Interpreting Scriptures: On Referential Realities beyond the Text

In Christianity, Paul wrote that if the resurrection of Christ Jesus didn’t really take place, then faith is for naught, but he also wrote that faith without love is for naught. The assumption that if Jesus was killed and raised historically speaking, why be a Christian, has had much greater currency than the assumption that if a person is not kind and compassion in heart and deed to people who have been insulting or have damaged the person, that person is not really a Christian. In short, the value of the religious meaning in the New Testament has typically been assumed to depend on the extratextual (i.e., beyond the text of the Bible) existence of Jesus. Using Vedanta hermeneutics (i.e., method of interpreting a text) in Hinduism, I argue that the assumption is incorrect. This is not to make a historical claim one way or the other regarding Jesus or Krishna; rather, I want to claim that the religious meaning in a scriptural text does not depend on making the assumption that the reality described therein exists beyond the text. Although hermeneutically based, this argument may sway attention back to religious meaning itself as primary, including in regard to engaging in pious actions.

In Hinduism, Mimamsa and Vedanta commentators “’restain’ extra-textual reference within the overarching frame of the text, which is not replaced by knowledge, even if the object of knowledge remains ‘outside the text.’”[1] To be sure, the Brahma-sutras “could lend itself to the idea that the Upanisads communicate various authors’ intentions and point to a reality beyond the text.”[2] This is problematic because “external reference to impermanent realities threatened ultimately to undercut the posited eternity and permanence of the sacred text itself. The system had to be nonreferential, meaningful in itself, and expressive in that meaning, in order to be protected from a changing and unpredictable world.”[3]

What about positing of imperishable, and thus permanent realities as existing outside the text? Doing so would not undercut the posited eternity and permanence of a sacred text itself, but it would mean that such a text is referential and thus not meaningful as a system within itself. Also, is not such a positing of something existent outside of the text necessary for the extra-textual component of the hermeneutic (or else the meditation is just on abstract knowledge)?  Both the Mimamsa and Vedanta schools presuppose that “text and performance—meditational or sacrificial—imply, reflect, and instigate one another.”[4] Perhaps it can be said that the meaning in the text is primary in the textual hermeneutic, whereas the extra-textuality reality is primary in the extratextual portion of the Vedanta hermeneutic. Hans Frei, who wrote in his Eclipse of the Biblical Narrative that neither form nor historical criticism should eclipse the religious meaning of a religious text. In other words, Frei holds that asking about “the historical Jesus” and whether different authors, each having their own agenda, contributed to a text gets in the way of giving the meaning of a religious story enough air to breath in a reader’s heart and mind.

 I wonder if questions concerning reality beyond a text and being referred to textually should also be bracketed so not to eclipse the meaning that is in the text. And yet, the Vedanta project “is permanently about the reading and use of texts, and about brahman as an extratextual reality communicated through texts, without either the text or the reality being thereby rendered superfluous.”[v] Perhaps the question is whether a text alone (bracketing extratextual praxis) can only allow for the nominalist rather than a realist assumption as regards the reality being described or discussed textually.

It may be that making the realist assumption—that the reality described in a text really exists outside the text—makes sense, for why would an author claim writing a text that a reality has meaning if that reality doesn’t really exist outside of the text. On the other hand, making a nominalist assumption keeps the focus on the text itself, whose religious meaning is primary in a hermeneutic. Put another way, even if brahman or Krishna do not exist beyond the meaning in a text, the textual religious meaning can still have value. As Victor Frankl discovered, the human need for meaning can be felt in even very dire circumstances. Distinctly theological or religious meaning can sooth a troubled heart or mind even if God doesn’t exist beyond the text. The textual meaning is real in that it is hardly illusory and can have an effect on people without having to approach a text as a realist rather than as a nominalist. This is not to say that the realist assumption is never the correct assumption to make; rather, it is to say that the validity and usefulness of religious meaning in a scriptural text does not depend on making that assumption. If so, and because we mere mortals cannot be certain whether an extratextual reality exists as it extends beyond the limits of our thoughts, perceptions, and emotions, religious meaning gleamed from a religious text ought to be primary in interpreting one and the basis upon which a religious practitioner acts, whether in worship or interpersonally in daily life.

In Christianity, for example, being compassionate to people whom the Christian doesn’t like or who don’t like the Christian should not depend on whether the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus occurred historically and even metaphysically. Even as a textual illustration, the Passion Narrative has meaning and thus value, which can be put into practice regardless of historical and metaphysical questions. Selfless love as to a detractor or even a hated or hateful enemy as a means to entering a different spiritual condition (e.g., the kingdom of God) has its own meaningfulness and value both in itself and as put into practice. Both Paul and Augustine wrote that God is such love. In Vedanta Hinduism, brahman itself can be grasped as identical to an person's self (atman) in experientially meditation, which, though extra-textual, is based on concentrating on the meaning of a scriptural passage. 

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1. Francis X. Clooney, “Binding the Text: Vedanta as Philosophy and Commentary,” in Texts in Context: Traditional Hermeneutics in South Asia, ed., Jeffrey R. Timm (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press), p. 56.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid., p. 58.
5. Ibid., p. 61.

On Hindu Metaphysics

At Harvard’s Bhukti Yoga Conference in 2025, Anuttama spoke on metaphysics as a spiritual reality. He argued that the nature of that reality is a personality—that of the Hindu god Krishna. I contend that Vaishnavism also contains an alternative depiction of reality, which is impersonal rather than a deity. The difference may come down to whether compassion or being that is conscious, infinite, and blissful is primary.

Anuttama claimed that there are four primary views of reality, his favorite being the fourth. Firstly, there is the view that the universe has a material cause (rather than being created by a deity). This view can accommodate humanitarianism, though also hedonism. Another view holds that there is a deity, but then it can be asked, why is there so much suffering in the world? Thirdly is the view that the world is just an illusion, and we should realize this. The film, The Matrix, is based on this view. Also consistent with this view is the belief, “I am a deity and the universe,” and it is just an illusion that we are mortal, limited creatures.

The fourth view is that of Vaishnavism. There is a supreme reality, and that is the Supreme Person, which is the deity Krishna, and we are immortal. There is no death and ultimately no rebirth. Also, a person can have a relationship with that highest reality, and a person counts in that relationship. The idea is that there is a deity and a person can have a relationship with it, and the divine personality is with the person at every moment. There is reaction (karma), but hell does not exist. Suffering comes from the choice to have pleasure apart from that relationship. Also, suffering serves a purpose: to help us realize the importance of the relationship. The purpose of life is to reawaken that relationship.

Being oriented to a relationship with Krishna can make our relationships with other people less selfish, which means that even interpersonal interactions can be more spiritual than materialistic. Even in business, a proprietor can be less exploitative of labor and even customers by looking at the long-term rather than to make a quick profit. In short, we can spiritualize this world by recognizing how compassionate Krishna is, and in being oriented to that, we can infuse compassion in our relationships with other people.

Turning now to analysis of Anuttama’s theology, Shankara’s (8^th century, CE) Advaita Vedantism can be evoked by way of a contrast ironically to delve more deeply into Anuttama’s Vaishnavism. Whereas bhukti yoga, in being devotional, is based on there being a Supreme Person (i.e., Krishna) as the ultimate reality, Advaita (non-dualist) Vedanta posits the impersonal brahman as the ultimate reality, while Krishna (Vishnu) is a manifestation (i.e., an appearance created by brahman) rather than being itself real. "According to the Upanisads, brahman is the highest reality and reference point for all meaning, and ultimately for salvation as well."[1] Even in reaching liberation from the cycle of rebirths (and heaven), knowing brahman not only cognitively but also as realized experientially as a person focuses one’s consciousness on one’s being, understood to be one’s true self (atman) and also identical with brahman, which is being that is conscious and infinite (and Ramanuja adds “bliss”).

Even Vaishnavism has been characterized in a way that makes brahman seem more real than is Krishna. For example, Britannica describes Vaishnavism as the belief that “absolute reality (brahman) is manifested in Vishnu, who in turn is incarnated in Rama, Krishna, and other avatars.”[2] The verb, manifests, is what implies that Vishnu, and thus Krishna, come out of that reality rather than instantiate it. Putting brahman in parentheses is to state that it is absolute reality.

Anuttama would undoubtedly reject Britannica’s description of the relationship between Krishna and absolute reality (as brahman).  Anuttama would doubtlessly type the word, “Krishna,” in parentheses or even erase the word brahman to convey the idea that a deity, or Supreme Person,” is that which is absolutely real. Similarly, Ramanuja interprets chapter 7 of the Bhagavad-gita as affirming that Krishna is ontologically higher than brahman, whereas Shankara reverses the arrows in his commentary because in non-dualist philosophy (i.e, Advaita Vedanta), only brahman is real whereas both creation and deities are merely manifestations in the realm of appearance.

Furthermore, because Anuttama states that Krishna is known to be compassionate, and this is how a person’s relationship with the deity can rub off on interpersonal relations, the metaphysics of Vaishnavism may actually be that it is compassion itself that is ultimately real. In bhukti devotion to Krishna, a person may really be loving compassion itself, which manifests as a deity (i.e., personified). If so, then the disagreement between Vaishnavism theology and Advaita Vedanta philosophy boils down to the precipitate of either compassion or being (which is infinite, conscious, and powerful).[3] Which is more real than the other, and is the winner the ultimate or absolute reality such that no third candidate could possibly usurp the esteemed title?

Brahman is not just infinite being, for Shankara holds that it is conscious and powerful.[4] Can it be that being that is aware is compassion (or compassionate)? Creating the world could then be understood as an act of compassion; certainly, brahman cannot have a desire out of some lack. Rather, the power of unlimited being becomes kinetic in manifesting itself in creating. Differing from the Advaita philosophy, Ramanuja adds bliss as a quality of brahman. Can being itself that is infinite, aware, powerful, and blissful be innately compassion(ate)? We are closer, I think, by adding Ramanuja’s bhukti theology (i.e, that brahman is bliss, which not by accident is conducive to personifying ultimate reality as a deity) to reaching an identity relation between brahman and compassion (similar to how Shankara emphasizes the identity of atman and brahman).

A person who has bliss is more likely to be compassionate than is an unhappy miser. Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol illustrates this point. When Scrooge is blissful on Christmas morning after being visited by three ghosts, he is suddenly compassionate to his employee and his nephew, whose Tiny Tim would die otherwise. By virtue of being blissful, Scrooge has become an avatar or personification of compassion in the story. Jesus in the Gospels is also a personification of compassion, whose root there is love (i.e., agape seu benevolentia universalis). Perhaps in his philosophical theology, Shankara meant to say, Don’t get too carried away with the personification; it’s what’s inside—the essence—that counts. Christians could take a lesson in this respect.

Therefore, by using Ramanuja as a bridge of sorts, Krishna as being essentially compassion itself can be understood be blissful brahman exercising its unmanifest power. This is not to say, however, that being itself is compassion. Rather, in attempting a reconciliation of the metaphysics of bhukti Vaishnavism and Advaita Vedanta, compassion can be reckoned to be implied as a quality of brahman. It is infinite, conscious, powerful, blissful, and compassionate, but this is not to say that the essence of brahman is compassion.

That the Advaita Vedanta philosophy claims that brahman has a few specific positive qualities is crucial to being able to construe brahman as compassion. To put this another way, the essence or “substance” of brahman must be compassion for the reconciliation to be complete. To contend that being itself, which is everywhere that exists, absent the qualities of consciousness, power, and bliss, is essentially compassion is a much more difficult claim to argue; the positive qualities that being has in Advaita Vedanta make the job easier. Also, to want existence to be compassion is not to say that existence is compassion. Thirdly, to claim that brahman compassionately creates the world is not to say that brahman is (in essence) compassion. Even saying that being blissful, brahman is naturally compassionate does not get us to an identity relation between brahman and compassion, but we’re getting closer. The argument needs to be that being that has the Advaitan positive qualities (as well as the negative qualities, such as imperishable) is compassion. I’m not there yet. Perhaps the key is recognizing that the realization of brahman is not only by studying a text such as the Upanisads, but also in an extratextual [i.e., experiential] process of realization, such as by meditation on positive and negative qualities of brahman. It is not so “that brahman can be thought about in general, under a composite form constructed by harmonizing all Upanisadic texts. Rather, it [i.e., the nature of brahman] presumes an irreducible, ongoing act of reading, remembering, and combining texts, in which the extratextual and full nature of brahman modifies how we read texts with their many distinctions.”[5] Translated into Christian terms, the extratextual element can be thought of as praying on a biblical passage rather than just studying it.

For example, in meditating on certain qualities of brahman, a person might feel compassion generally but intensely, meaning not directed to a particular deity or person. Not having directionality, the compassion would be experienced as compassion itself. Because the experiential context is the experience of the identity-relation of one’s own true self (atman) and brahman, the meditator might conclude that compassion naturally falls out from the experiential realization of identity of individual and infinite being, or is integral to it, and thus is the very essence of brahman, or at least quality thereof.

Assuming the relation of identity between brahman and compassion can be established, the two Hindu schools of thought might then want to argue over whether knowing or loving compassion (as brahman) is better, and more particularly, which is more conducive to a person being compassionate. Is being a brahman-knower or a bhukti devotee a better way to instantiate compassion in the very being of an individual self (atman)? Furthermore, perhaps it is in a person being compassionate to the extent that one can know or love one’s own essence/self as compassion that brahman, which is unmanifest, manifests its conscious bliss as power, all this being otherwise known to us as compassion. Maybe the beingness of conscious, empowered bliss is essentially compassion.

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1. Francis X. Clooney, “Binding the Text: Vedanta as Philosophy and Commentary,” in Texts in Context: Traditional Hermeneutics in South Asia, ed., Jeffrey R. Timm (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press), p. 47.
2. Britannica entry for “Vaishnavism”. Britannica.com (accessed March 21, 2025).
3. That these are primary qualities of brahman can be found at Francis X. Clooney, “Binding the Text,” p. 54.
4. That the vacuum of outer space can hold energy is one way of conceptualizing the latent power of being itself. Einstein’s famous formula relating energy to mass postulates that energy in space can spontaneously become mass, and possibility revert back to energy. That out of brahman, creation manifests, is sustained, and ends is consistence with the science. To my knowledge, no science backs up the idea that brahman, qua being, is conscious. Besides, positing awareness and a will, such that the creation of the world (and deities) is an act of will of impersonal reality is anthropomorphic; Hume would have a fit.
5. Francis X. Clooney, “Binding the Text,” p. 54.

Transcendence in Hindu Bhakti

Edwin Byrant, a scholar of Hinduism who spoke at the Bhakti Yoga conference based at Harvard in March 2025, discussed the transcendence that is in bhukti devotion to a Hindu deity, such as Krishna. Such transcendence can end a person’s transactional approach in trying to please a deity in exchange from beneficial grace from the deity’s love. Both the steps and definitions of bhakti reveal the salience of transcendence in loving devotion to a deity.

The steps of Bhakti Yoga begin with a person recognizing one’s own suffering. We want to put an end to our own suffering. The first step is to recognize that there is a higher power: a power higher than oneself. There is order in the cosmos, so there must be a higher power that is ordering the universe. We are naturally self-centric, but we should be able to recognize that we are not the cause of the order of the universe. Therefore, the recognition of a higher power—an intelligence that is omnipotent—includes an acknowledgement that none of us is that higher power. The next stage is surrendering to it. Then, a person can look to the higher power manifesting in one’s life. Ultimately, love is the gift that comes from the outside. When it is given, then the transactional element is ended; the person forgets oneself in loving a deity. The focus is on trying to attract the deity’s grace. As such grace is transcendent, and thus beyond our power and knowledge, and thus our efforts to please, we can only attempt to attract a deity’s attention and get lost in the loving itself.

Transcendence can be gleamed too from definitions of Bhakti. The Sanskrit word, bhakti, is a verbal noun (i.e., something you do): an action that connects. In the Bhakti Sutras, several definitions are given. They boil down to seva, which loosely translates as service. It is to try to please. It is not selfish.  So, bhakti includes engaging in acts to please the other. To purify the selfishness and please the beloved. Minds can only manifest thoughts, and this is not sufficient to know how to please an entity that is transcendent. Part of surrendering is acknowledging our limitations.  So, we look to religious experts, such as gurus, and religious texts, such as the Puranas and the Bhagavad-Gita, on which a guru should be based, for even gurus are human, all too human.

By its very nature, transcendence goes beyond the limits of human cognition and perception, so even a succinct, well-organized explanation or account of transcendence itself or that which is posited as transcendent should be recognized as limited. For example, it may not be clear how surrender to a higher power implies or even is compatible with devotional love, at least from the perspective of the world in which we live. Such utter dependence as a creature such as Man can recognize in one’s relation to the Creator, which is the basis even of existence itself, may involve or admit a distinctly theological love that is qualitatively different than interpersonal love, which is based in social psychology. This is not to claim that the former kind of love cannot relate to the latter—only that the former cannot be derived from the latter. We may be so used to projecting the love we feel in our own realm onto the love that a deity has and that we may direct to a deity that we could scarcely recognize or even conceptualize of distinctly theological love. It would follow that any definition of bhakti can only be provisional, and yet any given definition is improvable. Transcending transactionalism, for example, is just part of the process in coming to terms with what Hindu bhakti really is, as sui generis rather than projected devotional love.

Comparative Devotionalism: Hinduism and Christianity

I suspect that many people would feel very uncomfortable watching a religious person express devotional love to that person’s chosen deity in a very emotional and effusive manner. The sheer emotional intensity amid the dancing and chanting in a Hare Krishna temple can be daunting to a visitor. The phenomenon of what in Hinduism is called bhukti is hardly rare, and this begs the question of whether there is a human instinctual urge to feel and express even lifelong loving devotion to an entity that is not based in the created realm and thus cannot be realized and instantiated as another human being can be and is. Whether there is a phenomenon that is human, thus beyond the manifestations in various religions can go a long way in answering the question of whether an innate instinctual urge exists, even if it is more pressing in some people than in others. Some people, for instance, work their whole life in business, while other business practitioners reach a certain point in years when they “check out,” and head to a divinity school or seminary. Still other people assume religious vocations as young adults and spend the rest of their life ministering to people and officiating at religious rituals. Some people spend their entire life without feeling devotional love directed to a deity, while other people, such as the Hindu mystic, Ramakrishna, are utterly consumed by the inward fire of religious devotion. Was Ramakrishna’s devotion different in kind from a Christian’s intense love of Jesus, or is there what can be termed a human bhakti phenomenon, and if so, is it capable of breaking down religious barriers that can excite animosity and even hatred?

Jess Navarette, speaking at Harvard’s Bhakti Yoga conference in March, 2025, discussed comparative Bhakti by looking at Hindu and Christian parallels. Bhakti yoga is the practice of loving devotion. There is a coherent thread back to the Vedas, and devotion to Krishna is salient in several of the chapters of the Bhagavad-Gita. In chapter 7 alone, Krishna tells Arjuna, “Here (now), O son-of-Pritha, how, [with] the mind attached to Me, engaged in Yoga, [with] Me as refuge, you may know Me fully, without doubt.”[1] Taking refuge is other than epistemological (i.e., knowing), as dependence is involved. Furthermore, Krishna says that people who act meritoriously and for “whom evil has come to an end” are those who “worship” Krishna rather than the other deities.[2] Because the early-medieval Hindu theologian and philosopher Shankara claims that even in the Gita, achieving the realization that one’s self (atman) is identical to brahman, which is being itself and is conscious or aware, it is important to stress that Bhakti devotion to a deity involves more than just knowing the deity’s higher nature; loving devotion, such as is evinced in worshipping a deity, is the essence of bhakti.

Although it is problematic to apply the Hindu term bhakti to other religions, such as Christianity, just as applying the word “God” to brahman is also problematic, devotion to a deity is in other religions besides Hinduism, and by looking at the similarities, the phenomenon of religious devotion can be better understood because the artifacts of particular religions can be distinguished from the trans-religious phenomenon itself. This, by the way, is an excellent reason for studying comparative religion or theology, though such an orientation comes with the opportunity cost of the foregone benefits of specializing in one religion.

One such bhukti parallel pertains to Jesus washing the disciples’ feet[3] and Krishna washing Sudama’s feet.[4] Both Lord Jesus and Lord Krishna commend service by leading by example. Also, both highlight the closeness of God and the intimacy that is possible in loving devotion.  Finally, both passages imply the personal care and attention that the Son of God and Lord Krishna give to humans, who should thus be humble (and grateful) in return, for such care and attention is voluntary.

Another parallel of devotion to God pertains to Judaism and Christianity, and this similarity will lead us to back to making Hindu-Christian comparisons. Deuteronomy 6:5 says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength” and Matthew 22:37-40 says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” Although the latter extends love to interpersonal relations, both passages are very direct in issuing the imperative that devotional love is to be directed to God. Of the thought of Gregory of Nyssa (4^th century), Navarette wrote, “The perfection of human nature consists in being united with God by a kind of devotion which leads the soul to love Him above all things.”  Furthermore, Francis of Assisi’s prayer includes “to be loved as to love.”

It may that in the Hindu Gita, love itself is not so explicitly mentioned by Krishna, whereas taking refuge in and worshiping Krishna are more explicitly demanded, yet this does not mean that devotional love is not much desired by Krishna in the Gita as by the Christian God. Rather, it may be the case that Christianity builds on the passage in Deuteronomy to be known as the religion of love, hence both Paul and Augustine wrote that God is love. Devotion is to be directed to pure (agape) love itself. Is this the epitome of bhukti, or is the Hindu articulation really all that different from being devoted to love personified (or as an entity, rather than impersonal), especially considering the example of Ramakrishna in the nineteenth century?  After all, as a Hindu devotee of Kali the goddess of death, Ramakrishna was so authentically and lovingly devoted to her that a brahmin priest let Ramakrishna speak extemporaneously during a ritual. His devotion to Kali was certainly no less than that of Thérèse of Lisieux and that of Gertrud of Helfta to the Christian Lord Jesus. Both women were cloistered Christian nuns; at the very least they had few distractions, so they could devote themselves entirely to being devoted in love to Jesus.

Taking refuge in Krishna is not so far off, and, as stated above, it is more emotional than knowing Krishna’s higher nature epistemologically. It may be that the intimacy itself (e.g., high trust) that is inherent in taking refuge in a deity is none other than love, as in the old expression, where there’s smoke, there’s fire; or, taking refuge could be in terms of ontological dependence that is a micro reflection of the fact that creation is dependent on Krishna’s creative force. Perhaps in teasing out the relationship between love and radical dependence, taking refuge in Krishna can be compared with the bridal imagery that has been so often appropriated by Christian mystics—nuns being known as brides of Christ. Certainly historically, there has been much interpersonal and societally-structured dependence in the marriage relationship between a husband and a wife; presumably love has existed in at least some of those relationships in spite of the dependence of (especially pregnant) wives on their respective “bread winners.”

Origen of Alexandria (185-254 CE) wrote on the Song of Songs of the Old Testament, treating the religious poem as an allegory of the relationship between the soul and God. According to Navarette, for Origin “the bride symbolizes the soul, while the bridegroom represents Christ”, and the objective is to “cultivate an intimate relationship with the Divine.”  In his presentation, Navarette also cited Bernard of Clairvaux, who, in his book, On Loving God, advances the idea that, according to Navarette, “besides reverence, there is the intimacy such that a bride has with her bridegroom.”  For Bonaventure too, “to attain God includes the imagery of a bride and bridegroom.” Similarly, Ramakrishna thought of himself as married to Kali, and to be married to the goddess of death is no small commitment. Moreover, how could any loving devotion of a creature such as Man not involve radical dependence, for neither in Hinduism nor in Christianity does a divinity need to create a world out of some kind of lack in the divine itself.

Even though Christianity’s core is that God itself is (selfless) love, love devoted to Krishna is certainly salient in the devotionalism. Even so, devotional love being directed to love itself (agape) does seem to be a good candidate to be known as the epitome of bhakti. This is not to say that Christian devotionalism is superior to Hindu bhakti; rather, it is to raise the thought, what if Krishna’s higher nature were exclusively love itself? Would that change how devotion to Krishna is to be interpreted in the Gita and practiced by bhukti practitioners?

In his presentation, Navarette discussed the work the scholar, Francis Clooney, who pioneered the field of comparative theology. Navarette cited Clooney’s contention that “even partial common ground can strengthen our own religious convictions.” Perhaps Krishna’s description of devotion to Him can be useful to a Christian who is trying to love Jesus better. Moreover, in Hindu God, Christian God, Clooney, according to Navarette, predicts that the “fixed boundaries separating religions become all the less plausible . . . because the theological insights arising in comparative study will push those boundaries.” For example, Clooney claims that a Christian could accept the virtues of Narayana, who is the protector of all who has supreme mercy.[5] Sounds a lot like Jesus, doesn’t it? Preaching God’s mercy instead of drumming divine wrath into everyone’s heads in the Gospel stories, Jesus can be seen as a reformer in Judaism. To be sure, unrepentant sinners, such as “Christian” clergy who rape children, deserve divine wrath, but this should not prevent other people from realizing that divine mercy opens up the possibility of love, which presumably includes that which a religious devotee directs to a deity. Given the ontological chasm between deities and the created realm, which includes us, mercy opening up a space for love can create the sort of intimacy that collapses distance, and this can apply not only vertically, but also as benevolentia universalis.

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1. Gita 7.1 in Georg and Brenda Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita: A New Translation (Boston: Shambhala, 2011), p. 171.
2. Gita 7.28 in Ibid., p. 177.
3. John 13:1-17 (in The New Testament).
4. Bhagavata Purana, tenth canto 80:20-26.
5. Vedanta Desika, Rahasya Traya Saram (14^th century).

Interreligious Learning

Jess Navarette, speaking at Harvard’s Bhakti Yoga conference in 2025, defined comparative theology as “the study of religious faith, practice, and experience, especially the study of God and of God’s relation to the world.” Because the capitalized word, “God,” is used and usually identified with the deity of the three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Navarette undoubtedly used the term as a general placeholder for divinity, whether in the form of a deity or impersonal, as in brahman in Hinduism. This begs the questions: what is divinity and could a definition apply to every religion? Answers to these questions can be fruitfully informed by what Navarette calls “interreligious learning” in theology, which in turn is not exclusively applicable to Christianity. Rather than presuming that I have answers, I want to explore how such learning can be fruitful in advancing knowledge of religion as an arguably sui generis domain.  

Navarette, like Geertz, advocates “putting (one’s own religion’s) doctrines and belief systems aside” when exploring what we “can learn about God together”. Geertz uses word, epoché, which means “bracketed,” as applying to what a person should do methodologically concerning one’s own religion, while studying what Eliade called “the otherness of the other.” The stance of an Apologetic in supposing that one’s own religion “is better, more complete, or superior to others” is antipodal, and thus not conducive to such a project as involves the study of comparative theology. This is not to deny that religions make such claims of exclusivity or superiority as regards themselves relative to other religions; rather, Navarette’s point is that insisting in the course of study that such claims be recognized as valid upon other religions is not consistent with interreligious study itself.

A “worse-case scenario” would be for a scholar or practitioner of religion to interlard one’s own religious beliefs into the interreligious-learning process in order to stop interreligious learning from occurring at all; worse still, of course, would be such a person castigating or even killing people who are engaged in the project for “insulting the religion” from the outside or “being a heretic” from within.

Just weeks before Navarette spoke at the online conference, I had been accused by an evangelical Christian student at Yale’s divinity school of being a heretic even though we were discussing Christian theology in what I assumed was an academic discussion at lunch. That my interlocutor assumed that the content of my ratiocination (i.e., reasoning) consisted of my personal religious beliefs stunned me. I was citing scholars, after all, whether or not their theories coincided with my own religios beliefs. Following the logic of reasoning is distinct from having one's own religious beliefs as an anchor. That even my academic knowledge was suddenly being questioned and doubted, and even at times dismissed, stunned me, for I had not encountered anything but great respect for my ideas by students of religion at Harvard.

To be sure, “faith seeking understanding” is an intellectually and theologically valid enterprise even at a secular university, but even such an orientation, which, by the way, I had in part when I was a student at Yale because I was considering the ministry, should not be hyperextended to the extent that the boundary between preaching and studying is pierced or even dissolved. Because Harvard’s divinity school is not dominated by the study of a particular religion, that boundary is safe there even as students do not (and should not) always bracket their own religious beliefs and assumptions in studying religion. This is not to say that Princeton Theological Seminary and Yale’s de facto seminary should not focus on Christianity, for there is value in an organization having a distinct niche. Much would be lost were either school to mimic the conduciveness to comparative study that is at both the Chicago and Harvard divinity schools, neither of which is unipolar. My point is merely to point to a risk attendant to studying religion by studying one religion, mostly or exclusively, where many of the students and faculty are apologists, and are thus susceptible to blurring the line.

My own study of religion began with the assumption that I needed to understand more than one religion to grasp the phenomenon of religion, so I began with South Asian religions, after which I studied Christian theology (and philosophy of religion). I must admit that both my studies and my scholarly output in the academic field of religion have been delimited not so much by the judgments of evangelical Christians who do not recognize any boundary between personal belief and academic knowledge, as by something much more troubling. That some practitioners of one religion in particular, who interlope their respective personal religious beliefs onto the academic knowledge of scholars of whatever stripe—not even recognizing the existence of knowledge as anything but personal religious beliefs—would attempt to kill me even for “insulting the religion” has kept me from doing much with that religion academically. Even non-religious ideologies, such as the “woke” ideology in North America, can have a censoring effect on scholars, by means of intentionally using verbal or written hostility as a dogmatic enforcer having the force of law—a law unto themselves.

The value in there being a boundary between personal religiosity and the study of academic knowledge on religion, wherein the latter is protected from encroachments (or being overwhelmed) by the former, applies to scholars themselves in studying religion. The investigator’s attitude while studying is indeed part of the methodology that is fitting to interreligious learning. The methodology in turn should not be conflated with the subject-matter being studied. The output of interreligious dialogue and learning would be incomplete—and with a subtle bias—if the parts of religions that claim superiority over other religions are simply ignored and thus excluded. That a religion’s claims of superiority should not be allowed to get in the way of the dialogue of interreligious dialogue, whether oral or written, is not to say that that those claims should be excluded from being studied.

In other words, toleration is implicit in the project of interreligious learning, but this does not mean that only the tolerant belief-claims of religions can or should be admitted and subject to analysis. A useful example of such analysis is asking whether Jesus’ statement, “No one gets to the Father except through me,” in the New Testament of Christianity is a claim that is limited to that religion, as the claim’s anchor is the Father, or does the claim mean that everyone who does not accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior goes to hell (even though hell is an Abrahamic religious concept and is not in every religion)? Ignoring the passage altogether because it might make some people engaged in interreligious learning uncomfortable conflates methodology and the subject-matter being studied, and renders the results of interreligious study partial (and biased). 

As a scholar of religion, I should not exclude the stances of the evangelical Christian at Yale from the content of Christianity as a religion just because he bothered me, but this does not mean that such an attitude should be allowed to eclipse the process of interreligious knowledge. As for the possibility that a religionist of another religion might kill me were I to include a critique of that religion in my analysis of religion, a scholar should indeed be realistic rather than foolish. Even this text is incomplete as a result of prudence, for I have not even named the religion. Reaching completeness of knowledge is a fool’s goal, as we are human, all too human, but even so, we can and should work to obviate the obstacles as much as we can.

The Hindu Festival of Holi: Polytheism in Practice

On March 14, 2025, “(m)illions of people in South Asia celebrated Holi, the Hindu festival of colors . . . by smearing each other with brightly colored powder, dancing to festive music and feasting on traditional sweets prepared for the occasion.”[1] Lest the various eats and drinks be dismissed for analytical purposes as trivial, a particular kind of drink or food that is traditional can have religious significance by reflecting Hinduism as a polytheistic rather than a monotheist religion. Whereas monotheism allows for only one deity, etymologically mono theos, a polytheist religion has more than one deity, even if one is deemed to be superior over the others.

Holi, a national holiday in India and a two-day holiday in Nepal, where Hinduism is the national religion, celebrates “the end of winter and the triumph of good over evil.”[2] In this regard, Holi shares themes with the Christian festival of Easter, which also occurs during the spring. Yet whereas Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ from physical, corporeal death, and used to be associated with an ancient Roman fertility festival—and has retained that theme as the Easter Bunny and Easter egg hunts—“Holi has its origins in Hindu mythology and lore and celebrates the divine love between the Hindu god Krishna and his consort Radha, and signifies a time of rebirth and rejuvenation.”[3] The association with the end of winter and “rebirth and rejuvenation” applies to both Easter and Holi, as well as the pagan festival of the Spring Equinox, which also takes place in the spring (i.e., it is not the beginning of meteorological spring).

In Hindu theology, Krishna is an embodied avatar (i.e., incarnation) of Vishnu, who with Brahma and Shiva are the three main gods in Hinduism. This does not mean that Krishna is less significant, however, as that deity has a prominent place in the Hindu scriptural text, the Bhagavad-Gita. In that text, Krishna claim to be superior to all of the other Hindu deities. This does not mean that Hinduism is monotheist. This point is reflected by the fact that bhang, a drink prepared with cannabis and consumed with milk or water, is a “tradition that marks Holi.”[4] Even though Krishna and his consort figure prominently in the festival, the “drink is connected to Hinduism, particularly to Lord Shiva”.[5] That the association with that deity, which is commensurate with Vishnu, of which Krishna is but the tenth incarnation, is tolerated (the cannabis likely being helpful in this regard) in a festival based on Krishna signifies that Hindus are just fine with their religion being polytheist. Even though the attitude evinced by statements like, You shouldn’t have a drink that is associated with another god during a festival of Krishna!, is consistent with polytheism because the existence of another god is implicitly affirmed, toleration is a much healthier attitude in a polytheist religion such as Hinduism. Worse than either attitude is making a category mistake in claiming that Hinduism is monotheist.

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1. “Millions of  People Celebrate Holi, the Hindu Festival of Colors,” The Associated Press, March 14, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

Hinduism Applied to Business

Applying a religion such as Hinduism to business is laudatory. Undercutting any benefits of doing so, however, is the advocation of religious principles that are so unrealistic in the business world that they undercut the credibility of the project itself. John D. Rockefeller was a Baptist who taught Sunday school at his church even as he pushed competitors out of business who refused to be bought out by Rockefeller’s refining monopoly, Standard Oil Company. To be sure, after retiring, he gave away about half of his $800 million (1913 dollars), but he did not claim that his personal generosity justified his earlier restraint of trade as a monopolist. Rather, he claimed to be more of a “Christ figure” as a monopolist than he was next as a philanthropist. In my study on Rockefeller, I concluded that he was delusional, yet to some extent well-intended, given the destructive competition that was ravaging small businesses in the refining industry during the 1860s. Rockefeller thought of his giant as saving the otherwise presumably drowning competitors, but Jesus in the Gospels does not drown people who are unwilling to be converted. Clearly, the application of religion to business can be abused, including in being much too idealistic, even utopian, and in being used to justify egregious economic tactics and even greed itself.

Although G.D. Birla, a Hindu industrialist when India was trying to achieve political and economic independence from Britain, sought to integrate religious principles both in the establishment and running of his steel company and his later philanthropy, whereas most Christian titans at the time in the West saw their religious principles as pertaining only to charitable giving after having become rich, the application of Vedic knowledge to business is not without its own drawbacks. Specifically, I contend that lofty sounding principles such as bhakti and dharma can sail right over the real world of business, the former being too high to make a dent in the latter. It does the profane no good if the sacred treats the profane as “fly-over territory” between two coasts.

Speaking at a Bhakti Yoga conference hosted by Harvard University in March, 2025, Rajeev Srivastava, a Hindu entrepreneur, advocated applying the Vedic teachings of being a custodian of wealth and giving back as a form of service, including in making donations to charities. That is, he was asserting that the Vedic teaching of trusteeship includes giving back to society as an integral part of business.  Doing business with a purpose that includes profit, but without greed, is key. Srivastava stressed having a spiritual teacher who can teach a business practitioner how to serve. Presumably serving enables a practitioner to include profitability in one’s business purposes and yet without being motivated by greed.

It is ironic, therefore, that business practitioners who can control pride and greed and are motivated by service to God and humanity and seek mentoring by spiritual teachers are, according to Srivastava, more likely to succeed in work tasks and to have profitable businesses. For example, demonstrating integrity and character facilitates raising capital from investors because it is important to them to be able to trust the people who manage their investments through business strategy and operations.  The following terms are relevant: loka-sangraham means having profit as an outcome but not as the purpose; loka-saudhnyam is wealth as entrusted (trustee-oriented); loka-saumitram is the establishment of relationships of love with all stakeholders; sakhya-priti is caring for stakeholders; and jaget-priti is caring for the planet (i.e., accepting the limits of finite natural resources). Admittedly, the notion that managers of a business would come to love stakeholders, which includes employee union heads and government regulators, as well as the media, is far-fetched.

Once in a business seminar on theory construction, I proposed a theory that includes love. Looking back on the assignment and my presentation years later, I felt utterly embarrassed for having come up with such a ridiculous theory of business; the marketing professor had been very charitable towards me in not checking me into a psyche ward so anti-psychotic medication could be applied. I doubt it would have helped. So, I have some “skin in the game” in being critical when religion applied to business goes too far, for I have committed that very sin.

In applying Hinduism, even jaget-priti seems utterly unrealistic. At the very least, even ethical managers of a business naturally are oriented to profitability; even those who are not greedy are oriented, or compartmentalized, to the practice of management, and thus to its mind-frame.  In fact, being oriented to a firm’s profitability is part of the fiduciary responsibility of a management. Of course, if a majority of the ownership of a business, whether private or publicly-owned, wants to use its wealth to care for, and even love stakeholders, fiduciary duty (assuming the rights of minority stockholders are not impaired) can include diverting resources, attention, and even profits to stakeholder groups. In short, applying religion to the business world should not be so unrealistic that the only real application is for marketing purposes. The term, servant leadership, is commonly bandied about for just such a purpose, as is corporate “social responsibility.”

Also speaking at the Bhakti Yoga conference, Prakash Govindan discussed the application of the business jargon, servant leadership, to Hinduism. He said that three terms apply. Dama is the finding inner balance (emotional mastery, inner resources are infinite); daya refers to the mood of compassion (ontological humility); and dana is the joy of giving. Finding inner balance is more realistic than loving and caring for stakeholders, and finding inner peace may actually result in greater compassion if inner security and stability naturally enable a person to feel compassion deeper and more often. Applying Bhakti Yoga to business practitioners, including CEOs, Govindan said that because “the material world and material life [which includes business] is like banging your head against the wall,” he tried silent meditation focused on his heartbeat. Out of that came an orientation to serve, in part to stay humble and not get entitled. It’s not about how much is given; rather, it is the intention that counts.

In Spiritual Leadership in Business (2017), I argue that by engaging in a regime of regular religious experience, whether in prayer, liturgy, or meditation, a manager may be more inclined to be compassionate at work, even in leading an organization. I reason that the enhanced sensitivity to the world, including suffering, happens naturally from engaging in prayer or meditation because yearning experientially in transcendence beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and emotionality (sensibility) involves enhanced sensitivity. Even just the residue of it can stay with a person back in the world, meaning that one’s sensitivity generally, and including to other living beings, is greater than without having experienced religious transcendence. This application of spirituality (being practiced regularly) to business is much preferable to dogmatic preaching of religious tenets. In fact, regular religious experience may naturally result in that which the tenets intentionally prescribe. What happens automatically is, I submit, more reliable than what depends on intention. This is not to say, however, that regular religious practice will cause business managers to love stakeholders, but relations could improve by being naturally more sensitive to the other. Smoothing the rough edges rather than turning things upside-down in attempting to instill a utopian dream may be how religion can be relevant in the world of business. For to simply whitewash the profane with the sacred would make heaven a tautology.