Edited by Chatgpt
When I read commentaries and books explaining in detail about the text and the background, I am often overwhelmed by them. To confess the fact, they create a kind of inner dryness, though they appeal a lot to my intellectual needs. Particularly when I read about any verses in Muktiveda, which have so many complications considering the historicity versus theology, I simply accept the riddle and paradox rather than try to understand it with logical rationalism [see Teaching versus Preaching about drowning two thousands pig] . At the same time, I cannot deny the fact that when I read any commentary attempting to do that, I am forced to agree with it. However, that kind of interpretation and explanation only creates more dryness within me. So, as I faced such dryness after reading such commentary, unable to overcome it, I just prayed to the Lord to remove it. As I began to contemplate and pray, the first line of this poem echoed in my mind, and I wrote this [BT 856, also see following songs 857-860] song as my prayer.
As I already shared in the article: Teaching versus Preaching, every Scripture was written in a particular social and cultural context. Though it is important to understand the intended purpose of the author(s) who wrote them and to interpret keeping that particular historical context in mind, when we try to apply it to our contemporary need and for our personal bhakti, we should do it according to the needs of our socio-cultural background. Any strict literal interpretation of any scripture will never serve its purpose. Though scholarship, particularly in Exegesis, keeps an academic discipline, unless it addresses non-academician needs, both non-academic intellectuals and laypeople, it will remain mere Intellectual Entertainment for a selected few Academicians, only adding a new feather to their old cap writing many books and providing publishing houses with good business. In this regard, the book by Francis X. Clooney, SJ, The Future of Hindu-Christian Studies: A Theological Inquiry [London, Routledge, 2017] helps us understand the need to balance academic discipline versus contemporary needs of the people. Recognizing this need, he himself wrote, ‘…the boundaries of academia cannot be hard and fast, so as to exclude non-academics from the conversation.’ (p.106). But the problem with academia is that, by setting its own boundaries and creating their own rules, they try to ignore the world outside them. They remain a closed community living in their own Ivory Tower. When I read the preface and the credit they give to other scholars who helped them write that particular book, I can see only the list of all fellow academicians and scholars, not many or few non-academicians. From my own personal experience, I can say a lot about it. But there is no need for it as the academic scholars continue to ignore us, and we never seek their companionship in our pilgrimage in our bhakti. But what Walls says in this context is correct that ‘The domestic tasks of Third World theology are going to be so basic, so vital, that there will be little time for the barren sterile, time-wasting by-paths, into which so much Western theology and theological {academic} research has gone in recent years. Theology in the Third World will be, as theology at all creative times has always been, about doing things, about things that deeply affect the lives of numbers of people.’ [emphasis original] —Andrew F. Walls, The Missionary Movement In Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith, New York Orbis Books, (1996), Tenth Printing, 2005, p. 10
Gurukulam
26-5-2024
Edited by Chatgpt
When I read commentaries and books explaining in detail about the text and the background, I am often overwhelmed by them. To confess the fact, they create a kind of inner dryness, though they appeal a lot to my intellectual needs. Particularly when I read about any verses in Muktiveda, which have so many complications considering the historicity versus theology, I simply accept the riddle and paradox rather than try to understand it with logical rationalism [see Teaching versus Preaching about drowning two thousands pig] . At the same time, I cannot deny the fact that when I read any commentary attempting to do that, I am forced to agree with it. However, that kind of interpretation and explanation only creates more dryness within me. So, as I faced such dryness after reading such commentary, unable to overcome it, I just prayed to the Lord to remove it. As I began to contemplate and pray, the first line of this poem echoed in my mind, and I wrote this [BT 856, also see following songs 857-860] song as my prayer.
As I already shared in the article: Teaching versus Preaching, every Scripture was written in a particular social and cultural context. Though it is important to understand the intended purpose of the author(s) who wrote them and to interpret keeping that particular historical context in mind, when we try to apply it to our contemporary need and for our personal bhakti, we should do it according to the needs of our socio-cultural background. Any strict literal interpretation of any scripture will never serve its purpose. Though scholarship, particularly in Exegesis, keeps an academic discipline, unless it addresses non-academician needs, both non-academic intellectuals and laypeople, it will remain mere Intellectual Entertainment for a selected few Academicians, only adding a new feather to their old cap writing many books and providing publishing houses with good business. In this regard, the book by Francis X. Clooney, SJ, The Future of Hindu-Christian Studies: A Theological Inquiry [London, Routledge, 2017] helps us understand the need to balance academic discipline versus contemporary needs of the people. Recognizing this need, he himself wrote, ‘…the boundaries of academia cannot be hard and fast, so as to exclude non-academics from the conversation.’ (p.106). But the problem with academia is that, by setting its own boundaries and creating their own rules, they try to ignore the world outside them. They remain a closed community living in their own Ivory Tower. When I read the preface and the credit they give to other scholars who helped them write that particular book, I can see only the list of all fellow academicians and scholars, not many or few non-academicians. From my own personal experience, I can say a lot about it. But there is no need for it as the academic scholars continue to ignore us, and we never seek their companionship in our pilgrimage in our bhakti. But what Walls says in this context is correct that ‘The domestic tasks of Third World theology are going to be so basic, so vital, that there will be little time for the barren sterile, time-wasting by-paths, into which so much Western theology and theological {academic} research has gone in recent years. Theology in the Third World will be, as theology at all creative times has always been, about doing things, about things that deeply affect the lives of numbers of people.’ [emphasis original] —Andrew F. Walls, The Missionary Movement In Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith, New York Orbis Books, (1996), Tenth Printing, 2005, p. 10
Gurukulam
26-5-2024
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