Tolerance Toward Other Religious View Points

[Guest guest]

Hari Om!

 

I am sending this again because, I didn't see it posted on the archive. I am

testing your tolerance!

 

Ram Chandran

 

======================================================

Tolerance Toward Other Religious View Points

 

Religious tolerance is the best strategy to avoid making mistakes. It is a sign

of maturity and not a sign of weakness. Religions just like languages are

nothing more than a communication medium. Language is a communication medium

between people and Religion is a communication medium between human and God.

The existence of many languages and religions illustrate individual human

preferences! The question: "Which religion is right?" is similar to asking? :

"Which language is right?" The world consists of many religions, languages,

people, culture, traditions, beliefs, color, geography, animals, birds, insects,

trees, mountains, rivers. We are fortunate to live in a diversified and a

challenging world than a monotonous boring world. The self-realization is

nothing more than accepting the world as it is and adopts us to this reality.

According to Shankara, the world is the creation of the mind, and the mind can

create the perfect world by removing the imperfections of the mind. Any

expression of intoleran

The purpose of Satsang is to awaken the divinity within us and remove prejudice

and bias. Our inborn nature is divine and we can witness our true nature by

looking at a new born child. The child accepts everything given and looks for

human contact at every opportune moment. The mother of the child gets back her

inborn divinity and showers the child with infinite love and kindness. Children

bring back the forgotten memory and we are able to exhibit enormous generosity,

kindness, tolerance and understanding while dealing with our children. We enjoy

their speeches and forgive their mistakes and mispronunciations. Birds,

animals, flowers and trees who do not have memory exhibit divinity all the time.

Nature is God's creation and we are responsible for the creation of intolerance,

impatience and misery. We are responsible for our own pitfalls and downfalls.

It is time that we regain our memory and divinity.

 

Positive mental attitude is the God given virtue. Negative attitude is human

creation. According to Advaita, Self-realization requires abandonment of

negative human creations! Tolerance toward other viewpoints is just a favor to

our-self. When we accuse others, we are the sufferers and not those who are

accused! When we learn to accept other viewpoints, we learn to become happy.

Politeness can never hurt us and rudeness will never help us. Rudeness is an

expression of the agitated mind and divinity will disappear from our heart and

soul. Duality will prevail as long we engage our mind in creating negative

attitudes. Momentarily, mind starts the cycle of evaluation between the

opposites - good and evil, joys and sorrow, sweet and bitter, love and hate,

giving and begging, right and wrong, action and inaction, like and dislike,

tolerance and rude, polite and crude, respect and disrespect, clean and dirty,

truthful and untruthful, honest and dishonest, moral and immoral, ethical and

unethical, etc. When

Religious scriptures signify TRUTH in different forms using different formulas.

According to Advaita, Truth and the Knower of the Truth are the same. When we

agree with this framework there, can be no observations. Observations come from

the creative mind and they have no place in Advaitic Philosophy. When we eat an

apple, it is a divine experience and tastes, textures, quality, etc. come from

human creation. Swami Dayanandaji will call Apple as God's creation (Ishwara

Shrishti) and the adjectives to apples (sweet apple, rotten apple, red apple,

golden apple, etc.) come from human creation. The goal of Advaita is to learn

accept God's creations without adjectives and pluralities. Adi Sankara

understood the fallacies of human creations and rightly declared that " all

creations are illusions." Conflicts and plurality come from the illusory mind

which projects intolerance and rudeness. Peace and serenity disappear when the

mind is disturbed . With the absence of illusory mind, serenity and divinity

Let me conclude this essay with some important points made by Shankara:

According to Shankara, those who read the Scriptures for scholarship and ego

(self-promotion) are just wasting their precious time. The story behind

Shankara's Bhajagovindham explains this clearly. This well known story

describes the circumstances in which this great poem, Bhajagovindham burst forth

the lips of Sankara. Once in Banaras when he was going along on his daily

rounds, he overheard a very old Pundit cramming Panini's grammer rules. Sankara

was touched with pity at the ignorance and folly of the man to be wasting away

the most precious 'dusk hours' of his life for a mere intellectual

accomplishment instead of spending them in contemplation on the Lord, praying

for spiritual enlightenment and for release from the bondage of Samsara.

Shankara knew that this was not the state of that particular old man only, but

was the general state of most of us. We waste and while away our lives in many

(or most) futile ways, grovelling i

Hari Om!

 

Ram Chandran

 

Note: My apologies to Jaishankar for using Hari Om and I prefer this due to

several reasons:

Hari is the symbolic expression of Saguna Brahman; Om represents Nirguna

Brahman and Hari Om is an expression of our tolerance toward different

philosophical beliefs. For practical reasons, Hari Om sounds like "Hurry Home"

to remind me that I should look inside (internal) rather than outside for TRUTH!

[Guest guest]

Dear Ram Chandran Ji ,

My heartily Pranams to you.

I am very glad to read your views as follows. I am not capable of debating,

not even can make questions for my self. But I feel very fortunate to be the

r of this wonderful list with so many blessed teachers here.

Recently I feel, different sound more of Egos rather than coming from hearts.

It does not feel right. As there is a saying even an animal can understand

good & bad for them. Even though I lack the strength of discussing I do feel

something is not right. I hope soon it will be corrected or guided towards

the truth we all are seeking by the Grace of our Lord.

I wish to express my view through some verses of Bhagbatam. I have copied the

translation only. I hope this will not offend any one.

Namaste

Raju Chhatry.

*****

>From Srimad Bhagbatam; Part 1, Chapter 5.

Speech, which, though full of figurative expressions, never utters the

praises of Sri Hari- the praises that possess the virtue of sanctifying the

whole world-is considered to be the delight of voluptuous men, who wallow in

the pleasures of sense like crows that feed upon the dirty leavings of food.

Like swans, that are traditionally believed to have their abode in the

lotus-beds of the Manasarovara Lake, devotees who have taken shelter in the

lotus-feet of the Lord and therefore ever abide in His heart never take

delight in such speech. 10.

On the other hand, that composition which, though faulty in diction, consists

of Verses each os which contains the names of the immortal Lord, bearing the

impress of His glory, wipes out the sins of the people; it is such

composition that pious men love to hear, sing and repeat to an audience. 11

That wisdom too which is free from blemish and is a direct means to the

attainment of liberation does not adorn one's soul so much, if it is devoid

of devotion to Lord Acyuta. .........12.

The man who desires to talk of anything else than the Lord's exploits falls

into the trap of the manifold names and forms, evolved by such desire and

sees diversity everywhere. Like a boat beaten by a blast, his unsteady mind

finds no rest anywhere. 14.

The wise have declared that the abiding purpose of man's austere penance,

sacred knowledge, sacrificial performances, recitation of the Vedas with

correct intonation, enlightenment and bestowal of gifts is to recount the

virtues of that Lord of excellent fame. 22.

******************************************************************************

**********************

I a message dated 11/15/99 11:04:45 AM Pacific Standard Time,

chandran writes:

> "Ram Chandran" <chandran

> Tolerance Toward Other Religious View Points

>

> Religious tolerance is the best strategy to avoid making mistakes. It is

a

> sign of maturity and not a sign of weakness. Religions just like languages

> are nothing more than a communication medium. Language is a communication

> medium between people and Religion is a communication medium between human

> and God. The existence of many languages and religions illustrate

individual

> human preferences! The question: "Which religion is right?" is similar to

> asking? : "Which language is right?" The world consists of many religions,

> languages, people, culture, traditions, beliefs, color, geography, animals,

> birds, insects, trees, mountains, rivers. We are fortunate to live in a

> diversified and a challenging world than a monotonous boring world. The

self-

> realization is nothing more than accepting the world as it is and adopts us

> to this reality. According to Shankara, the world is the creation of the

> mind, and the mind can create the perfect world by removing the

imperfections

> of the mind. Any expression of intoleran

> The purpose of Satsang is to awaken the divinity within us and remove

> prejudice and bias. Our inborn nature is divine and we can witness our

true

> nature by looking at a new born child. The child accepts everything given

> and looks for human contact at every opportune moment. The mother of the

> child gets back her inborn divinity and showers the child with infinite

love

> and kindness. Children bring back the forgotten memory and we are able to

> exhibit enormous generosity, kindness, tolerance and understanding while

> dealing with our children. We enjoy their speeches and forgive their

> mistakes and mispronunciations. Birds, animals, flowers and trees who do

not

> have memory exhibit divinity all the time. Nature is God's creation and we

> are responsible for the creation of intolerance, impatience and misery.

We

> are responsible for our own pitfalls and downfalls. It is time that we

> regain our memory and divinity.

>

> Positive mental attitude is the God given virtue. Negative attitude is

> human creation. According to Advaita, Self-realization requires

abandonment

> of negative human creations! Tolerance toward other viewpoints is just a

> favor to our-self. When we accuse others, we are the sufferers and not

those

> who are accused! When we learn to accept other viewpoints, we learn to

> become happy. Politeness can never hurt us and rudeness will never help

us.

> Rudeness is an expression of the agitated mind and divinity will disappear

> from our heart and soul. Duality will prevail as long we engage our mind in

> creating negative attitudes. Momentarily, mind starts the cycle of

> evaluation between the opposites - good and evil, joys and sorrow, sweet

and

> bitter, love and hate, giving and begging, right and wrong, action and

> inaction, like and dislike, tolerance and rude, polite and crude, respect

and

> disrespect, clean and dirty, truthful and untruthful, honest and dishonest,

> moral and immoral, ethical and unethical, etc. When

> Religious scriptures signify TRUTH in different forms using different

> formulas. According to Advaita, Truth and the Knower of the Truth are the

> same. When we agree with this framework there, can be no observations.

> Observations come from the creative mind and they have no place in Advaitic

> Philosophy. When we eat an apple, it is a divine experience and tastes,

> textures, quality, etc. come from human creation. Swami Dayanandaji will

> call Apple as God's creation (Ishwara Shrishti) and the adjectives to

apples

> (sweet apple, rotten apple, red apple, golden apple, etc.) come from human

> creation. The goal of Advaita is to learn accept God's creations without

> adjectives and pluralities. Adi Sankara understood the fallacies of human

> creations and rightly declared that " all creations are illusions."

> Conflicts and plurality come from the illusory mind which projects

> intolerance and rudeness. Peace and serenity disappear when the mind is

> disturbed . With the absence of illusory mind, serenity and divinity

> Let me conclude this essay with some important points made by Shankara:

> According to Shankara, those who read the Scriptures for scholarship and

ego (

> self-promotion) are just wasting their precious time. The story behind

> Shankara's Bhajagovindham explains this clearly. This well known story

> describes the circumstances in which this great poem, Bhajagovindham burst

> forth the lips of Sankara. Once in Banaras when he was going along on his

> daily rounds, he overheard a very old Pundit cramming Panini's grammer

rules.

> Sankara was touched with pity at the ignorance and folly of the man to be

> wasting away the most precious 'dusk hours' of his life for a mere

> intellectual accomplishment instead of spending them in contemplation on

the

> Lord, praying for spiritual enlightenment and for release from the bondage

of

> Samsara. Shankara knew that this was not the state of that particular old

man

> only, but was the general state of most of us. We waste and while away our

> lives in many (or most) futile ways, grovelling i

> Hari Om!

>

> Ram Chandran

>

> Note: My apologies to Jaishankar for using Hari Om and I prefer this due

to

> several reasons:

> Hari is the symbolic expression of Saguna Brahman; Om represents

Nirguna

> Brahman and Hari Om is an expression of our tolerance toward different

> philosophical beliefs. For practical reasons, Hari Om sounds like "Hurry

> Home" to remind me that I should look inside (internal) rather than outside

> for TRUTH!