Krishna, Christ, and the Doctrine of Devotion By Dominick Montalto

The striking similarities between the major religions of the world has become increasingly apparent to me in that what seems to be vast differences in perception in Eastern philosophy and religion from Western perspectives does not really exist past the surface. It is cliché that “all paths lead to God”, and in fact, this is true no matter what religion one adheres to and which particular incarnation of God that one worships. For years now, I have given much time to comparative literature, philosophy, and religion, and have asserted elsewhere my positions on each of these subjects. However, only recently I discovered a striking similarity, if not direct relationship between Krishna (the human incarnation of the Sustainer of Creation in Hinduism, Vishnu) and Christ who is the Redeemer of humankind in Christianity. Yet, I am not pointing to this similarity. This relationship is on the surface and finds its expression in both Krishna and Christ’s placement as the middle incarnation of God in their respective trinities. As I have explained elsewhere,[1] Christ’s role in destroying the world in the Apocalypse is similar to Shiva’s role as the Destroyer god in the Hindu trinity, whom, when the world is ripe for destruction, will come down from his meditative trance in the Himalayas and burn up Creation. Another striking point of interest is that Christ is the Logos in the Gospel of John and in this form is the Creator god, and in the Hindu trinity, this role belongs to Brahma. Although I digress, it is interesting that in Christian theology Christ subsumes the role of both Creator and Destroyer while maintaining his most vital role as Savior of the human race. It is in this way that Christianity subverts the “polytheistic” experience of more ancient religions, although Hinduism is itself actually a monotheistic religion as well.

Here, however, I want to illustrate the deeper resemblance between Krishna and Christ I mentioned earlier. The resemblance between these two human incarnations of God is in the doctrine of devotion that they impart to their followers. Although I did not see it before, because I scorn the Christian mortification of the flesh, it was not until I recently read Thomas à Kempis’ Imitation of Christ that I became aware of the similar relationship between Krishna and Christ. A fundamental belief of Hindu doctrine espoused by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita and later in the Uddhava Gita is that what we know of as “the self” is an illusion, a projection of the ego that seems real and permanent. Krishna teaches that we must give up this seeming reality of a self and become devoted to him; that through this devotion we will be liberated from the m?y? (the illusion) and mistaken appearance of all created things as real in terms of their “permanence”. This is called bhakti yoga and is exemplified in the tenth Book called, “Krishna: The Beautiful Legend of God” of the ?r?mad Bh?gavata Pur?na which is the story of Krishna’s childhood and adolescence. As Edwin Bryant, translator of this tenth book states in his Introduction, “Bhakti yoga . . . involves saturating the senses with objects connected with Krishna’s l?l?, [his sporting/pastimes] and constantly filling the mind with thoughts of him. It is a process that transforms the focus of the mind and senses . . . .”[2]

This is the same experience that Christ desires from his own disciples and followers—to repress and abandon the desires of the self, very much a real ego in Christian dogma, and be devoted to him. In Krishna, as in Christ, as Bryant succinctly remarks, “The highest meditation and goal of life is total absorption in God.”[3] This is the fundamental objective of both Krishna and Christ’s religious beliefs: give up the self, whether we see it as real or an illusion, and become devoted to no one and nothing but me. They both conclude in their respective scriptures that they are the fulfillment of all ceaseless desire and the peaceful joy that the restless human soul desires. In the introduction to Kempis’ Imitation, translator Leo Sherley-Price states that in Christian teaching, “the way of purgation . . . is the first stage of the soul’s progress towards its divinely appointed destiny of union with God.”[4] In the Christian manner, we have a self that leads us to sin and corruption, away from the presence of God. Thus, Kempis writes his mystical text imparting to his readers the wisdom of denying the sinful desires of the self that tear us from the presence of and fulfillment we are destined for in God. In Hindu terms, the self has no coherent realness and cannot experience any fulfillment of desire because all things suffer change and all less real than God who is the true fulfillment of the soul given a physical form in the flesh.

In The Imitation Kempis states, “Who has a fiercer struggle than he who strives to conquer himself? Yet this must be our chief concern—to conquer self, and by daily growing stronger than self, to advance in holiness.”[5] Thus, the self, a love and desire for worldly things in the self is the barrier between God and us. In The Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna, “Restraining all the senses, one should sit, yogically disciplined, focused on me . . . When a man meditates on the objects of sense he becomes attached to them; from attachment desire is born, from desire anger.”[6] Here, Krishna emphasizes two major beliefs, restraint of the senses and by implication, the self, towards objects of desire and the devotion to him that results from this. If we discipline ourselves towards the experience of him as the only fulfillment of desire, then we will see that desire has no satisfaction in attachment to sense objects that endure change and so are not permanent and thus not real. Christ’s Crucifixion is the greatest example of the sacrifice of self that he taught his disciples and that those raised in the Christian faith also learn to abide in through the memory of this act. Mystically speaking, Christ’s transformation of the bread and wine into his flesh and blood in the Last Supper is a more mysterious and microcosmic experience of his surrendering of self in contrast to his Crucifixion.

Krishna descended into the natural world in human form and imparted his knowledge concerning the self, restraint, and detachment towards the material world, while Christ himself descended in human form and enacted this experience of loss of self in his Crucifixion. Although each of these incarnations of God took different paths towards showing humankind the way to become devoted to him through knowledge of and renunciation of the self, each of them had two fundamental principles to teach their followers. First, the self is not what is real; the only thing that is real is God. Second, for us to find redemption from this painful experience of self and return to God, we must remain detached to objects in the sensual world for attachment to worldly desires moves us further away from the presence and salvation of God towards sin and corruption in mind and body. Lastly, having purged our minds of the notion of a self, we can then devote ourselves fully and completely to God, the only object in which all desire can be sated.

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[1] See my essay “Shiva as Christ in the Hindu Trimurti”.
[2] Introduction to the Penguin Classics translation of Krishna: The Beautiful Legend of God. xxix.
[3] Ibid. xxx.
[4] Introduction to the Penguin Classics translation of The Imitation of Christ. 14-15.
[5] Book One: Counsels on the Spiritual Life, Chapter 3: On the Teaching of Truth: 30-32. 31.
[6] The Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2: 7-13. 12.

–Dominick Montalto