World Religions 1 – Appreciating religious diversity amidst spiritual universality

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna.
I spoke and then we can have questions. I spoke today about appreciating religious diversity amidst spiritual universality. So in spiritual universality I spoke about three fundamental truths which different religious traditions talk about in various expressions.
That there is more to life than this life. That in Vedic context there is a Jiva who is eternal. This world is not a station, it is a destination.
This world is not a destination, it is simply a station. The destination is beyond that world. So the nature of this Jagat.
And then there is some higher reality that is sourcing and sustaining this world. These are common universalities across all religious traditions in the world. And the concept of perennial philosophy holds that there is in these wisdom traditions there is two common factors.
One addressing the head, the other addressing the heart. There is appreciation of the eternal and then some process by which one develops attraction to the eternal. So Aldous Huxley who proposed this, he said that the Mahayana is the most systematic statement of perennial philosophy.
And then we discussed about, okay even if there is something beyond this world, why does it matter? Because origin, value and purpose, where I came from, where I should be going and what really counts, what are the values that should guide my life. This is something we, if we don’t examine then it is not that it doesn’t matter. We adopt some examined philosophy.
We adopt the default philosophy of materialism and religion. Then I talked about how the idea of relegating God to the background. There is secularism, secularism means impartiality towards religions.
But it can very easily degenerate to irrelevance of religions. And that experiment with materialism and atheism is proven disastrously costly for the world. Now the communist Marxist era in China years ago started.
It caused three times more bloodshed and killing than all the wars of the world combined together. So the world needs not lesser religion but deeper religion. Not apathy, religious apathy but religious spirituality.
I talked about how just as in science there is theory and there is experiment. So like that in spirituality there is philosophy and religion. So in all, whether it is science or philosophy, knowledge develops by moving from visible observations to invisible principles.
By seeing the fruit falling, Newton proposed invisible principle of gravity. So by seeing the reality of death and our innate revulsion to the idea of death, we postulate that there is some core to us which is beyond death, which is not meant to die. Just as science offers experiments to verify its theoretical postulates.
So religion offers us practices by which we can nourish that non-material core and experience peace and fulfilment. We talked about how there are differences in the religion, the practices. Because to say that all religions are the same is to be in denial of reality.
They have the same purpose. Traffic rules in different parts of the world are different. Not just different, they are opposite but the purpose is the same.
So there are irreducible differences in religions but they are not irreconcilable differences. And what about differences not just in practice but not just in religion but in philosophy itself? We saw that it’s more of an attitude or approach. There can be exclusivist, my way is the only way.
Pluralist, that all ways are right. And inclusivist, there is one way with different levels on it. So the exclusivist statements are present in all religions to some extent.
And they are meant to inspire focus, not to impose a monopoly. The pluralist statements, the exclusivist statement like a doctor telling a confused patient, just take this medicine. And the pluralist statements, they acknowledge lived reality that different people are at different levels and they all have to progress at their pace.
So and then different people have different ways. So exclusivism or pluralism, either of them, if it is meant to be absolute, then it is like say some engineering college saying that this is the only engineering college. Or every building is an engineering college.
Both are logical fallacies. The balanced state is the inclusivism that actually there is a common purpose and there are different levels on the ascent of the common purpose. Like climbing up the mountain, there can be different paths.
But the common purpose is. So similarly, raising human consciousness from material level to spiritual level. Just as when deciding whether a building is an engineering college, there are objective criteria.
What kind of knowledge and skills a person has developed. Similarly, how much appreciation of the eternal, how much attraction to the eternal. A practitioner of a particular path has developed.
That determines at what level on the inclusive path a person is. And then we also have an example of different medical treatments in a hospital. So each treatment can canvass its own benefits.
But their purpose is common to humans. And for avoiding conflicts, an important thing is to understand that religion is not, God is not meant for religion. Religion is meant for God.
That all dharmas are for mahamilkam sharmam. So when people make religion itself into an end, religion becomes a designation, a part of their identity alone, then we can have the logical self-contradiction of an atheist Jew. Because the idea is, the God has been removed from the equation.
But when we keep God first, then even if there is a maze of contradictions or conflicts, we can still move forward because that one common purpose will help us to move onwards towards higher consciousness, ultimately towards God. And it is in the connection with God that we find lasting peace and improvement. Thank you very much.