Christian Tradition

It was actually part of the Christian. Basically, the background doctrine until the sixth century When Emperor Justin, you know, the capital in Turkey, they have if anybody has been there, this is very extraordinary place there, which was built as a cathedral. And emperor Justin or Justinian. Sometimes it gets written two different ways. Actually even said, the first maker of the temple was forgetting the name.

In any case, that I have outdone you because this temple was so extraordinary. Temple is not the right word. Although, that's the phrase that Gususe. Cathedral, but then after Islamic take over, it was turned into a mosque. And then in the beginning of the twentieth century, the person who was in charge of Turkey decided to return into a museum And part of because it's an extraordinary building, and it was really very much inviting all kinds of visitors to come there. And part of that, it becoming a museum was to gradually See, because once it became a mosque, they covered up many of the images, for example, of Christ, with some kind of something like concrete, but not exactly concrete.

And now because it became a museum, they were trying to clear some of those images. And here I give you a very personal example. On one occasion, I was there actually with my daughter. This was many years ago. And this image of Christ struck me so much I could not even keep standing, and my daughter had to hold me up to keep standing.

This was actually the best moment we have ever had between father and a son daughter in our whole life. But neither one of us very much talks about it anymore because what can one say? So there are some it's a very extraordinary place to begin with. But now it has, again, been converted into a mosque. So they might again cover some of those images. I don't know that.

But the reason I'm saying all this is really to say that Emperor Justin was very concerned about the idea of reincarnation. Because although, theoretically, from the overall Indian perspective, in my future reincarnation, I may come at a lower level depending on what I have done. Or I may come at a higher level depending on what I've done. But in general, for example, you see in the philosophical society, very strong attitude that each time one comes at a higher level, there is is much more positive attitude. And so the emperor Justin was concerned that that would mean that on subsequent reincarnations, a person will come closer and closer to god. Why would they then believe in Christ as the savior?

So the pope, even at that time, believed in the idea of reincarnation, but the emperor actually imprisoned the pope and forced him to declare this as a heresy. And one very well known Greek church father highly regarded also used to believe in this, but then they decided to declare his writings also as heretical and they were eliminated. But this happened from the sixth century onward, partly because just to remind you, in the Christian tradition, Christ is regarded as the savior. You'll never hear an expression like this in Buddhism or in Hinduism. The Buddha or Krishna are teachers inviting you to practice something.

Not saviors in the sense that if you believe in in the Buddha, then you are saved. Very strong emphasis. In the in fact, in the again, you can read this in the yoga sutras where he speaks about patanjali speaks about many things that stand in our way, obstacles. This ends with what is Klesha. This is very much emphasized in the second chapter that the whole purpose of yoga, I'm more quoting him now here.

This is the second Sutra in the second chapter. The purpose of yoga is to cultivate samadhi and to diminish the clashes. You can look it up if you like, to diminish the clashes manager, diminish the obstacles. So first of all, what is samadhi? Which is defined actually in the third chapter of the third sutra, Samadhi's freedom from myself.

So that's the aim of yoga, freedom from myself. And then so that one can then see the object as it truly is. In fact, another very good example or illustration that is given by pathanjali, then one's mind can be like a perfect diamond. It does not introduce its own color. Whatever it is looking at, it just reveals the color of the object.

Completely objective perception. That's the idea of samadhi. But then the among the clashes are, If you don't mind, I use just some of the sanskrit word. Asmita, and then raghdvesh, then Avinevesh. Asmita really basically means One could say self assertion or egoism.

And Rajdarsh means like dislike. I'll come to this in a moment. And, basically means addiction to the status quo. And so these are the obstacles. But then repeatedly, it is said that the source of all these obstacles is Avidya ignorance. In the whole of the Indian tradition, in Buddhism, as well as Janism, the call really is ultimately to a clear perception.

Whereas in the Julio Christian Islamic tradition more so in Christianity, more so in Catholic, is on faith. Faith in the divinity of Christ, And if you have the in fact, the word faith for some people is more or less synonymous with the word religion. In fact, a very well scholar, very well known scholar. Wilfer Kentwell Smith, long time ago wrote a book called Faith of Other Men. Where he's discussing other people's religions later on when he changed the edition, then it's called religions of other men.

So you see the word faith has almost become equivalent to religion, which is completely surprising from the Indian perspective. From their perspective, what is faith, of course, is not something to be dismissed, but it's a kind of a confidence that teachers like the Buddha and Krishna are worth bothering about. What they are bringing is worthwhile to follow, etcetera. So that kind of faith, but they're not saviors. The word saviors, I have never seen this in any of the Indian context. So Therefore, the shift from the whole idea of reincarnation had many of these reasons that people will come closer and closer to the quality of god, and then they won't need a savior.

They won't have the faith in it. And then What what is the church going to do? Why would they come to the church? So that but that was sixth century. After that, there has been no notion of Rinca.

But again, as I said, you can read the encyclopedia Britannica now under Christianity. There you will see that more and more people are actually coming back to this. But for different reasons, not from a purely theological point of view. But largely because it strikes them more rather than being permanently in hell. And they don't really believe they can be permanently in heaven.

So just to avoid being permanently in hell, it's better to be reincarnated.