Harmony of Religions | Swami Sarvapriyananda

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[SPEAKER_00]: Om shanti, shanti he, Om leaders from the unreal to the real, leaders from darkness and to light, leaders from death to immortality, Om peace, peace, peace.
[SPEAKER_00]: Namaste and good morning, everybody, and welcome.
[SPEAKER_00]: subject today, the harmony of religions.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really three main reasons why I had chosen this subject.
[SPEAKER_00]: One is Sri Ramakrishna of course.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's his birthday on 19th, 19th of February, let's Thursday.
[SPEAKER_00]: So one of the central teachings of Sri Ramakrishna was this harmony of religions.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought we should
[SPEAKER_00]: The second reason is today is Shiva Rathri, we have Lord Shiva here, and I was reminded that the most famous Sanskrit hymn to Shiva, the Shiva Mahim Nastotra, the hymn on the glories of Shiva.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has many wonderful verses, one of those verses, trais, hanky-yogam, pashrupati-matam-vaish-na-vameti,
[SPEAKER_00]: Prabhini Prasthani Paramidamada Padhyamithicya Rucinam Vai Chitriat Rijuku Tila Nana Padha Jusham Minami Kogamya Thoma Sipaya Samar Navaiva It's one of a beautiful verses.
[SPEAKER_00]: What does it mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: It says, all these different paths.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says a tree that means the Vedas, the Vedic path, of which Vedanta is, of course, apart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the others, which have developed from the Vedic path, the sanghya, by which yoga is also included, sanghya, yoga, Pashupata, the worship of Shiva actually, one of the Shaiwaita, Saksa, Pashupata,
[SPEAKER_00]: Vaishnava, the worship of God as Vishnu, and in that would be included, the worship of God is in Kanishads, Rama and Krishna, Pravindna, Prasthani, various are the ways, let us say.
[SPEAKER_00]: and each claim to be superior to the others.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are the different ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why are the different ways?
[SPEAKER_00]: Very interesting reason is given.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ruchinam by Chitriath.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because our constitutions are different, we are many.
[SPEAKER_00]: And our constitutions are different.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our mental propensities are different.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are different ways in which we may most advantageously reach God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Reach out to God and reach God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rucinam by Chitrat, Nanapata, in various ways, winding, that means the scenic route, some of the direct route, the Ruchepath, some of the scenic route, but then again another metaphor is introduced as all rivers flow to the ocean, all my Lord, all these paths lead to the.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, it is the same sentiment you see, you see it reflected here, the truth is one and the sage is called it various, we have got it right up there, it is from the Vedas, from the Rig Vedas.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, that is one of the reasons why I thought we should talk about it today and today is the auspicious Shivaratri, a third reason is more dark, it is the absolute relevance,
[SPEAKER_00]: We are in New York, September 11, 2000, but that date has only one meaning for New Yorkers.
[SPEAKER_00]: And many people around the world, especially for New Yorkers, were on the grounds of religion, religious fanaticism, those who attacked kill thousands of New Yorkers here, those who were here in New York at that day, they can never forget it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So religion has been used and is being used as grounds for war and hatred and terrorism and intolerance.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the same date 11 September, but in 1893, in the world parliament of religions, Swami Vivekaranda, he came here, same date 11 September, it's an irony of history.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he spoke about the harmony of religions on the same date, so the contemporary relevance of that,
[SPEAKER_00]: is great.
[SPEAKER_00]: For these and various reasons, she will speak a little bit about the harmony of religions as taught by Sri Ramakrishna and as expounded by Swami Vivekananda.
[SPEAKER_00]: The materials which I have drawn upon are primarily from one source, a very beautiful booklet, the Harmony of Religions by Swami Bhajanan and the Ji.
[SPEAKER_00]: Swami Bhajanan and the is one of the vice-presidents of our order.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's more of a long essay than a book, but it's a very nice analysis of what Sri Ramakrishna has taught.
[SPEAKER_00]: One thing we must clarify at the very beginning that we are not talking about the generally held views, especially in India.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, our religions are the same, what's the big deal?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why haven't talked about it?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so sentiment you hear among different people, especially in India, especially among Hindus in India.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, the all religions are the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure it is the intentions are good.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's not true that kind of a sentiment comes
[SPEAKER_00]: very little knowledge about one's own religion, almost no knowledge about other religions and a general good intention of, you know, all religions of the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the religions are not the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: Religions are different.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have different worldviews, different phyologies, huge textual background in enormously rich and different texts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Various rituals, various myths, various histories.
[SPEAKER_00]: History is very important in the development of religion and various histories.
[SPEAKER_00]: Various rules and regulations.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they are all very different.
[SPEAKER_00]: and the difference need not be a problem of the difference is the source of the problem because the difference there is dislike, intolerance, violence and so on, but the difference can be a source of richness also.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's somebody put it this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all part of God's economy.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, this tremendous diversity, it's a source of richness, richness, enriching our spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, religions are not the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, when we are talking about the harmony of religions, we do not mean by that the sentiment that they are all they are all the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are not.
[SPEAKER_00]: We also do not mean by that by the harmony of religions, we do not mean religious toleration.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the more well known term.
[SPEAKER_00]: Very few people speak about harmony of religions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most people speak about religious toleration.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they mean well, but the term toleration itself includes the seed of intolerance.
[SPEAKER_00]: When do we use the word toleration?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just tolerating you.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a nice thing to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: Swami Vivekananda and His famous talk speech on the 11th September in the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, he said not toleration but acceptance, acceptance of the great truths of the different religious traditions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, by the harmony of religions, we don't normally mean the harmony between the great religious traditions of humanity, but also harmonyed intra-religious, often the hatred is more within the religion.
[SPEAKER_00]: We may or may not dislike the other, but in our own community and family and society, if someone is a little bit different from us, then we really hate that person.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's what often happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's strange, but it does happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shia's in Sunnis, Protestants and Catholics, if you go to Ireland.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's still there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's all peaceful now, but somebody said in Indian gentlemen said, my Irish neighbors asked me, so are you Catholic or Protestant?
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, no, I'm Hindu.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, but are you a Catholic Hindu or Protestant Hindu?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, intra-religious disarmony or hatred, so we are talking about how many within religions and between religions and indeed, why did then that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Between religion and having no religion at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: And between the different ideologies, the same principles can be extended further.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, this is just the background.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now,
[SPEAKER_00]: one way harmony of religion already exists among people is the social harmony of people of different religions and no religion existing together in especially a big city like this in New York.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll find Hindus and Muslims, Christians and Jews and people who are spiritual but not religious that's a very big segment of Americans, especially young people in America today.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then people who are atheistic would don't believe in any religion all living together.
[SPEAKER_00]: And with no problem, really no problem at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if someone might question, what is this, what is the need to talk about how many of religions?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's already there.
[SPEAKER_00]: You look around and you say in my apartment block, you might have people.
[SPEAKER_00]: You probably do have people of different religious persuasions and no religion at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they live in Harman, it's not even an issue, it's not an issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember going to school in India as kids, mostly we were Hindus, but they were Sikhs and they were Muslims.
[SPEAKER_00]: And among children there was no issue at all, that idea that it's part of my identity, even that question of an identity doesn't really come up with children, they're all children.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that in society, people do live together.
[SPEAKER_00]: do work together and so there is a social harmony so that's one kind of harmony between religions and that's important but it can be very delicate.
[SPEAKER_00]: It can be ruined very easily.
[SPEAKER_00]: You just need one committed religious preacher.
[SPEAKER_00]: Will come and educate you about your religion and about those guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the harman is broken, at least in our own minds.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have come across children in this country, where they see even as young as kindergarten, preschool.
[SPEAKER_00]: Other children tell my son or daughter,
[SPEAKER_00]: or that you know you're not a Christian or you don't belong to this particular church you're going to burn in hell forever and that's very difficult for a little kid to listen to you know here especially if you're all your friends are telling you that and why are your friends telling you that because they have been indoctrinated they've been brainwashed.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it could take a, in fact, Ironically, what it takes to break the Harmony of Religion socially is some education about religion and then people become, oh, now I'm aware, I'm on the right path and these guys are wrong and that was not there earlier, thankfully, but now it is there.
[SPEAKER_00]: or you could take politics.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here in India people can introduce these ideas of the other and they are bad and we are good.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, the social harming of religions though it is very important it is a fact but it can be easily disturbed.
[SPEAKER_00]: then there is the political harmony of religions.
[SPEAKER_00]: In recent times, last 200 years or so, especially from the west, the secular ideal of separation of church and state.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is enforced a political harmony of religions.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, instead of having a state religion or even a religious state, a theocratic state, now you have a state which is secular.
[SPEAKER_00]: and that does good to religion.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is at least in my opinion what I see.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you give political power to religions, it is generally a bad idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have seen the last 200 years, no matter whatever the problems in free democratic, secular countries, still it is far better than infusing it with religion.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mix politics and religion to the detriment of both.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will poison religion with politics and it makes politics very deadly if it is enforced with religious belief.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that is the political harmony of religion.
[SPEAKER_00]: So though I have an interesting segway or footnote to this, Mahatma Gandhi.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was once accused.
[SPEAKER_00]: He were doing religion in politics.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Mahatma Gandhi's answer was very instructive.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, the two greatest forces for human good that I know of are religion and politics.
[SPEAKER_00]: So as long as I live, I shall not seize to do politics in religion and religion in politics.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but that was of course, Mahatma Gandhi with the best of intentions.
[SPEAKER_00]: But everybody does not have the best of intentions.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, that is one, a secular government generally enforces a harmony between religions by treating religions equally and keeping a distance between religion and the state.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's a good thing, but we are not talking about that either today.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a third harmony of religions, which is closer to our subject today, which is a theological harmony of religions.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the reasons, another reason why I am doing this talk today is that this theological harmony of religions, few months back I was at the Vatican and they were organizing a conference on the harmony of religions, on interfaith harmony.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the reason they were doing it is this theological harmony of religions.
[SPEAKER_00]: What does that mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: until a long time, and for nearly 2,000 years, more than 2,000 years, actually, the church held on to the idea that our path is right and everything else is wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, the description they had about themselves was the one true religion, so it's the one true religion, what about the others?
[SPEAKER_00]: Tolerance where it cannot be avoided and intolerance everywhere else.
[SPEAKER_00]: That sounds awful, but there's a logic to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I'm convinced that my way is right, then I should hold on to the right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why should I make any compromise with what is wrong?
[SPEAKER_00]: And if I have to make a compromise, it's only should be an exception, where it's not possible to be intolerant and I somehow have to be tolerant.
[SPEAKER_00]: Otherwise, as quickly as possible, come back to intolerance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, all that changed in 1965, in the second Vatican Council, where they had the Pope issued an encyclical called Nostra etaté, which means in our times, it is Latin for in our times.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was initially seen as an outreach to Jews for all that had been inflicted upon Jews for centuries, for millennia, culminating in the holocaust.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, as a way of making up for that,
[SPEAKER_00]: the Catholic Church made an outreach to the Jews, apologizing for whatever had been done, many things were said, like for example, promising not to convert Jews anymore and so on.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was shown that the historical parts of Rome, you have 2,000 years of history there.
[SPEAKER_00]: One part is very, very sad, the Jewish quarter, and they were showing that they said that this place used to be changed after evening.
[SPEAKER_00]: So all Jews were packed into the Jewish quarter and locked in until the next morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there were many riots, killings, and so on and so forth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the main synagogue, which in Rome, he said, the Pope at that time in 1965, he walked from the Vatican to the synagogue and melt down in prayer in Apology there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was an outreach to the Jews, and that was extended to all other religions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Next to Islam, and then to the religions, other religions of the world, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism.
[SPEAKER_00]: For some reason, Sikhism was excluded.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think not on purpose, but got in probably.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, this time the Sikh delegate made an appeal.
[SPEAKER_00]: We should be included in that document.
[SPEAKER_00]: What did the documents say?
[SPEAKER_00]: It said that re-interpreting the Bible in the Catholic doctrine, theologically speaking.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Catholics' colors will now say from now on, that it's not true that only the Catholic faith is true.
[SPEAKER_00]: and all others are false, but there is truth in other religions also.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, this is the big change and that comes from the top, from the Pope, from the Vatican itself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul Nitter, a well-known scholar of religion, I heard him giving a talk here at Barnard College a few years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he was saying that when he, before he became an academic, he was a Catholic novice training for the priesthood.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, in America, here at that time in the 1960s, he said, try today, we would pray for the hidden and his darkness.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, he then is in darkness and we pray for light for the hidden in darkness and he said, when I was sent to the Vatican for higher training, higher studies.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I saw began to see when I studied Vedanta, he mentioned Vedanta, he mentioned Buddhism.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I studied Vedanta and Buddhism, I began to see not only is the hidden not in darkness, sometimes he then seems to have more light than we have.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, this is a theological reorientation and this is one way of establishing harmony of religions and that's how, for example, the Vatican is doing it now.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we are not talking about that either.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sri Ramakrishna's approach was not the social kind of let's get along together, not that kind, which was not the government political that, you know, separating religion from state.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was not even theological thing reading the texts and coming up with resolutions and papers and organizing conferences.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it was something that's the, what we are going to talk about today is Sri Ramakrishna's approach, the mystical approach, the direct experiential approach.
[SPEAKER_00]: He actually practiced and took it to its logical conclusion, culminating in mystical experiences of God in those paths.
[SPEAKER_00]: What was promised in those paths?
[SPEAKER_00]: What was held up in those paths?
[SPEAKER_00]: Experientially, he saw it to be true.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he proclaimed as many faiths, so many paths.
[SPEAKER_00]: So not as a political strategy, not even as a theological document like Nostrality, but as a direct experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, that is the domain of our talk today, the direct experiences of Sri Ramakrishna and following from that how we can build the harmony of religions.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do religions relate with each other?
[SPEAKER_00]: One way of course is what is called exclusionism that is I am right and everybody else is wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember Professor Geoffrey Long, who came and gave a talk on this subject a couple of years back.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was attracted to Vedanta was this, that he grew up in a very Christian household and always being told that we are right, everybody else including other churches, people who go to other churches, they are all going to go to hell.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, it was rent contrary to my intuition.
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt there was truth in all teachings.
[SPEAKER_00]: And why should God be so unjust as to have one particular church in the Midwest, in America, have all the truth and everybody else be wrong forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: And everybody else burned in hell forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: That seems to be very strange.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he said, when I came to Vedanta, it's already an intuition, he said, he already had that feeling that there is truth in everything and then we see that yes, it is truth, it is truth in everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Swami Atma Rupa Nandiji, a senior monk of our order, who is the head of our center in France now in Gretts.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, he grew up in South Carolina in the 1950s.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, more or less the same thing, somebody asked him, how did you come to Vedanta and he said, I grew up
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, very interested in religion, but I quickly noticed that my church was telling me that we are right, but even that church across the street they're wrong and they're all going to go to hell
[SPEAKER_00]: And I felt, well, if everybody is wrong, except us, our church, maybe we are wrong too.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he said, I lost interest in religion for a while, but later he came across a book on Vedanta, Vedanta for the western world, and he got that book in Sweden, he was there on a student exchange program.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there it said that there is truth in every religion.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, all religions have the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not that one is right and all are wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not that all are wrong, rather all are right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it immediately resonated with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, he told me something very interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Had gone to an interfaith conference, and he told me when you deal with when you interact with people from different religions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here is a nice principle to follow, listen carefully to what they teach because they'll usually have something valuable to teach and you can ignore what they criticize.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, that's a rule of thumb, it's a good rule of thumb.
[SPEAKER_00]: The positive teachings, the central teachings, you usually likely to be right and very valuable.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, this is exclusiveism that we are right and everything else is wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then there is inclusivism, inclusivism is when religions say that no, no others are not wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have the truth, but it is not that we alone have the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is some reflection of truth in others.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have the highest truth, the all the truth and total truth and complete truth and all of that others are little bit suffit and they are somehow included in us.
[SPEAKER_00]: and this is actually the position of the present position of the Catholic Church and some churches, some religious organizations.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Hinduism too, if you look at the dualistic approach and the non-dualistic approach.
[SPEAKER_00]: The dualistic approaches, the various dualistic sects within Hinduism, they will say, we have it right and one should worship God as Shiva or Vishnu.
[SPEAKER_00]: But luckily there are many mitigating factors in Hinduism.
[SPEAKER_00]: It don't lead to a deadly rivalry or warfare between the sects.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, a French man, travelling in India in the 18th century, he witnessed a fight between groups of Shaivites and Vaishnavites in the south of India, he says, these group of men came close to each other and they were yelling at each other and the whole fight was a good deal of yelling and a few knocked turbines, some turbines were knocked up from their heads and then they stormed home.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was more like a family quarrel rather than a terrible war which we
[SPEAKER_00]: So, this is inclusivism that there is a doctrine called anonymous Christians, so everybody else is an anonymous Christian, you are all Christians, you don't know it yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: if you have got it right in your own religions.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the kind of including others, but I have the truth and you have a little bit of it and to the extent that you have a little bit of it, you actually belong to us to our group.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Adwaita Vedanta, if you look at it that way, is sort of inclusiveistic.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you see traditional Adwaita Vedanta, and it looks at the other dualistic sects within Hinduism.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says, you are worshiping God as Vishnu.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's perfectly all right, and your worshiping God as Shiva, that's perfectly all right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your worshiping God as the Divine Mother as Kali or Durga, that's perfectly all right.
[SPEAKER_00]: How can it all be all right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because God is all of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: God is Saguna Brahman Brahman with attributes, infinite attributes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can worship as Shiva and there's no doubt it will appear as Shiva to the devotees of Shiva and as Vishnu to the devotees of Vishnu, it is all Saguna Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: And any one of them will do, and they are all good, they are all helpful, but subservient to a higher truth called Nirgun Abramhan, the absolute, who is beyond attributes, beyond language.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you have to realize I am that, and the worship of God the way you are doing it is helpful to that realization.
[SPEAKER_00]: So notice what the Advaita with Advaita was intended, it did not say you are all wrong, and I have got my own candidate for God.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it says you are all right.
[SPEAKER_00]: all of you are right.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is a good way of harmonizing.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what it does is it puts it down at one at a lower level.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there is a higher or a deeper level if you will of the attributeless program, which is the ultimate goal of the non-dualist of the Advaited.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is inclusiveism of a sort.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then there is a third approach to relationship between religions called pluralism.
[SPEAKER_00]: where we recognize that each religion is true and it is different and you don't have to exclude it or include it also.
[SPEAKER_00]: The perfectly all right as they are and we can all easily coexist.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this pluralistic approach, this is also very true of Hinduism, this is more true of Hinduism than exclusivism or inclusivism, we have multiple approaches and they seem to exist in very nice harmony with each other and they have for centuries or millennia.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's one of the reasons why I say why Sri Ramakrishna could teach the harming of religions, he necessarily had to come from his nuism.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I remember one of my teachers, when I was a monk, a novice in our main monastery, one of my teachers said that what Sri Ramakrishna said is already implicit in Hinduism, but he explicitly stated this as a experience and doctrine and teaching,
[SPEAKER_00]: The more I read Hinduism, it's there in the background, it's there in the culture, it's there in the text, I just quoted from the Shiva Mimna Stotra, that all paths lead to the rivers running into the ocean.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's him to Shiva, but it does not say you alone are the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those who worship you, those who worship God as Vishnu, those who worship God in the sunken way, but there's no God actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all of it runs to that one reality like the rivers run to the ocean.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's a pluralistic way, multiple religions all through all can coexist harmoniously.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's a further approach, which I think is closest to Sri Ramakrishna's approach.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nowadays, some scholars are talking about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's called the Cosmopolitan approach.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a scholar, Professor Ankur Bharwa, from Oxford University.
[SPEAKER_00]: or Cambridge.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think Cambridge.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, Cambridge University.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's coming here actually in a couple of months time.
[SPEAKER_00]: He'll give a talk here.
[SPEAKER_00]: He teaches this new idea of religious cosmopolitanism, it's catching on.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is cosmopolitanism?
[SPEAKER_00]: See pluralism is all very good.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're all religions are true and they will serve.
[SPEAKER_00]: They can exist by themselves differently and they can
[SPEAKER_00]: You follow yours, I'll follow mine, you're great, and I'm also fine with mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: but that's not exactly what happens in a big city like say a cosmopolist like New York.
[SPEAKER_00]: You interact with each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: You eat the food of different nations.
[SPEAKER_00]: You listen to the music of different nations or different cultures.
[SPEAKER_00]: The way the fabric of different cultures.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a cosmopolist is not only multiple cultures and multiple people existing, coexisting together, but also mixing.
[SPEAKER_00]: also enriching themselves with fusion of different cultures.
[SPEAKER_00]: So not only can there be multiple religious paths, all true, all coexisting, perfectly fine with each other, there's no need to fight with each other, but also not in isolation.
[SPEAKER_00]: One can easily learn and enrich oneself, make one spiritual life much richer by experiencing or learning from the traditions of the others, and that's what's actually happening in
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, nobody is really isolated from each other's spiritual, if you are a spiritual seeker, you are not isolated from other people's spiritual practices, you are curious, you would like to learn and people do learn the sacred music of others, the meditation techniques from others, the philosophical arguments from other traditions and we feel enriched by all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is religious cosmopolitanism.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at the various ways in which religion is related to each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exclusiveism, inclusiveism, pluralism, and cosmopolitanism.
[SPEAKER_00]: This cosmopolitanism again, I'm narrowing doubt to Sri Ram Krishna's teachings.
[SPEAKER_00]: So cosmopolitanism again is what Sri Ramakrishna was teaching to establish the harmony of religions.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we are calling it now.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're asked him, he would have been surprised.
[SPEAKER_00]: He would have never heard the word, because he was in his sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: One final word, and then we die, we still haven't started.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sri Ramakrishna's harmony of religions cannot be understood without looking at the situation in India, the distinct nature of the Indian situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you go deep into Hinduism, we notice one thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when Vivekananda said, we Hindus worship a transcendent, imminent God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Transcendent, beyond time space, causation, beyond this world, beyond the senses, something beyond, beyond language, beyond conception, transcendent.
[SPEAKER_00]: Immanent, right here, in and through this word, in all living beings, in all non-living things, in the elements of the world, in all actions, this is infused with divinity.
[SPEAKER_00]: So transcendent and imminent, this world being diverse, such tremendous variety in this world, if divinity is in this world, you can think of divinity expressing itself or being experienced diversely and it would not be wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: You wouldn't say that it is only one way of experiencing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: no there is a million ways of experiencing the world that is what the world is and if this world is infused with divinity then there are million ways of experiencing that divinity although it is one divinity but it can be experienced in this myriad ways and that is what was understood in India from ancient times.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, they were so comfortable with the idea of multiplicity of modes of worship.
[SPEAKER_00]: even till today from most ancient times, it was never a cause for quarrel or violence that IDI itself is very strange for Indians.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why would you want to fight about the second reason is that the variety amongst us, not only the multiplicity in which the divine can express itself,
[SPEAKER_00]: But also the variety amongst us, our constituents are different, like in the Shiva Mahimnastothra Irais recited the words, because of different tastes and constitutions of human beings.
[SPEAKER_00]: We may be it might be easier for us and quicker for us to grasp God to realize God in different ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: The same size will not fit everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: They can be a broadly a devotional approach, they can be broadly a philosophical intellectual rational approach, there can be an approach through meditation, there can be an approach through action of doing good to others or a combination of any of these four.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are the four, this typology developed by Swami Vivekananda, Ganyoga, Karmayoga, Bhakti-yoga and Rajayoga, the yogas of knowledge, action, devotion and meditation.
[SPEAKER_00]: So therefore you might have a variety of approaches and all your all work.
[SPEAKER_00]: So two things, the infinity would of the absolute of God itself.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is so capacious a conception of the divine that it can include all of these without conflict.
[SPEAKER_00]: And on the other hand, the diversity amongst all of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Contrast this with what has come out of the Middle East, that if there is truth, the truth must be one and the expression must be one also, and it must fit everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you can see implicit in that is the idea of intolerance and violence.
[SPEAKER_00]: If it does not fit you, something is wrong with you, not with my conception of the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: It becomes worse when
[SPEAKER_00]: You make it sounds good universal religion, one of the most devastating things for humanity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Universal religion means, I have the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only I have the truth, I also have a mission to make you accept the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: To spread it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Open it up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sounds good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Open it up to everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Open it to everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the next step is, it's my mission to make you see the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the next step is if you don't see the truth, what's so so so much the was for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to make you do it by hook or crook force you to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then so this this great idea of universality in fact becomes the engine of of war and intolerance and destruction and terrorism and
[SPEAKER_00]: So diversity, in contrast to that, if you see the Indian situation, from the most ancient times, people are different.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you respect the differences of religions, respect the differences of people also.
[SPEAKER_00]: And therefore different religions may work for different people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that also explains that enormous diversity within Hinduism.
[SPEAKER_00]: One last point, another thing that they ancient Hindu's developed was something called Wada, a Sanskrit word for debate.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the numerous differences, if you have so much diversity, it is going to be different and it is tremendous amount of differences in doctrine, in practice, in belief, how do you negotiate that?
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you exist?
[SPEAKER_00]: Go exist if people believe so different from you, when they leave it to the experts.
[SPEAKER_00]: you have scholars engaging in debate, like a gladiatorial combat of the intellect.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, this is my position, that is your position, instead of cutting each other's thoughts about it, let us discuss this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, a system of debate was devised, very popular also and very widespread across ancients and mediables scholarly India, the debates between Hinduism, different schools of Hinduism and Buddhism.
[SPEAKER_00]: for nearly a thousand years, and it just, you might ask, who one, depends on who you ask.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you ask me, V1, you ask the Buddhist Delsive Deva, but I think what one was Indian philosophy because of tremendous debates, this sophistication grew over the centuries.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then there was debates within Hinduism.
[SPEAKER_00]: Adwaita, Vishish Tadwaita, Dwaita, the various schools of Vedanta, and enormous literature came out of those debates.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, that is another system which is developed to let up the steam as it were, why the way of intellectual debate, instead of fighting over it, instead of doing politics over it, let us engage in an intellectual debate over that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they developed some wonderful rules.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll give you a couple of examples, which we can use ourselves in today's modern debate.
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, and they would be an empire, they would be the upper opposing parties, and they would have to be experts in their field.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the public would come and sit and listen.
[SPEAKER_00]: One rule was that before replying to somebody else, so it's opposing party puts forth their views about their position on some matter of philosophy or religion.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before replying to them, I have to repeat back to them to their satisfaction.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is your position.
[SPEAKER_00]: Often what happens in the argue, I'm not really listening to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm thinking of the reply I'm going to give you.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just way to stop speaking and then I'm going to really tear you down.
[SPEAKER_00]: But now, first to your satisfaction, I must be able to restate your position.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what you have said.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And you have to certify, yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then only I'm allowed to give my reply.
[SPEAKER_00]: What a wonderful system.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is all the background coming from this background, the extraordinary figure in late 19th century of Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is teaching up the harmony of religions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holy Mother, interestingly, he never regarded this teaching of the Harmony of Allegiance as a central teaching.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holy Mother, she says, I don't think Sri Ramakrishna set out to teach the Harmony of Allegiance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rather, he loved to experience God, and when he found God was being experienced in different ways and different traditions, he went out, set out like a religious adventurer, to experience those ways of different ways of experiencing God, of realizing God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And from that, this was drawn, this as a consequence, as an implication, the harmony of religions.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he really didn't set out that I am now going to harmonize the religions of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was no such motivation, but it has become a great teaching over the last hundred years.
[SPEAKER_00]: And most valuable across the world today, something that we need in this DNA age.
[SPEAKER_00]: five aspects of sadama Krishna's teaching of the harmony of religions, each one we will consider in brief and then bring it to a close.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's very interesting to see how these five aspects fit together.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the beautiful thing about sadama Krishna's teachings, he would speak in metaphor and parable.
[SPEAKER_00]: So theories one may listen and forget the moment you're out of this door or even before that you'll forget what was said, but stories you'll never forget.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was given 20 minutes to speak at the Vatican and I thought all scholars in theologians let's not talk theology and theory, let's just talk stories and just I told them the stories of Sri Ramakrishna and the parables and the metaphors and it really created an impact and I'm sure nobody forgot those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Sri Ramakrishna, he talks about this little ant, which discovered a mountain of sugar.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it goes to his delight and imagine, a mountain of sugar goes there and takes out one little grain and drags it back to his little home or it eats it there and tummy is full.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it looks back upon the mountain and says, I'm going to come back and take all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another little end cannot take all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is impossible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only that need not take all of that, that one grain of sugar is enough for its needs, will satisfy it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Similarly, God is infinite, and any bit of it, any approach to it, any contact with it is more than enough for all of us, each one of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to understand all of it, you don't even have to nor can be possess all of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the things which Sri Ramakrishna really disliked was anyone trying to limit the nature of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he said, God is infid it and even a particle of that, God realization is enough for our needs.
[SPEAKER_00]: So every person, every mystic, every path is built on a particle or two of the mountain of sugar which is God, so that's one parable.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he says, not only is it infinite, it's also beyond language, therefore when we try
[SPEAKER_00]: The metaphor you used is a peculiarly Indian Bengali metaphor, Aeto.
[SPEAKER_00]: In some Indian languages have comparative comparable words.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know Oria or Hindi, Oria, it is Aita.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then in Hindi it is Juta, which means, if you taste something, if you touch something to a food, some food, we touch it to your tongue, you've started eating it, then you cannot offer it to anybody else.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's already defiled, it's often translated as defiled in English.
[SPEAKER_00]: Defiled is too strong over, defiled or polluted, it's too strong over, it's not defiled, but it's you cannot offer it to anybody else.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's defiled.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now Sri Ramakrishna plays on this term.
[SPEAKER_00]: touched by the tongue, it's defiled by the tongue.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says, God is the only thing that has not been defiled by the tongue, because the tongue does two things, it tastes food, but it also speaks.
[SPEAKER_00]: That means God is the only thing that has not been spoken.
[SPEAKER_00]: Brumma, ethohain, it has never been defiled by the tongue that has not been spoken.
[SPEAKER_00]: What he means by that is, it cannot be expressed adequately in language.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why it cannot be expressed in language, we have discussed this on another talks and other classes, what Vedanta says about it and why it cannot be the technical reasons, what language can do and what language cannot do.
[SPEAKER_00]: But because of that, the absolute cannot be expressed in language.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the only thing that we have to express the absolute is language, all the scriptures of the world are language.
[SPEAKER_00]: The teachings of the great masters is in language.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, whatever cannot be expressed in language, you are forcing it into language, cannot be the absolute truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: It must be in some form limited or distorted.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Ramakrishna says, everybody thinks his watch is giving the right time.
[SPEAKER_00]: You might say today, but it is, because you're all connected by internet, so it is giving the right time.
[SPEAKER_00]: In those days, you're at separate watches, so those, the same truth is expressed thousands, 2000 years ago by Nagarjuna.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Shunnyatha, Sarva, the Shhtinam, every take on the Absolute, every view of the Absolute is empty.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is contains within its the seeds of its own destruction, absurdity.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he is what he said negatively, that they are all empty, they cannot express the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's Ram Krishna said positively, that they all express the truth, but none of them is complete or absolutely correct.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, for example,
[SPEAKER_00]: One big debate during his time was, is it all right to worship images of God?
[SPEAKER_00]: Can God have form?
[SPEAKER_00]: When he does them, you know God can have form.
[SPEAKER_00]: And can have multiple forms and is also beyond form.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how do you reconcile?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because they are contradictory.
[SPEAKER_00]: Farm and formless.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you reconcile both of them?
[SPEAKER_00]: How can it be both?
[SPEAKER_00]: in the Vatican, he told me with some little bit of anoints that what I said was not acceptable to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: See, in our theology we aim for consistency.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're trying to include everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not consistent.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is right that other one cannot be right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So some people used to ask Sri Ramakrishna, how is it possible for something to be with form and without form at the same time?
[SPEAKER_00]: Sri Ramakrishna said, like water and ice under the influence of intense cold water freezes into ice.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the ice bugs all have various forms.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the water itself has no form.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is when there is a sun of knowledge rises, it melts back into water.
[SPEAKER_00]: By itself, water has no form.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, it can take many forms.
[SPEAKER_00]: If God has a form intrinsically, then it must have only one form and must be different from everything else.
[SPEAKER_00]: all other forms cannot be accepted.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I accept a dualistic conception, a personal conception of God, then I will have an idea of a particular name, a particular form, and then that must be the reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything else must be wrong or lower than that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you say that the impersonal formless reality is there and that itself appears as all the forms.
[SPEAKER_00]: then both are true.
[SPEAKER_00]: What you are approaching as God with a particular form is true and if somebody is approaching God with another name and another form that is true too.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if somebody is approaching God as no name and no form that is true too because they are all approaching the same reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: What a beautiful example.
[SPEAKER_00]: the ice and the water example.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then it's most famous that you remember he is from Bengal.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they have those village ponds.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even now if you have the village Sri Ramakrishna came from his called Kamar Pukur.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pukur the word Pukur means pond.
[SPEAKER_00]: So all these villages in Bengal generally grew up around ponds and rivers.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says, the Hindu goes to that pond for water and calls it Jhal.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the Bengali word for water.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jhal.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Muslim goes to the pond and calls it Pani.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the Hindi word for water.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the English man, for some reason Sri Ram Krishna said, the English man goes to the pond and calls it Akwa.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think many Englishmen used to Latin at that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyways, he must have heard the word somewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: So whether you call it joll or pani or water or aqua or whatever, you are all talking about the same thing and different names can be given to the same thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she says Sri Ramakrishna's metaphor of the pond, water in the pond and the different communities, standing for different religions, approaching it and giving it different names.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly the same principle as that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The truth is one, the sages call it variously.
[SPEAKER_00]: A comes sath viprabhu dāvādhāvādhāvādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhādhā
[SPEAKER_00]: and the inability of our inability and in fact not necessary to grasp all of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the you know the like the example of the water and the ice, how these apparently contradicted the aspects of the divine can be reconciled, these are some of the beautiful components and that it cannot because it cannot be expressed by tongue, it has not been
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, when you do express it, it can be expressed in different ways, not that one expression is correct and the others are wrong, no, all are correct.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the second component, the big question, what is the purpose of all of these religions?
[SPEAKER_00]: Simple question.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, that connects to what is the purpose of life itself?
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the simple questions, but these are the great questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is the purpose of religion, any religion at all?
[SPEAKER_00]: Greater question, what is the point of purpose of life itself?
[SPEAKER_00]: Many answers, many many answers have been given throughout the ages.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, now I am a Christian, I am very sure, and very direct.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, it is the goal of human life is God-realization, in which ever language you put it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Goal of human life is spirituality, God realization, self-realization, in many languages you can put it, in many words and terminology, there is a transcendent truth to attain to that is the goal of human life, and this is something that has been known by human beings since historical times, pre-historical times, I'm sure, in all religions of the world, in all regions and civilizations of the world, people knew it, they truly wise knew it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they made up systems, names, teologies, methods of worship, methods of practice, which became the religions of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there is a truth, there is a point to all this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the goal of human life is this God realization.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then what about the religions?
[SPEAKER_00]: These religions, the goal of all these religions is God realization.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why they are here.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are a bridge between humanity and divinity.
[SPEAKER_00]: that is the purpose of religion.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a simple way of putting it, but how many scholars and theologians are puzzled about it?
[SPEAKER_00]: If you go to divinity school, discussions about what is the purpose of religion?
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody says, the word religion is to bind together.
[SPEAKER_00]: It means religious, it to bind together.
[SPEAKER_00]: It forms a community and thus a civilisation is possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody would say, oh religion is the opium of the masses.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is just a mechanism to keep the masses under control.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the masters can exploit the masses.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our religion is a way of uniting people to fight against other people.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a genuine purpose to religion, which is transcendence, which is god-realization, self-realization, and that connects with the ultimate purpose of human life.
[SPEAKER_00]: See, how beautifully powerfully boldly, ceramicishness states it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's our goal.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's not forcing us into a straight jacket.
[SPEAKER_00]: You might say, no, it's not my goal.
[SPEAKER_00]: My goal is to earn a million dollars on Wall Street.
[SPEAKER_00]: You might think that's your goal right now, but what you are trying to do by that is this
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever we are trying to do in life, whatever our project is, money, power, knowledge, doing good to others.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or though all those sound like a lot of work, I just want to relax.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or laziness, if your project is being a couch potato.
[SPEAKER_00]: all of that in all of those ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are seeking the same deep fulfillment and transcendence of suffering and that there is actually there is only one way of attaining that it is the spiritual way.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are many ways of being spiritual.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thankfully, but spirituality is the some and substance.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I consider a sign of maturity, an interest in spirituality, a sign of maturity.
[SPEAKER_00]: so that is the second component.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Ramakrishna told a parable here of the man who came to the mango grove and he is counting how many leaves are there, how many branches are there, how many trees are there.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have come to a mango grove to eat mangoes, eat the mango, eat the mango first, by spend time in counting leaves and shoots and
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Buddha's tale about, he says, Oh, Anand, what would you say to the man who is hit by an arrow?
[SPEAKER_00]: And you go to help him, says, wait, wait, wait, before you help me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who shot the arrow?
[SPEAKER_00]: What was the cast of the man who shot the arrow?
[SPEAKER_00]: Of what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Who did the arrow made of?
[SPEAKER_00]: What would you say to such a man?
[SPEAKER_00]: Since he will die, Oh, Buddha, he will die before he can be helped.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, precisely is the way we ask, various theological, philosophical, political questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: The core is, first you have come to eat the mango, first you need help to solve your own problems, and that is the core purpose of spiritual health, all spiritual systems at their heart, at their heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is the second component, what's the point of human life, what is the point of these religions, same point, God realization, self realization.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying the politics and the war making
[SPEAKER_00]: they might be some truth to them, but they are not the ultimate point or purpose of religions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somehow I saw academic discussions about religions, if you go to schools where religion is taught academically, they will not openly say religion is false.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the underlying premise is this, why does a religion exist, they will give social reasons, economic reasons, psychological reasons for the existence of religion.
[SPEAKER_00]: What about the religions themselves are saying that the reason for the existence of religion is spiritual?
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: I asked a professor once, how about taking religion seriously?
[SPEAKER_00]: We take religion seriously, you know, you take it socially, economically, culturally, psychologically, how about spiritually, silence?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because the underlying thesis is materialism is true, so religions are clearly false, God doesn't exist.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, why do these religions exist?
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I must find some materialistic psychological economic cultural reason for the existence of religion.
[SPEAKER_00]: That nobody will tell you, but this is the DNA, the inner academic code working in different departments throughout the work.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some are softer on it, some are more hardcore about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Third component is, therefore, if the ultimate reality is infinite nature beyond language can be expressed in different ways, the goal of human life and the goal of religion is to reach that ultimate reality, then these religions become paths to reach that ultimate reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is a Sri Ramakrishna's famous teaching, Jyotomot.com, as many faiths, so many paths.
[SPEAKER_00]: You would say the roof of the house, one can reach the roof of the house through the staircase.
[SPEAKER_00]: the stone staircase or the wooden staircase or in those days there were no elevators.
[SPEAKER_00]: So today we can say with an elevator or you can climb up from outside with a row or something you can go to the roof of the house but you will all reach the roof of the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: You would tell people who would gather around him in his little room and the credit temple of the action issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look, some of you have walked here, some of you came by coach, hot's carriage, some of you came by boat.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you all reached here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Similarly, it says, the Hindus will reach God, so will the Christians and so will the Muslims.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's to be Sikh people who gather around, there's a cantonment of Sikh soldiers.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Sikhs also will reach God.
[SPEAKER_00]: All you need is to be sincere in calling you, to want it.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, Ram Krishna would be asked,
[SPEAKER_00]: So God Realization is the goal.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the condition?
[SPEAKER_00]: One condition.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell us one thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And He would say, Daqulata, Intense Desire.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want it intensely, you will get it.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a catch there.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: We want it, but not that intensely.
[SPEAKER_00]: But at least this much is true.
[SPEAKER_00]: I always say, we want to want it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what that is.
[SPEAKER_00]: That all of us can raise our.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I want to want it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to be like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I can be.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, the different paths to realization, the ones you say that they are different paths and to the same goal, to the same goal.
[SPEAKER_00]: different paths to the same goal, then there's no need to fight.
[SPEAKER_00]: If your Google map tells you, this is the way to go to Vedance society and then what tells you is their ways, it tells you, this is the way to go to Vedance society.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, there are different ways of taking you around and depends also from where you are starting, which part of New York you are coming from or from New Jersey, so the paths will be different.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no need to quarrel about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I say that my religion is the best?
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody asked me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I say that my religion is the best?
[SPEAKER_00]: Sri Ramakrishna said yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only you can say that you must say that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Otherwise why are you following it?
[SPEAKER_00]: But here is, yeah, when I go to supermarket and buy something, that's the best for me, that's my choice, that's why I bought it.
[SPEAKER_00]: My choice indicates that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The reason I am following it is because I really find benefit in this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really find, it fits me, I believe deeply in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It works for me, that's why I have chosen it or it's chosen me in some way.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the proviso here is, one must not say, it's the best for me, therefore it's the best for everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: You must all accept my brand of toothpaste.
[SPEAKER_00]: I won't.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, that will not work and that is not necessarily true at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you must have a special relationship with, in fact, your religion, your path of spiritual practice is your special relationship to God or to the ultimate reality in whatever forms sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Seram Krishna's example of the wife, imagine Indian joint family.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, the girl is married into the family and she comes, she has a special relationship with her husband.
[SPEAKER_00]: And through her husband, she has a relationship with father-in-law, mother-in-law, sisters-in-law, brother-in-law and others.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the in-laws, but it's all in and through her husband.
[SPEAKER_00]: Similarly, our relationship to our own spiritual path is like that close intimate relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: And through that we have a relationship to all other paths also.
[SPEAKER_00]: through that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But a beautiful example.
[SPEAKER_00]: So through that path we are, we become close to our own conception, our own practice of God, and also respect and love for everybody else, for all the others, other religious paths also.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of them become paths.
[SPEAKER_00]: A little diversion here, I've got pushback on this.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a great idea, but apparently there are people who don't like it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who say that, well, yes, the religions of the world are paths to God realization, but they are paths of different mountains.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not paths of the same mountain.
[SPEAKER_00]: Each path is different from the other, and they will take you to different mountains.
[SPEAKER_00]: This appears to be to be a mischievous interpretation.
[SPEAKER_00]: What follows after that is, my path takes me up this mountain, your path takes you up that mountain, but there's only one mountain, and that's mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the path that you'd go follow, it takes you up something that's a wild goose chase, there's nothing there.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's back to the same old exclusivistic idea that I have the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes people may say this genuinely, these are discussions amongst theologians which I am sharing with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: They may say this genuinely, the goals are also different, but that's because, as I said, the ultimate reality, God, Brahman, the absolute, is so capacious that when it is experienced by different mystics, genuinely experienced, they have genuinely different experiences, but that does not mean that ultimate reality is genuinely many.
[SPEAKER_00]: Otherwise, what happens is, if I hold on to that many paths leading up, I asked a sailor gym, many paths leading up different mountains.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I said, doesn't your religion hold on to monotheism?
[SPEAKER_00]: There is only one ultimate reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: Will you say, there are multiple ultimate realities, said, no, there is only one ultimate reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you are saying these different paths do not lead to that one ultimate reality, they lead to different things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, they are all false except yachts, no answer.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see, if you cannot hold on to monotheism on one side, and you cannot abandon monotheism also.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a central teaching of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.
[SPEAKER_00]: You cannot abandon that also.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the same time, if you say that multiple paths lead to ultimate or multiple ultimate realities, there is, you can see in between, there is a great deal of mischief involved there.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a way of degrading the other, of saying that, there's only one truth, I have that truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your path is leading you to a dead end.
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the paths lead to the same reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, you can experience it in tremendously diverse ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why it seems to you genuinely that they are different paths.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, having said all these three components we have talked about, then the fourth component is
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, when you have all these diversity, tremendous diversity, what do you do?
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you do?
[SPEAKER_00]: If all these paths lead to God realization, are you, I met a gentleman.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, he's a walking harmony of religions.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, I worship Shiva on Mondays and the Buddha on Thursdays and Allah on Fridays and our Father God in heaven on Sundays and Jehovah on Saturdays.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, do you have to do that to a different religion each week, each day of the week, no, no, no, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sri Ramakrishna's in fact, he completely disapproved of this way of doing things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even when he practiced different paths, he would practice each one exclusively.
[SPEAKER_00]: He would push us aside all other ideas and throw himself entirely into one practice.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he said, this, again, an ancient Hindu idea of your personal ideal, they're all true and all beautiful and all will work, but you have to follow one path.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have Google Maps and ways and it tells you two different paths to reach the goal, you will not combine the two paths.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll get into trouble if you'd try to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: you will pick one and follow it seriously, you will not keep alternating back and forth between the two.
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is called Ishta Nishtha, Ishta means desired or the beloved deity.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Samar initiated into a mantra of Rama, Samar on the path of worshiping God as Krishna, for Sri Rama Krishna it was Kali.
[SPEAKER_00]: He spoke about all these harmonia religions, but for him, the central conception of God, the way he walked on that path, from the beginning till the end, it was Kali, the Divine Mother.
[SPEAKER_00]: For him, God was always a Sheep.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, he would, the parable He gave was of the man who was digging for water.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's hard work to dig a well and somebody told him it's easier if you go there so you go there and start digging there somebody told him go there he goes to a third place and starts digging at the end of the day he has dug six shallow wells if I want water nowhere but if you had kept on digging at the same place you might have found water so the idea of Ishtanishta is one must hold on to one you select your path or the path
[SPEAKER_00]: And then hold on to one, any one of them will work.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what works best for you, but one must sincerely hold on to one and dig deep there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Ram Krishna would also say, what's the use of floating on the surface?
[SPEAKER_00]: Dive deep.
[SPEAKER_00]: The gems are on the ocean bed.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you have to dive deep.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is the fourth component.
[SPEAKER_00]: Notice he seems to have withdrawn a little bit of the diversity in harmony with in practice one must hold on to one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once one has got he would say in the beginning one must put a fence around the sapling.
[SPEAKER_00]: Imagine an Indian road with the sacred cow walking back and forth.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't put a fence around the sapling, the cows and the goats will come and eat up the little sapling.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you put a fence around it, this is the tree will grow, strong and big.
[SPEAKER_00]: And once the tree is fully grown, you can tie or elephant to it, nothing will happen to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Similarly, in the beginning of our spiritual life, we must hold on to one path seriously and when it becomes alive for us, you can spread out like a tree and see the divinity in all beings.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the fourth component and final, being dedicated to our own path.
[SPEAKER_00]: what will be our approach to all the others, one is reverence and respect for all other paths, not to look down upon any path.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why not?
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not doing a favor to others.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's literally the same reality, the Christian and the Jew and the Muslim and the Sikh and the Buddhist and the Taoists.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're all worshipping or trying to approach the same reality in different ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I disregard or
[SPEAKER_00]: I am cutting down my own tree, if I disregard the other.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, deep respect and acceptance of the other's truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, here comes the cosmopolitan part of it, learn from the other.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sri Ramakrishna would say to the Brahmas who were reform movement of Hinduism, he said, you may not be a Vaishnava, Vaishnava, Vaishnava, but he would say, whether Tantukula, see how they love Krishna, the intense love they have for Krishna, take that, bring that, you would say that you are your path, you are good, very liberal, very philosophical, but lukewarm,
[SPEAKER_00]: He said that I went to their worship and then the teacher who was leading the worship said, now we will meditate.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought they will go deep into meditation.
[SPEAKER_00]: In two minutes they were up.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, I saw it's like a group of monkeys sitting.
[SPEAKER_00]: So groups of monkeys travel across.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can even now you can see in Indian cities.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they are sitting quietly on the branches of trees or on the
[SPEAKER_00]: So our minds are like that sitting there as if meditating.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, be intense, have that intense love and pull, which Vaishnava has for Krishna, bring it into your own path.
[SPEAKER_00]: See how he's telling them to learn from others from each other and thereby enrich.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it has a follower of Vedanta, especially as taught by and lived by Sri Ramakrishna, Masha, Rada, Swami Vivekananda.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love studying Christian mystical texts and my own spiritual path is enriched by that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love studying Buddhism.
[SPEAKER_00]: My own understanding of Vedanta is enriched by that, by Buddhism and indeed, with the un Buddhist critiques.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even the attack they do on your path, it helps to clarify your path, to get depth in your own path.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, it enrich makes our spiritual path rich.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was the Mughal prince Dharashiko, about 400 years ago, he was very interested in Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, what he did was he got some pundits to translate from the Sanskrit into Persian.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wrote a number of books himself and so, translations he incorporated into a book.
[SPEAKER_00]: the name of which is a meeting of two oceans.
[SPEAKER_00]: He meant Islam and Vedanta or Hinduism.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he writes very perceptively there.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, What is dark in my faith?
[SPEAKER_00]: I find a flood of light coming from the other faith from Hinduism.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is dark there the light from my faith illuminates those corners which means how you are yourself benefited by the study of these same issues you will find mystics throughout the ages have struggled with the same issues I've tried to understand the same aspects of the divine, but they've understood in various different ways and so suddenly you'll find much richer by studying Not just by studying by worshipping the prayer
[SPEAKER_00]: all of that we can appreciate this approach of Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_00]: It makes the entire spiritual heritage of humanity your treasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will not hesitate.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if I hold on to an exclusiveistic approach, I am right, everybody else is wrong, then everybody else is locked out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I cannot benefit from a study of the Bible and the vast Christian devotional literature from the Islamic mystical literature, from the Jewish Kabbalah, from the Guru Granth Sahib or the vast philosophy, philosophical and meditation texts of the Buddhist practices of the Buddhist.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will not benefit if I lock them out and say they are all wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if I say they are all right and all quite correct and genuine, as much as mine, then I can open my heart up.
[SPEAKER_00]: As I love and revere and enjoy my own texts and practices, I can love revere and enjoy the texts, the practices, the music, the meditative atmosphere of churches and meditation halls, all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The entire spiritual heritage of humanity becomes our own.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is the vast view, it's of you, the harmony of religions from Sri Rama Krishna, which it's a vast view and it's very good to be big in matters of, in every matter, it's good to be big, not good to be small or petty.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our real nature, the Ottoman, Brahman, our real nature is the absolute, is vast, is limitless.
[SPEAKER_00]: The more vast, more accepting we are,
[SPEAKER_00]: We more true, we are to our path.
[SPEAKER_00]: Vedanta says, aham Ramhas, me, I am Brahman, which literally means the universe is one with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Non-duality means there is no second reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, whatever we experience, whomever we experience, whatever we do and see being done, in some way it must be me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It must be one with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I must be one with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: To see the self in all beings and all beings in the self, that's the highest teaching of Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that vision, the harmony of religion shows us how we can get close to that without making everything the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will never happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Accepting the world in all its diversity, beauty and power, and see that it is meant to be like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: In God's vision, it is meant to be like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And therefore, we elevate ourselves to that divine vision by seeing the world and religions from the perspective, from a godlike perspective.
[SPEAKER_00]: may we be blessed with that vision, our prayer to Sri Ramakrishna, Maharashtra, Swami Vivekananda, to Lord Shiva himself, may this great blessing come down to us and elu-minas.