Presentation before
The 3rd Grundtvig International Conference
Kolkata - India, January 10. 2007

By Uffe Jonas, Ph.D.

I started out presenting the age-old Thomas-congregation, the Knanaya Christians of India. I don't know much about the Knanaya tradition. But I do know something about the Gospel of Thomas, which was found among the Nag Hammadi Codexes, discovered in Egypt in 1945. It is generally considered to be a Gnostic gospel, almost or perhaps just as old as the more well known canonical gospels of St. Luke, St. Mark, St. Matthew and St. John. The Gospel of Thomas is a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus. There is no narrative as one would find in the other Gospels, no stories about the life and whereabouts of Jesus. Only sentences of a condensed philosophical, sometimes almost paradoxical nature. Quite a few of these sentences, or elements of these, are to be found again in the canonical gospels, which speaks strongly for their authenticity. Some philologians even consider the Gospel of Thomas to be part of the primordial common source of the synoptic Gospels, called Q (for quelle or source). The somewhat ascetical and otherworldly atmosphere of the Gospel of Thomas can be summed up in its Logion 56:

Jesus said, "Whosoever has become acquainted with the world has found a corpse, and the world is not worthy of the one who has found the corpse."

And in an other famous logion, nr. 42, Jesus simply says: "Be passers by". These few sentences do not do justice to all the wisdom and subtleties expressed in this condensed and profound text. But it gives us a hint at least of one of its trends. This kind of detached attitude towards the world stems from a certain philosophical recognition. It expresses a sort of stoic pessimism towards this ghostlike, shadow-haunted and stony world. An attitude which is also

deeply rooted in Vedantic philosophy. The world is a corpse, and only the one who realizes this and detaches himself is potentially free, above and beyond this world. The Christ of St. Thomas seems to be a voice that speaks from some paradoxically elevated position within, but also beyond the human flesh. It is a voice bereft of any particular human body or history. the voice of divine wisdom looking down from afar upon earthly matters, i.e. upon its own fleshly conditions, which it seems to be denying or at least deploring. It's the voice of pure detachment.

In the western tradition this highly philosophical, ascetical or Gnostic tendency, this strong will to know the heavenly wisdom and secrets of God, and at the same time to look down with a certain attitude of distance or even contempt on the matters of the flesh, is quite common. In fact, it could be argued to be the main stream of ascetical or "monkish" Christianity from the Desert Fathers to St. Augustine and onwards. But although it is a widespread intellectual attitude, as widespread as monks, yogis and intellectual bookworms, it is also traditionally looked upon with some suspicion. For although we also have a strong tradition for denying and subduing our deepest passions for the sake of some unattainable heaven beyond, for these very reasons - western Christianity normally likes to consider itself to be anti-Gnostic---to be a religion of the heart and the flesh, a simple religion for simple people, the childlike ordinary and unpretentious people of God, more than a cosmological system of understanding for the advanced philosophical mind.

Therefore the basic Christian requirements of faith are not philosophical, but only a matter of simple belief in the doctrines of orthodoxy or at least in the miraculous, saving and heart-like nature of Jesus. The general emphasis is more on the personal and humanly involved nature of Jesus than on the more distant, philosophical and cosmological nature of Christ. The first and foremost Christian prerogative is not to gain wisdom, to reach into the depths and secrets of Christian knowledge, but simply to confess and confide ones faith in Jesus as Saviour. Wisdom, if it comes, comes afterward, as a consequence of this common faith or trust in the god-man. It follows as a consequence of the spiritual relationship and personal development implied in this kind of self-reflecting and self-expansive trust. As the history of philosophy shows it is certainly possible to perform advanced philosophy on this basis, but the faith, the simple heart-like belief in the humanity and divinity of Jesus -- the meaning of his ministry, his crucifixion and his resurrection, this is what suffices for any Christian. Only on this basis, on the basis of the incarnated - sensitive and suffering - human heart, can a Christian experience of God, a Christian philosophy, and a Christian gnosis be erected.

In the Christian tradition this childlike purity or simplicity of heart, this rare ability to be absolutely present and alert in this fleeting, evasive moment, to receive and perceive the mysterious depth of God without questioning, without overdue speculation, is often symbolized by the Virgin Mary. When the messenger angel Gabriel approached her with the awesome message, that she should be pregnant and bear the child of The Most High, she simply answered: "let it be unto me, as you wish!" What an astonishing receptivity, to be able to take on such a huge and troublesome destiny without an inch of doubt or complaint. Therefore Mary in the Christian tradition is venerated as the most humble and therefore also the most human of humans. For Grundtvig, she is the epitome of humanity.

But Mary is also a profound symbol of practical wisdom. As opposed to the somewhat detached and otherworldly nature of a pure gnosis, a pure philosophy, she represents the ability to receive the Word of God and make it become a physical, concrete and practical reality. i.e. she is the one who gives birth to the Kingdom of God, without reservation, without adding or subtracting to it. Without Mary, Christ, the Living Word, the Truth of God, could not have incarnated and become flesh. He would have remained in the heavens, as an abstract philosophical idea or ideal. The concept of Christ, the Word of God, was well known both to the eastern and to the Greek philosophers, long before the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. But only by Mary, only by a wise, pure hearted and birth giving woman could the truth itself become real, as real as flesh and blood, as real as earth and life itself.

The prevailing sense of the world as an illusion, the scattered mirror of a hidden truth, which is so common in the east, is not so outspoken in western thinking, which basically acknowledges the reality of this world. Despite of all its shortcomings and distortions, and the strong element of evil inherent in it, this world is what we’ve got. And if we long for a better world than this, it has to be realized, not by abstract philosophical speculation, but through the daily and practical transmutation of this one, which is hard work indeed, considered the deeply rooted inertness and inertia of physical matter. To Vivekananda the traditional Vedantic attitude of detachment from this world was one of the necessary prerequisites for gaining a spiritual life, but simply not enough. To this traditional movement of abstracting from all temporal matters, he added and emphasized the reverse. i.e. the compassionate movement of surrendering into the world, to share in all the movements and whirlpools of life, the mother element itself. If detachment is the discipline that takes us into an objective state of knowing (gnosis), then compassion is the active surrendering of selfhood, the passionate sense of the other. It's the living sense of cosmos, of nature, of our fellow human beings, of the whole striving and suffering universe that we ourselves are the living embodiments of. It is this sense of passionate sharing in all life (corn-passion) that takes us all the way back into the living endemic wellspring life, with all that it entails. In his own tongue. Vivekananda expresses this attitude of surrendering to the hardships of the Earth, and gaining new life through the transformations and birth pangs of the ever birth giving Mother:

That it is actually devotion towards the Mother, towards the inmost living, breathing and breeding element in all people, Sri Vivekananda is talking about, becomes even clearer in the following quote from the notes of a speak on Mother-Worship, given in New York. Here Vivekananda speaks of the transformative inner battle, the trials of purification that begins in every person, when we sincerely approach the Kingdom of God, as we are all invited to do. Eternal bliss is the heavenly promise, long days of hardship and sorrow is the earthly price to pay: But even this price of surrendering the small and petty minded self can become a blessing in itself, when it is paid in the presence of the Mother, because the Mother shows us the art of self-forgetting:

"Look at the torture the mother bears in bringing up the baby. Does she enjoy it? Surely. Fasting and praying and watching. She loves it better than anything else. Why? Because there is no selfishness. ... Why can we not say that to misery? To be brave is to have faith in the Mother! ‘I am Life, I am Death.’ She it is whose shadow is life and death. She is the pleasure in all pleasure. She is the misery in all misery. If life comes, it is the Mother; if death comes, it is the Mother. If heaven comes, she is. If hell comes, there is the Mother; plunge in. We have not faith, we have not patience to see this. We trust the man in the street; but there is one being in the universe we never trust and that is God. We trust Him when He works just our way. But the time will come when, getting blow after blow, the self-sufficient mind will die.

There is no trace of contempt or flight from this world in Vivekananda’s understanding; it is purely compassionate towards all that lives and moves. Even the most miserable of lives is dignified and worthy enough to be worshipped as an integral part and expression of the One Living God because God is living and breathing there also, in any wretched and degraded person and in all our human misery. The Mother is always there. There is no room for human arrogance or for any self-sustaining caste system in her passionate presence. All life is born equal and equally cherished out of the abundance of her sacred womb. Such compassionate same sightedness towards all life and the disregarding of all artificial human boundaries and hierarchies is the natural outcome of her growing presence, a presence which was recognized as a new and upcoming cultural stream, in fact, as a whole new revelation, by these profound religious humanists of the 19th century. An upwelling stream of life, transforming even the most basic of human relationships, those between heaven and earth, between the multiple conflicting realms of humanity, and between a man and a woman, all being invited to interact in an ever deepening trust and tenderness towards each other-- a new revelation of faith, the fair faced tender-hearted immanence of God, overflowing like balm into the rusty and squeaking hinges of human society, all down to the level of matter herself, of nature, of each singular human body, being moved to grow into a new substance and sustenance of life, beyond its own ingrown mental, cultural and personal disturbances. Thus:

Ramakrishna and Vivekananda would break down all societal barriers of caste and creed, not by any compulsive revolutionary outburst, but simply by exceeding these cultural obstacles and literally contain all creeds and levels of human experience within themselves. They would synthesize religion, by confirming them as different paths to the same basic goal, not in some artful syncretism, but simply and gently by embracing the truth of all genuine human experiences of God, and acknowledging the sanctity of any singular life path in a personally experienced and therefore deeply convincing manner. Nothing and no one was untouchable to them, except for lies and arrogations.

Grundtvig would never tire in his stressing, that all men are born from a woman, and we should never forget to revere and take heed of this fact. Forgetting the self-evident universality of motherhood is like forgetting life itself and equals a worshipping of death. The disrespect of womankind and the subjugation of its powers is a widespread disease, not only in eastern, but also in western culture. And not least within the narrowing circle of a dry, motherless and over mental Protestantism, tending to forget one half of the fifth commandment. Thus Grundtvig consistently warns and encourages his mind-engulfed and life-denying Christian kinsmen always to pay Our Mother the attention and respect that is due to her. Because only through the principle of the Mother can life be delivered from its inanimate disease and born anew:

The one who rejects the sanctity of Our Mother actually rejects his own heart and flesh, i.e. he rejects the sanctity of life itself. We could call this new, more feminine and immanent approach towards the Godhead, towards the Earth, towards suffering humanity, and towards the entire raped and ravished nature, a boddhisatvicattitude. But this slow and painful inner and outer overcoming of all earthly or fleshly inertia, this difficult and miraculous process of healing the fallen and disfigured life on this planet, is the very essence and meaning of the ministry of Christ. Christ, who suffered and overcame all the trials and tribulations of the flesh-- Christ who went through all the birth pangs of the Cross with no less than three Mary's, three kind faces of womankind, to midwife him,7' Christ who was resurrected from the grave at Easter morning with only the beloved Mary Magdalen, the anointer of his death-consecrated body, to witness and testify to it. According to Grundtvig, only the "light-faithed, gentle-hearted" women could suffer such grief without losing their trust, and thus perform such silent miracles of compassion.

Ramakrishna’s and Vivekananda’s relentless trust in the redeeming powers of The Mother would be no less than Grundtvig’s ultimate faith in life. This new-found positive attitude towards the Earth, nature, humanity and society is what characterizes the Hindu reform movement, I think, more than anything. And this same attitude is what characterizes Grundtvig as a cosmic and at the same time very earthly, practical and politically oriented Christian. Only through the birth pangs of matter --- our mother, can the heavenly truth, the Child of God, be born unto this Earth. Only through the utmost darkness of her sacred womb, from the very abyss of earth and its chaotic underworld, can Christ himself be resurrected and become our Saviour. Only by the tender aid of the human midwifes and the birth giving efforts of The Mother herself can the Christian mystery ever be fulfilled. I just found a most beautiful expression of this mystery of earthiness or descend in the writings of Mechtild ("the mighty fire") of Magdeburg (ca.1210-1280), who is one of the lesser known female mystics of the Christian middle ages. She says:

I find this strong will to descend into the darkness, sufferings and turmoil of the Earth and human history very present in Grundtvig’s work. Although he is basically a poet and a minister of light and joy, he knows very well the dark side of mans mind from his own - partly involuntary - personal experiences. Grundtvig had an ingoing, inert and depressive side as well the more well known outgoing reformative optimism of an impending human enlightenment. With decades in between he would tire in his almost superhuman productivity and fall into the abyss. His experience of women as the soothers, comforters and midwifes of disturbed mankind was a very personal and concrete one. But his recurring depressions did not crush him; they only made him stronger, more profound in his thinking and more determined in his efforts. They made him more humble, earthly and human.

2'Grundtvig, Christenhedens Syvstjerne (The Seven Stars of Christendom), Den sidste Menighed (The Last Congregation), v. 78-80, p.245.
3Vivekananda, Letter to Mary Hale, July 9. 1897.
4Vivekananda, Mother-Worship, Complete Works, Vol. 6, Notes of Class Talks and Lectures.
5Grundtvig, Som Maanen skinner af Solens Glans (As the Moon shines forth by the Grace of the Sun) 1870, GSV bd. 5, no. 349, p. 626ff.
6 Grundtvig, Kvinde-Evangeliet (The Women's Gospel), GSV 1842, bd. 3, no. 205, p. 399ff.
7' Cf. John, 19.25.