How faith contributes to harmony – Multi-faith meeting

Interfaith program at Queensland College of Art

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
thank you very much I’m honored to be here as I will speak few points about how hope contributes to harmony first is that the hope for harmony is itself a faith that we want harmony if we look at life simply from a materialistic perspective then there is very little reason for harmony as the nature operates on the principle of the struggle for existence and the survival of the best and if these are the driving principles for all of life if we are not doing the best biotechnical management of our life then we are going to prey on the legal beings and we cannot really have harmony so the hope for harmony is always that there is something more to our being beyond the machines that we operate it is the spiritual side of our lives that is the motivation for harmony as long as we consider ourselves to be materialistic beings we are doomed to conflict and disharmony so I am sorry I have to say Bhagavad Gita and the Bhakti Parishad in Bhagavad Gita explains that for harmony we need to go in two directions the physical world around us where there is so much variety and if this variety is all that we see then variety will lead to disharmony but we need to go deep within and go high up so when we go deep within Bhagavad Gita explains in the English chapter 25th that that when we see beyond the diverse body forms there is the same spiritual spirit that dominates all living beings yes we live in all different countries different genders, different races different faiths we consider faith as a body regeneration but beyond it all there is a soul of a similar nature that leads the environment and to the extent we can go to the essential goal we will see the similarity among all living beings and when we see the similarity among all living beings then we see that our goals are promoted not by conflict but by harmony as long as we see ourselves as irreducibly different we think that it is a survival of the fittest that I have to prey on others in order to succeed myself but when we see that we are all spiritually we all belong to the same one family then there is a heart breaker rationale for harmony. Harmony is not just a sentimental aspiration but it becomes intellectually found conviction and the other way is we go deep with it and we go hard back thus the spiritual source of all of us ultimately is the same one absolute truth and that absolute truth is accessed through different what we call faiths, through different religious, spiritual and spiritual practices but it is that same absolute truth whom we are meant to love and the Bhagavad Gita again cuts through all religious formalities to focus on the essence of love you may wonder what that whole verse is it says what this verse really says that go beyond all religious formalities, focus on the essence of love that to the extent we go deep with it and understand that we are spiritual that we can all feel the inspired by God presence and to the extent we go above and connect with ourselves you can finish it now you can read the Bhagavad Gita known as Krishna but it is the same one absolute truth and you will realize that we are all connected together as part of the same absolute truth then that hope for harmony becomes a natural outgrowth of our unique longing for love so spiritual culture operates on a principle different from survival of the best survival of the best is the way the animal world operates survival of the best is the way our body likes to operate but if you rise in spiritual consciousness then the normalness of human aspirations is not survival of the best it is sacrifice of the best where the being sacrifices that to others in life and here as long as religion or faith if it is animated by the idea religion also becomes another instrument of the body conception the religion is survival of the best religion is the biggest number, religion is the biggest money power and who will survive the religion will also contribute to this harmony but the religion is motivated by this higher spiritual guiding principle not survival of the best but sacrifice of the best then the religion will become a means for harmony and human happiness in life thank you