​Why are there contradictions among different religions?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
The rules are different, but the purpose is the same. And the rules can be opposite and still the purpose can remain the same.
The purpose is the regulation of traffic, the regulated movement of vehicles along the road. That’s what is required. And that is what is served by this.
So, similarly, there are different people at different levels on the spiritual journey. Now, not everybody is at the same level. And what is good at one level may be bad at another level.
So, for example, there are, say a father has two children, a family has two children and two sons. So, both of them have come from school today. So, one of them is a very intelligent student, he always gets good marks, maybe 80% marks.
The other student is a very below average student, barely scrapes through, gets 40% marks. And today both of them have come. And both of them have got 60%.
So, the first person, the father will say, shabash, I am proud of you. The other one will say, badmash, what have you done? The second son will say, hey, both of us got the same percentage marks. Why the difference? So, the father says, difference is because, you know, for you, for him, from 40 to 60 is the elevation.
But for you, from 80 to 60 is a degradation. So, like that, you know, what is good and what is bad is not absolute. When it comes to individual application, the same thing that is good at one level may be actually bad at another level.
Or the same thing that is bad at another level may be good for a person at another level. You know, we could say that, when Narada Muni tells Bhrigari, why are you half-killing animals? Kill them completely. In today’s internet age, you know, immediately we could have an article, Narada Muni, a deviator from Siddhanta.
He is telling people, kill animals. You know, he is committing, he is deviating from parampara. You could have Narada Muni being targeted with people who are always out to claim deviation.
But what is Narada Muni doing? Now, for a person who is half-killing and causing pain and delighting and causing pain to others, for him, hunting was a professional necessity. But torturing animals is not a professional necessity. So, what Narada Muni is doing is elevating him from that level to one level height.
Okay, you have to do your professional necessity, do it. But you say that, how will you live without that? Okay, you do it, but don’t half-kill them, don’t torture them, don’t delight in causing them pain. So, for him, it is one level higher from there.
So, like that, in different traditions, depending on the cultural context in which people are, they are given instructions. And they will become elevated from where they are towards higher levels. Now, exactly how far they go, that will depend on how committed they are, how purely they practice.
And ultimately, it is not that when Prabhupada was asked, you know, Prabhupada was on Lescrain’s TV show and it’s a Christian feature and there was Prabhupada. So, the TV host went and asked the Christian teacher. So, according to this person, this Swami’s path, he follows the Bhagavad Gita, he couldn’t pronounce also, could follow the Bhagavad Gita.
So, will they attain God? So, that Christian priest remained silent. So, will they attain God? He remained silent. So, he came to Prabhupada.
So, by following the Bible, will they attain God? He says, yes. Anyone who follows the path of God, they can attain God by that. He went back again.
Then he said to the Christian priest, he said that he asked, will they attain God by following the Gita? He said, no. He said, the path to God is very narrow. The path to God is very narrow.
So, this is actually narrow-mindedness. So, now, the purpose is to become attracted to Krishna. And the test is, how much are we attracted to Krishna? So, now we may say that we are practicing Krishna Bhakti, but that doesn’t mean that, so somebody may ask, okay, if somebody is eating meat, will they attain perfection? Now, they will rise higher from wherever they are.
Will they attain perfection? Will they attain Krishna? See, that way, if you want to say, there is no guarantee that we ourselves will attain Krishna. It’s not just chanting Hare Krishna. It’s actually developing love for Krishna that is important.
So, we have to become purified. We have to attain love for Krishna. And even in the Christian tradition, even in the Muslim tradition, there are people who are vegetarians.
So, there are people. And certainly, there is no mandate which says that you have to eat meat to worship Allah. I have a whole different analysis of the Bakris and other Eid festivals.
They are not integral to Islam. They are later accretions. There are so many countries in Muslim countries where, you know, there are Bakris and goats and that kind of animals are not there only.
So, how can they perform that particular ritual? And are all these Muslims just because they are not killing goats? No, it’s not like that. So, that is not essential. That is just a cult.
Many religions get cultural accretions. Accretion means some litter addition which is not originally given in scripture. It gets added on.
In Hinduism also, that is there, you know. There is God, there are demigods and there are semi-gods. Semi-gods means say me God.
I am God. So, there are many. So, the worship of such spiritual teacher as God, you know, that is not a part of the tradition originally.
That is an accretion. So, every religion can have accretions to it which can often be deviations. So, essentially at one level we understand that there is love of God to be acquired.
We want to develop love of God to attain perfection. At another level we understand the different people are at different levels. And so, rather than being judgmental about others, we appreciate and encourage them to rise higher from wherever they are.
And if they are following a path which is given by God, if they are following a bona fide path, then it is between them and God. It is for them, it is for Allah, for Christ, for Buddha to guide them onwards. And how that happens whether it is in this life, in the next life, that is between them and the manifestation of God, the representative of God that they are worshipping, whom they are following.
So, we focus on practicing the principles that we have learned and appreciating others and encouraging others when they are also moving towards God. Does it answer your question? Wonderful. Thank you so much.
So, thank you very much, Prabhupada Ki.