhi, 2015, Revelation, 5.1-7, p. 51.
Edited by Chatgpt
One constant challenge for some Hindu bhaktas is how to reveal to their family about their newfound bhakti in the Lord. I too faced a similar struggle and know several bhaktas who went through the same crisis. When this question arises, my general advice to such bhaktas is this:
1. Approach Gently: Never give any wrong impression in the beginning. Once you irritate or give a wrong impression, it becomes very difficult to change their attitude. Avoid using Christian technical terms that you learned from Christians or the church, as your parents may not understand them and those terms might not help you communicate properly. Don’t gather your family and bombard them with messages in the name of sharing your faith. You are not calling a board meeting to present your plan to them. Never preach; many converts think that preaching is the best way to present their bhakti in the Lord or witnessing. In other words, never use the Western method of sharing your faith. In India, it won’t work, especially with your own family members.
2. Live Your Bhakti: Go step by step through your life. Try to live a normal life as a child, but develop your own sadhana through which you can convey your bhakti in the Lord. For example, read Muktiveda every day even in the presence of your family members, but also keep a copy of the Gita and Quran. If they ask about it, tell them that you find very useful teachings in Muktiveda and are also interested in reading major scriptures of every faith. Spend a few minutes in prayer, even in front of your family shrine. Some may object to this, but it can be part of your sadhana while living with your parents.
3. Integrate, Don’t Separate: Don’t worship separately or have a separate personal shrine while living with your parents. Use the infrastructure that is part of the home for your sadhana. After marriage, when you start your own family, you can have a separate shrine.
While living with parents, you can read your scripture anywhere in the house—in the veranda, garden, etc. but doing it before the family puja room is the best way not to impress but have reverence for family tradition. Remember one can eat food sitting anywhere in the house, as many now do sitting before TV in the living room. But no one will eat it in the restroom or in the bathroom.
4. Avoid Imposing Views: Never try to push your views on them in the name of sharing your bhakti or preaching the gospel—especially to family members and particularly to your parents. The first thought that will come to their mind is, “This boy who walked nakedly before us is now preaching to us.” Don’t comfort yourself by saying “No prophet is accepted or respected in his own home.” That context is completely different.
5. Perform Your Dharma: Continue to do your dharma as a daughter, son, sister, brother, friend, and neighbor. Use any good opportunity for subtle dialogue. Don’t think that you should witness to the Lord only through your life because your family members know you well, and however much you try, you cannot impress them through your lives alone.
Understanding Witnessing
Here, I would like to share my view about this so-called “witnessing for the Lord.” We may think that through our life we are witnessing for the Lord, but the question is: Do our family members realize it or recognize it? They have never had this concept of “witnessing” for any god through one’s life. This concept is foreign in the Hindu context, where witnessing typically means becoming a witness in court.
Take me for example. I have served my parents faithfully as a son from the beginning. After becoming a bhakta of the Lord, I never tried to do anything to anyone as if I were witnessing to the Lord through my seva to them. My family views my seva to my mother as a natural dharma, not as an act of witnessing for the Lord. It’s an obligation, an inherent duty, not a special manifestation of the “Love of the Lord.” Serving my mother is not witnessing for the Lord but an opportunity given by God to serve her as her son.
When my brother visited us two weeks ago, during a conversation about suffering, he said, “I don’t know whether your Christianity believes in rebirth or not.” I politely told him, “I have nothing to do with Christianity.” I didn’t explain further because if he cannot understand after observing my life for over 38 years as a Hindu bhakta, what can I say about others? The moment we mention Jesus or Muktinath, the first thought that comes to a Hindu’s mind is Christianity. This negative impression is a historical reality. We need to help them understand our bhakti in a non-threatening way to avoid closing their hearts and minds.
Critique of Dialogue and Witnessing
Even the so-called “dialogue” arranged by Christians with Hindus is often seen as indirect evangelism. Hindus understand it as a subtle Christian preaching about their religion. In the secular world, when Hindus interact with people of other faiths, they don’t perceive it as Christians witnessing for their god. But any organized dialogue by Christians is seen as an attempt to preach their religion.1
We need to distinguish between theoretical missiology and ground reality in India. Christians may think they are witnessing or keeping a ‘Christian Presence’2 through dialogue, but Hindus perceive it differently. Understanding this difference is crucial for genuine and respectful interfaith interactions.
Traditional Christians may not understand that living as a witness for one’s god is not a common concept in Hindu families. Quoting bhakti saints like Meera, Thyagaraja, and Thukaram as examples of witnessing lives is misleading because their lives were elevated by followers or hagiographers after their passing, often to highlight their sanctity.
We need to unlearn many things from the Western or Westernized church if we want to live as normal Hindu bhaktas of Bhagavan Muktinath. Even many Hindu bhaktas have misunderstood this. But they are slowly realizing their mistakes, particularly when living with their families. It’s crucial to discard the false assumption of living as a silent witness for the Lord through our lives and seva to family members where such witnessing is neither understood nor recognized.
Witnessing to Our Own Consciousness
After writing this, I continued reflecting during my night walk. Does this mean there is no place or hope for witnessing in our life? The answer is yes, but this witnessing is to our own consciousness. It’s a benchmark for a bhakta to measure her bhakti when interacting with others. It helps her come to terms with her own failings and shortcomings. Thinking we live a witnessing life for others can become a burden and unsustainable. Witnessing should remind us of our moral failings, as Tom Wright says, “we are all overdrawn at the moral bank.”3 Witnessing for the Lord should be a personal measure, not an external burden.
Conclusion
When a new Hindu bhakta requested that I pray for him as he began forty days of prayer to share his devotion to the Lord with his family members, I shared my views, which I recorded above. I then told him, with real concern, “This is how we learn to imitate many aspects of the Christian tradition, copying their model. The Muktiveda never provides a patron for us to imitate but only offers principles to use according to our needs. I insist that there is nothing wrong with such prayers, where the number becomes more important than the prayer itself. For example, after a few days, you will begin to count and think about the remaining days in such prayers (if it involves fasting, then I need not mention the necessity of counting the days). What is so important about that number—even if we find it in the Muktiveda? It reflects the cultural expression of their religious activities, but there is nothing inherently special or holy about it. Even imitating certain sadhanas for forty days is quite normal in the Hindu world and is sometimes called ‘Mandalam.’ But a bhakta of the Lord should never think that there is a need to do it for a specific number of days just because such events are mentioned in the Muktiveda, like the Lord fasting for forty days or Christians observing Lent for forty days.
So, after you have completed the forty days, suppose you feel that you need to continue that prayer; what happens to the significance of the number 40? Or, due to some reason, if you have to stop after 35 days, will it be a failure? But if you believe that the intention of your prayers is to receive proper guidance from the Lord about sharing your bhakti with your parents, then God has already answered your prayer through our conversation. Now you know what you should or should not do. So, even before you start your 40 days of prayer, hasn’t God answered your prayer? Then, should you continue or abandon it?
We need some discipline in our lives, particularly when it comes to sadhana (spiritual discipline). But when discipline degenerates, it becomes legalism.
We need to distinguish between theoretical missiology and ground reality in India.
Db, Gurukulam, Revised on 2-6-2024
1 See more on this, Francis X. Clooney, SJ, The Future of Hindu-Christian Studies: A Theological Inquiry, New York, Routledge, 2017
2 P. 1 par 3 ‘…only if I am different, only if I am holy, can I exercise a Christian presence which is healing and redemptive.’
Here you have given real theological depth to the criticism of ‘identification’ which treats this as ‘identity’. So much talk of ‘identification’ makes no reference to holiness at all.
Oh! What a vast subject you have raised here! It could be a major contribution to current Missiology.—(Letter 389 2 March 1973).— Graham Kings, Christianity Connected: Hindus, Muslims and the World in the Letters of Max Warren and Roger Hooker by (New Delhi, 2002, Indian Edition, ISPCK, 2017) p. 313
–‘The Christian presence which is healing and redemptive’ is only an ideal missiology not a ground reality, at least in India.–db
3 Tom quoted it from another writer but never gives reference to it. He continues, “The thought of being sufficiently ‘deserving’ for any task at once makes us search our consciences and discover, no doubt all kinds of things which might well disqualify us for whatever task is at hand.”— Revelation for Everyone, ISPCK, New Delhi, 2015, Revelation, 5.1-7, p. 51.
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