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A Hindu Monk’s Appreciation of Eastern Orthodoxy’s Jesus Prayer The “Inner Senses” of Hearing, Seeing, and Feeling in Comparative Perspective Joseph Molleur Abstract: One of the most influential monks of the (Hindu) Ramakrishna Order to have come to the West is Swami Prabhavananda, who led the Vedanta Society of Southern California from 1923 until his death in 1976. In three of his published commentaries, Prabhavananda quotes extensively from The Way of a Pilgrim and The Pilgrim Continues His Way, Russian Orthodoxy’s classic texts on the practice of the frequent (ideally, unceasing) repetition of the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” The aim of this article is to analyze Prabhavananda’s treatment of Eastern Orthodoxy’s Jesus Prayer tradition, with special attention to the issue of the “inner senses” of spiritual hearing, seeing, and feeling.

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ord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” This prayer formula, sometimes with slight variations (such as the omission of either “Son of God” or “a sinner” or both), is referred to in Eastern Orthodox Christianity as the “Jesus Prayer” or the “Prayer of the Heart.” Two of Eastern Orthodoxy’s most prominent commentators on the Jesus Prayer tradition, Kallistos Ware1 and Lev Gillet,2 have rightly pointed out that the appeal of the Jesus Prayer in recent decades has spread beyond the confines of Eastern Orthodoxy, with many Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians now repeating the prayer as a regular component of their spiritual practice. Appreciation of the Jesus Prayer has spread even beyond the borders of Christianity. For example, in an article called “Jesus Prayer and the Nembutsu,” Taitetsu Unno, a Shin Buddhist of the Pure Land tradition, explores with great appreciation the affinities between the Orthodox practice of repeating the Jesus Prayer and ISSUE

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the Japanese Pure Land Buddhist practice of repeating as its normative prayer Namo Amida Butsu, “I take refuge in Amitabha, the Buddha of Immeasurable Light and Life.”3 Another example is Swami Prabhavananda, the main subject of this article. Prabhavananda, who led the Vedanta Society of Southern California from 1923 until his death in 1976, is one of the most influential monks of the (Hindu) Ramakrishna Order to have “come to the West.” In three of his published commentaries (two on Hindu sacred texts and one on the Sermon on the Mount), Prabhavananda quotes extensively from The Way of a Pilgrim and The Pilgrim Continues His Way, Russian Orthodoxy’s anonymously authored classic texts on the practice of the Jesus Prayer. The aim of this article is to analyze Prabhavananda’s treatment of Eastern Orthodoxy’s Jesus Prayer tradition, with special attention to the issue of the “inner senses” of “spiritual hearing,” “spiritual seeing,” and “spiritual feeling.”

While the events described in The Way of a Pilgrim and The Pilgrim Continues His Way probably took place sometime between 1853 and 1861, the first Russian edition of the texts was not published until 1884.4 It is unknown how long they may have existed in manuscript form prior to their initial publication. The books have since become enormously important, because they have popularized the spiritual approach of another—and considerably less accessible—classic of Eastern Orthodox spirituality, The Philokalia.5 Indeed, it is largely due to the widespread popularity and appeal of The Way of a Pilgrim and The Pilgrim Continues His Way that the Jesus Prayer tradition is no longer limited to Eastern Orthodox Christians but has come to make a strong impression on nonChristians such as Swami Prabhavananda.

Together with the novelist Christopher Isherwood, one of his most famous Western disciples, Prabhavananda coauthored a translation of and commentary on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali—Hinduism’s premier how-to guide for the practice of meditation. (How to Know God is the rather unconventional title of their Yoga Sutras translation and commentary.)

In their translation, verses 27–29 of part one of the Yoga Sutras read as follows: The word which expresses Him [Ishwara/God] is OM. This word must be repeated with meditation upon its meaning. Hence comes knowledge of the Atman [indwelling divinity] and destruction of the obstacles to that knowledge.6 In commenting on these verses, Prabhavananda and Isherwood emphasize the power of the word in the spiritual life and how the constant repetition (a practice known as japa in the Hindu tradition) of a spiritu-

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ally charged word or phrase (called a mantra) can greatly conduce to spiritual progress. In the course of their commentary, the authors quote at length three paragraphs—all of which will subsequently come under consideration in this article—from The Way of a Pilgrim and The Pilgrim Continues His Way.7 Prabhavananda also draws directly on the two books in his commentary on Narada’s Bhakti Sutras, titled Narada’s Way of Divine Love. One of the Hindu tradition’s most important sacred texts on the “path of devotion,” Narada’s Bhakti Sutras articulates the various ways by which a spiritual aspirant can experience the love of God. According to verses 36 and 37 of Prabhavananda’s translation of the Bhakti Sutras, “Supreme love is attained by uninterrupted and constant worship of God, by hearing of and singing the glory of the Lord, even while engaged in the ordinary activities of life.”8 In his explication of these verses, Prabhavananda—with the help of The Way of a Pilgrim and the Pilgrim Continues His Way—urges the devotee to keep heart and mind in God unceasingly, by means of mantra repetition and meditation.9 Finally, in his boundary-crossing commentary titled The Sermon on the Mount according to Recitation of God’s Vedanta, Prabhavananda once again quotes at length from The Way of a Pilgrim and The Pilgrim Continues His name can be viewed as a Way, this time in the process of analyzing the phase “hallowed be thy name” from the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. mantra practice.

6:9). Prabhavananda argues that God’s name can be viewed as a mantra mantra, the repetition of which both confers spiritual power and purifies the aspirant’s heart and mind. By means of this practice, God’s “name is experienced as living and conscious, as one with God—and illumination is attained.”10 Prabhavananda quotes the same two paragraphs—one from The Way of a Pilgrim and the other from its sequel, The Pilgrim Continues His Way—in all three of his books just mentioned. (Prabhavananda makes use of R. M. French’s translation, in which The Way of a Pilgrim and The Pilgrim Continues His Way are included together in a single volume.11) The first quotation is taken from a point early on in The Way of a Pilgrim, when the anonymous pilgrim who authored the book receives instruction from a starets, a monk who acted as the pilgrim’s spiritual director. The instructions Prabhavananda quotes were as follows: The continuous interior Prayer of Jesus is a constant uninterrupted calling upon the divine Name of Jesus with the lips, in the spirit, in the heart, while forming a mental picture of his constant presence, and imploring his grace, during every occupation, at all times, in all places, ISSUE 9, OCTOBER 2009

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even during sleep. The appeal is couched in these terms, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.”12 One who accustoms himself to this appeal experiences as a result so deep a consolation and so great a need to offer the prayer always, that he can no longer live without it, and it will continue to voice itself within him of its own accord.13 The spiritual senses of “inner hearing” and “inner seeing” seem to feature prominently here. Concerning inner hearing, the practitioner voices, first “with the lips” and then “in the spirit” and “in the heart,” the words of the Jesus Prayer until eventually, after long practice, the prayer voices itself within the heart and mind. Prabhavananda comments: “You can make japam [repeat the divine name] aloud if you are alone, or silently if you are among other people.”14 And on the prayer’s voicing itself within us of its own accord, Prabhavananda notes: “Through constant practice, the repetition becomes automatic. It no longer has to be consciously willed.”15 In other words, eventually we reach the stage where we hear the Jesus Prayer repeating itself within us, nearly all the time.

As for the spiritual sense of “inner seeing,” this concerns the instruction to form and maintain a clear mental picture of Jesus while meditating on the words of the prayer. Very significantly, Prabhavananda does not launch into a discussion of a practice that is common in Hindu spirituality, the meditative practice of visualizing every aspect of the appearance of one’s beloved deity, from head to toe. Instead, he makes comments such as the following: “If we persevere in our repetition, it will inevitably lead us . . . to think about the reality which it represents.”16 And, “You then live always in the awareness of the presence of God.”17 Also, “The aspirant must feel the presence of God within himself as he chants the name.”18 This approach shows that Prabhavananda has an appreciative insight into Orthodoxy’s nervousness about attempting to picture Jesus’ physical appearance in one’s imagination. In contrast to the teaching in The Way of a Pilgrim concerning the practice of “forming a mental picture of [Jesus’] constant presence,” a hermit whom our pilgrim encounters in the sequel, The Pilgrim Continues His Way, warns against “using the imagination and . . . accepting any sort of vision [spiritual seeing] during contemplation,” including visions of Christ.19 On this subject, Eastern Orthodox theologian Kallistos Ware writes: “As we invoke the Name, we should not deliberately shape in our minds any visual image of the Savior.” Preferable to “forming pictures of the Savior” is “simply feeling his presence.”20 Ware cites many examples of Orthodox authors who have strongly expressed this preference.21 So what seems at first glance in The Way of a Pilgrim to be encouragement to exercise one’s spiritual sense of “inner seeing” is really under-

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stood in the Orthodox teaching on the Jesus Prayer to concern “inner feeling,” and Prabhavananda understood this. His comments emphasize “feeling” the beloved deity’s presence during japa rather than seeing the deity’s physical form in the mind’s eye. (Picturing Jesus in one’s imagination must not be confused, however, with a practice highly prized in Eastern Orthodox spirituality, the practice of viewing actual icons of Jesus with one’s physical eyes.)

The second passage that Prabhavananda reproduces in all three of his books under discussion was taken from The Pilgrim Continues His Way. The speaker is a skhimnik, a monk who has attained the highest of the three grades of Russian Orthodox monasticism.22 This skhimnik is portrayed as conveying the teaching of an unidentified “spiritual writer,” as follows: Many so-called enlightened people regard this frequent offering of one and the same prayer as useless and even trifling, calling it mechanical and a thoughtless occupation of simple people. But unfortunately they do not know the secret which is revealed as a result of this mechanical exercise; they do not know how this frequent service of the lips imperceptibly becomes a genuine appeal of the heart, sinks down into the inward life, becomes a delight, becomes, as it were, natural to the soul, bringing it light and nourishment and leading it on to union with God.23 On the notion that repetition of the Jesus Prayer can bring the soul light, we read earlier on in The Way of a Pilgrim an even stronger assertion: Everyone who . . . sink[s] down in silence into the depths of one’s heart and call[s] more and more upon the radiant name of Jesus . . . feels at once the inward light, everything becomes understandable to him, he even catches sight in this light of some of the mysteries of the Kingdom of God.24 Swami Prabhavananda has much to say on this topic of seeing an inner light during japa and on the process of illumination more generally. For example, he writes: “Through repetition of the mantra, mind and heart are purified. Eventually the name is experienced as living and conscious, as one with God—and illumination is attained.”25 And commenting on Jesus’ teaching that “The light of the body is the eye: if, therefore, thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light” (Matt.

6:22, KJV), Prabhavananda says: “Concentration of the mind on the chosen ideal of God is the way to uncover . . . the divine light within.”26 Further, commenting on the teaching of the Yoga Sutras that “concentration may ISSUE 9, OCTOBER 2009

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also be attained by fixing the mind upon the Inner Light, which is beyond sorrow” (I:36), Prabhavananda writes: The ancient yogis believed that there was an actual center of spiritual consciousness, called “the lotus of the heart,” . . . which could be revealed in deep meditation . . . and that it shone with an inner light. . . . [T]hose who saw it were filled with an extraordinary sense of peace and joy.27 It is worth noting that, both here and in the passage from The Way of a Pilgrim referred just above, the locus of this inner light is said to be the heart.28 We may well ask: Is this process of illumination, of perceiving light within oneself, properly understood as an inner feeling? Or as inner seeing? Or merely as intellectual illumination? Eastern Orthodox theologian Lev Gillet offers the following interpretation: “[T]he invocation of the Name . . . is very often accompanied by an inner feeling of joy, warmth, and light. One has an impression of moving and walking in the light.29 Elsewhere Gillet greatly expands and deepens his analysis: Concerning the luminous vision to which the Jesus Prayer leads, let us distinguish four possibilities. There is in the first place the perception, by the natural organs, of a light produced supernaturally; this has happened to both saints and sinners. Next, far above the first as a limiting case, there is the supernatural perception of a supernatural light, a perception that is not sensible or physical, and that consequently transcends normal psychology.

Gillet likens this experience of “supernatural perception of a supernatural light” to Christ’s transfiguration. He continues: At the bottom of the ladder, there is the purely symbolic use of the word light, when the name of Jesus is regarded in a figurative sense as the sun of the soul. Between this case and the first one considered, there is room for an intermediate possibility: the constant or frequent practice of the Jesus Prayer can place the one who prays in an habitual inner state of “luminosity.” Even if he closes his eyes, he has the impression of being penetrated by radiance and of moving in light. This is more than a symbol; it is less than a sensible perception, and is certainly not an ecstasy; but it is something real, although indescribable.30 I have referred to Gillet’s analysis of the experience of inner light at some length here because he goes into greater detail about the possible meaning of the experience than does Prabhavananda. What is important to note about the Swami’s analysis is that he agrees with the author(s)

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of both The Way of a Pilgrim and The Pilgrim Continues His Way that the practice of repeating the divine name leads to a real and palpable sense of “seeing an inner light.”

In addition to the two passages discussed thus far, quoted by Prabhavananda in all three of his books under discussion, there is a further quotation from The Pilgrim Continues His Way that appears only in Prabhavananda’s work on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. Here, the same skhimnik who was previously mentioned is drawing on the writings of the early church father John Chrysostom: St. John Chrysostom, in his teaching about prayer, speaks as follows: “No one should give the answer that it is impossible for a man occupied with worldly cares, and who is unable to go to church, to pray always.

Everywhere, wherever you may find yourself, you can set up an altar to God in your mind by means of prayer. And so it is fitting to pray at your trade, on a journey, standing at the counter or sitting at your handicraft. . . . In such an order of life all his actions, by the power of the invocation of the Name of God, would be signalized by success, and finally he would train himself to the uninterrupted prayerful invocation of the Name of Jesus Christ. He would come to know from experience that frequency of prayer, this sole means of salvation, is a possibility for the will of man, that it is possible to pray at all times, in all circumstances, and in every place, and easily to rise from frequent vocal prayer to prayer of the mind and from that to prayer of the heart, which opens up the Kingdom of God within us.”31 Commenting specifically on the notion of the “power of the invocation of the name of God,” Prabhavananda writes: “The power of the Word, for good and for evil, has been recognized by mankind since the dawn of history.”32 A bit further along in his analysis, he adds: [W]e should appreciate the power of the Word in our spiritual life; and this appreciation can only come through practical experience. People who have never tried the practice of repeating the name of God are apt to scoff at it: it seems to them so empty, so mechanical.33 Here Prabhavananda is also answering those who have criticized the practice of repeating the same prayer over and over again. The Swami comments further, in what I hold to be a very significant statement: Try saying “war,” or “cancer,” or “money” ten thousand times, and you will find that your whole mood has been changed and colored by the associations connected with that word. Similarly, the name of God will change the climate of your mind. It cannot do otherwise.34 ISSUE 9, OCTOBER 2009

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Often in Asian thought, the mind is considered to be a sixth senseorgan in addition to the usual five. Viewed in this way, “changing the climate of your mind” through the practice of japa (repetition of one’s mantra) is yet another example of “inner sense experience.”

It is understandable why Swami Prabhavananda would want to draw on the Jesus Prayer tradition, as articulated in The Way of a Pilgrim and The Pilgrim Continues His Way, in his commentary on a Christian sacred text, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. But why cite these Eastern Orthodox texts, and their underlying tradition, in his commentaries on two Hindu sacred texts—Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras and Narada’s Bhakti Sutras—as well? One can only speculate; my own response begins with the recognition that the Hindu practice of japa (that is, repeating one’s mantra mantra, which contains the name of one’s beloved deity) and the Eastern Orthodox practice of repeating the Jesus Prayer are phenomenologically very similar. That is to say, in both cases the actual practice involves repeating, many hundreds or even thousands of times a day, a short prayer formula that includes the name of one’s beloved deity, resulting in the descent of the prayer into the heart, the eventual automaticity of the prayer, and the experience of inner light. This phenomenological similarity has been recognized not only by Prabhavananda but by the author of The Way of a Pilgrim and by Kallistos Ware as well. We read in The Way of a Pilgrim (unbeknownst to these nineteenth-century Russians, the Hindu practice clearly predated the Christian one): It was from [the great and very holy men of olden times . . . such as Anthony the Great, Macarius the Great, Mark the spiritual athlete, John Chrysostom] that the monks of India . . . took over the “heart method” of interior prayer, only they quite spoiled and garbled it in doing so, as my starets explained to me.”35 And according to Kallistos Ware, The frame of the Jesus Prayer certainly resembles various non-Christian frames [he mentions Sufi as well as Hindu parallels], but this should not make us insensitive to the uniqueness of the picture within, to the distinctively Christian content of the Prayer.36 In other words, as religious phenomena, the Orthodox Jesus Prayer tradition and the Hindu practice of japa japa, or mantra repetition, are very similar, but when it comes to the specific divine name invoked by the practitioners of the two traditions, for Ware (and, one suspects, for the great majority of Christians) it makes all the difference in the world that the name is Jesus, rather than Vishnu, or Krishna, or Shiva, or Kali, or

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Durga, or whatever name a Hindu may use to address the presence of the divine. And the reverse is undoubtedly true as well: most Hindus would not feel right reciting the name of Jesus.

Returning to the possible reasons for Prabhavananda’s repeated references to an Eastern Orthodox practice, first, it is clear from the tone of his discussions of the Jesus Prayer that he held the prayer in great respect and considered it to be a valid spiritual practice. This is not surprising when we recall that the Ramakrishna Order, of which Prabhavananda was a member, views Jesus as a bona fide avatara, or divine incarnation, and has therefore always shown great respect and reverence for Jesus. Second, the sort of spiritual path that is advocated in The Way of a Pilgrim and The Pilgrim Continues His Way is familiar to many Hindus and can perhaps be viewed as giving evidence that the practice of mantra recitation may be universal. A third possible reason is that Prabhavananda might have felt that Western readers would understand what he had to say about prayer more easily if he referred to a Christian prayer practice that was in many ways similar to his own. And finally, having shown knowledge of and respect and sympathy for a Christian practice, Prabhavananda undoubtedly hoped that this would inspire Westerners to view his religion with the same generosity and understanding.  Notes

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

An earlier version of this study was presented on November 3, 2008, at a joint session of the Mysticism Group and Eastern Orthodox Studies Group at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Chicago, Illinois. The session was on the theme of “Eastern Orthodoxy and the Spiritual Senses.” I wish to express my gratitude to the attendees of the session, whose questions and comments led to the strengthening of this article. I also wish to thank David Rounds for invaluable editorial assistance in preparing the final draft.

“The Power of the Name: The Function of the Jesus Prayer,” Cross Currents 24:2–3 (Summer–Fall, 1974): 187.

On the Invocation of the Name of Jesus (Springfield, IL: Templegate, 1985), 7; The Jesus Prayer (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1987), 86–7.

Buddhist-Christian Studies 22 (2002): 93.

R. M. French, in his “Translator’s Note” to The Way of a Pilgrim and The Pilgrim Continues His Way (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1965), xi–xii. Hereafter cited as WP&PCW. Published in five volumes as The Philokalia: The Complete Text, trans. and ed. G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware (London: Faber and Faber, 1979–2007).

For a very useful abridgement, see Allyne Smith, ed., Philokalia: The Eastern Christian Spiritual Texts (Woodstock, VT: SkyLight Paths, 2006).

How to Know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali (Hollywood: Vedanta Press, 1953), 56. Hereafter cited as HKG.

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8. Narada’s Way of Divine Love: The Bhakti Sutras (Hollywood: Vedanta Press, 1971), 85.

Hereafter cited as NWDL. 9. NWDL, 85–90.

10. The Sermon on the Mount according to Vedanta (Hollywood: Vedanta Press, 1963), 87–91. Hereafter cited as SMV. 11. Some scholars contend that The Pilgrim Continues His Way has a different author than The Way of a Pilgrim, but that debate lies outside the scope of the present study. See, e.g., Gillet, Jesus Prayer, 83.

12. In the Russian original, the Jesus prayer reads as follows: “Господи, Иисусе Христе, помилуй мя!”

13. WP&PCW, 9–10; HKG, 62–3; NWDL, 89; SMV, 89.

14. HKG, 61–62.

15. HKG, 60.

16. HKG, 61.

17. NWDL, 85.

18. NWDL, 87.

19. WP&PCW, 196.

20. “Power of the Name,” 194.

21. In his introduction to Igumen Chariton’s The Art of Prayer: An Orthodox Anthology, trans. E. Kadloubovsky and E. M. Palmer (London: Faber and Faber, 1966), 24–6, 33, 100–1.

22. WP&PCW, 209.

23. WP&PCW, 178–9; HKG, 63; NWDL, 89; SMV, 89–90.

24. WP&PCW, 78.

25. SMV, 90.

26. SMV, 104.

27. HKG, 71; cf. Chandogya Upanishad 8.1.1: “Within the city of Brahman, which is the body, there is the heart, and within the heart there is a little house. This house has the shape of a lotus, and within it dwells that which is to be sought after, inquired about, and realized” (quoted in HKG, 72).

28. It is interesting to note that in Buddhism, also, practitioners are commonly instructed to focus their meditation within the heart chakra.

29. Invocation of the Name of Jesus, 24.

30. Jesus Prayer, 109; cf. a similar but less complex analysis by Ware, Art of Prayer, 26.

31. WP&PCW, 174–5; HKG, 63–4.

32. HKG, 57.

33. HKG, 58.

34. HKG 59–60.

35. WP&PCW, 55.

36. “Power of the Name,” 199.

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