Posting on Religions from David Godman

[Guest guest]

This is a somewhat belated response to the query about the apparent conflicts in

religious texts. It is taken from Padamalai, a collection of Bhagavan’s

teachings, recorded by Muruganar in Tamil. These are the first five verses from

a chapter entitled ‘Religions and Religious Knowledge’. The five numbered

Padamalai verses are direct quotations from Bhagavan on this subject. I have

added additional quotes from Bhagavan after verses four and five. I am posting

it as an attachment since there is a lot of formatting that may otherwise be

lost.

I had hoped to publish the whole book in March this year, but I

caught typhoid and have spent most of the last month in bed. I hope the book

will be out in about a month.

 

Best Wishes David Godman

 

Religious doctrines

 

1 The doctrines of all religions contradict each other. They wage war,

collide with each other, and finally die.

2 On this battlefield all the religions retreat defeated when they stand

before mauna, which abides beneficently, sustaining them all.

3 The rare and wonderful power of mauna is that it remains without enmity

towards any of the religions.

4 The many different religions are appropriate to the maturity of each

individual, and all of them are acceptable to reality.

 

Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 342: Various religions that bring about clarity have

come into existence to suit the various levels of mental maturity. It is

therefore most wise to have a harmonious outlook towards these religions, which

deserve to be practised.

 

Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 989: Since mauna, the culmination of knowledge, is

their common nature, all religions are acceptable as a means to advaitic truth,

which shines unique and pure. They are therefore not opposed to the wonderful

Vedanta.

 

Bhagavan quoted Thayumanavar on this subject in Day by Day with Bhagavan,

21st November, 1945:

 

Shining Supreme! If we scrutinise all the religions that look so different, we

find no contradiction in their purpose. They are all your sport. Just as all

rivers discharge into the sea, they all end in the ocean of mauna.

 

5 Abandoning vain disputation, which only deludes and torments the mind,

accept the doctrine of the mauna religion, which always remains undisturbed.

 

Bhagavan: The conflict of teachings is only apparent, and can be resolved if one

practises self-surrender to God; this will lead to the Self, to which everyone

must come back in the end, because that is the truth. The discord among the

creeds can never be got rid of by discussing their merits; for discussion is a

mental process. The creeds are mental – they exist in the mind alone, while the

truth is beyond the mind; therefore the truth is not in the creeds.

 

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