Swami Vivekananda says all religions supplement each other

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THE WAY TO THE REALISATION OF A UNIVERSAL RELIGION

(Delivered in the Universalist Church, Pasadena, California, 28th January

1900)

 

 

Do religions contradict or supplement each other? — that is the question.I

believe that they are not contradictory; they are supplementary. Each

religion, as it were, takes up one part of the great universal truth, and

spends its whole force in embodying and typifying that part of the great

truth. It is, therefore, addition; not exclusion.

 

Then, again, we also know that there may be almost contradictory points of

view of the same thing, but they will all indicate the same thing.Suppose a

man is journeying towards the sun, and as he advances he takes a photograph

of the sun at every stage. When he comes back, he has many photographs of

the sun, which he places before us. We see that not two are alike, and yet,

who will deny that all these are photographs of the same sun, from different

standpoints?Take four photographs of this church from different corners: how

different they would look, and yet they would all represent this church. In

the same way, we are all looking at truth from different standpoints, which

vary according to our birth, education, surroundings, and so on.We are

viewing truth, getting as much of it as these circumstances will permit,

colouring the truth with our own heart, understanding it with our own

intellect, and grasping it with our own mind. We can only know as much of

truth as is related to us, as much of it as we are able to receive. This

makes the difference between man and man, and occasions sometimes even

contradictory ideas; yet we all belong to the same great universal truth.

 

In this line the Mohammedans were the best off; every step forward was made

with the sword — the Koran in the one hand and the sword in the other: " Take

the Koran, or you must die; there is no alternative! " You know from history

how phenomenal was their success; for six hundred years nothing could resist

them, and then there came a time when they had to cry halt. So will it be

with other religions if they follow the same methods.

 

The fact that all these old religions are living today proves that they must

have kept that mission intact; in spite of all their mistakes, in spite of

all difficulties, in spite of all quarrels, in spite of all the incrustation

of forms and figures, the heart of every one of them is sound — it is a

throbbing, beating, living heart. They have not lost, any one of them, the

great mission they came for. And it is splendid to study that mission. Take

Mohammedanism, for instance. Christian people hate no religion in the world

so much as Mohammedanism. They think it is the very worst form of religion

that ever existed. As soon as a man becomes a Mohammedan, the whole of Islam

receives him as a brother with open arms, without making any distinction,

which no other religion does. If one of your American Indians becomes a

Mohammedan, the Sultan of Turkey would have no objection to dine with him.

 

If he has brains, no position is barred to him. In this country, I have

never yet seen a church where the white man and the negro can kneel side by

side to pray. Just think of that: Islam makes its followers all equal — so,

that, you see, is the peculiar excellence of Mohammedanism. In many places

in the Koran you find very sensual ideas of life. Never mind.What

Mohammedanism comes to preach to the world is this practical brotherhood of

all belonging to their faith. That is the essential part of the Mohammedan

religion; and all the other ideas about heaven and of life etc.. are not

Mohammedanism. They are accretions.

 

With the Hindus you will find one national idea — spirituality. In no other

religion, in no other sacred books of the world, will you find so much

energy spent in defining the idea of God. They tried to define the ideal of

soul so that no earthly touch might mar it. The spirit must be divine; and

spirit understood as spirit must not be made into a man. The same idea of

unity, of the realisation of God, the omnipresent, is preached throughout.

They think it is all nonsense to say that He lives in heaven, and all that.

It is a mere human, anthropomorphic idea. All the heaven that ever existed

is now and here. One moment in infinite time is quite as good as any other

moment.

 

With the Christians, the central idea that has been preached by them is the

same: " Watch and pray, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand " — which means,

purify your minds and be ready!And that spirit never dies. You recollect

that the Christians are, even in the darkest days, even in the most

superstitious Christian countries, always trying to prepare themselves for

the coming of the Lord, by trying to help others, building hospitals, and so

on. So long as the Christians keep to that ideal, their religion lives.

 

Source:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Complete_Works_of_Swami_Vivekananda/Volume_2/P\

ractical_Vedanta_and_other_lectures/The_Way_to_the_Realisation_of_a_Universal_Re\

ligion

 

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Om Namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya

Prasanth Jalasutram

 

Love And Love Alone