Universal Light: The Brahmo Samaj

A Sermon Offered at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Lafayette, Indiana

On January 23, 2005

by the Rev. Hilary Landau Krivchenia

Readings

By Rabindrananth Tagore

You have covered the path of your creation

in a mesh of varied wiles,

Guileful One.

Deftly you have set a snare of false beliefs

in artless lives.

With your deception

you have set the great man on trial

taking from him the secrecy of night.

Your star lights for him

the truculent path of his heart,

illuminated by a simple faith.

Through tortuous outside

it is straight within,

and there in his pride.

Though men call him futile,

in the depth of his heart he finds truth

washed clean by the inner light.

Nothing can deprive him;

he carries to his treasure-house

his last reward.

He who could easily bear your wile,

receives from you the right

to everlasting peace.

(From Sesh Lekha)

Also by Rabindrananth Tagore

On this birthday,

The great distance grows in my heart.

The starry path is nebular,

Mysterious;

And my own remoteness

Impenetrable.

The pilgrim moves, his path unseen,

The consequence unknown.

Today I hear the traveller's footsteps

From my lonely seashore.

Sermon

This year our religious education classes have been studying the world’s religions and I’ve been spending some time here with you also exploring these faith traditions.  We we’ve spent time with Judaism, Christianity, Sufism and we’ll be taking time both on Sundays and other times, to explore further.  One rich time to learn from and celebrate other faiths was offered at the Interfaith Feast a week ago.  Today I’m going to talk with you about a religion which is also a close cousin of ours.  The Brahmo Samaj of India is important not only because it’s our cousin – but because, in looking at their path we can more clearly understand our own paths and choices.

The Brahmo Samaj was founded on this day in 1828 by Raja Ram Mohan Roy.  But the roots of the Brahmo Samaj reach into the ancient Indian past – it is a deep and faithful Hinduism – but one which seeks the deeper truth.  Hinduism began two thousand or more years before the birth of Jesus.  It is, like all religions – made of layers of core truths, stories, Gods, laws, scriptures, and historical changes.  There are wonderful stories and prayers to be found in the Hindu Scriptures – the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Upanishads, in the Vedas.

At the heart of Hinduism is – as you may know – the idea of Atman and Brahman.  Atman is the individual soul – which is a window onto that which is ultimate and timeless.  The Atman is a reflection of the soul of the whole and the soul of the whole is the expression of Brahman – the Highest – the Cosmic soul, the ultimate reality – the source, origin and end of all being.  The Vedas say: Tat Tvam Asi – thou art that – meaning thou art the soul of the whole, thou art the whole and the part.

It’s a noble religious idea.  But religions don’t stay in their pure form – history and politics change them.  Hinduism, over the few thousand years since its inception, became a religion concerned with ritual and rite.  From the caste system to the practice of suttee – which is the burning of living widows upon their husbands funeral pyres – to elaborate celebrations that honor the many deities of the Hindu Pantheon – Hinduism became a religion of custom.  In part, this was due to the many invasions that India experienced.  In a colonized atmosphere people will lean on custom to retain identity.

It was into this besieged nation, in the state of Bengal that Rammohan Roy was born in 1772.  Bengal is in the northeast of India and today it is split into the independent country of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal.  His parents were devout Hindus who wanted a great education for their son.  His biography has some near mythic moments.  They gave him opportunities to study Persian and Arabic from Muslim scholars and with his knowledge of Arabic he was able to read the Greek philosophers.  His love of philosophy led him to be a ceaseless questioner.  He was disturbed by all the ritual that he saw in Hinduism and in his own home.  His disagreements with his father compelled him to leave home when he was very young and he took up with a group of Buddhist monks with whom he journeyed to Tibet to study.  In Tibet he was influenced by Buddhism – by its greater equality of women, its practice of non-violence, and its sense of universal oneness.  At the same time – he objected to the worship of lamas that he found in the school where he studied and he was so outspoken about it that the monks became enraged with him – and it takes a lot to enrage a monk.  Finally, a group of protective nuns managed to help him return to India.  He returned to his parents but he was too much the freethinker to pretend to agree with them – he was a Hindu – but a freethinking Hindu.  He studied books on Jainism, he learned about Sufism, and he read the Bible.

Ram Mohan Roy studied Hindu scriptures in depth and became convinced that Hinduism had lost its sacred thread.  He believed that Brahman – the cosmic soul – was the core of Hinduism and that it was in this pure core and the living out of ethical principles that Hindus could be faithful.  He saw no use and, in fact, danger, in the worship of idols.  He witnessed his own sister-in law burn to death on his brother’s funeral pyre and he was profoundly opposed to the practice of suttee – he recalls his family responding to her screams by shouting God wife! Good Wife!  It became a life purpose to eradicate that evil.  He was a nonconformist.

            The English were making inroads into Indian civilization – Ram Mohan Roy taught himself English and further educated himself by reading English books and newspapers.  It was through these that he learned of the American and French Revolutions and about the ideas of freedom that were so like his own and were reshaping the Western world.  When Ram Mohan was 41 the British formally took control of India. 

            Ram Mohan formed the ‘Atmiya Sabha’ (The Society of Friends) which would evolve over time into the Brahmo Samaj – the gathering of the highest.  It was a place in which skeptical Hindus could dialogue and practice Hinduism in greater simplicity. 

            His progressive Hinduism caught the attention of the many Christian missionaries who had flocked to India and among them the few Unitarian missionaries who had also come.  He was often asked to convert to Christianity and then condemned for refusing to convert.  There is no doubt that Ram Mohan Roy valued Christianity – his studies had lead him to assert that the teachings of Jesus were among the finest ethical precepts on earth and he was a radical in his Christian thought – challenging those around him to follow the teaching of the sermon on the mount.  But he found inspiration and truth in the reality of Brahman and the idea that the ultimate is a Unity – all embracing and all encompassing.  In response to invitations to convert and to attacks when he refused he said: "There is only one God in the universe.  He has no form and qualities which men can describe.  He is full of joy.  Every living being has an element of God. These noble ideas sparkle in the Upanishads.  Moreover, these books encourage people to think for themselves, they strike out new paths.  They do not chain man’s intelligence."  He was an iconoclast in the truest sense – refuting the icons of his own religion if they failed to serve goodness and faith and refuting the icons of other faiths if they seemed to place stumbling blocks in front of seekers. 

He fought long in protest of suttee and lived just long enough to see it made illegal in the last two years of his life.  He traveled to England to plead for that legislation and while there, just after it was passed, Ram Mohan Roy died – in England in 1833.  Because of his support of progressive education, his belief in a free press, his work for women, his faithfulness to his Hindu origins, his defiance of British colonization of his faith, and so much more he came to be called the ‘Maker of Modern India’.

            The religious movement he began was  based upon this idea of the unity of God and the validity of many paths to the Divine. They did not recognize differences of caste, creed, race or nationality.  In their Saturday gatherings the Brahmo Samaj read from the scriptures of many faiths as well as studying the wisdom of the Hindu philosophical scriptures.  They sang hymns in many languages and heard from visiting speakers.

            Before he left for England, Ram Mohan asked his friend Dwarakanath Tagore to be steward to his fledging movement.  Dwarakanath was another remarkable Bengali.  He was a learned man but also a giant of trade, he was a man of wealth and philanthropy, and he was a man of culture.  His son, Debendranath, who was to have taken over his work, showed no inclination for business but Debendranath who devoted himself to the Brahmo Samaj – using both his vision and his resources to support the growing movement.  He wanted reform in India.  Debendranath loved life and loved his twelve gifted children.  With him, the Brahmo Samaj grew further and worked on more issues of reform.  One of Debedranath’s greatest gifts to India was his youngest son – Rabindranath.

Rabindranath Tagore became a cultural and spiritual leader in India.  As a poet he could give powerful expression to the Brahmo vision.  But he was a more secular person than his ancestors.  He painted, wrote poetry, songs, started a progressive school, and brought tremendous pride to India and to the Bengal region.  He made friendships and carried on dialogues with the leading thinkers of his age – W.B. Yeats, who first published him, Einstein, Shaw, and Gandhi.  He even met Helen Keller.  He was given a Nobel Prize and was knighted by King George the V – and he renounced his knighthood in 1919 in protest of the massacre of 400 Indian demonstrators at Amritsar. 

The Brahmo Samaj were part and heart of the movement which helped to modernize India.  The Brahmo Samaj resisted the colonization of Western religion – choosing to be accepting of all paths while remaining true to their heritage.  They fought the caste system, improved education, established free presses, and advocated the rights of women in a repressive society.  Their next leader -- Keshab Chandra Sen expanded the international nature of the Brahmo Samaj and increased their worship resources.

The Brahmo Samaj has evolved into a few branches over time.  They have centers in India, England, and in the U.S.  Although there are some differences between these branches they all promote that:

1. No scripture is an ultimate and final authority.
2. Avatars and prophets are simply people.
3. They denounce polytheism and idol-worship.
4. They are against caste restrictions

5. They hold that belief in reincarnation and rebirth is optional. 

They also hold a set of key principles which include that the Samaj is to be a meeting ground for all who worship the One True God, that all people and matters of worship must be treated with respect, and to promote charity, morality, benevolence, virtue, and strengthen the bonds of union between people of all religions and creeds

For all of the leaders of the Brahmo Samaj – from Ram Mohan Roy to the present there have been connections with the Unitarian and the Unitarian Universalist movements.  In the class before mine at Meadville/Lombard there was a student – Abhi Janamanchi, who was from the Brahmo Samaj and come to the US to study at a Unitarian Universalist Theological School.  The Brahmo Samaj, along with the Unitarian Association, was one of the Founding groups of the International Association for Religious Freedom.  The IARF is an organization that works to promote religious tolerance and freedom around the world.  Sometime we might learn more about the association and perhaps help the Local Interfaith Group to be a member group.

The Brahmo Samaj prayer books draw on the religions of the world.  They speak of a God beyond name or franchise: God is the ultimate reality that embraces all reality.  Because they affirm the absolute Unity of God they are Unitarian in the original sense.  Still, they leave to every person the right of conscience on the path they follow. 

In the story of the Brahmo Samaj you can hear so much of our own Unitarian Universalist story.  The heart of the Brahmo Samaj is kin to ours.

First, Unitarian and Universalists seek to the heart of things.  Like Miguel Servetus – his 450^th birthday is this year.  He studied the Hebrew and Christian scripture for any evidence of a trinity and finding none, published his new Unitarian thoughts in a book titled On the Errors of the Trinity.  Eventually he was burned by Calvin, at the stake in Geneva, with his heretical book tied to his waist.  Second, Unitarian and Universalists work to establish religious freedom not only for themselves but for others.  Like Faustus Socinus, the Italian humanist, who helped to grow a Unitarian movement in Transylvania and Poland based on the belief  that Jesus was a man with the supreme blessing of God. His work and the work of others helped establish the Unitarian Church in Transylvania and encouraged the declaration of the Edict of Religious Toleration.  Third, Unitarians and Universalists believe in the all pervading love of God or divine mercy.  Like Hosea Ballou who traveled American roads preaching the doctrine of a God too loving to sin against.  Fourth, Unitarians and Universalists find the spirit of life in everything from music to art to nature.  Like Ralph Waldo Emerson who found divinity in the blowing clover, in every sacred book, and in the human mind.  Fifth, Unitarians and Universalists are lead by their faith to be agents of justice in the world around them.  Like Theodore Parker, the radical abolitionist or Jenkin Lloyd Jones, the feminist, pacifist, and one of the creators of the first Parliaments of world religions.

            The history of the Brahmo Samaj embodies these things and more.  Duncan Howlett, the Unitarian Universalist historian has said that Universalism is a path of “Testing, Questing and never Resting, with Open Mind and Open Heart."  And those words would certainly describe Ram Mohan Roy and the Brahmo Samaj he founded.

            We are a people of change, questioning, diverse paths, shared visions and various dreams, we are a people of deep faith and no dogma who share a gathering place and a vision that this world is too great for one simple path or for small gods.  Instead we strive to foster an atmosphere in which hearts and minds can grow together.  What is it to be Unitarian Universalist?  It is not to recite an empty covenant but a living one.  It is to be faithful to the spirit of love, dedicated to the pursuit of truth, united on a path of service, and covenanted in a vision of the unity of all being.  Over and above that we leave the details to one another – knowing that the devil may be in the details – but the truly divine is in the universal vision.  We know that celebration and holy time is precious to the people of this world therefore we cleave to a hope that the peoples of the world may learn to worship together, finding the best in one another’s truths and honoring the mind that constantly strives toward deeper and finer truths.  Over and above all Unitarian Universalists are people of hope – knowing that in the roughest times there is hope because we are the hope. 

            On the other side of the world a faith grew up that was akin to our own.  It carried a wind of prophecy without having a prophet; it cherished a faith in humanity without denying the shortcomings of people.  It held that revelation is not sealed.  It spoke of radical inclusiveness.  Above all the Story of the Brahmo Samaj is the story of faith in the ability of people to act toward the good and to build toward the future on the best wisdom of the past.  May we see in that faith a reflection of our own shining faces and great hopes.  May we see in ourselves the courage to be beacons as they were, to help transform a culture and a nation.

Closing

Words of Rabindranath Tagore

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake