Interfaith dialogue and mystical consciousness in India: Sri Ramana Maharshi, Sri Aurobindo, the Hari-Hara Mystery, and the Hindu-Christian encounter

Interfaith Dialogue and Mystical Consciousness in India is a research inquiry in interfaith studies that uses hermeneutical phenomenology to address vexing issues arising in the study of mysticism and enlightened sages.

This book raises the following questions: If all human beings have access to mystical consciousness, and some do access it, how is it that only a few become luminary sages, displaying extraordinary power? What is the ethical responsibility of such sages? And how is the encounter among sages/mystics of different traditions contributing to the harmonious unfolding of religious diversity? The author provides original answers and a renewed vision of Hinduism through the lens of two of the most loved and admired sages of modern India—Sri Ramana Maharshi and Sri Aurobindo.

This book is a blueprint for transformative research on religion: it envisions an innovative method— integrative hermeneutical phenomenology—contributing to the development of interfaith mysticism. Bringing to the fore key themes such as Self-realization, the Hari-Hara mystery, and Mystic Fire, the author shows the importance of mystical experience in the understanding of the religious “Other” and the future of religion.

The book will be of interest to scholars and students of religious studies, interreligious/interfaith studies, comparative religion/theology, and interfaith relations, and to thoughtful readers with an interest in Asia and spiritual practice. Those interested in the mysteries of India and Hindu spirituality will find in this book a pioneering analysis of Hindu mystical consciousness and the Christian encounter with it.

“Interfaith Dialogue and Mystical Consciousness in India is a remarkable book, a deep and perceptive study of two monumental spiritual giants of the last century, Sri Ramana Maharshi and Sri Aurobindo. The book is meticulous and scholarly, yet at the same time sensitive to the mystical currents flowing so vitally through those holy visionaries’ lives and words. Isaac Portilla writes carefully, making his case point by point, and yet with great and bold imagination, as he aims to provide spiritual foundations for interreligious learning in the century to come, and indeed, nourishment for the spiritual journey to which we are all called.”

—Francis X. Clooney, SJ, Parkman Professor of Divinity, Harvard University, USA

“In this at once very profound yet admirably clear work, Isaac Portilla dives deeply into a comparative study of Hindu and Christian mysticism. The author’s masterful scholarship encompasses figures of both traditions such as, from the Hindu tradition, Sri Aurobindo, Sri Ramana Maharshi, and Sri Ramakrishna, and from the Christian tradition, Raimon Panikkar and Francis Clooney. Portilla is clearly drawing on a deep well of both scholarship and experience in his work. The book itself thus becomes an example of the methods it commends, helping to pave the way to the multifaith future that humanity must embrace if it is to survive the twenty-first century.”

—Jeffery D. Long, Professor or Religion and Asian Studies, Elizabethtown College, USA

“Through the prism of “hermeneutic phenomenology”, Isaac Portilla highlights the centrality of mystical consciousness across Hindu and Christian traditions, and its significance for an experientially grounded interfaith dialogue. In conversation with sage-mystics such as Sri Ramana Maharshi, Sri Aurobindo, and Henri Le Saux, Portilla configures – with interpretive insight and attention to sociohistorical context – thoughtful patterns of engaging with the “other” who may inhabit a rich continuum of mystical experience. Foregrounding the vital dimension of inwardness, Portilla gestures towards certain Hindu-Christian complementarities on the mystical path. This is a highly creative work of constructive theology which draws on Hindu conceptions of the triadic structure of ultimate reality and inflects them towards the horizon of the mystery of divine-human relationality.”

—Ankur Barua, Senior Lecturer in Hindu Studies, University of Cambridge, UK

In “Interfaith dialogue and Mystical Consciousness in India”, Dr Portilla has provided a cogent and innovative analysis to blaze new ground on the important subject of interreligious dialogue and encounter, specifically Hindu-Christian, with potential repercussions for all such dialogue.

—William P. Hyland, OSB Oblate, Senior Lecturer in Church History, University of St. Andrews, UK