Radhanath Swami and Father Francis Clooney : Encountering God- Hindu and Christian Perspectives - Columbia university, 2012; Father Clooney makes brief mention of keeping Sai Baba vibhuti in his office
This post follows up on a recent post: Interesting videos about East (one Indian spiritual tradition - Radhanath Swami) meeting West (one USA Christian tradition - Cornell West) organized by Princeton University group in April 2011, http://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2018/01/interesting-videos-about-east-one.html, 9th Jan. 2018.
Here's the video: Radhanath Swami and Father Francis Clooney : Encountering God- Hindu and Christian Perspectives - Columbia university, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1FshvupA08, around 1 hr. 50 mins., published on 12th May 2012. [The event seems to have been held in April 2012.]
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Xavier_Clooney, "Francis Xavier Clooney SJ is an American Jesuit Roman Catholic priest and scholar in the teachings of Hinduism. He is currently a professor at Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts."
At around 43 mins 25 secs, Fr. Clooney says, "And I think when I went to Kathmandu in 1973, it was kind of a last wave of that kind of the West going out to the world. I went there as part of a mission, as part of a Jesuit school in Kathmandu. It was an educational institution in which of course learning would take place and impolitic questions would always be asked. In that context, I first encountered Hindu tradition. I remember very much hearing bhajans of Rama and Sita being sung by the boys in the school. Remember hearing for the first time about Sai Baba and received from one of the students some Vibhuti that I still have in my office."
Ravi: Very nice to hear from a Jesuit priest of the USA who is a Professor in Harvard Divinity School, about him getting a vibhuti packet associated with Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba in the 1970s from a Kathmandu school student, which he still has in his office (in Harvard Divinity School, I guess) in 2012! Jai Sairam!
I also love the way he talks about Hindu religious traditions with a lot of understanding and respect, while still loving and revering the Jesuit Catholic tradition of which he is an ordained priest!
Fr. Clooney goes on to say, "Hearing the stories of Ramakrishna who I loved as an individual and still do, because of his incredibly passionate devotion to the mother Kali. In the sense that everything is given to you, if you love a hundred percent the one who is your mother. And the sense that all this spoke to me, immediately I think, that if I am a Christian for whom Jesus is the center of reality, somehow that echoed. You might think it would be contradictory but in a very improbable way it was symmetrical or harmonious with Ramakrishna loving his mother [Kali] OR Rama and Sita and the utter devotion of Hanuman and Lakshmana and so on to them."
Here is a transcript of some excerpts of the discussion: http://www.radhanathswami.com/2012/04/columbia-university-discussion-with-francis-x-clooney/.
One particular part is very interesting to me which is the responses of Fr. Clooney and Swami Radhanath to the ****big existential question**** "Who am I" in their religious traditions. I have given some extracts from above link related to this question.
Father Francis Clooney: In the Catholic tradition I am a child of God. I am [a] person who God loves intensely. God has called nothing into being. God has given a sense of direction in life. You are the one and I am the one who God cares for and I am not abandoned. I am one who God has given a community, brothers and sisters of mine and other traditions around me. But the ultimate question of “who am I” – I think you have to be alone and stand and you look in the mirror without any illusions. Look at your life and all this stuff I say about myself and to others. If I strip it all away and to not be afraid of that, at one point we have to ask this very frightening question – “who am I”, and then say I affirm it. I am good, I am not going to run away from [who] I am because the only person who I’ll be is who I am and its a gift I received. It may not be the gift I wanted but its God’s gift to the world. It may be a question I need to ask when I’m 20 or 30, but at 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 – its a ruthless question again. And we never just ask it once but keep coming back to it because we have to keep stripping away all the ways that we have made it comfortable to allow the mystery again to be open.
-----
Radhanath Swami: The Gita begins especially on this subject, the question “who am I”. Dehino smin yatha dehe – that the conscious force, the living force that is within us and see through the eyes, tastes through the tongue, thinks through the brain, loves through the heart – that living force passes through many transitions. At one time we were little babies, then we were young children, then teenagers and then middle age to old age and eventually the body dies. So who is it who is witnessing all of these changes. The body is compared to a vehicle, or like a set of clothes. And the mind is like a subtle set of clothes – like our underclothes. But we are the person underneath it. The body changes and the mind is always changing, but who is that witness? That is the atma, the living force, the soul. The Gita explains that the nature of that atma – it is unborn, undying, eternal. Every living being is part and parcel of God. The nature of the soul is that we are part of God. Within us is the greatest potential – the inner fulfillment of love for God and love for all beings and to see that all life is a sacred part of God. We can change our religion, nationality, these days you can even change your sex, but who am I? I am the divine spark of God. Our eternal identity, that which is inseparable of our true self is to love God. To be an instrument of compassion in whatever we do. That is our nature.
--- end excerpts from http://www.radhanathswami.com/2012/04/columbia-university-discussion-with-francis-x-clooney/ -----
Ravi: The above excerpt giving Radhanath Swami's response based on Gita to the "Who am I" question, I think fits in well with Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba's teachings too. Bhagavan would speak about the changeless Atma being our reality, and he would refer to us listeners of his discourses as Divyaatmaswarupulaaras (embodiments/forms of divine Atma) and Premaatmaswarupulaaras (embodiments/forms of loving Atma).
Reverend and Professor Francis Clooney seems to have done a lot of study and writing on Hinduism. That is very interesting. Related additional excerpts from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Xavier_Clooney are given below:
A native of Brooklyn, New York, he graduated from the prestigious Manhattan Jesuit Regis High School and entered the novitiate of Society of Jesus in 1968 and was subsequently ordained in 1978. Following that, he earned his Bachelor's Degree at Fordham University in the Bronx, New York.
After earning his doctorate in South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago in 1984, Clooney taught at Boston College until 2005, serving also as the Academic Director of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies (a Recognised Independent Centre of the University of Oxford), when he became the Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology at Harvard Divinity School. In 2010 he became the Director of Harvard's Center for the Study of World Religions. That same year he was named a Fellow of the British Academy.
His primary areas of scholarship are theological commentarial writings in the Sanskrit and Tamil traditions of Hindu India, and the developing field of comparative theology, a discipline distinguished by attentiveness to the dynamics of theological learning deepened and enriched through the study of traditions other than one's own. He has also written on the Jesuit missionary tradition, particularly in India, and the dynamics of dialogue in the contemporary world.
Clooney sits on a number of editorial boards, was the first president of the International Society for Hindu-Christian Studies and, from 1998 to 2004, was coordinator for interreligious dialogue for the Jesuits of the United States. Clooney has authored several articles and books, and served as the editor of the OCHS Hindu Studies book series for Routledge. His current projects include a study of yoga and Jesuit spirituality.
--- end wiki excerpts ----
[I thank wikipedia and radhanathswami.com, and have presumed that they will not have any objections to me sharing the above extracts from their website on this post which is freely viewable by all, and does not have any financial profit motive whatsoever.]
Here's the video: Radhanath Swami and Father Francis Clooney : Encountering God- Hindu and Christian Perspectives - Columbia university, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1FshvupA08, around 1 hr. 50 mins., published on 12th May 2012. [The event seems to have been held in April 2012.]
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Xavier_Clooney, "Francis Xavier Clooney SJ is an American Jesuit Roman Catholic priest and scholar in the teachings of Hinduism. He is currently a professor at Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts."
At around 43 mins 25 secs, Fr. Clooney says, "And I think when I went to Kathmandu in 1973, it was kind of a last wave of that kind of the West going out to the world. I went there as part of a mission, as part of a Jesuit school in Kathmandu. It was an educational institution in which of course learning would take place and impolitic questions would always be asked. In that context, I first encountered Hindu tradition. I remember very much hearing bhajans of Rama and Sita being sung by the boys in the school. Remember hearing for the first time about Sai Baba and received from one of the students some Vibhuti that I still have in my office."
Ravi: Very nice to hear from a Jesuit priest of the USA who is a Professor in Harvard Divinity School, about him getting a vibhuti packet associated with Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba in the 1970s from a Kathmandu school student, which he still has in his office (in Harvard Divinity School, I guess) in 2012! Jai Sairam!
I also love the way he talks about Hindu religious traditions with a lot of understanding and respect, while still loving and revering the Jesuit Catholic tradition of which he is an ordained priest!
Fr. Clooney goes on to say, "Hearing the stories of Ramakrishna who I loved as an individual and still do, because of his incredibly passionate devotion to the mother Kali. In the sense that everything is given to you, if you love a hundred percent the one who is your mother. And the sense that all this spoke to me, immediately I think, that if I am a Christian for whom Jesus is the center of reality, somehow that echoed. You might think it would be contradictory but in a very improbable way it was symmetrical or harmonious with Ramakrishna loving his mother [Kali] OR Rama and Sita and the utter devotion of Hanuman and Lakshmana and so on to them."
Here is a transcript of some excerpts of the discussion: http://www.radhanathswami.com/2012/04/columbia-university-discussion-with-francis-x-clooney/.
One particular part is very interesting to me which is the responses of Fr. Clooney and Swami Radhanath to the ****big existential question**** "Who am I" in their religious traditions. I have given some extracts from above link related to this question.
Father Francis Clooney: In the Catholic tradition I am a child of God. I am [a] person who God loves intensely. God has called nothing into being. God has given a sense of direction in life. You are the one and I am the one who God cares for and I am not abandoned. I am one who God has given a community, brothers and sisters of mine and other traditions around me. But the ultimate question of “who am I” – I think you have to be alone and stand and you look in the mirror without any illusions. Look at your life and all this stuff I say about myself and to others. If I strip it all away and to not be afraid of that, at one point we have to ask this very frightening question – “who am I”, and then say I affirm it. I am good, I am not going to run away from [who] I am because the only person who I’ll be is who I am and its a gift I received. It may not be the gift I wanted but its God’s gift to the world. It may be a question I need to ask when I’m 20 or 30, but at 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 – its a ruthless question again. And we never just ask it once but keep coming back to it because we have to keep stripping away all the ways that we have made it comfortable to allow the mystery again to be open.
-----
Radhanath Swami: The Gita begins especially on this subject, the question “who am I”. Dehino smin yatha dehe – that the conscious force, the living force that is within us and see through the eyes, tastes through the tongue, thinks through the brain, loves through the heart – that living force passes through many transitions. At one time we were little babies, then we were young children, then teenagers and then middle age to old age and eventually the body dies. So who is it who is witnessing all of these changes. The body is compared to a vehicle, or like a set of clothes. And the mind is like a subtle set of clothes – like our underclothes. But we are the person underneath it. The body changes and the mind is always changing, but who is that witness? That is the atma, the living force, the soul. The Gita explains that the nature of that atma – it is unborn, undying, eternal. Every living being is part and parcel of God. The nature of the soul is that we are part of God. Within us is the greatest potential – the inner fulfillment of love for God and love for all beings and to see that all life is a sacred part of God. We can change our religion, nationality, these days you can even change your sex, but who am I? I am the divine spark of God. Our eternal identity, that which is inseparable of our true self is to love God. To be an instrument of compassion in whatever we do. That is our nature.
--- end excerpts from http://www.radhanathswami.com/2012/04/columbia-university-discussion-with-francis-x-clooney/ -----
Ravi: The above excerpt giving Radhanath Swami's response based on Gita to the "Who am I" question, I think fits in well with Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba's teachings too. Bhagavan would speak about the changeless Atma being our reality, and he would refer to us listeners of his discourses as Divyaatmaswarupulaaras (embodiments/forms of divine Atma) and Premaatmaswarupulaaras (embodiments/forms of loving Atma).
Reverend and Professor Francis Clooney seems to have done a lot of study and writing on Hinduism. That is very interesting. Related additional excerpts from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Xavier_Clooney are given below:
A native of Brooklyn, New York, he graduated from the prestigious Manhattan Jesuit Regis High School and entered the novitiate of Society of Jesus in 1968 and was subsequently ordained in 1978. Following that, he earned his Bachelor's Degree at Fordham University in the Bronx, New York.
After earning his doctorate in South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago in 1984, Clooney taught at Boston College until 2005, serving also as the Academic Director of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies (a Recognised Independent Centre of the University of Oxford), when he became the Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology at Harvard Divinity School. In 2010 he became the Director of Harvard's Center for the Study of World Religions. That same year he was named a Fellow of the British Academy.
His primary areas of scholarship are theological commentarial writings in the Sanskrit and Tamil traditions of Hindu India, and the developing field of comparative theology, a discipline distinguished by attentiveness to the dynamics of theological learning deepened and enriched through the study of traditions other than one's own. He has also written on the Jesuit missionary tradition, particularly in India, and the dynamics of dialogue in the contemporary world.
Clooney sits on a number of editorial boards, was the first president of the International Society for Hindu-Christian Studies and, from 1998 to 2004, was coordinator for interreligious dialogue for the Jesuits of the United States. Clooney has authored several articles and books, and served as the editor of the OCHS Hindu Studies book series for Routledge. His current projects include a study of yoga and Jesuit spirituality.
--- end wiki excerpts ----
[I thank wikipedia and radhanathswami.com, and have presumed that they will not have any objections to me sharing the above extracts from their website on this post which is freely viewable by all, and does not have any financial profit motive whatsoever.]
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