Assignment on

Is Jesus an Advaitin? Bring out perspectives of one Indian Christian theologian who
considers Jesus as Advaitin.

Submitted To: Rev. A.G. Jude Submitted by: Paogoulen Haokip BD 3

Outline

1. Introduction

2. Brief Life Sketch of Swami Abhishiktananda

3. Advaitic experience of Abhishiktananda

3.1 Nature Advaitic experience

3.2 Non dual perception

4. Tangible presence of Absolute in creature

5. The divine mysterious in God head

5.1 The Mystery of Unity or Advaita

5.2 The Mystery of Charity or of the kenosis

5.3 The Mystery of Trinity or of an-eka

6. Jesus as Advaitin and its characteristic

7. Character lies of Advaitic experience

8. Reflect as experience of wholeness

9. Conclusion

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 1. Introduction

Many years have passed since Abhishiktananda attained his ever cherished Advaita Samadhi
(non-dual union) and went on to inspire a generation of Indian Christian theologians. His arrival
in India and the path he dared to choose generated powerful currents, waves and ripples in the
Indian subcontinent as well as around the world. In this paper we are going to look the life, the
advaitic experience, tangible presence of Absolute in creature, the divine mysterious in God
head, some of the characteristic and experience of wholeness.

2. Brief Life Sketch of Swami Abhishiktananda

The original name of swami Abhishktananda was Henri Le Saux. He was born in Brittanya,
France in the year 1910. In 1929, at the age of 19, Le Saux joined the monastery of St. Anne
de Kergonan and became a professional monk in 1931. In 1935 he was ordained a priest. After
spending 18 years as a Benedictine monk, he felt a call to go to India, to live the life of an
Indian Sanyasi. His life in the Benedictine monastry at Kergonan was an excellent preparation
for leading the life of a Sanyasi and to make experiments in Indian Sanyasa. As Immanuel
Vattakkuzhi writes in Indian Christian Sanyasa and Swami Abhishiktananda: “Before leaving
France, he had prepared the fertile soil of his heart for the seeds of the Indian Sanyasa. He had
given to study Sanskrit and Tamil already in France. His Benedictine background provided him
ample facility for adaptation of Indian Sanyasa because of it’s complementarily.”1

3. Advaitic experience of Abhishiktananda

Christianity presents itself to the world as the Supreme message from God to mankind and it
is a Christian imperative that whatever one finds as true, beautiful and good should be
integrated into the Christian heritage. Abhishiktananda does not think that an integration of
Advaitic experience into Christian experience is beyond the reach of the Spirit.
Abhishiktananda's Advaita Vedanta is an attempt to reformulate the Vedantic experience
before it is integrated with the Christian experience. He argues that if Christianity is unable to
integrate it in the light of a higher truth, the inference must follow that Advaita includes and
surpasses the truth of Christianity and operates on a higher level. For Abhishiktananda, the
unity of the atman with Brahaman is the deepest spiritual experience and for him, this is not
different from the experience of the Trinity. According to Abhishiktananda, Advaita is a pure

1
M. Stephen, A Christian Theology in the Indian Context (Delhi:ISPCK,2001), 59

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experience of God beyond notions and categories. He realized it in his own person with his
deep roots in the Gospel. When one realizes Advaita in its plenitude one gets the pure
experience of simply “to be”. He transcends every expression and every other form. He can
only say, “I am” or “I am just that”. Since there is an indescribable oneness between the advaitin
and God, he said thereis only “one vision and one visionary”.2

3.1 Nature Advaitic experience

Abhishiktananda understood his experience as advaitic but not monistic, whereas the Western
interpretation of Advaita was often monistic. Abhishiktananda insisted that although the
advaitic vision is that of ‘not two’ (non-dual), the advaitic experience is not that of ‘only one’
(monism). He insists that the experience is neither dvaita [two] nor eka [one] but a-dvaita [non-
dual] and an-eka [not one], which gives value both to unity and diversity simultaneously.
According to Abhishiktananda, the advaitic experience of Jesus is equally available to every
human being. He believed that the early Upanishads report a similar experience to that of Jesus,
as expressed in Jesus’ declaration that he and the Father are one. As per the non-monistic
Advaita proposed by Abhishiktananda, the world is not an illusion. According to him, the
monistic interpretation of Advaita developed only at a later stage as a result of the ‘dialectics’
of the disciples of Sankara.3

His supreme Reality cannot be adequately represented by any concept. The ascent to the Real
is by way of pure negation “neti, neti”, “not this, not this” – the negation of all that passes
away, all that is only appearance, and which therefore cannot be the Real in itself. In the Real
there is neither duality nor difference. The supreme experience is of pure non-duality, and there
alone truth is found.4

3.2 Non dual perception

Abhishiktananda held the view that the world is not totally unreal. The world is anirvacaniya
or indescribable and indeterminable as either real or unreal. We are actually experiencing the
Reality; yet, we do not recognise it. As a result of our ignorance, we are unable to see Brahman
in the universe. At all times our actual perception (experience) is of Brahman, even though we
are often ignorant of it and incorrectly identify it. There are two possibilities: a false perception

2
Laji Chacko, Introduction to Christian Theologies in India (Kolkata: SCEPTRE, 2014), 158.
3
C. Kourie & A. Kurian, “Abhishiktananda: A Christian advaitin,” HTS Teologiese Studies/
Theological Studies 67, no. 3 (2011) http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/hts.v67i3.1054 Accessed on 04/04/22
4
Chacko, Introduction to Christian Theologies in India, 159.

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and a true non-dual perception. The ignorant do not see Brahman in the universe because of
superimposition or savikalpa thought construction.5

Non-dual perception is ‘going beyond’ the distinction of self and non-self. It is not a denial of
such a distinction. Abhishiktananda continued to regard distinctions as real. In experience, the
duality of object and subject is transcended. To transcend the distinction does not necessarily
mean to deny that it exists. The advaitic experience is not replacing one concept with another.
‘It is not a question of trying to persuade oneself that no differences exist’. That would be to
deny our experience in the name of logic. Abhishiktananda criticised the followers of Sankara
who, by their rigid application of concepts, deny the reality of the world. He also extends the
same criticism to Nagarjuna’s dialectic, which denies subject as well as object.6

This is a clear statement of Abhishiktananda’s view of a non-dual perception of the world,

seeing Brahman everywhere and within all things. The jnani does not discover anything new
as a result of this enlightenment. The jnani just sees reality in all its glory and penetrates to the
essence of things and there discovers Yahweh-Brahman, ‘the One who IS’. Abhishiktananda
was fully aware that his ideas of a further awakening and communion reflect Christian ideas.
He tried to discover in the Christian Advaita something beyond Vedantin Advaita7

4. Tangible presence of Absolute in creature

According to Abhishiktananda, everything is a manifestation of God, but in its own unique

way. What is important are not the differences and disparities between the manifold
manifestations, but the quality common to all of them and to each of them in a unique manner
of being a sign of God. This extends from oneself to every conscious being that has ever existed
or will exist, from the atom or the smallest living creature to the galaxies. Abhishiktananda
does not deny that there are distinctions and unique manifestations of Being, but what is
important is 'the common quality' to them all, that they all have the same 'taste' of Being. It is
more important to recognise that God is present in all things than to try to understand how this
is so. This is why the anjali [folded hands] greeting can be made, acknowledging God in other
people. Whilst Abhishiktananda was meditating in the caves of Arunachala, he was disturbed
by noise from loudspeakers that were set up in the town below. In his diary he writes that even
that noise may be perceived as God He considered seeing God in other people or creatures the

5
C. Kourie & A. Kurian, “Abhishiktananda: A Christian advaitin, p-4
6
C. Kourie & A. Kurian, “Abhishiktananda: A Christian advaitin,” p-5
7
C. Kourie & A. Kurian, “Abhishiktananda: A Christian advaitin,” p-6

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same as prayer. For Abhishiktananda, to see all things with eyes enlightened by faith all things
created by the Father to help humanity in its ascent towards him is also nothing less than prayer
and contemplation. The presence of God in everything leads us to God. But the presence of
God is also seen after the awakening. The presence of God will therefore be the first thing
which the jnani will see in everything he sees or meets with. It is the first thing also which the
ordinary man sees in the saint whose darshana he has the grace to obtain.8

5. The divine mysterious in God head

Abhishiktananda says that there are three divine abysses or mysteries that we successively
discover in God. They are-

5.1 The Mystery of Unity or Advaita

Abhishiktananda asserts that God and creation co-exist and the basis of this co-existence is a
‘mystery’. Despite this co-existence, one can also say that there is no second to God (ekam eva
advitiyam) because of the totally dependent nature of the existence of creation.
Abhishiktananda frequently uses the idea of ‘mystery’ to justify holding to both the view that
only Brahman is Real, and the view that the world is real. ‘Mystery’ is an experience beyond
what can be spoken, imagined or conceived. The mystery is that there is both non-duality and
difference, ‘The individual is the mystery of God realized in a not-one (aneka) way in its
indivisibility as undivided non-duality (akhanda-Advaita)’. According to Abhishiktananda, the
two aspects of the divine mystery - unity and multiplicity (Advaita and aneka) are inseparable.
Both ideas must be maintained in full force and one should not be diminished in order to exalt
the other.9

5.2 The Mystery of Trinity or of an-eka

The Christian understanding of the Trinity inspired Abhishiktananda’s non-monistic

understanding of Advaita. It encouraged him to affirm unity in diversity, or transcendence in
immanence. However, his interpretation of the Trinity was unorthodox. According to him, the
Father, who is ekam advitiyam, One-without-a-Second, gives himself in love in the process of
kenosis in manifesting the world or Son. This process is the evolution from the One. The Spirit

8
Kalliath, A. The word in the cave: The experiential journey of Swami Abhishiktananda to the point of
Hindu-Christian meeting, Intercultural Publications, New Delhi. 1996.
9
Karuvelil, G. ‘Mysticism, language and truth’, Journal of Dharma 35(3), 2010. 259−275.

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is the unity between Father and Son and brings us back into unity in the process of involution
until God is again all in all. Abhishiktananda calls this the Pleroma.10

5.3 The Mystery of Charity or of the kenosis

The Mystery of kenosis is that of the eternal emergence of being from the primordial non-
manifested. God has chosen to have creation, not to be without it. Creation is the kenosis of
God, the self-emptying in love, the issuing from the One. Abhishiktananda says that this
kenosis entails a real death of God. There is a movement from God as One without a Second
to God as Creator and God as Love, which is a kenotic process. God no longer has the attributes
of kevala [absolute], ekatva [oneness] or Advaita [non-duality]. Abhishiktananda wonders
whether we can still say that God exists after this kenosis. The kenosis is a giving of God’s
self. This is why no one has ever seen the Father, but only the Son. Now it is in and through
creation that God manifests Godself. The world comes from God and it returns to God. Because
of this dependence on God, maya is neither being nor non-being. The world is on its way
towards God, like Christ, passing to the Father. There is no maya in the strict sense of the word,
except for those who separate the universe from its ground and who separate the aspects of
‘being’ and ‘becoming’ in the divine nature.11

6. Jesus as Advaitin and its characteristic

Swami says that “Christ is the Unique- it is through him that we see all the theophanice. He is
the end of them, their pleroma wonderful, but from the standpoint of enternity, the brilliance
of the paramartha overcasts all scale of values on the level of vyavahara! Our cosmic Christ,
the all-embracing I svara, the purusha of the Veda/ Upanishads and not rather say that Jesus
is the theophany for us, the Bible-believers, of that unnameable mystery of the manifestation,
always tending beyond itself, since Brahman transcends all its manifestation?” That is Jesus
is a person who has totally discovered, realized his mystery. Jesus is saviour by virtue of having
realized his name. He has shown and has spent the way out of samsara beyond the heavens-
which is the mystery of the Father. In discovering the father, he has not found an ‘other’ I and
the father are one. In the Holy Spirit, he has discovered his non-duality with Yahweh, it is the
Spirit that is the link, the non-duality. It is this way that Jesus ‘saves.’ So, there’s an advaitic
communion with the Father.12 Some of the Characteristics of Jesus as Advaitin - Jesus as

10
Katz, S. Mysticism and philosophical analysis, Sheldon Press, London, 1978.
11
Katz, S. Mysticism and language, Oxford University Press, Oxford. 1992
12
Swami Abhishiktananda, Ascent to the Death of the Heart (Delhi: ISPCK, 1998), 379.

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Advaitin brings portrays deepest Mystery of Father who said, I AM, the pure being of non-
duality, is interiorized and is seen as one with the Godhead.13

7. Reflect as experience of wholeness

We find an ongoing experience of inner struggle that is a conflict between what is called the
“goodself”, that is, whatever fosters selflessness and nonduality, and the “badself” understood
as various aspects of the everyday “selfish” egotism of the separate self. This arguably
strengthens the sense of individual self and separation, and is thus presumably inimical to
nondual spiritual realization. This inner division can begin to be healed by understanding “the
nature of the division in oneself, including how both sides need each other to exist. So, one has
to be conscious of the split and its ramifications, which would make it easier not to be
mechanically driven by it.14

So, in short, in ones’ acceptance and self-trust, with a view is to re-establish a sense of
wholeness rather than continuing the inner struggle. Non duality is the recognition that our
consciousness and our being are not separate from all of reality, which is experience of
wholeness. Dualism is a fixed state of separation between subject and object. Duality is more
of a dynamic flow, a play between self and other.15 This is what the experience of wholeness
is.

8. Conclusion

As we have seen, Abhishiktananda was a monk, mystic and bridge builder. He made an
important observation that although ‘Advaita’ means ‘not-two’, it does not mean ‘only one.’
In other words, Advaita is not monism. This allows for a distinction between God and created
reality whilst still affirming their unity. He knew that, doctrinally, Advaita and Christianity
contradict each other and there is no way to combine or resolve these doctrinal expressions.
However, he believed that the experience of Advaita transcends conceptual expression.
Therefore Abhishiktananda made himself a laboratory of spiritual transformation to prove that
Advaita is not in conflict with Christian doctrine. Abhishiktananda’s greatness lies in having

13
Sebastian C. H. Kim, ed. Christian Theology in Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2008), 35-36.
14
Tom Gibbons, Oneness in Everyday Life Nonduality Wholeness and Human Life After, November
2019. 14-15.
15
Tom Gibbons, Oneness in Everyday Life Nonduality Wholeness and Human Life After, November
2019. 16

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lived, within himself, the symbiosis of two traditions, the Hindu and the Christian, in such a
real way that both became part of himself, without his ever being able to reject or disown either.

9. Bibliography

C. Kourie & A. Kurian, “Abhishiktananda: A Christian advaitin,” HTS Teologiese Studies/

Theological Studies 67, no. 3 (2011) http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/hts.v67i3.1054

Kalliath, A. The word in the cave: The experiential journey of Swami Abhishiktananda to the
point of Hindu-Christian meeting, Intercultural Publications, New Delhi. 1996
Karuvelil, G. ‘Mysticism, language and truth’, Journal of Dharma 35(3), 2010.
Katz, S. Mysticism and language, Oxford University Press, Oxford. 1992
Katz, S. Mysticism and philosophical analysis, Sheldon Press, London, 1978
Laji Chacko, Introduction to Christian Theologies in India. Kolkata: SCEPTRE, 2014.

M. Stephen, A Christian Theology in the Indian Context. Delhi: ISPCK, 2001.

Sebastian C. H. Kim, ed. Christian Theology in Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2008.
Swami Abhishiktananda, Ascent to the Death of the Heart. Delhi: ISPCK, 1998.
Tom Gibbons, Oneness in Everyday Life Nonduality Wholeness and Human Life After,
November 2019.

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