The past three weeks have been terrible for many reasons, from the ongoing destruction in the Ukraine to another mass murder in this country, this time in Lewiston, Maine, We are especially aware of the suffering people in Israel and Palestine, those severely wounded, and those grieving the loss of loved ones. From afar, so many are living in a state of great anxiety, worrying helplessly about family and friends at risk. But the rest of us too live in an altered state, burdened by gloom and worry agitated further by the static of a flow of public statements denouncing the violence in a less or more even-handed manner, often assigning blame. Such statements in turn are condemned for not assigning blame correctly or comprehensively, and we are clearly uncomfortable with one another too. I have been at Harvard Divinity School almost twenty years, and have not seen the community so divided, on edge.
One day last week a student told me that he was greatly disappointed that the loudest noise at HDS was the cry of denunciation, words shouted in anger. He said he had expected a more and spiritual conversation in a divinity school. On another day, a faculty member pondered aloud, at a public meeting, how or whether his own discipline mattered at all in the current crisis.
So how ought we be and act in a school that is, after all, really still a seminary? What do our disciplines, our teaching and studying, have to do with the troubled times in which we live? As a divinity school professor who teaches classical Hindu traditions and engages in Catholic-Hindu comparative theological reflection, I have once again had to ask myself whether my work matters, and how it matters now. Such questions and worries are close to so many of us, shadowing our days and nights. They have crowded into my prayer again and again.
Now I do believe that my teaching and research do matter — in the long run — even if on any given day the fruits may seem scarce. The past weeks have impressed this on me all the more, as I reflect simply on what I have been teaching.
I am teaching a course called “Krishna and Christ” — with the apt subtitle, “Does It Matter?” That is, does the centuries-old debate regarding the similarities between the Christ and Krishna stories still matter? What is at stake in comparing deities, seeming presences of God on earth? Such questions can be abstract mental exercises, but they can also matter. For instance, in the section of the course that has just concluded, I have been exploring the teachings of Jesus and Krishna, the possibility of living in accord with their teachings, and the wisdom of imitating them. We were reading the Sermon on the Mount, chapters 5-7 of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, along with chapters 3-5 of the Bhagavad Gita.
The Sermon is given over to Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of God. Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the peacemakers and those who strives for justice. Not only do not kill, but do not get angry; not only do not commit adultery, but do not lust; not only do not strike back at your enemies, but love your enemies, turn the other check. Trust entirely in God, who cares for you as he cares for the birds of the air, the lilies of the field. Pray, fast, give alms, in quiet, unnoticed ways. In other words, be even now a citizen of God’s kingdom on earth.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna teaches Arjuna the path of detached action, how to cultivate a disposition free of anger, lust, hatred, attachments, and with equanimity. He wants Arjuna, a great warrior, to get up and fight, but with utter detachment, without anger, only for the greater good. The ideal is stark and to the point:
"For a human being who should have enjoyment only in the Self, who should be satisfied with the Self, and who should be content in the Self, there is nothing left to be done.
"For such persons indeed there is no purpose in any action done or not done here on earth. They have no dependence on any being for any purpose.
"Therefore, always perform unattached the deed to be done. The person performing action while being unattached attains the Supreme." (Bhagavad Gita 3.17-19, Feuerstein translation, slightly adapted.)
Our deepest selves are untouched by the passing joys and sorrows of this life — and how then, chastened and purified, one is to plunge back into life and do one’s duty, as a priest or warrior, teacher or student, mother or father.
Such teachings, overlapping though still different, pose to me and my students the challenge of what kind of persons we are and want to be. No anger, no desire, no anxiety, utter trust in God: such deep and difficult ideals are not achieved overnight, as if on schedule. Dare we take the time to look into our hearts, and pray that we be purified and made ready, not just to confront the current crisis, but every crisis that follows in a long or short life?
In class, we also discussed further passages in Matthew where Jesus repeated predicts his own passion and death, and invites his closest disciples to take up their crosses and follow him: what does this meaning in 2023, and dare we pick up the cross? We also discussed passages in the Krishna tradition of the Bhagavata Purana, where people come to experience a love for Krishna so intense that they want to dance with him, as if being near to him is the only worthy goal. Dare we think of carrying the cross, or dancing with Krishna, in these fiery, angry days of October 2023?
I could give other examples of how I find in my teaching examples of the wisdom we need right now. I am teaching Introduction to the Upanisads, ancient Indian texts from between 1000 BCE and 300 BCE. Again and again, they too teach spiritual detachment, not for its own sake or in denial of the body, but in order to highlight and intensify a recognition of the sacredness of everything, the deeper life that trumps all dying. Be Self-centered, let go of all else, and you will become the kind of person who carry out greater service for the world around you. Readers will think of many other texts in other traditions that can matter dramatically today.
I am also a Catholic priest, and this Sunday’s readings [October 29] also shift our priorities. Matthew 22 simplifies and distills tradition and law to two great commandments:
"You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
We tend to notice the second commandment immediately. What that love in action means is made all too clear in the first reading, from Exodus 22:
"Thus says the Lord: You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt. You shall not wrong any widow or orphan. If ever you wrong them and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry. My wrath will flare up, and I will kill you with the sword; then your own wives will be widows, and your children orphans… If you take your neighbor's cloak as a pledge, you shall return it to him before sunset; for this cloak of his is the only covering he has for his body. What else has he to sleep in? If he cries out to me, I will hear him; for I am compassionate."
So much real, actual loving of the neighbor that we are commanded to undertake. Yet at a divinity school, we cannot forget that first commandment: love God entirely, without reserve. Why? because loving God without reserve opens the floodgates of compassion for our neighbors in trouble. Can we take the time to pray for the grace to love God completely, in an all-consuming way?
Pope Francis called on all Catholics in the world to dedicate today, Friday October 27, to prayer and fasting for peace in Israel and Palestine:
"We have tried so many times and over so many years to resolve our conflicts by our own powers and by the force of our arms. How many moments of hostility and darkness have we experienced; how much blood has been shed; how many lives have been shattered; how many hopes have been buried… But our efforts have been in vain.
"Now, Lord, come to our aid! Grant us peace, teach us peace; guide our steps in the way of peace. Open our eyes and our hearts, and give us the courage to say: 'Never again war!'; "With war everything is lost". Instill in our hearts the courage to take concrete steps to achieve peace."
You can read here Pope Francis' whole prayer.
Perhaps what HDS really needs is a day of atonement: a stopping of the normal flow of things, a day of fasting, self-scrutiny, prayer voices in all our faith traditions, for a just peace and enduring reconciliation grounded in the confession of our own sins, our own prayers for atonement. Then we can take up again our work of teaching and studying all the more efficaciously, for the betterment of the world, the ending of suffering, the opening of our minds and hearts to the mystery of God that surrounds us even in October, 2023.
