Bottom of Form Comparing Christian and Hindu understandings of Salvation
Heather Brooke
Comparing Christian and Hindu understandings of Salvation.
In our evangelism, is it possible to bridge the gulf?
Heather Brooke
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Heather Brooke. Currently enrolled in the Graduate Diploma of Mission Studies, Tabor College.
Heather Brooke is a wife, mother and teacher who is currently studying at Tabor College, Melbourne working on her Graduate Diploma in Mission Studies. Recent trips to Belarus, Philippines and Fiji have engendered a passion for mission especially with orphans and orphan graduates. To this end, she is studying Russian and longs for the day she can speak with these young people without …show more content…

So from what does the Hindu need liberation?
The root problem that humanity therefore faces is the inability to see the oneness of the divine self. This essential ignorance, called avidya, binds one to everyday life with its endless cycle of birth and rebirth. However, this does have the positive benefit of allowing the worship of divinity that should culminate in true knowledge. It is true knowledge, or jnana, that brings liberation and identity with the absolute (Burnett, 1992: 183).
In the Bhagavad-Gita, a Hindu text on morality, Krishna says: “The man who casts off all desires and walks without desire, with no thought of a Mine and of an I, comes unto peace. This is the state of abiding in Brahma, O son of Pritha” (Second Lesson, verses 71-2 in Sen, 1991: 24).
This was the example with which Rabindranath Maharaj lived his early years. His father had been in a statue-like trance for years. Yoga had been the means through which he reached this ultimate state; a state for which the young Rabi was being groomed and trained. He asked his mother why his father was that way and she answered: He is someone very special – the greatest man you could