CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
THE TEACHING OF JESUS ON THE HOLY SPIRIT
Tue experience of the indwelling Spirit of God has been dear to the heart of India.
From the days of the Upanishads the idea that God dwells in the heart of man is commonly found.
In the Katha Upanishad (about 500-300 B.c.) we read :
'"* He who is hard to see, entered into the hidd'n, Set in the cave, dwelling in the deep, ancient,—
Perceiving God through spiritual concentration, The wise man leaves behind both joy and sorrow." *
The human heart, with its mystery, is here spoken of as the cave.
, The Vishnu Purana (about A.D. 400) says:
"Thou art the Soul of all, the Lord of all, the Indweller of all beings.
What then shall I speak unto Thee who art seated in my heart, and knowest my inmost thoughts?
"O Thou, the Soul of all beings, the Sovereign Lord of all creation, the Source of all that exists, Thou knowest all creatures as well as their desires." ?
The Yoga Vasishtha (A.D. 500) says:
" The all-pervading Self, who bindeth all, Knits them together, bides in every heart,
Who turn from Him, the inmost Deity, Seeking outside, their eyes are yet thick-veiled." *
In the well-known Bhekti hymn Mukundamdala (date uncertain), which is sung daily in every devout Vaishnava home, occurs this beautiful passage :
"Thou fool :
Why wilt thou drug with half a score of anodynes Thy poor weak mortal frame?
No painlessness comes thus, But sure increase of pain:
*The Katha Upanishad, ii. 12, translated by J. N. Rawson, The Katha Upanishad, p. 90.
* Vishnu Purana, i. 12, translated by Swami Yatiswarananda, Universal Prayers, p. 61.
* Yoga Vasishtha, v. 34, 26, translated by Bhagavan Das, The Essential Unity of All Religions, p. 111.
THE TEACHING OF JESUS ON THE HOLY SPIRIT
This Life thou lackest, Life for thy transient breath, thy slackening limbs :
Drink Life, Life here and now, Life whole and endless, In one long deep immortal draught :
God is that draught, God loving, God incarnate, God ever-present." * These are not ideas occuring merely here and there.
The thought of the Indwelling God is of supreme importance in the religious life of India.
The central place it occupies in Hindu thought and experience may be illustrated from Ramanuja
(twelfth century A.D.).
We may say that the two most vital questions in theology are:—-1. What is the relation of God to the world?
Did He create it? And having created it, how does He rule over it?
2. What is the relation of God to man?
Did He create man and how does He continue to exert His sway over him?
Raméanuja answers both these questions with his doctrine of the Indwelling God (Antaryamin).
God is the soul and the world is His body.
Just as the human body is entirely dependent on the soul within, so the world is wholly dependent on the God within.
But for the soul, the human body is a mass of inert flesh, as we know when the soul leaves the body at the time of death.
By itself the body can do nothing; it is the soul within which animates it and rules it.
In the same way, the inner Ruler, God, has the world as His body and controls it. He has the souls of men also as His own body; for they are moved and inspired by Him from within.
He is the soul of their souls.
But for His indwelling Presence, they are helpless and are of no great worth.
Thus with the doctrine of the Indwelling God, Ramanuja makes clear God's relation to the world and His relation to man, the two primary problems of religion.
The following passage from Ramanuja's commentary on the Bhagavad Gita shows him marshalling an impressive array of authoritative statements in support of His belief in the indwelling nature of God.
"T am, O Gudakesa, the soul that dwells in the heart of all beings.
I am the beginning, the middle and also the end of all beings.
I am seated as the soul of all beings who constitute *M. K. Gandhi, Songs from Prison, p. 48.
THE GOSPEL AND INDIA'S HERITAGE
my body. The soul is that which is the entire support, ruler and enjoyer of the body. Thus it is said:
'I am seated in the heart of all and from me come memory, knowledge and reason.'
'The Lord dwells, O Arjuna, in the heart of all beings and is whirling them by his supreme power as though they were mounted on a machine.'
' He who is in all beings, immanent in them, whom all beings do not know, to whom all beings are body, He who indwells and rules all beings, He is thy soul.
He is the immanent one.
He is the immortal one.
'He who dwells in the soul, He who is immanent within the soul, He whom the soul does not know, He whose body is the soul, He who rules the soul from within, He is thy soul, thy immanent being, thy immortal one.'
Thus I am the soul of all beings and am. their beginning, middle and end.
That is to say, I am the cause of their origin, existence and dissolution." ° The passages assembled here by Ramanuja are taken from the Gita, the Brihad-Aryanyaka Upanishad and the Satapatha Brahmana.
The dangers attached to the Hindu doctrine of the Indwelling God should be clearly realized and are pointed out at the end of this chapter.
But the heart of the belief is essentially sound.
God is very close to us.
He is not an inaccessible, far-off Being, dwelling in remote heavens.
His Presence is everywhere; as Spirit He pervades the whole universe.
We cannot say that He is only here or there; there is no place where He is not.
He penetrates into the deepest recesses of our heart; He dwells in. our inmost being.
This is a wonder and a joy. We do not need to go in quest of God to distant shrines or to past ages.
He is here and now, as close to us as the life is to our body. Full of love and power, He touches us at every point.
There is no thought in our heart which is not known to Him; no action we do which He does not see. His goodness is with us under all circumstances.
Not a moment passes but His Presence envelopes us like the air we live in. Air is all around us and also in us; we are in the air and the air is in us.
So is God most intimately and closely connected with us; we are in Him and He is in us.
If we go % search of Him, only outside of ourselves, it will be but wasted abour.
The Indwelling God in the Old Testament Did Jesus teach anything about the Indwelling God?
To answer this question aright we must know something about the religious ideas and traditions which formed the substance of His
°Ramanuja, Gita Bhdshya, x. 20.
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thinking.
The Old Testament, on which He was brought up, taught a lofty conception of a God who is holy and altogether separate from the world of men and things.
He creates this world from without; He commands and the world is made.
While the world continues to embody His wisdom and glory, He has finished His work and dwells in the heavenly places apart and aloof in unquestioned supremacy.
Though He does visit the earth at times, the world is separate from Him.
The utter grandeur and majesty of God, characteristic of the Old Testament, is briefly summed up by the prophet Isaiah.
'" For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." ° We may here point out that it is this teaching about the power and holiness of God in the Old Testament, which has guarded Christianity against fallmg into some of the errors which arise from undue emphasis on the indwelling aspect of God.
The suggestion has often been made that in churches in India the reading of the Old Testament should be replaced by a lesson from the Upanishads; this it is felt is an excellent way of linking up the Gospel with the heritage of India.
The main objection to this proposal is that the Old Testament provides an excellent corrective to over-emphasis on the nearness and intimacy of God and that this corrective is badly needed in India.
While the general idea of God as found in the Old Testament tends to emphasize His majesty and holiness and His separation from the world and from man, there are here and there glimpses of God as being present everywhere in the universe.
These passages would seem to indicate that He does not leave the universe completely to dwell alone in His glory in the heavens.
We may now consider these passages.
One of the Psalmists says :
- ** Cast me not away from thy presence ; And take not thy holy spirit from me." '
G In Hebrew poetry the second line repeats and states the substance of the first line in different words.
If we remember this characteristic of Hebrew poetry, we shall note that here the Holy Spirit of God is defined as His Presence; casting the ° Tsaiah lv. 8, 9.
™ Psalm li. 11.
THE GOSPEL AND INDIA'S HERITAGE
devotee away from the Presence of God is the same as taking away the Holy Spirit from him.
The Presence of God is everywhere; no man can go away from its influence.
The prophet Jeremiah says:
" Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord.
Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord." * This thought is expanded at great length and with moving beauty in one of the Psalms.
"Whither shall I go from thy spirit?
Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there :
If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, thou art there.
If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
Even there shall thy hand lead me, And thy right hand shall hold me." ° The book of Jonah tells the story of a timid prophet who was asked by God to preach in the city of Nineveh against the wickedness of the people.
Jonah did not want to do this.
So he rose up and tried to flee from the Presence of the Lord.
But where he went there also the Lord was and He dealt with Jonah severely for having tried to evade His command."
But, on _ the other hand, the devout men of Israel found constant comfort and help in the universal Presence of God.
*" Nevertheless I am continually with thee :
Thou hast holden my right hand.
Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, And afterward receive me to glory." * To pass from the belief in the universal Presence of God to the thought of a God who dwells in the hearts of men is easy.
If He is present everywhere He is also present in the heart of men.
"For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy:
I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." *?
These, then, were some of the ideas with which the spiritual life of Jesus had been nourished.
® Jeremiah xxiii. 24.
° Psalm cxxxix. 7-10.
* Jonah i. 1-4.
* Psalm Ixxiii. 23, 24.
* Isaiah lvii. 15.
THE TEACHING OF JESUS ON THE HOLY SPIRIT
The Indwelling God in the Gospels The Gospel of St. John records a conversation which took place between Jesus and a Samaritan woman.
For a long time there had been a bitter controversy between the Samaritans and the Jews about the right place of worship.
The Jews held that God should be worshipped in the temple in Jerusalem and the Samaritans maintained that He should be worshipped in the temple on Mount Gerizim. After conversing a little with Jesus, the Samaritan woman realized that He was a prophet and put before Him this problem on which there was so much discussion and ill-feeling with a view to obtain His opinion.
" Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father.
Ye worship that ye know not: we worship that which we know: for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth: for such doth the Father seek to be his worshippers.
God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth." ** When He spoke to the Samaritan woman He made it clear that God is not present only in one place: He is present everywhere and His worship must be carried on in spirit and in truth.
His presence everywhere naturally leads to the thought of His presence in the human heart.
We have many passages in the Gospel of St. John to illustrate this.
" And the glory which thou hast given me I have given unto them; that they may be one, even as we are one; I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that thou didst send me, and lovedst them, even as thou lovedst me." **
** Abide in me, and I in you.
As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; so neither can ye, except ye abide in me." *'
" The Spirit .
. remains with you, and will be within you." *° Jesus in the Gospel of St. John teaches that our relation to God is the same as the connexion of the branches with a plant."
This picture shows us very clearly and vividly the intimate nature of our relation to God.
Nothing can be more closely connected than a plant and its branches.
The life from the * John iv. 21-24.
* John xvii. 22, 23.
* John xv. 4.
** John xiv. 17 (Moffatt).
* John xv. 1-8.
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plant flows into the branches; they depend entirely upon the plant for their existence; the moment the connexion is cut off and the life ceases to flow the branches are useless; they do not yield any flower or fruit; they begin to wither and are only fit to be burnt.
The intimate fellowship between God and man, in which God's love and knowledge and power continually flood the soul of man, is here made plain.
When this close and intimate fellowship comes to an end, man ceases to have any value.
He is so wholly dependent upon God for the constant and steady flow of life into his soul that when the supply stops, he is not worth anything.
Jesus speaks of the work of the Holy Spirit.
'' Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I go, I will send him unto you.
And he, when he is come, will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement: of sin, because they believe not on me; of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye behold me no more; of judgement, because the prince of this world hath been judged.
I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot® bear them now.
Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth: for he shall not speak from himself; but what things soever he shall hear, these shall he speak: and he shall declare unto you the things that are to come.
He shall glorify me: for he shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you." *® :
Do we find similar teaching in the Synoptic Gospels?
The emphasis which is laid in the Synoptic Gospels on the Fatherhood of God shows us that Jesus has made a distinctive advance on the teaching of the Old Testament.
While we are aware of the power and glory of God, we approach Him in a new spirit of love and confidence.
God is no longer a remote, far-off being, who remains in isolated splendour.
We can go to Him as often as we wish, perfectly sure that He will listen to us and succour us.
He is accessible to us at all times and under all circumstances.
He is righteous and powerful but He is also loving.
He is ready to help us in our weakness, to forgive our sins fully and to lavish His grace upon us without stint.
This emphasis of Jesus upon the Fatherhood of God brings Him indeed very close and near to us.
He also speaks in the Synoptic Gospels of the Holy Spirit.
"If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your
* John xvi. 7-14.
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heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?"
"For the Holy Spirit shall teach you in that very hour what ye ought to say." *° "For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you." 7"
Thus we may say that in the Synoptic Gospels also we have teaching about the indwelling
Spirit of God, though perhaps it is not as emphatic and as clear as in the Gospel of St. John.
Inspiration We have so far emphasized the fact that the Spirit of God is present everywhere.
In the interests of clearness it has been necessary to speak, for a moment, only of His universal presence.
This, however, does not mean that He is found everywhere as a silent and inactive influence.
In fact, the original Hebrew word which is used in the Old Testament for the Spirit of God is Ruah which means breath or wind: the powerful desert wind is often used as an illustration of the vigorous and active work of the Spirit of God.
He is a vital energy, stirring up deeply many activities.
His functions in the realm of men's hearts may be considered to be mainly two:
Inspiration and Sanctification.
'We may now consider His work of Inspiration.
In the first three Gospels Jesus speaks about a very practical problem."?
The immediate disciples of Jesus had real need of help.
They were brought up for examination before various magistrates and not being men of much education or position, under normal circumstances they would have shrunk.
But they spoke with extraordinary courage; they did not hide anything; they expressed their utmost loyalty to Jesus.
This was because, as Jesus had taught them, the Holy Spirit was with them, putting into their mouth the words they should speak.
'They did not answer the magistrates, who were often hostile or 'suspicious, with their own ineffective or halting words, but they spoke as the Holy Spirit taught them and their speech was full of courage and power.
The idea that the Spirit of God guides the minds of prophets and saints was commonly accepted during the time of Jesus.
Like the other Jews He believed fully that God spoke through the law-givers of old such as Moses and had given them the laws
-which had knit them together as a people; they were a chosen *® Luke xi. 13.
*® Luke xii. 12.
1 Matthew x. 20, i 4? Mark xiii.11; Matthew x.19,; Luke xii. 11.
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. HERITAGE
race with the special vocation of making God known to the nations of the earth.
He believed that David and the Psalmists were led by the Spirit of God to sing His praises, to confess their sins and to plead for their forgiveness in psalms of undying beauty.
He knew that Samuel had been taught by the Spirit of God to help his people as they advanced in their political thinking and as they came in contact with the different nations.
He further believed that it was through the inspiration of the Spirit of God that great prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah had caught a new vision of the righteousness of God and of His demand from men of a clean and pure life, both as individuals and as a nation; this vision recorded in books had become a permanent part of the heritage of Israel.
Jesus fully believed that all the noble ideals which the prophets of His race had seen, all the lofty aspirations with which His people had throbbed and all the wonderful experiences which they had undergone were the work of the Spirit of God.
Was the Spirit of God at work only in Palestine or did He also guide the minds of men in other countries?
This is a problem of great practical importance in India.
A good many people in the Christian Church, and outside it, are sore perplexed about it.
It is, therefore, necessary to take up at this point the attitude of Jesus towards other religions than His own.
In the Book of Wisdom, a Jewish Scripture not however included in the Old Testament, it is said of the Spirit of God:
"From generation to generation passing into holy souls, she maketh men friends of God and prophets." ?*
This seems to suggest that the Spirit of God is at work beyond the limits of Israel.
'This, however, is an isolated verse; no other statement of this kind occurs in the Hebrew Scriptures.
We do not know whether Jesus was familiar with this verse or accepted it as true.
In the last two verses of the Gospel of St. Matthew Jesus dwells upon the missionary task of the Christian Church.
"Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever
I commanded you: and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." ** Some modern scholars have regarded these verses as not belonging to the original Gospel but as having been inserted by a later writer.
However that may be, the missionary emphasis in the teaching of Jesus cannot be explained away.
* Wisdom vii. 27.
* Matthew xxvili. 19, 20.
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He was a born missionary.
He wandered ceaselessly up and down His country, preaching both to individuals and to groups the message of the Kingdom of God.
He had a passionate desire to share with others His own vision and experience of God.
He was happy only when as many people as He could reach heard His teaching.
For this end He toiled hard, defying opposition and speaking courageously even though He knew that He was running the risk of sure death.
Not content with His own work, He trained a body of disciples to carry it on even more widely than He could.
Into this work of preparing a group of eager, selfless evangelists He put some of His best energy.
'Though the disciples were often confused in their thinking and had many shortcomings, He bore with them patiently and sought to impart to them something of His own eager longing to make God real to man and establish in the world the Kingdom of God, in which men would be ruled by love and not by hate.
There are two or three occasions in the Gospels when Christ had to deal with followers of other religions.
A Gentile woman begged Him to heal her daughter.*"
He refused her prayer on the ground that it was not meet to take the children's bread and cast it to dogs.
But she humbly answered that the dogs ate the crumbs from the master's table; He was delighted with her faith and healed her daughter.
It is surprising that Jesus, who had such immediate and practical sympathy with the sick and the suffering, should have tried to put her off for this reason.
The Gospels make it clear that He fully believed, like all the other Jews, that Israel was a chosen race of God and that through them the true knowledge of God would spread through the world.
His saying, " Salvation is from the Jews," sets forth the same truth."
Jesus held that God had chosen the people of Israel to be the instrument of His revelation to the world.
Gradually God had trained them to understand His character and His purpose. Like all primitive peoples, they had started out with the belief in innumerable spirits dwelling in hills and valleys, rivers and trees.
They had practised idolatry.
But He had commanded them to abandon their worship of many gods with images and to worship
Him only, the one true God, in purity of heart and cleanliness of life.
This message had not at all been easy for them to accept.
Again and again they had fallen back into idolatry and the >> Matthew xv. 21-28.
* John iv. 22.
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-belief in many gods; but prophets inspired of God had arisen and rebuked them for their lack of faith in the one Living God.
Slowly they learnt to worship God without images and ceased to believe in many gods.
They realized that there is only one God, that He is a righteous Being and that He required of His worshippers pure hearts and clean lives.
Jesus built His message on this heritage.
He took all this training for granted.
He carried on to new heights the spiritual lessons which His race had learnt painfully through the ages.
It is difficult for us to say why God should have chosen only one race and decided to reveal Himself to the world through it.
What we do find is that there is a clear difference between the spiritual history of the children of Israel and the spiritual history of other nations.
We also find that Jesus who came of this race is unlike any one else.
Whether we consider His life or His teaching or His suffering and death on the Cross or His Resurrection, we cannot think of any one else as being in any way like Him.
We, therefore, firmly believe that in Jesus God is revealed more clearly and completely than in any one else.
The attitude of Jesus towards the Roman Centurion, with whom He came in contact, is most illumining.?"
This Gentile had many interesting traits of character.
He had been attracted by the belief of the Jews in the one God who was good and righteous and who had to be worshipped not with images but with clean hearts and pure lives.
He had even built at his own expense a synagogue for their worship.
We note the element of kindliness in his character from the personal interest which he took in his servant when he was ill and from the trouble to which he went to get him healed.
He held a position of some authority and influence, but was very humble and urged Jesus not to bother about coming to his house but to heal the patient with a word.
As a military man he was used to enforcing discipline and we may surmise that in his own personal life he practised some of the discipline which he required from his soldiers.
Jesus noted the depth and earnestness of his faith and expressed His admiration for him openly and freely.
' And when Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.
And I say unto you, that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven: but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast forth into the outer darkness: there shall be the weeping ™ Luke vii. 1-10; Matthew viii. 5-13.
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and gnashing of teeth." °* We are not told that He called the centurion to leave his ancestral religion and to follow Him, though on many occasions He called His own fellow Jews to give up all and to follow Him.
The conversation with the Samaritan woman, which we considered earlier in this chapter, throws further light on the attitude of Jesus towards religious differences.
The controversy between the Jews and the Samaritans about a place of worship was acute.
Jesus raised their controversy to a high level.
He taught that as God is present everywhere, controversy about any particular place of worship is not of vital importance.
What is of real value is the realization of God in His true nature as Spirit and the genuine, sincere, whole-hearted worship of Him.
In His account of the Judgment Day * Jesus speaks of those who have fed the hungry, clothed the naked and visited the prisoners.
He said that in doing all this they helped Him and that the bliss of God's Presence would be theirs through eternity.
They are surprised at this judgment.
'' Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or athirst, and gave thee drink?
And when saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
And when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?" *° They do not seem to know anything about Him; they profess ignorance of Him and of His demands.
Does this mean that they are not His acknowledged followers?
And yet Jesus, as the final judge of men, gives them the joy of dwelling for ever in the immediate Presence of God.
Jesus, then, while making it absolutely clear that He is the Way, the Truth and Life, teaches that wherever there is goodness, truth and beauty, it should be recognized and respected.
It is for this reason that in this book wherever in India the experiences and the sayings of the saints have been in harmony with the mind of Christ we have quoted them.
All these fragments of truth and glimpses of knowledge fit into the perfect revelation which has been given to the world through Jesus.
It is recognized in India that the Indwelling God enlightens the soul and is the source of all spiritual activity. The Bhagavata
Purana says: "' O Lord, I make salutations to Thee, the Glorious Being. Thou hast entered into me through Thy intelligent power and roused my dormant faculty of speech.
Being the Lord of 8 Matthew viii. 10-12.
*° Matthew xxv. 31—46.
Matthew xxv. 37-39.
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all powers, Thou kindlest to activity also all other organs of mine." ** These "' other organs of mine" refer to the avenues of knowledge we constantly use and the methods of action by which we normally express ourselves.
Sanctification The Holy Spirit, entering our hearts and abiding in them, sanctifies us.
'' And he, when he is come, will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement: of sin, because they believe not on me; of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye behold me no more; of judgement, because the prince of this world hath been judged." " é The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin. We are constantly forgetful of God. We love the world and the things in it. We do not always speak the truth; when it suits our convenience we hide part of the truth and reveal only the rest or we tell a lie.
The Holy Spirit appeals both to the mind and the heart.
He convinces our mind that .we have gone wrong and He makes our heart accept the fact of our guilt.
He makes us say, like the publican in the parable of Jesus, 'God be merciful to me a sinner.'
This recognition of our sinful condition is vitally important.
It is only when we realize how wicked and evil we are that we can truly approach God and beg Him for His forgiveness.
Out of the abundance of His love He will then forgive us fully and take us into the bliss of fellowship with Him, here and hereafter.
If we had not known our sin, we should have remained where we were.
The trivial things of the world with their temporary satisfaction would have occupied all our time.
The joy of living with God would then not have been known to us.
But the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, shows us how evil we are and thereby awakens in us a desire for forgiveness and salvation.
The Holy Spirit teaches us righteousness.
He puts before us lofty ideas of conduct so that we may strive after them.
It is Set that when Jesus began His ministry He said of Himself :
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor :
He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovering of sight to the blind, ™ Bhagavata Purana, IV, ix. 6, translated by Swami Yatiswarananda,
Universal Prayers, p. 49.
* John xvi. 8-11.
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To set at liberty them that are bruised, To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." **
Here we have an account of how the Spirit of the Lord holds up the ideal of righteousness.
The poor, the captive, the blind and the broken-hearted are generally passed over by the world.
People look up to the rich, the educated and the well-to-do; they hold in contempt those who are down and out because of physical infirmity or mental incapacity or lack of money and influence.
It is just these people that the Holy Spirit wants us to help. Righteousness does not refer to individual righteousness only; it does not mean that we should be loving and truthful and just only in our personal relations one with the other.
This we should certainly be.
But we should also strive after social righteousness.
Love and truth and justice ought to exist between capital and labour, between the rich and the poor, between men and women and between the different races.
The love of God should prevail over the whole world.
All children should be provided with equal opportunities for education.
The wealth now available in the world should be so distributed that every one has clean clothes, plenty of nourishing food and homes where shelter can be had from rain and cold and heat.
The Holy Spirit speaks also of judgment.
Whatever we do brings about certain definite consequences. A life of sin brings about ill-health, poverty and misery.
The man, for instance, who drinks heavily ruins himself and his family.
He loses his job, is filled with anxiety and worry and may die from starvation.
Whatever sufferings he undergoes are shared by his family.
He passes on to his children the taint of his own evil habits; they yield to the same temptations as his and their suffering is multiplied.
Neither he nor they know anything of the peace and joy of a life lived in communion with God.
They are more used to drunken brawls than to the serenity of a life dedicated to God.
They find it more pleasant to spend their money on drink than to help others with it. Their absorption in their own miserable short-lived enjoyments shuts them off both here and hereafter from the abiding joys of living constantly with God.
We find in India glimpses (though not frequently) of the truth that God dwells within us and guides us to right action.
"That which the heart permits; which the soul likes; The God within approves; the mind holds pure;
The Eternal Witness sees as free from doubt, * Luke iv. 18, 19.
THE GOSPEL AND INDIA'S HERITAGE
Without misgiving, as straightforward course ; Which brings pure satisfaction to the self ;
That is the course to follow, for good men.
The Indwelling God is the source of endless joy. The joy of salvation is always the outcome of the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.
' These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be fulfilled." **
" But now I come to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves." * People generally think that the pursuit of religion is dull and boring.
Those who have real spiritual experience know, however, that the coming of God into the soul means the welling up of abundant, pure and wonderful joy.
Joy (Ananda) is spoken of by Hindu Bhaktas constantly as the characteristic of the Indwelling God.
The God within gives rise to endless bliss.
There is no measuring the constant and abundant joy which springs forth in the devotee's heart.
Kabir sings:
""T would caress this.day!
It is dearer to me than all other: for my Beloved is a guest in my house to-day.
99 34 My chamber is radiant with His Presence; my courtyard is blessed.
Lost in admiring His great Beauty, my longings sing His name and are glad:
I wash His feet with my tears; I gaze into His face; I offer my body and soul, and all I have, to my Lord.
My Beloved, my Treasure has honoured my house.
What a day of joy is this!
At the sight of my Lord all evils flee from me, and my heart feels the buoyancy of delight.
Yea, to-day my Beloved is a Guest in my house: and this day is dear to me above all others." *"
Conditions required of man for realizing the Indwelling God We have said that the Spirit of God is present everywhere and at all times.
It may be asked: Why, then, does not every one feel His presence?
At this moment outside my room there is plenty of fresh, clean air.
But unless I open the doors and the windows this air will not come in. Though the Spirit of God is present everywhere, there are certain conditions which we
_™ Manu Smriti, quoted by Bhagavan Das, The Essential Unity of all Reiigions, p. 104.
* John xv. 11.
*° John xvii. 13.
"A. J. Appasamy, Temple Betts, pp. 67, 68.
THE TEACHING OF JESUS ON THE HOLY SPIRIT
must observe if we are to feel His presence and be helped by it.
We must throw open the doors and windows of our soul to Him.
If we are too lazy to do that, we cannot complain if we have no experience of His presence.
"If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" * The Holy Spirit is given to them that ask God.
We may be quite sure that all earnest and sincere prayer for the Holy Spirit will be answered.
We may also be sure that where there is no such prayer, the power of the Holy Spirit will not be manifest.
When Jesus left this earth He commanded His disciples that they should not depart from Jerusalem but wait for the promise of the Father.* The need to fulfil the moral conditions necessary for the realization of the Spirit of God is often brought out in the religious literature of India.
Rabindranath Tagore says:
" Life of my life, I shall ever try to keep my body pure, knowing that thy living touch is upon all my limbs.
I shall ever try to keep all untruths out from my thoughts, knowing that thou art that truth which has kindled the light of reason in my mind.
I shall ever try to drive all evils away from my heart and keep my love in flower, knowing that thou hast thy seat in the inmost shrine of my heart.
And it shall be my endeavour to reveal thee in my actions, knowing it is thy power gives me strength to act." *°
In the Ramayana of Tulsidas, Rama, who is believed to be the incarnate God, asked the sage Valmiki where he may dwell and receives this answer :
"They whose ears are like the ocean, and stories of Thee are like rivers flowing into them, yet ever flowing they are never full—in their hearts is a house worthy of Thee.
Those who have made their eyes eager for the sight of Thee, like the pied cuckoo longing for a cloud, and who, ignoring the ocean, rivers, streams, and water, find delight only in the raindrops of Thy presence, in their heart is a restful home, abide there, O Lord of Raghus, with Laksmana and Sita.
All who ask this one fruit, the love of the feet of Rama, dwell in the temple of their heart, both Sita and Ragunandan.
® Luke xi. 13.
* Acts i. 4.
Pied i " Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali, p. 3.
THE GOSPEL AND INDIA'S HERITAGE
Lust, anger, desire, pride, ignorance, covetousness, perversity, passion, enmity, deceit and illusion—where all of these are not— dwell in their hearts, O Raghuray.
Beloved by all and helping all, they who count alike pleasure and pain, praise and abuse, who speak the truth and think the kindly thought; and sleeping or waking, find their refuge in Thee, who never, forsaking Thee, seek another—dwell, O Rama, in their bosom !
Who have no desire at any time but their love for Thee is unfailing, dwell ever in their hearts! let that, O Lord, be Thy special abode! " * The dangers connected with the Hindu Emphasis on the Indwelling nature of God There are three real dangers into which Hindu Bhaktas have often fallen when seeking to realize the indwelling character of God.
It is as well that we should acknowledge these dangers clearly.
Even such a spiritual man as Ramakrishna Paramahamsa considered the Spirit of God to be present everywhere, in the heart of the sinner just as much as in the heart of the saint.
"Verily, I say unto you, the Lord walketh the earth in all forms And He abideth in the holy and pure man, and also in the man of vice; And He is in the rogue, and in the debauchee also, He is." #
This is going too far. When we speak of God as being a Spirit who is present everywhere, we do not mean that there are no moral conditions attached to His indwelling.
He is only present when the heart is clean and ready for Him; where there is no such inner purity He is absent.
He is, of course, anxious to help all sinners.
He is all the time calling us to repentance; but His own work of inspiration and sanctification begins only after the sinner repents, begs to be redeemed and is forgiven.
Because we believe in a God who is present everywhere, we need not say that He lives in the hearts of all sorts of people, whether they care for Him or not.
He respects man's free will; He does not force His way into any heart; He only enters where He is really wanted.
To hold that He is present in the sinner as much as in the saint is to forget His essentially righteous charac- " Translation taken from Tulsidas, G. A. Nateson & Co., Madras, p. 25.
" Ramakrishna, Studies in Universal Religion, translated by Manmatha Nath Chatterjee, p. 98.
THE TEACHING OF JESUS ON THE HOLY SPIRIT
gi ter.
In our anxiety to realize the indwelling presence of God we must not forget that He is a holy God who insists on the utmost purity of character in His devotees if He is to make His abode in their hearts.
Another danger into which Hindu Bhaktas have often fallen is to say that because the Spirit of God dwells in them, whatever they do is God's doing.
It is no longer they that act but His Spirit acts in them.
The knowledge they possess is His knowledge; the feelings they experience are His feelings; the _ thoughts which are in their mind are the thoughts which He has put there.
So whatever they do is the work of God.
Recently a Hindu priest was asked:
'" Why do not people follow the way to God?"
He said:
" Because of their sins."
' What should they do about their sins?'
" They should meditate and worship in the temple."
"There are people who meditate and worship and yet cheat and are greedy."
' This is all God's doing," said the priest, closing the argument.
We cannot attribute to the Spirit of God our own errors and sins. We must always remember that the Spirit of God has to function through such weak and sinful creatures as ourselves.
Fresh air cannot do us any good if we are constantly generating poison gas.
The third real danger is to maintain that all nature is identical with God.
God is the sun, the moon, the blue sky with its glittering stars and the vast ocean with its myriad forms of animal life.
From saying that God makes the sun to move, Hindu thinkers easily pass on to the assertion that He 7s the sun.
When it is said that all nature is God (not merely that all Nature is animated by the indwelling spirit of God), the fact that God is a Person is forgotten.
God is not inanimate matter, without any intelligence or feeling.
He is a thinking, feeling and willing Spirit.
To hold that He is the same as natural objects, which have no life or mind of their own, would be to ignore the real character of God.
God is the Mind behind the universe; He is not the universe.
All these grave dangers are carefully guarded against both in the Old and in the New Testaments.
The Distinctive Teaching of fesus about the Indwelling God It is necessary to deal here with the distinctive emphasis of Jesus on the work of the Holy Spirit as the interpreter of His own teaching and ministry.
'' But the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach
THE GOSPEL AND INDIA'S HERITAGE
you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you." ** "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.
Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth: for he shall not speak from himself; but what things soever he shall hear, these shall he speak: and he shall declare unto you the things. that are to come." ** '' But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall bear witness of me : and ye also bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning." *° All these verses point in the same direction.
The Holy Spirit will continue to interpret Jesus to the world.
Men may forget His sayings and doings, the lapse of time may blur their memory.
The depth of meaning in His life and in His teaching may not be quite evident at once.
He Himself was not able to say all that He wanted to say because His immediate hearers were not mature enough to receive the fullness of His teaching and His own time was limited.
So the Holy Spirit will, from age to age, keep alive in men's hearts and minds the wonderful life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus.
If people begin to forget them the Holy Spirit will bring them again to memory.
He will expound fully their significance.
He will carry them forward to meet new problems and give them fresh interpretations as new situations arise.
This is the distinctive contribution of Jesus to our understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit.
God, who is immanent in the souls of all earnest and true seekers, will interpret fully and clearly the work of Christ and thus extend its usefulness through the ages.
A doubt may arise here.
Has not the Holy Spirit been always in the world?
Why, then, did Jesus speak of it as if it were coming for the first time into the hearts of men?
We are sure that Jesus believed that the Spirit of God had been always active in the hearts of the prophets of His own race.
We are not sure whether He would have extended the sphere of the operation of the Spirit to include prophets of other races as well.
Jesus teaches that the Holy Spirit will have a new function, namely, He will make clear to men's hearts the meaning of the Incarnation; He will bring out the full implications of Christ's teaching and apply it to strange and new problems as they arise from age
" John xiv. 26.
* John xvi. 12, 13.
* John xv. 26, 27.
THE TEACHING OF JESUS ON THE HOLY SPIRIT
to age.
On account of this most important new function of the Holy Spirit, Jesus speaks of His coming into the hearts of men as if it were an absolutely new event.
This added function of the Holy Spirit has thus given Him a fresh significance.
For this reason, His coming into the hearts of men after Christ is an entirely new event in the spiritual history of mankind.