Understanding the Essence of Religions
Inter-religious strife and strife between religious and non-religious groups is due to lack of understanding concerning what religions were originally designed to do among both followers of religions and people that do not practise any religion.
Devotees must always understand that the important thing to be kept in mind is not the secondary details of their religion such as what clothes to wear, in what manner to pray, exactly what form a ritual must take etc, but the essence, and that essence is the same as the essence of all spiritual paths. Imagine an Englishman, a Frenchman and a German come across some water. If the Englishman says it is, 'water,' and that the others are wrong when they call it, 'de l'eau,' or 'Wasser,' and starts fighting about the name, having forgotten the substance, then he is sadly deluded. In the same way, people of different religious groups that argue that only their God and path are correct and all the others are wrong have forgotten the essence of religion and become dangerously attached to outside names. As is written in the Vedas, "Truth is one, sages call it by various names". Truth is eternal; it never changes just because someone rocks up off the street and says it is something different. We should not become attached to and give authority to spiritual teachings just because they were spoken by a certain person. Spiritual teachers should be given authority because they agree with Truth, so a Hindu should recognise what a Taoist says if it is wise.
The manifestation of spirituality is universal love. The irreligious people were crucifying Jesus, who must have been undergoing absolute torture. On the cross, one normally dies from suffocation, but Jesus still found the will to pray aloud, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). At such a time, insincerity and an egotistical, ‘holier than thou’ attitude could not have motivated someone to pray that. He really was one that realised that universal, utterly selfless love, which transcends religious and all other groups. This is an aspect of the essence of Christianity, and indeed of all religions, but it seems to have been lost sight of far too often by far too many over the last 2000 years, and is still being lost sight of. Admittedly, normal people cannot be expected to be as elevated as Jesus, but a sincere effort to become so is what makes someone a true Christian. Anyone can talk the talk, but how many are even trying to walk the walk?
It could be said that the point we are trying to reach is the centre of a circle, and we are all standing on different points on the edge of that circle, so everyone’s path to the centre will be different. People’s minds can be roughly classified into four types: ones that incline towards knowledge, devotion, work and yoga, so the path of knowledge, although appropriate for some, is not appropriate for everyone. Furthermore, people in social groups, such as national and religious, tend to have certain similarities, which are reflected in national religions, so although that religion may be appropriate for most people of a certain culture, it will not be for people in another.
Dialogue is today, obviously, a must to develop a certain amount of mutual understanding among spiritual groups and people of no spiritual path in order to avoid more trouble and generate an atmosphere of positive respect, but the goal of all spiritual paths, and of life itself, is attained not through dialogue but through spiritual practices. The ultimate goal is not to talk about different ways of becoming sages, but to become sages ourselves. The knowledge that sages have is intuitive, and it spontaneously manifests in practical life as wisdom and selfless love. Krishna, Jesus and Muhammad did not become great men by reading books, but through performing spiritual practices. People that do not follow any spiritual path must recognise that ones that do are aspiring to transform themselves into sages, which all spiritual paths agree is the goal of life. Although most people that follow a religion are usually neither spiritually elevated nor serious about spirituality, an attempt is being made to become spiritually elevated or at least to become serious. Nobody becomes a sage by running after money, career, sense pleasures, name and fame and intellectual knowledge or by doing nothing. If someone does not want to do practices that will make them a sage, that is fair enough, but it should be recognised that someone that is trying to do that, even if it is a small and singularly unimpressive attempt, is trying to do something higher with life, and it would therefore be graceful to respect that by giving them a bit of leeway.
However, a religion is not necessarily a prerequisite to become a sage. The goal of spiritual practices is to open up the heart, the gateway in the subtle body for intuitive knowledge, bliss and love by going into super-conscious states. Intuitive knowledge gained thereby is called, ‘veda,’ in Sanskrit, as opposed to, ‘the Vedas,’ which are sets of revelations received by ancient Indian seers. Intuitive knowledge is not based on religion; religion is based on intuitive knowledge. When a huge amount of intuitive knowledge is channelled through someone’s mind, it appears as a revelation. ‘Vedanta,’ the, ‘essence of Veda,’ is a scientific description of the ultimate nature of reality and the embodied soul, the understanding of which reveals the purpose of life, and it proposes ways of attaining to the highest form of life for each kind of mind. Vedanta is not Hinduism; it is not Indian philosophy; it is a science based on pure, intuitive knowledge that comes as a result of spiritual practices and the absorption of spiritual energy from being in the presence of sages. Vedanta is expressed in logical, intellectual terms in order to give us the faith to do these practices, and so achieve enlightenment.
Most Vedantic philosophy has until recently been hidden away in the jungles of India for countless thousands of years, but now that there is a large number of intellectually developed people that follow no religion that should be able to grasp Vedantic concepts, it has become more appropriate for the world. It is also becoming more appropriate for followers of religions, as we now find ourselves in a global environment in which followers of various religions live in close proximity to each other while failing to coexist harmoniously. Many followers of religions are now unaware of what exactly religions are supposed to do and how. The problem does not lie with the essence of the religions, but with following religions without knowledge. A Christian should try to be a good Christian and not a good Muslim, just as a Muslim should try to be a good Muslim and not something else, as following someone else's path would most likely make him lose his way. Mutual respect, however, and even a positively supportive attitude should always be maintained, as different religions, in their pure form, do lead to the same place. Vedanta will make it possible to cut through dead wood and interpret old revelations in the way they are meant to be, recognise which ones are no longer appropriate, perform spiritual practices with knowledge, receive new revelations appropriate to the present day, and recognise that other religions are also reasonable paths to enlightenment and should, therefore, not be unnecessarily disturbed.