Mystics musings

( Devprayag in Uttarakhand, India , is the site of the confluence of the two rivers - Bhagirathi and Alakananda, before they flow out of here to form the river Ganga.)

Namaste!
This beautiful salutation , which means,” The God in me acknowledges the God in you”, carries in its essence, the meaning of Interfaith Understanding.
That there is only one God, we may call him by different names, was a Truth declared by all the ancient seers. This is eloquently cited in the Rig veda,as Ekam sat vipra bahudha vadanti. But this was a truth reached by the highest climbers, the greatest saints in their personal sojourns, and indeed they tried their very best to share the essence of the universality of the One Truth. But as is inevitable , the message always got diluted when passed on for too many generations that themselves lacked that first experiential understanding. And therefore, with the passage of time, differentiation arose ,rather than commonality between the different faiths of the world, as much as the dialect of speech that unites the people of one tongue, differentiates them from people of other regions , where the dialect begins to alter.
And so, the perennial mission before the spiritual torch bearers has always remained the upholding of the First truth: that coming from One source, we are all One. Indeed there is no greater religious understanding than that all men are brothers, all children are the children of God, given life ostensibly to share in His bounty and play it out as a symphonic Tribute to creation Itself.
We see that In recent history there have been great strides in bridging the spirituality of East and West. Notable among these was The World’s Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago, in 1893, It was a large and spectacular event where representatives from many Nations , tribes and indeed different religious faith converged to share their perceptions on God and the singularity of humankind. The dynamic Swami from India, Vivekananda , in his mesmerizing and soul stirring address, declared eloquently “'As the different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their water in the sea, so, O Lord, the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.'
After the first Parliament in 1893 groups began to form to consider the relationships between religions and the need for better communication and cooperation to address common local, national and global concerns. A growing interest and curiosity arose about what another person might think and believe and do. This was linked to new discoveries in theology and an increased interaction between cultures and beliefs.
In 1993 the whole year was dedicated to inter-religious understanding and cooperation and amongst many interfaith events around the world, there was a second Parliament in Chicago to mark the centenary of the first. This special 1993 year and the second Parliament gave rise to several more new developments in the interfaith movement, and today there are a number of local, national and international interfaith organisations addressing a wide variety of issues and concerns. Notable among them, is the Temple of understanding, where , proudly ,our own Dr Karan singh has been the global chairman, investing the world with the ancient vision of the Indian rishis, as also amalgamating the great and priceless heritage of the seers from other parts of the world.
But back to the question,what really is Interfaith understanding, and how can one promote this understanding? The sooner we understand that not only do all beings want happiness, as The Buddha so simply yet profoundly remarked in his primal observation about all live phenomenon, but followed a few hundred years by the very loving Jesus, who elaborated this by asking one to love thy neighbor as thy own self, also gave us the simple means to do so with the golden rule: doing unto others as we wished that they do unto us.
The Sikhs graciously sum it up in their prayer to God, Sarbat da bhalla- there must be an abiding happiness for all!
No one is vouched with the monopoly to happiness, this is the divine birthright of all. The sufis too, have a superb parable about the One source emanating all beings. A conference of the birds discovers that although they all differ from each other in a few respects, they do also share some very obvious features, and they set off on a trek to locate simurgh, the mystical bird which is supposed to be their common origin. Eventually only thirty birds remain as they finally arrive in the land of Simurgh — all they see there are each other and the reflection of the thirty birds in a lake.
And so it is: we are all the reflection of the Universal one, all made in the Image of the Lord, so too, we must always remember that HE Himself, is the sum of all images. If we think of God as Gardener, the spectacular variety of flowers in his fields without thought of championing a rose against a tulip, or a simple daisy against a mighty sunflower, and instead shining his love equally on all , makes for a great and diverse bouquet.
In less poetic terms. What is the commonality of all beings ? The basic biologies and chemistries of the human species, as in any other, are exactly the same. So too,are the needs. Every man woman and child needs a decent shelter, a filling meal and some clothing to cover oneself with.
But these having been met, and indeed sometimes even in the absence of essential supplications, man exhibits an extraordinary trait that sets him absolutely aside from all the other species:
An earnest seeking for a Higher truth, a higher Intelligence, a Universal consciousness that emanates, and then binds together the whole manifest world. And this seeking with the knowing that even though we may not yet see him, there is a higher power we call God; this is Faith.
And in the truest of Faith, ever since he was dabbling in the caves with the enigma of fire, man has been seeking the power behind even the fire, even before he turned scientist and with the invention of the wheel, literally sped time up, he has been wanting to know intimately the turner of the wheel of life itself, the highest scientist, we call simply God. And so while in the scientific realm some invented one machine, some quite another, we shared our results, in the spiritual realm, some discovered one aspect of God , some quite another, for God is infinite, much like the Moon, which remaining full always, appears to its viewers as different shapes in its different phases. And so different understandings arise about the same one moon.
Being One, God playfully loves for his children to call Him by different names, and express themselves in their own unique ways of devotion. We are all the more rich for inheriting mankind’s trunk of spiritual heritage. All men were always brothers , looking for the same source of Life.Now, the time has come, when they must share the fruits of their wisdom.
As a last analogy, think of an occasion where a really special VIP is coming to our town in our midst. And we all get together and arrange a cultural song and dance evening to celebrate this visit. How much fun it is if we can put on stage a spectrum of varying art forms collected and amalgamated from the different sections of our land! If we learn to enjoy all the very beautiful ways of praying to, honouring and loving the same one source of life, how much more enriched this life shall be,When the world is in confluence of Divinity.

~ Shail Gulhati is the author of the book SHIVA, The Ultimate Time Traveller.