The Yoga of the Christ

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About the Book A great book. It challenges the spirit. It calls for deep cogitation and prayerful reconsideration of eternal verities. The author has understood the cosmic significance of Jesus Christ as the universal Spirit, Truth and Love.

Undoubtedly, the best commentary on the Fourth Gospel from an Indian point of view.

The Hindu, Chennai Superb in every way! It catches the tone and spirit of St John and this Gospel's profound coherence with other traditions, particularly the Hindu tradition in India and of course the Bhagavad-Gita.

Father Thomas Berry, author of The Universe Story The reflections of Ravi Ravindra will stimulate the initiated as well as the less informed readers. This book contributes; in a spirit of tolerance, to the enrichment of religions.

Raimon Panikkar, author of The Hidden Christ of Hinduism A landmark in interfaith dialogue.

Huston Smith, author of The World's Religions Dazzlingly brilliant spiritual and cross-cultural study of the most mystical of the books of the Bible, the Gospel of John. Few will finish this book unchanged, either intellectually or spiritually.

About the Author Ravi Ravindra was born in India and received a BSC and a Master of Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He came to Canada where he obtained a Master of Science and a PhD in Physics from the University of Toronto and a Master of Arts in Philosophy from Dalhousie University.

He was a member of the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton in 1977, and a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Simla, in 1978 and in 1998. He was the founding director of the Threshold Award for Integrative Knowledge and Chair of its international and inter-disciplinary selection commit- tees in 1979 and 1980.

Dr Ravindra lives in Canada and travels throughout the world interacting with spiritual seekers. He is Professor Emeritus at Dalhousie University where he retired as Professor and Chair of Comparative Religion. Professor of International Development Studies and uncut Professor of Physics.

Preface I am delighted that The Yoga of the Christ is now available in India. My look at John's Gospel has been much influenced by the great insights of the Indian tradition which has always assumed that Truth is not exclusively held by anyone tradition or scripture or formulation, and that there is much that a searcher can learn from any of the great traditions. I feel a debt of gratitude to all the sages and the teachings which have called for and nourished an inner search in me.

The emerging spirituality in our global village requires a confluence of many perspectives. If the ancient texts are going to have contemporary relevance, their trans-cultural significance needs to be discovered. Different traditions have developed in different regions - near the river Ganga or the river Jordan. However, a view from an aero plane reveals different aspects of our planet than does one from a camel by the Jordan or from a bullock cart by the Ganga.

This book does not attempt to explain or to argue for Christianity; rather it is a song of praise for the beauty, truth and goodness I glimpse in John's Gospel. Arising out of my respect and love for this sacred text, my commentary on it is a way of expressing my appreciation for the wisdom and grace of the transformational teaching of the Christ.

It is gratifying to acknowledge the reception given to the first edition of The Yoga of the Christ. * It was widely reviewed, and I continue to receive letters from complete strangers as well as from friends, from scholars and non-scholars, who have been very moved and helped by my reflections. I have myself continued to ponder and take delight in the marvelous wisdom of the Gospel. It is more wonderful than I have succeeded in conveying. I am rewarded if this book helps some people to read or reread it with more attention and love.

Many readers, Christians and non-Christians alike, have found the book to be a fresh and a profound look at John's Gospel, a great classic of universal spirituality. While they found many ideas and interpretations challenging, they have felt assisted by it in their search for inner transformation.

numerous changes have been made in this revised edition. The language of the book has been made gender-inclusive, except in some cases, such as in the expression 'the hollow men', owing to literary usage. However, the intention through- out the book is to be inclusive, not only in terms of gender but also with respect to religious and cultural traditions.

Introduction The only reason that I, an outsider to the Christian tradition and not particularly learned in it, write about one of its most sacred texts is because of my love for it. The first time I encountered it, I was much moved by The Gospel According to St John. Since then I have read this Gospel many times. Always it leaves me in an uplifted internal state; I feel myself called by a mysterious and higher voice.

In our contemporary pluralistic world, where a cross- cultural communication has increasingly become a matter of necessity for global survival, a new consciousness is emerging.

One of the major features of this new consciousness is a non-sectarian spirituality. A universal spirituality is at the very root of all traditions, but it is continually lost in theological exclusivist, or in scholastic partiality, or in evangelical en- thesis, and it needs to be rediscovered and restated anew again and again. Anybody who would approach a major work of a religious tradition with a global perspective, and with an effort to discover the universal truths in it, will aid the development of the new consciousness in the right direction.

Since I was brought up in India, my psyche is naturally Indian in its early formation, without my being able to say exactly what that means in the present context. When I read the Gospel According to St John, I am struck by many similarities with the Indian traditions, and, of course, by many differences. But that is not the focus of the present book; here I am more interested in discovering the heart of the Gospel to the extent that it will reveal itself to me. In trying to understand the Gospel, here and there I have found some Indian texts specifically helpful in bringing a new way of looking at a metaphor or in enlarging the appreciation of something that has been understood. I am persuaded that the major division in the human psyche is not horizontal or regional, dividing the Eastern from the Western soul; but that it is vertical and global, separating the few from the many, and the spiritual, inner and symbolical way of understanding from the material, outer and literal one - culturally as well as in each human soul. Still, even though no individual is completely determined by his cultural background, it is a relevant fact that my whole vision has been shaped to some extent by the Indian culture.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages