Is harmony possible among various religions?
Answer Podcast
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, there are different religions and if the Brahmins have said that we cannot worship a form at all, then is it possible for there to be harmony or is there going to be ultimately a survival of the fittest? We have to look at the world through Shastra Chakshi, not through the lens of the current socio-cultural or socio-religious divisions of the world.
We think, okay, we are Hindus, they are Christians, they are Muslims, we Hindus are good, those Muslims are bad. This is a material division. The Shastric vision is there is Sattva Guna, there is Rajoguna, there is Tamoguna.
And in all religions, there are people who are Sattvic, there are people who are Rajasic, there are people who are Tamasic. And even in the Hindu tradition also, there are people who have been Tamasic. They may not have been as violent as in other religions, but there are other ways in which the Tamoguna has been expressed.
For example, the caste discrimination, it was quite often terrible the way it was done, lower caste were discriminated against. So, that is completely Tamasic. And that Tamasic nature was exhibited by those who were actually meant to be Sattva Guna, the Brahmanas.
So, the point here which we are making is that first of all, it is very easy to blame others, to demonize others and to blame others. But relationships form when we see the similar in the other. Now, there is similarity between us and them and that is essentially we are all human beings and people accept religion because it helps them in their own way to make sense of life.
Wherever people are, people are essentially similar. Wherever people are, they want to get on with their lives. And at that time, whatever religion they come across, which helps them to make sense of life in some way, they accept that and they move onward in life.
So, it is not good to label people according to their religion because within the religion itself, there is a wide variety. So, for example, in one sense, we are also part of the Hindu religion. But there are festivals where, in the Hindu religion itself, in that broad tradition, there are festivals where, you cannot call the word festivals, but there are whatever it is, where sometimes millions of dogs or millions of cats or millions of animals are killed.
In Nepal, the big thing happens over there and a lot of protests about that. So, now, we would say that that’s not what we are doing. We may say that, yes, we are transcendental, they are mundane, but the fact is, it’s all within the same tradition.
And they will also find something to justify that. So, within Christianity, within Islam also, there are people in goodness, there are people in passion, there are people in ignorance. And within any group of people, those who are in ignorance, there is no possibility of peace.
So, whether it is between two religions, or whether it is between two races, whether it is between two countries, say between India and Pakistan, if Indian rulers are passionate, if Pakistani rulers are passionate, there is no peace possible. If Indian rulers are ignorant, if Pakistani rulers are ignorant, there is no peace possible. There is no harmony possible.
So, this lack of harmony, or the provocation towards violence, that is primarily determined by the modes in which we are living. And those modes impel people to overpower others, to dominate others. And for those modes, there can be different kinds of rationalizations.
In America, there was the idea that the white race is superior to the black race. And that’s why they tried to dominate the black people for so long. So, that was based on an externalized notion where some people based on a particular category are labeled in a particular way.
So, that sort of labeling indicates a non-shastric vision. So, there are Christians in goodness. I am a part of several e-forums where we talk with various people of various religions.
There is one of my Muslim friends, he told me that, I have written this about this also in my book, GK for PK, I wrote it. So, he says that it is easier for, this Muslim friend told me, it is easier for me to communicate with moderates of other traditions than extremists of my own tradition. So, he is Muslimist, we cannot paint all Muslims in one color.
So, he is saying that even I can’t communicate with extremist Muslims. So, if there is an extremist, there is a moderate Hindu or there is a moderate Christian, then there is possibility to communicate among them. So, there are people who are in sattva guna in various religions and it is sattvic people who can communicate, understand and expand their horizons.
And it has happened also. There are many Christians who initially came to India with very negative conceptions. We try to label Christian in one color.
But there are many different Christians of very different dispositions. Now, ISKCON in America, when it came under the, when it was accused of brainwashing, at that time, you know, it was our Christian friends who saved us. What happened is, of course, it’s not that they were concerned about us primarily, but they at that time helped us to recognize, they said that they are bona fide religion.
And they recognize that if today the charges of brainwashing are brought against the Hare Krishnas, tomorrow they can be brought against Christians also. So, because all religions have some common values which go against the mainstream materialistic values. So, at that time, actually in 1965, when Pope John Paul II was there, at that time, Vatican II was a major intellectual landmark in the history of the Catholic Church.
Till then, the Catholic Church had the idea that actually all other religions are false. And Jesus is the only way to God. They consider the other Abrahamic religions to be okay.
They said Judaism is okay. But afterwards, they have deviated. They say Jesus is the only way.
But in Vatican II, the Catholic Church recognized that we accept as good and holy that which is respectable in other religions. Now, they kept the wording a little vague. But overall, because of that, they became open to other religions.
And this actually happened in 1965, just a couple of months before Srila Prabhupada went to America. And that’s why when the devotees started becoming serious devotees, if you look at the early reports of ISKCON, you will find there are Christian people who came and stayed in Hare Krishna temples. And some of them like Professor Harvey Cox was there.
And there are other professors. They said that these Hare Krishnas, they are utterly devoted to God, just as the original followers of Jesus were. Not caring about the world, they were completely devoted to God.
And it was testimonials like these that eventually when the court cases came against us, and they said that these are not just a cult, they are an ancient religion. And they are as devoted to God as our most serious practitioners are. That was what actually protected us.
So then our devotee leaders, Anuttama Prabhu is our communications director. He has been having for almost 30 years, they have been having a Vaishnav Christian dialogues going on. And last two years ago, they published a journal of the various dialogues they have had.
And it’s very beautiful the way the Christians, they have described how when they actually encountered the Hare Krishnas, what conceptions they had before, and how their conceptions changed. They had, originally they thought this was just a pagan. You see, every religion has a derogatory reference for those who do not belong to that tradition.
The Muslims call anyone who is not a Muslim as a kafir. The Christians call everyone as pagans. We call them as Mlecchas and Yawanas.
So everyone has that. But the difference is we also have a philosophical vision, by which we recognize that there can be people in different modes. So there are Christians in goodness, and there are Muslims in goodness, and between them dialogues are possible.
So when they encountered, when the Christians, their primary idea of Hinduism was impersonalism. But when they encountered the Bhakti tradition in India, at that time, they said this is actually very similar to the love of God that is talked about in Christianity. And Prabhupada focused on that.
That he said that we are also, Jesus gave up his life for the sake of love of God. And we are also teaching love of God. So Krishna says in the 18th chapter, 20th verse, that knowledge in goodness means to see similarity.
Knowledge in passion means to see dissimilarity. And knowledge in ignorance means to see only one fragment of reality. And to see things, this is everything.
So knowledge in goodness means to see similarity. That to see that actually, as I said, what is similar, we are all human beings, we are all aspiring to find meaning and happiness in life. And different people may try it in different ways.
There may be something right, something wrong in what they are doing. But essentially, there is similarity. The capacity to see that is goodness.
The capacity to see in passion is, oh, this is different, that is different, that is different. And therefore, there can be no similarity. And ignorance means to just take one sample, to take one sample and to label everyone based on that sample.
Oh, you know, you people, you people did violence, you people destroyed our temple. Well, they may have done that 500 years ago. And now we want to blame them for that right now.
Imagine if today somebody said that, oh, your ancestors, you know, you are Brahmins, you discriminated against our caste. So therefore, we will destroy you now. We cannot do like that.
So taking one sample of people and labeling everyone in that category, according to a particular label, that is actually knowledge in the mode of ignorance. So we should see according to Shastra, to the extent the mode of goodness arises in the world, to that extent peace is possible. To the extent the mode of passion and ignorance arises in the world, to that extent violence will take place.
And that violence can be because of many causes. Religion can be a major cause. But atheism can also be an equally serious cause.
Actually speaking, if you see, religious violence, we live in a culture where often religious violence is given a huge amount of media space, and then it occupies a lot of mind space within us. But if you look at the biggest confrontations in the recent centuries, the World War I, World War II, they were not fought on religious grounds. And within communist China and communist Russia, actually three times more people were killed than what were killed in World War I and World War II combined together.
So World War I, World War II were not on religious grounds. The communist pogroms, pogroms means annihilation of people, that was based on basically, anybody who they felt was a threat to their group. And they were atheistic governments.
So the point is, it is very easy to blame atheism, it is very easy to blame religion. But you need to recognize that there is goodness, there is passion, there is ignorance. And wherever there is ignorance, wherever there is passion, there, there is going to be violence.
Where there is goodness, there is a possibility of harmony more and more. So what we need to do is, we develop our own goodness, and we connect with people in other groups who are also in goodness. If we label other people, we become hate mongers.
Those people are like that. Those people are like that. Then we actually contribute to disharmony in the world.
So is peace possible? Yes, to the extent, mode of goodness becomes more and more prevalent, peace is possible. But at the same time, we also recognize we cannot live in a utopia. There are real threats.
And we cannot simply stay in goodness when there is violence and ignorance, when there is passion and ignorance around. So the Pandavas, when they were, the Udyoga Parva is the parva before the war. So at that time, what they were doing? They were doing things, they were hoping for the best and they were preparing for the worst.
That means, they were trying various ways to negotiate, to try to have a peaceful settlement. But at the same time, they were also forming alliances with various armies so that in case the war happens, we will be ready for the war. So like that, we should be hoping for the best.
We should strive to increase the goodness within us and try to connect with people who are in goodness. But at the same time, we recognize that there are real threats. And if there are real threats, Kshatriyas are required to protect.
And to develop a kind of Kshatriya force, that is also a part of the mission of protecting Vedic culture. But to focus only on one, to think that, oh, they are violent, so we’ll also become violent. No, that is not the solution.
Rather than considering they to be one category, we should know within they, there are different shades of people. And we try to communicate with those who are in goodness. And we need to take the necessary measures to protect ourselves from those who are in passion and ignorance.
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