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Text and Context in Dialogue

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The Yoga of the soul's communion with the Supreme

Dhanjibhai's Song of the Heart (Sri Hriday Gita) was written in Gujarati around 1955 and was widely distributed through secular markets. In translation to a few other Indian languages and English the title was changed to Song of the Lord Christ (Sri Khrist Gita). The message of the New Testament is here arranged into a dialogue form, familiar to Hindus, as this is the form of the Bhagavad Gita. A short selection is presented here as an example of vibrant contextual communication.


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The Lord said:

Behold, I stand at the door and knock;
If anyone hears my voice and opens the door,
I will come into him.
I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you.
Because I live, you will live also.
If a man loves me, he will keep my word,
And my Father will love him,
And we will come to him and make our home with him.
In that day you will know that I am in my Father,
And you in me, and I in you.
Abide in me, and I in you.
Apart from me you can do nothing.
If a man does not abide in me,
He is cast forth as a branch and withers.

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His disciple said:

God is love,
And he who abides in love, abides in God,
And God in him.
All who keep his commandments abide in him,
And he in them.
Whoever keeps his word,
In him truly love for God is perfected.
By this we may be sure that we are in him.
He who says he abides in him
Ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

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A devotee said:

God chose me to make known the glory of this mystery,
Which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
I count all things as refuse,
That I may gain Christ and be found in him.
The life I now live in the flesh
I live by faith in the Lord who loved me
And gave himself for me.
He must increase,
But I must decrease.
It is no longer I who live,
But Christ who lives in me.
Christ is our life.
For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
We all, with unveiled face,
Beholding the glory of the Lord,
Are being changed into his likeness
From one degree of glory to another;
For this comes from the Lord,
Who is the Spirit.

Photo by Hae Kwang Cheong

The Lord said:

I am the vine, you are the branches.
He who abides in me, and I in him,
He it is that bears much fruit.
If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink.
He who believes in me,
Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.

This brief excerpt is taken from the English version of Sri Khrist Gita by Dhanjibhai Fakirbhai, Pilot Books, Bromley, England, no date.

Dhanjibhai Fakirbhai was born in a Hindu family in Gujarat in 1895 and died in 1967. As a young man he became a follower of Christ and sought to present the message of Christ meaningfully to Hindus.


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