By Dr. Zac Varghese, London

Book Review

‘Seeking God, Seeking Moksha: The teaching of Shri Krishan & Jesus Christ, by Paul Sudhakar Menon, Pippa Rann Books & Media, an Imprint of Salt Desert Media Group Ltd., 2020. Pp173, ISBN978-1-91373815-0. Rs.299.

The author, Paul Sudhakar Menon (1922-2000), was involved in enlightening audiences with his talks on spirituality, Bhagavat Geeta and the teachings of Jesus Christ across India and in many countries around the world. This posthumous book is based on those talks, which offers great insights on the teaching of Lord Krishna in the Bhagavat Geeta and the teachings of Jesus Christ in the Gospels.

The aim of the book is stated as building ‘a bridge of understanding between devotees of Shri Krishna and followers of Jesus Christ.’ This book will be helpful for the students of comparative religions, wider-ecumenism, interfaith dialogue and inter-faith living. Paul Sudhakar Menon (1922-2000) was born into an aristocratic upper caste Hindu family in the Palakkad District of Kerala, India. Having lost his father at the age of eight, at the age of nine he started reading Hindu Scriptures such as Bhagavad Geeta, Vedas and the Upanishads under the influence of his grandmother. These Scriptures were shaping his life from that early age. Mahatma Gandhi’s life and his constant dependence on the teachings of Bhagavad Geeta/Gita attracted the young Sudhakar. Dr. Radhakrishnan’s Philosophy also attracted Sudhakar and when he sought Spiritual guidance from Dr. Radhakrishnan, he said: “Sudhakar, I do not have all the qualities of a real Guru. Jesus Christ was the greatest Guru who ever walked on this earth. If you want a Guru, it should be him and not me.” This comment led him to study the teaching of Jesus Christ.

Perhaps no one has hitherto attempted to place on facing pages of a book the teachings of Jesus, as recoded in the Gospels (45-100CE), and Lord Krishna’s teaching in the Gita (3102BCE). This book places the teachings of Jesus on the left-hand pages, and the teachings of Shri Krishna on the right-hand pages. This is very helpful to study these teachings in parallel with each other. The author is not trying interpret the teaching of these two incarnations of God in human form, but allowing both of them to talk to us directly through the actual texts as recorded in these sacred books. He sees a common thread, love, binding the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Lord Krishna of the Bhagavat Geetha. These discourses are from two different situations with a time span of 3,000 years separating them––one from Galilee, Decapolis and Judea and other from the battle fields of Kurukshetra. However, the similarities and subtle differences are uncanny.

The author seems to believe that in Krishna and Jesus there is the fullest manifestation of the ‘Logos’, which is the ‘Word’ that is with God and is God. Although the incarnation of Jesus is ‘once for all’, in Lord Krishna’s case it could happen again and again (birth-death-rebirth) as and when the cosmos needs it. The author is not emphatic about the qualitative differences between the two great teachers. Although he is hesitant to equate Krishna and Jesus who lived apart on the earth over thousands of years, he recognizes their many similarities.

The book has four chapters. The first chapter explains how the qualities attributed to God are set out by both Krishna and Jesus. It also explains the ideas of incarnation and moksha (salvation) in the two traditions of faith. Here we also read about life, death and the immortality of the soul. Jesus taught his disciples to pray: “Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Krishna’s does not teach that the world is evil, and he does not ask anyone to withdraw from the world to attain moksha (Salvation). Both teachers ask their followers to do everything in union with God (yoga). This mutual abiding experience is explained in St. John’s Gospel. Jesus tells Philip: “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14: 9). The first chapter ends with the following message: “. . . God’s eternal message of peace is not heard in the places of comfortable solitude, but in the midst, yes, in the centre, of conflict and confrontation. Here the Cross of Christ, which is the basis of the Gospel is seen, in the Geeta, not in a literal sense, but as a figure. Similarly, the Songs of God or the Geeta of Bhagwan, is the message of the Cross. And Kurukshetra is, similarly, Dharam Kshetra, the field of