October 1989
RenČ GuČnonFirst French Vedantist's Influence Still Strong In European Countries
Mathur, Rakesh
In 1987, Robin Waterfield wrote
RenČ GuČnon and the Future of the West, an authoritative biography of the
famous French Vedantist. In an interview conducted at his Oxford, England,
home, Waterfield spoke with HINDUISM TODAY correspondent Rakesh Mathur
about GuČnon's life work, which is little-known outside
France.
Robin Waterfield in conversation with Rakesh
Mathur
I came to know about GuČnon way back in 1946, when I
training with a Jungian analyst, Mrs. Tony Susman. Mrs. Susman introduced
me to the writings of Swami Vivekananda and also a professor who knew
GuČnon. I never met GuČnon personally, but in Paris I did a thorough
research on his life in France. I met many of his colleagues and friends
and familiarized myself with his milieu.
GuČnon admired Vedanta
because it was both religion and philosophy. The vital form of it was so
pure, impersonal, so direct and what he called "la vČritČ vČcu"
["experienced truth"]. He didn't just take Vedanta and put it up against
some other philosophy and compare the two. He believed it is something
that you have to live by.
RenČ GuČnon believed that there is a
spirituality which lies above the great religious traditions of the world.
He called it "a primordial tradition." He was born in France in 1886. His
interest in Hinduism arose very early in his life and was promoted by
reports of the World Parliament of Religion in 1893 in Chicago, where
Swami Vivekananda spoke. GuČnon himself always felt that Swami Vivekananda
adjusted his message rather too much to the western taste.
As early
as 1922, GuČnon was proposing to do a thesis for his higher degree in
Sorbonne, University of Paris, on Hinduism. He submitted a book.
Introduction to Hindu Doctrine, for this purpose. But it was far too
partisan. He felt deeply committed to the Hindu teaching of Hindu
spirituality. The Sorbonne University authorities wanted something even
handed, which GuČnon could not do.
In order to understand Vedanta
at all, one needs a transformation, a change of outlook - your whole being
and personality has to go along with your religion, with your devotion to
your quest. It is not just a part of your life. Vedanta has to alter your
whole life. Certainly it did that with GuČnon.
In the evolution of
western understanding of the Vedanta and the Vedantic philosophy up to
GuČnon, no other thinker actually adopted Vedanta as a philosophy of life.
Max M¸ller was a wonderful scholar, and he looked on the Sanskrit text as
work for scholarship. But M¸ller until late in his life remained a
convinced Christian. When Keshab Chandra Sen [founder of the Brahmo Samaj
in India] came over to Europe in 1860's and 70's, Max M¸ller urged him to
become a Christian.
GuČnon firmly believed that there was one
principal unity - you may call it God or whatever - that can be contacted
or related to by us human beings. It is not a matter of reason or
intellectual thinking or rationality, but a direct intuition. It seems
that the heart of Vedanta rests there. We [in Europe] cannot appreciate
the rituals and emotional aspects of Vedanta, because they are not pan of
our culture. We can understand it as a literature.
[GuČnon thought]
God was a clever mathematician, and this unemotional, unsentimental,
unmystical direct approach appealed to him so much, and to many people
today through him.
Unfortunately, we could not find out who
GuČnon's guru was. But he always said that he had an authentic Vedanta
teacher who taught him. It is for sure that this teacher was an Indian who
visited Paris.
GuČnon kept on his wall a large portrait of an
Indian woman. He never said who she was. There is no doubt that he gained
a very comprehensive knowledge of the Advaita form of Vedanta through both
direct oral teaching and book studies.
GuČnon never went to India.
That is the extraordinary thing. In fact, he had only two residences in
his life. First, as a young man, he went to live in Paris. He lived there
until he left for Egypt ostensibly for a short visit to collect material
on Sufism in 1931. He never came back.
He was deeply involved in
Islam after Hinduism. I think that he found Islamic simplicity and Islamic
mysticism very congenial. It seemed to mesh in the unitary "God is one"
philosophy of his. He said emphatically that his adopting Islam was not a
conversion. He would say, "I am a member of every great religious
tradition. I admire and respect them all." Though the one he respected
least was the one he was born into - Christianity.
He had great
interest in mathematics. For that reason also, he found Islam congenial.
He wrote about Chinese Taoism, and said that this was the purest
expression of the primordial tradition. But the basic philosophical system
which ruled all of them was the Advaita of Shankara.
GuČnon's
influence is beginning to increase outside France. He always had followers
in Europe. I think that he has been translated into almost every European
language. He had a slightly contemporary follower called Julian Evano in
Italy. GuČnon has become a part of studies of theology in America. In the
seminaries, he is studied and even feared. Some people think that he is an
advocate of a new paganism. In a book called. Pagan Temptation, by Prof.
Thoma Molnar, there are many references to GuČnon. I don't think that the
professor understands GuČnon but knows he is a force to be reckoned with
in the western world. The professor thinks of Hinduism as polytheism. But
I really think that we, the westerners, got over the myth about Hinduism -
heathens bowing down in front of the wooded and stone statues.
Unfortunately, there are still many westerners who would dismiss Hinduism
as idol worshipping and maintain that Christianity has nothing of the sort
in it.
Waterfield's Next Book
Besides writing about GuČnon,
now I am engaged in doing a book which is a history of 150 years of Hindu
missionary work in the West. I became interested in this subject by
picking up a little book in French called The Modern Gurus. "Guru" is
quite a marked feature of our western life. Gurus become the subject of
newspaper yellow journalism, the subject of some amusement and
entertainment and ridicule. But nobody knows about them very much. Well, I
thought that I don't know very much about them myself. I had heard of
them, their eccentricities, and I thought that this little book will be of
interest.
I bought it and read it. I soon found that it was good in
its way, but it only started with Vivekananda and ended with Ramakrishna
Mission. Everything possible is known about Vivekananda. I found that he
was not by any means the first of the Hindu missionaries (if we like the
word in Christian terms) or preachers, thinkers or holy men who had come
to the West.
It was not difficult for me to find that the first
sincere Hindu to come to the West was the great Raja Ram Mohan Roy. I
believe that Raja Ram Mohan Roy was essentially a religious man, beside
being the father of India's free press and independence.
Roy was
deeply influenced by the work of Christian missionaries. For a short time,
he joined a Unitarian Church in India. He wanted to come to Europe, not
primarily to teach Hinduism, but to gain technical information to raise
the standard of living and the abilities of Indians so that they could be
independent of the western influence. But throughout his stay in London
and in Bristol, he had always been asked to preach. He gave a wonderful
lecture to the Swedenborg Society. He was seen as a holy man.
I saw
Roy as a man with a mission to present Hindu philosophy, Hindu religious
ideas which had to be put across to the West. He came to England in 1830
but before he came here, he had caused quite a stir in America. He was the
subject of innumerable articles in the American religious press at that
time. Most of the members of the University of Harvard at that time were
Unitarians. Ralph W. Emerson, who was at that time a student at Harvard,
was enormously influenced by Ram Mohan Roy.
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Himalayan Academy.
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