RELIGION, RELEVANCE AND INTERRELIGIOUS EDUCATION Francis X. D Sa

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1 2002_c Religion, Relevance and Interreligious Education. Preface to Clemens Mendonca, Dynamics of Symbol and Dialogue: Interreligious Education in India. The Relevance of Raimon Panikkar s Intercultural Challenge. Tübinger Perspektiven zur Pastoraltheologie und Religionspädagogik Bd.13 (Münster: Lit Verlag, 2002), vi-xii. RELIGION, RELEVANCE AND INTERRELIGIOUS EDUCATION Francis X. D Sa The context in which Christians in India find themselves and to which Clemens Mendonca s book attempts to respond interreligiously can be said to have three important features: a secular constitution of the Indian nation, an ancient tradition of religious pluralism and the stress on history and the historical dimension both in the self-understanding of the Christian Churches and in their proclamation. Because of the secular nature of the Indian Constitution India does not have any state religion. There is however a constitutional safeguard against discrimination of any sort against any religion. The interpretation of India as a secular state promotes equal respect for all religions. One of the consequences of such an interpretation of secularity is that no official programme of religious instruction in the schools is either prescribed or offered like, for instance, what one sees in some of the European countries where it is the Government s task to ensure religious instruction for all students who want it in the schools. Whatever religious education the religious communities would like to impart to their adherents has to be provided by these communities themselves, independently of the Government machinery. This has advantages as well as disadvantages. The main advantage is that religions maintain their independence in their internal affairs and Government interference is obviated from the very beginning. But the disadvantage is that the schools, the official place of education for children and youth, provide a species of education that is devoid of any kind of religious instruction. Official educational programmes remain permanently divorced from religion and deepen the impression that education has little or nothing to do with religion and vice versa. Secondly, though not directly connected with this but all the same of relevance to it is the fact of the plurality of religions in India. India is the home of the manifold Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh and the primal religions and has become home to Christianity, Islam and Zoroastrianism. Though the history of the interaction between these traditions has been remarkably peaceful, sporadic and some bloody conflicts have not been altogether absent. But generally speaking Indians and Indian religions, compared to the Christian traditions in the West have manifested admirable tolerance. However the present situation is rapidly changing. In all honesty one must admit that the atmosphere today seems to point towards deepening of mutual suspicion and the growth of intolerance. Fundamentalistic tendencies are everywhere on the increase and the spontaneous and symbiotic living together of earlier times, one feels, is decidedly on the decrease. The third characteristic of the Indian situation is that the Christian traditions are seeped in historical consciousness and therefore have developed a self-understanding that makes them stand out like oil and water among the Indian religions. The articulations of their message are intelligible only in a world of historical consciousness. In itself there is nothing wrong about it except that Christian pockets of historical consciousness are surrounded by oceans of nonhistorical consciousness of the Indian religions. Here is the root of the traditional inability of the Christian traditions to communicate meaningfully with other traditions with a different kind of time-consciousness. The religions of India have grown up in the soil of nonhistorical consciousness where history, though not denied, is an aspect of human bondage. The

2 argument that history has to do with truth and religions that do not swear by history are mythological will no more sell today. Every consciousness is at home in a mythic abode of its own. Whereas religions like the Hindu traditions may stress the past and live in the myth of the past (nonhistorical consciousness), religions like the Christian traditions look forward to the future and live in the myth of the future (historical consciousness). Religions interested in dialogue need to find out how and where historical consciousness can meet nonhistorical consciousness. In such a context any attempt at proclamation, if it is to be relevant, must take into account these three factors. As far as possible, proclamation has to be such that it can be understood by the other religious traditions. For this it is first necessary that one takes them seriously; that is, that one tries to understand their proclamation. There is need here of a bridge for mutual understanding. A bridge does not remove the gap between the two shores but it offers an open passage to those who are interested in moving from one shore to the other. One becomes familiar with the other, that is, one begins to share in the family of the other. This however has nothing to do with either relativising or levelling down religions. Before one talks of any kind of proclamation, from whichever side, there is the prior point then of understanding each other. Religions have to learn to communicate with and understand each other. By its very nature, any proclamation, Christian or Hindu, has to be intelligible not only to those of the household but also to those not of the household. In any genuine understanding of proclamation dialogue is not an optional excursus but an essential ingredient. In dialogue we can hear also (that is, only if we have ears to hear) the echo of our proclamation and come to know how our proclamation sounds. In dialogue we are made aware of how the dialogue partners understand (or misunderstand) what we proclaim. That is why, in dialogue all of us can learn through trial and error - how to speak and communicate in a way that our partners can really understand us and we them. What is of interest to Clemens Mendonca in this context is interreligious dialogue, the kind of dialogue where religions not merely discuss and clarify their stand-points ( dialectical dialogue in Panikkar s way of speaking) but also learn to share and commune ( dialogical dialogue in Panikkar s language). In the latter kind of dialogue, sharing and witnessing take on an importance that can only be called revelatory. Dialogue is primarily not about what we believe but about who we as believers are. The believing aspect becomes extremely important. Not the head-level kind of belief that requires intellectual assent but believing as a way of being. Where the witnessing aspect is missing, dialogue gets stuck in discussions and therefore does not make any headway. If dialectical dialogue takes place at the head level, dialogical dialogue brings in the level of the heart. The former deals with information but the latter leads to transformation. Mendonca s concern throughout is to maintain an approach that is holistic. Modern hermeneutics has highlighted the important difference between information and understanding. But our age does not appear to have assimilated much of this and therefore it has not been unduly affected by it, judging from the way information is ruling the roost in almost every sphere of life, not least in that of religion. Though information is only the threshold of understanding we mostly choose to pitch our tent just there. However when information affects our person it leads to understanding. Understanding introduces a change in our being, a change in the relationship of our being-in-the-world. To understand is to be differently in the world, corresponding to the depth and width of our understanding. True, the realm of religion is par excellence the realm of faith but faith presupposes understanding

3 Though faith has to do with what makes sense and what gives meaning to life, it is built on the ground work of understanding. Whereas understanding has to do with an aspect of our life faith has to do with meaning in life as a whole. That is why the realm of faith is not only more comprehensive than that of understanding but it also determines our very understanding, though of course it is equally true that understanding in turn shapes the world of faith. But this does not jeopardize the comprehensive character of faith. Thus, for example, the holy cow is part of the pluriverse of Hindu belief where this belief is at home and therefore makes sense. Its centre is located in the universe of faith. A Hindu s understanding of cow then is not first and foremost an objective biological cognition of a female bovine species, though there is no denying that such a cognition can (and does) later on come to be formulated in certain circumstances. On the one side, the overarching framework of faith remains valid but on the other, the expression of faith is inevitably projected in and through the world of understanding. There is no expression of faith outside the world of understanding. But it is to the universe of faith that the world of understanding is subservient, not the other way round. Clemens Mendonca begins her study with Raimon Panikkar s vision of reality where she discusses his theanthropocosmic or cosmotheandric intuition, symbol and symbolized, the universe of faith and the pluriverse of belief, advaitic pluralism and the different kinds of dialogue. This makes sense because the whole project of dialogue is not about beliefs in themselves in the first place (as if beliefs existed in themselves!) but about a comprehensive vision of reality. Panikkar s cosmotheandric vision intends to address the problem of meaning in life not just for believers but for all people of good will. It takes into account the scientific world-view, the secular but authentic values of our age, the human search for meaning and the pluriformic situation of diverse religious traditions. It does not reject any insight but is positively open to the specificity of every culture. Panikkar does this with his profound but down to earth approach to symbol. Symbols are the living expressions of our experiences and our faith-universe. How we interact with the world and with human beings is expressed in symbols and their opposites diabols. The positive approach is that of symbol and the negative is that of diabols. These are the terms of reference for any preparation of dialogue. Mendonca has made judicious use of Panikkar s symbolic approach to look at our world in an insightful manner, an approach that is at once interreligious and intercultural. Her contention is that the focus of dialogue has to be first and foremost on this world and the way we human beings go about it as well as on the way we interact among ourselves. We notice that already at this stage there can be a meeting-point of religions and cultures. What Mendonca is making us aware of is the world of concerns, concerns common to one and all, whether they are believers or not. The concerns are about the symbolical (uniting) and the diabolical (fragmenting) forces that are operative in the universe, forces that affect all of us, irrespective of the fact whether we are Adivasis, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs or Zoroastrians or simply agnostics and atheists. Mendonca brings out persuasively the concerns regarding human beings, their world and their religions, concerns which call for common and concerted action. But there is a subtle point connected with this. Symbols, not concepts, are the spontaneous human way of experiencing, understanding and interacting. Concepts are conceptual tools and are valid, as Panikkar puts it, only there where they are conceived. But symbols are an existential mode of being-and-understanding. They are bridges that connect diverse and differing worlds. They make unity in diversity possible. At the same time, they convert - 3 -

4 plurality into pluralism. The former functions in the world of the quantitative; the latter is at home in the world of the qualitative and expresses itself in an attitude that actively discovers unity in diversity. The living symbols and diabols of our times, Mendonca suggests, are the meeting-place for people of good will because they express common concerns. Concerns bring out at the same time our interconnectedness. Discovering our interconnectedness in the world of concerns helps us discover the interconnectedness of that mystery which is at work in all (traditions) and which is the source of all inspiration. Here is the beginning of any kind of meaningful dialogue between religions. The meeting-place of religions is first and foremost the realm of praxis: it is here that they give evidence of their authenticity or its opposite, inasmuch as they take life in this world responsibly. No religion advocates violence, dishonesty, hatred, possessiveness, etc. On the contrary, they all encourage peace, love, detachment, service, etc. Today s so-called religions are in great measure a betrayal of all that is true, good and beautiful in the originary religions. The historical expressions of religion are a far cry from their originary revelation. They need to reflect and find out how they can critique and correct themselves. Mendonca s work will be of great help in this process. It was not unusual for the modern society to take life as referring to human life. But there has been in this respect a subtle change and life is beginning to connote life in this world and life of this world. Human beings can be human only in a world which they inhabit. Hence our world cannot be treated as if it were an object. Respect for the world, for the life of the world, in all its diversity needs to be cultivated in all earnestness. Fortunately, we are increasingly realizing that the universe is living, is alive and that it is not just a collection of dead physical objects. This insight is making us aware of our insensitivity to the life of the world and of the greed that is goading us to act violently towards it. All these symbolic and diabolic modes of behaviour, Mendonca takes up as areas for dialogue and discernment, as areas where religion proves its worth or fails to be genuine religion. What is still more significant is that for her these are the areas of relevance for interreligious education. Mendonca is proposing something very radical here. The first step in religious education could be interreligious education: learning to be human in this world. To be human and to be in this world are not two separate things, they are merely two ways of looking at the same reality. Religious education has far too often been one-sided, indeed terribly one-sided with its focus on learning to come in touch with the Divine. Without denying the importance of this, one must ask whether the Divine can be totally divorced from the reality of our experience. Whatever one s religion maybe, the Divine is somehow connected with this world. Interreligious education could be the ground on which the edifice of the religious education of a specific religion could be constructed. Let no one say that this amounts to neglecting one s religion because this is not what Mendonca is proposing. Begin with what is common to all, she seems to say, and then proceed to develop the specific aspects. Unity in diversity, the soul of pluralism, is the principle that is at work in her proposal. Mendonca s theory of the relevance of symbol and interreligious dialogue is just the preparation for an innovative and creative contribution. She starts by discussing the paradigm-shift from concepts to symbols that Panikkar has initiated. Religion is not primarily a matter of concepts but of symbols. The symbol belongs to the realm of experience whereas concept belongs to the level of reflection. However important concepts may be where dialectical dialogue is concerned, it is in the area of symbols that religions live, move and - 4 -

5 have their being. Hence it is but fitting that interreligious education concerns itself with praxis that aims at making us more sensitive to the symbolic dimensions of our life. Indeed this is the gist of Mendonca s approach to interreligious education. Our religions, she believes, will gain in authenticity and depth in the measure in which they contribute towards deepening sensitivity to the symbolic side of our life in the world. The task of the religions is to deepen sensitivity to the symbolic dimension of reality and awaken their adherents to an awareness of the diabolic attitudes that animate today s mind-set. To realize all this, Mendonca proposes a Yoga of awareness in which she combines study of, and research and reflection on what is happening with awareness of what is going on behind what is happening. Taking the event of the Emmaus-pericope as her model, Mendonca points to the burning of the heart as the core of her Yoga. An awareness of what sets the heart burning is what interreligious education could be about. What is happening in our body and the world-body needs to be taken seriously so that through this, one experiences what is going on behind what is happening in the world-body, namely, in the soul. The two steps which this Yoga comprises go to show that it is holistic in its approach. For, it makes one take the world of experience seriously in that one discovers that it is not a collection of objects but a symbol that symbolizes the symbolized reality. The symbol brings one in touch with its depth-dimension, namely, the symbolized reality. When something touches us deeply, it touches our soul. There is need then, first, to recognize what is touching us (our body and the world-body) and second, to become aware of what is touching our soul. The exercizes that Mendonca proposes are simple but illuminating. They go beyond the usual cliché of action-reflection-action which is inadequate because it relies solely on reason. Mendonca, following Panikkar, draws our attention to the fact that there is a realm to which reason has no access, namely, the realm of consciousness or awareness. This is the realm to which reason can lead but where reason is helpless. It is the sphere that is beyond all human making and manipulation. Awareness of this dimension of reality produces openness and acceptance. Only openness and acceptance can make one discover the riches that are awaiting those who assimilate this attitude. The diverse methods of interreligious education will pass muster if only they are able to lead to such an awareness, an awareness which in the last instance deepens sensitivity to the symbolic dimension of reality. Mendonca s epilogue discusses the approaches to symbol in the context of religious education in the West. Indirectly she points to the weakness of the approaches that neglect an ontological understanding of symbol. This book is not only a good introduction to Panikkar s thought; it is also a good example of how Panikkar s ideas can be developed and shown to be fruitful in our times. Panikkar s writings are voluminous and much of his seminal thinking needs further unfolding and assimilation. That Mendonca has succeeded eminently in this regard is shown by the fact that the faculty of Catholic Theology of the University of Tübingen awarded her the prize for the best dissertation for the year 2001! Implicitly the book is also an appeal both to all those who are interested in making their religious tradition relevant in India and also to those who are keen on working holistically for the development of India. We are shown here a way (of interreligious education) which without inducing a religion to give up its specific contribution can tread the path of dialogue and commonweal. Interreligious education is the need of our times. If we all begin to take to it intensely the book will have fulfilled its purpose

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