Non-literal Shaiva Tantra?

 

Christopher Wallis is a scholar and practitioner of “Non-Dual Shaiva Tantra”. In this video, he criticizes Christianity and contrasts it negatively with the “Dharmic traditions”, here a reference to Hinduism and Buddhism. It´s mostly a criticism of “literalist” Christianity, which in Wallis´ opinion simply can´t become consistent. For instance, the contradiction between the peaceful Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount and the decidedly less peaceful deity described in the Old Testament. There are also errors in the Bible, such as the clear promise of Jesus to return during the lifetime of the apostles (which didn´t transpire). This in turn is connected to the Christian truth being contingent on actual historical events. If these can be demonstrated not to have transpired, Christianity falls with them.

Wallis believes that Dharmic traditions don´t have these problems, since they don´t *really* consider their scriptures to be literal history, or literally true at all. The real “canon” is the guru or the lineage, directing his disciples to the scriptures considered most beneficial for his spiritual development. Wallis believes that the literalizing of Hindu scriptures is a modern development. A Hindu tradition or Buddhism could be true even if historians would somehow prove that, say, the Buddha never really existed. Its practices aren´t dependent on contingent historical events (the existence of a certain prince named Siddharta Gautama, of Krishna´s earthly kingdom in northern India, of Lanka being ruled by an actual person named Ravana, etc).

Wallis admits that there is some crazy shit in the Dharmic religions (such as the Bhuta Tantras – whatever that is exactly!), but this is true of all religious traditions and hence doesn´t affect the overall picture.

Many might find Wallis´ criticism pretty basic, but it´s nevertheless interesting to hear a criticism of Christianity from a Hindu-Buddhist perspective, although hearing it from a “native” might be even more so…