assignment two version two need one more page really

Religion: a means of integral liberation (moksha) through dharma sadhanas.For Rev Fr Cyriac Kanichari CMIby Desmond M CoutinhoI am sorely tempted by the aphorism of Rev Dr Ian Paisley former First Minister of Ulster on whether he would consider power sharing with Sinn Fein/ IRA, Never Never Never was his battlecry but in the course of time he became the First Minister sharing power with them in the Northern Irish Assembly. This is clearly a trick question. The course distinguished between the artful particulars of Faith and the general call of Religion. Since the dharma sadhanas are the fons et culmen of the Sanatana Dharma known today as Hindutva to which some unkindly add Fascism then it clearly cannot be a means of integral liberation unless the Lecturer is referring to the occasional attempts at genocide by this movement. However just as Sinn Fein IRA could reform and work in a modern democratic world with its adversaries so can we the people of God work with those who would rape and murder us.
The example of Nicholas of Cusa is relevant. He began his legal career as a member of the Conciliar Party at the Council of Basel. The Conciliar movement was democratic, God working from within rather than from on High. Cusa defended it because he wanted a more just world. He believed in Religion that derived from God's call in the human heart applied equally to all although better interpreted by the more intelligent. But in order to preserve this vision Cusa switched sides and supported the minority party of the Pope. A counter-intuitive result occurred then just as the freedom for the lecturer to think and break free from Western Thinking models was provided by his sound basis in Western Thinking.
The Dharma Sadhanas are primarily techniques for individual liberation via a guru-Brahmachari mediation, it is not designed for a people. Since Religion describes relationship between God and God’s people, Dharma Sadhanas more properly can be deemed a form of personal devotion or spirituality. Indeed it was Western Orientalism that provided India with a sense of History. History belongs to a people and Indians are only now becoming a people once more. Aside from one noted Tamil Historian of the twelfth century India has produced only purana and Itihasa. As a first requirement for genuine Religious as opposed to personal spiritual Liberation there needs must be a sense of History.

Judaism offers this in the story of the Exodus, which Christianity took as transformed in the Paschal Mystery and prefigured in the sacrifice of Abel. Thus Indian Subaltern Theology can rightfully claim the charism of means of integral liberation. One should not throw out the baby with the bathwater in reexamining India’s treasure houses.

The second requirement of Religious experience is Liturgy, a prayer of a community as opposed to personal mystagogical practices. The sadhanas may be performed in a hall but essentially they are private practices for self-development. A possible response is that ultimately these two forms merge in Moksha. The aphorisms of Mahayana and Hiniyana Buddhism, I shall not enter Nirbana until every blade of grass has so entered, and I shall enter Nirbana to lessen the burden of unliberated souls in the World are ultimately similar.
Prescinding these opening comments there are commonalities to all true Religion in the techniques of Dharma Sadhanas. Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism have all taken up some of the eightfold yoga of Pantajali, his Yamas form the underpinning of all these faiths especially Ahimsa, Satya, Asteya, Aparigraha and Brahmacharya. Indeed with Ghandhi-ji both a communal aspect of these personal devotions emerge in Gram Swaraj, and a negative side in his title of Dalit Drohi, the man responsible for the maintenance of Varnashrama in India, at least according to the poor in their own words.

The Children of the Covenant from East Syriac Tradition do emulate many of the techniques of the Brahmachari except their place within the community is far more obvious. This early Syriac movement stressed personal ascetism, purity and self-discipline Neither do the children of Qyame derive from a caste. They could live in families, communities or in the desert. The Ihidaya monks are closer to the elitist model of Hindutva and the Modern Christian Church but these only appear to give sway to the invincible illusion of Inviduality. For a monk in this tradition is like Maya a sign of contradiction, only by leaving the hustle and bustle and in finding stillness can they rediscover the essential true connection in God with all. Although the analogy of St Thomas principle of Individuation is attractive when considering the reality and unreality of Maya, unreality an analogue of Individuality and reality and analogue of Personhood, there is a greater attraction in considering Duns Scotus view that individuality is an aspect of Haeceitas, that there is a mystic element to the sense of distinctiveness that is neither real or unreal. What gives a person a sense of distinctiveness is their Thisness which does not depend on matter and is therefore the distinctiveness that abides in as part of a glorified body of Christ after death. The invincible illusion of individuality then becomes the sin of pride in kneeling down and worshipping your own Haeceitas because it reminds you of the image and likeness of one who is to be worshipped.

In the tangents to the question true learning is forged. I hadn’t realized that the belief of the Logos in the mind of God before creation, Creation as a negative potentiality in God’s coincidentia oppositorum was a restatement of Augustine’s rationes seminales, the Logos Spermatikos, which had for many years lain in disuse as it was rejected by Thomas and all the later Scholastics. These are not matters of truth or falsehood but of how meaningful the idea becomes when mulled over prayerfully. If the thoughts contain some eros, and if the new questions are fruitbearing, and carry us upwards to God and outwards to God’s people then it must be from the Logos because merely a glance from her and I burgeon.