Trinity as Karma Marga, Bhakti Marga and Gnana Marga
The Bhagavadgita (“Song of God”; c. 100 CE), an extremely
influential Hindu text, presents three paths to salvation: the karma-marga
(“path of ritual action” or “path of duties”), the jnana-marga (“path of
knowledge”) to gain a supra-intellectual insight into one’s identity with
brahman and the bhakti-marga (“path of devotion”), love for a personal God.
Raymond
Panikkar (1918-2010) is one of the most influential Indian Christian theologians of
contemporary era. In ‘The Unknown Christ of Hinduism’ he tries to
compare two religious traditions, Christianity and Hinduism to bring harmony.
In Trinity and World Religion, he once said ‘the encounter of religions belongs
to the Kairos of our time.’
In
his latter book called ‘The Trinity and the World Religions’ he arrives
at a similar conclusion from a different angle. His main concern is to work
towards “the universalisation of Christianity, towards the actualization . . .
of its catholicity” contributing “to the development of all religions’ unity”.
He then proceeds to show how in the doctrine of the Trinity the three kinds of
spiritualities, karma marga, bhakti marga and jnana marga, are not mutually
exclusive but can be reconciled. Here he admits, the key problem is the real
meaning and content of the terms ‘nature’ and ‘person’ . His final solution is
‘theandrism’. Theandrism is the classical and traditional term for that
intimate and complete unity which is realized . . . in Christ, between the
divine and the human and which is the goal towards which everything here below
tends in Christ and the Spirit. Then he developed new terminology cosmotheandric.
Through cosmotheandric he tries to abolish the huge gap created by the dualism
between Cosmos, God and human. Thus cosmotheandric dreams a cosmos with
ecological, humanist and Godly values. This directed pointed towards the three
paths karma-marga, jnana-marga and bhakti-marga as trinity concept.
Trinity as the Radical Community of Equals
Raimon Panikkar (1918-2010) develops a trinitarian vision of the
universe which he later applies to his encounters with world religions and
cultures. He calls this the “cosmotheandric” (cosmic-divine-human)
insight. Panikkar speaks of the “radical Trinity” as the mature understanding
of the Christian insight and of most human traditions. He specifically defends
his thesis according to classical Christian teaching. Here we explore the
cogency of Panikkar’s position including his understanding of the Trinity as a
fundamental challenge to monotheism. Panikkar extends his trinitarian vision to
embrace other traditions and cultures, including those which do not define
themselves in religious or theistic terms. Initially, he calls this the
“cosmotheandric principle” —the one but intrinsically threefold
interrelationship of cosmic matter, human consciousness and divine freedom. On
Radical Trinity, Panikkar made the following provocative statement-
The
radical Trinity I am advocating will not blur the distinction between Creator
and creature—to use those names—but would as it were extend the privilege of
the divine Trinity to the whole of reality. Reality is not only “trinitarian”;
it is the true and ultimate Trinity. The Trinity is not the privilege of the
Godhead but the character of reality as a whole.
Panikkar develops his dynamic
understanding of the Trinity according to his reading of the Pauline
trinitarian formula: “God is above all, through all and in all” (Eph. 4:6). He
refers to this as “the non-dual-One or One-non-duality” that includes all
beings without suffocating them in the “embrace of the One” which qualifies
Oneness and a community of Equal.
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