dattaswami

The essence of all the religions is one and the same

The essence of all the religions is one and the same since the Universal God gives it. The religions are different from each other because the religious leaders who are the human beings create the material that surrounds the essence. The skeleton is one and the same and there is no difference in the skeletons of the human beings. The difference lies only in the external materials covering the skeletons, which are flesh, skin etc., in these external materials differences arose due to deficiencies. Suppose there are two students. One is weak in physics and the other is weak in chemistry.

Each student mocks the other for the deficiency. Therefore, the deficiency is the root of difference and quarrels in the religions. The reason for the deficiency is the human brain that developed the external body of the spiritual knowledge. Therefore, the spiritual knowledge is the skeleton and the religion is its body. The deficiency in a religion can be removed by taking the merits of the other religions. Every religion has deficiency and the rectification of that deficiency should be from other religion without any ego and jealousy. Do not think that you are without defects. Do not think that your parents have no defects. Do not think that your teachers and preachers do not have defects. Therefore, observe others and take the merits from anybody without prejudice.

The blind thinking that your nation, your state, your district, your town or village, your caste, your family, your parents, etc., is the best or highest should be eradicated from your brain. Always base your self on your analysis and commonsense that is observed from the examples in the world. Your elders might have polluted the scriptures but this world is the best scripture written by God. This world-scripture is Universal without any color of any religion. You can develop the entire spiritual knowledge by observing this world and the scientific knowledge existing in the various examples or items of the world. Any human being cannot pollute these. You must be scientific and analytical in your belief. The ignorant and clever religious elders always exploit blind belief.


At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness Sri Dattaswami

Anil Antony

Universal Spirituality
Universal Spirituality for World Peace
antonyanil@universal-spirituality.org

Herald of Liberty

I find your post very enlightening. It rings true of the Ba'hai faith: The essence of all the religions is one and the same. Are you a follower of this faith, or are you familiar with it?

__________________
The Herald

Follower of Jesus

I find your post very saddening. All religions are not good. All paths do lead to the same destination, however: the judgment seat of Jesus Christ. Maybe other faiths can co-exist with each other; but the Bible says that Jesus is the only way to God. Apart from Jesus Christ, there is nothing but death. Many ways seem good to a man, but it only leads to death.

The problem with your thesis is your contention that my belief in Jesus Christ is simply a social or familial association - a learned behavioral response. The Book I follow was written by people on the other side of the planet from me, 1900 years ago, in a completely foreign way of life to my own. And yet, I find common ground, and a perfect description of my condition. And I found the solution: Jesus Christ.

Without faith in Christ, we are lost. All of us are sinners. Self-flagelation, doing penance or good deeds does not earn release from that sin. It is only by the grace of God revealed through Jesus Christ that we can be free from sin.

I hope and pray that you see beyond the "wisdom" within yourself and find true wisdom....from the Bible. And that when your eyes are opened, you accept and embrace Jesus!

dattaswami

Thank you for the reply.

In the following 'you' is a general term only.

You reply shows that you are not a beloved devotee of Jesus. You wish Jesus to suffer for your sake. Such people are not His people. His people are those who do not even want their master to suffer for them. They are ready to carry their own cross. They love Him like anything and hence sacrificed anything for Him. They left family, and all worldly comforts for His sake. But what about you, you are goispping with family and enjoing everything and do not want to do any sacrifice and at the end you want the salvation also. How it is justified.

Jesus had died for 'His' people only. His people love Him without any selfishness and expecation.

SO you will be saved only when you rise up to such level. You can never fool jesus.

You should love Him above anything and it should not be hypocritical.

God comes in every human generation to preach and uplift the human soul. Human incarnation is the right place of God. Only through Him one can approach the Heavenly Father who is beyond our imagination. God comes in human form so that we can approach Him without any tension and clear all our doubts.

He is present in this generation also.

Follower of Jesus

Where do you get your information about Jesus? And where do you draw your conclusions about me?

I do not "wish" suffering for my Lord. I am "grateful" for his suffering so that I can spend eternity with him. All that is required for salvation is belief and acceptance of the death and resurrection of Jesus, and trust in Him. I have crossed over from death to life.

You seem to espouse a works-based salvation that relies on human effort. Please tell me, how will you know when you've done enough? How will you know when you have risen to a high enough level?

What is the basis of your enlightenment?

expatincebu

"All truth is one, the sages call it by many names", the Vidas.

What you are talking about here is mythology and you are 100% correct. All mythology reflect deep psychological underpinnings of the human condition and offer generalities on how to fine your own path through life.

The problem is not so much religion, but fundamentalism, which warps mythology into what it is not: factuality, and causes it to lose all meaning. All that is left is dogma and intolerance in defense of ignorance.

Follower of Jesus

Jesus is not mythology. He actually lived; he actually said what is recorded in the Bible. It is "factuality". In fact, I'd argue the opposite of your statement, expatincebu: if Jesus and his message were not factual, then it loses all meaning.

dattaswami

The human incarnation is of two components. One is God like radiating sun of knowledge and the other is the soul like the black cloud of ignorance. The sun is covered by the cloud and are very close to each other (Sayuja sakhaya…Veda). Due to cloud sun becomes dim. Due to sun the cloud becomes bright. Now both the sun and cloud are in equilibrium state of equal intensity. Both have become one unit since both are in the equal state of brightness or darkness. The total brightness of this single unit is 99% and total darkness is 1%. Hence, the human incarnation also falls into the grip of a trace of ignorance for a fraction of second. Krishna became angry to kill Bhishma, who is His own devotee, but His anger was just for a moment only and He did not kill Bhishma. Jesus was praying God for a minute to prevent the crucification but immediately He was prepared for it. The dimness of sun or the brightness of the cloud is only relatively real. In absolute reality, the sun in the dim sun is 100% bright and the cloud in the bright cloud is 100% dark. Therefore, really God is not affected by ignorance. Only in the plane of relative reality the dim sun or relative sun is dim.

Since, the dim sun or human incarnation (God in soul) is in this world only, which is relative plane, the dim sun can only suit and not the absolute sun. The cloud is the human being (soul, subtle body and gross body) and is the cover or Upadhi for God to enter this world. This human being in which God exists is called as son of God by Jesus and God is called as the father of heaven. Both are so close that we can treat both as one and the same. The dim sun and bright cloud are one and the same in the intensity of light as well as darkness. This is the meaning of the statement of Jesus “I and My father are one and the same”.

Thus, in the relative plane (world) only both are one and the same but in absolute plane God is God and soul is soul simultaneously. People have taken this statement in absolute plane and mistook Jesus. Fearing for the fate of Jesus, Mohammad told that father can never become son. This is true in the absolute plane, which is simultaneously true even in the relative plane. The absolute plane maintains its reality in both the planes. The relative plane maintains its reality only in the relative plane. Therefore, in the relative plane both absolute reality (Advaita) and relative reality (Dwaita) co-exist and are true simultaneously. You must be careful to note that Advaita (dim sun and bright cloud are one and the same) is true in the relative plane (Vyavahara Dasha) where as Dwaita (even in the dim sun, sun is totally bright and even in the bright cloud, cloud is totally dark) is true in the absolute plane (Paramartha Dasha). But the confused Advaitin states Advaita in absolute pane.

dattaswami

veda as reference

There are several religions and there are several scriptures corresponding to these religions. We must fix a scripture as the primary standard so that other scriptures can be standardized with reference to that. The other scripture also becomes standard with reference to which some other scripture can be also standardized. This is called as the process of standardization in Science.

Such a primary standard can be the Veda. I know immediately the colours of your faces will change. Immediately you will blame Me that I am not the preacher of Universal Religion. You will misunderstand Me as the preacher of Hinduism in guise. This situation will arise even if I take the scripture of some other religion also as the primary standard. The misunderstanding is inevitable and unavoidable.

I have to take one scripture of some religion and I have to be subjected to the criticism. Therefore, I ignore the criticism. I know what I am in My inner consciousness. My inner self is the real witness as long as I am the preacher of Universal Religion to My inner self, I need not fear for any external criticism from any angle.

The reason for selecting Veda as the primary standard is that even today the Veda is being preserved by oral recitation with the help of thousands of families. If you go to older and older times millions of families were reciting Veda just to preserve it from any type of intrusions or deletions. In Indian spiritual field there are several branches of philosophy who fight with each other orally.

For all these branches, Veda is the standard text. Such situation never existed in any religion in this world and does not exist even today. Even today different schools of philosophy in Hinduism fight with each other and all of them quote the same Veda. Such competition was and is unique in Hinduism. In such competitive atmosphere pollution of Veda is impossible.

If any word is added or deleted, immediately the other schools will shout because they fear that in such case Veda may support a particular branch of philosophy due to the possibility of a new interpretation for a new sentence. Leave the past. Tell Me frankly whether such situation exists in any religion in this world even today. This is the main reason why I have selected Veda as the primary standard. The diversity in Hinduism has done lot of good in this direction.

The sanctity of the scripture is well protected. In the olden days the books were in the form of written scripts of palm leaves. Printing was not there. Therefore, a very few scripts were only present. In such case it was very easy to introduce a new palm leaf or to remove an older palm leaf because hardly one or two scripts were present in a very large region.

Except this one reason there is no any other reason for Me to favour Veda but you need not worry that the scriptures of other religions have to be judged with reference to Veda only. Fortunately, all the scriptures of all the religions agree with Veda. The primary standard is useful in very few places where there is disagreement. Even that disagreement arises only from the misinterpretation of the statement. If the correct interpretation is given all the statements are perfectly coinciding with Veda.

Moreover, one can decide the final version of any concept based on the logical analysis. If the logical analysis fails, then mere Veda need not be taken as authority. If the logic disagrees you can reject any scripture including Veda. Therefore, Veda along with the logical analysis only stands as a primary standard. When you are convinced logically about a concept and when such concept is found in Veda, then only the concept is authorised.

Therefore, I am not rubbing Veda on any head without the logical analysis. Therefore, one need not doubt about the fanatic. The primary standard means the original word of God heard directly. But when other scriptures are perfectly in agreement with such word where is the question of fanatic? Every scripture becomes the word of God.

This point supports the Universal Religion, which says that the single God delivered the scriptures of all the religions. When the author is one and the same how can there be difference between the scriptures? If there is any difference it is only by your misinterpretation. Therefore, primary standard is only for convenience but not for fanatic.

dattaswami

Jesus also told in different ways “ I am messenger from God”, “I am son of the God” and “I am the God since I and my father are one and the same”. These different statements relate to different levels of devotees. One level cannot absorb the statement of other level. For example you take the case of Ajay Bhaiah. He always sings the devotional songs composed by Me. He has full devotion on Me while singing the Bhajans. He always participates in Satsanga and receives knowledge through his intelligence. He always works for the mission. He sacrificed all his ancestral wealth to the mission during the time of past ten years and the cost of that wealth comes to about one crore rupees. He has children and lives on his salary only. He has several debts in the Banks. I tried several times to pay his debts but he did not accept. I tested him in several ways but his faith did not shake. In fact I am defeated by him. He saw the vision of Viswaroopam (Cosmic form) in Me. The God in Me gave that vision to him and I have nothing to do with it. When I said that the God in Me gave the vision, he never agrees and says that I am the God.

Therefore, I declare to him only that I am the God. This declaration is personal and is limited to his case only. Krishna never told that He is God to any one in His lifetime. Only when He was teaching Gita to Arjuna He declared He is God and gave the vision of cosmic form. Therefore, you do not touch the statements of other levels. I will speak to you in your level and you can treat me as a mere human being and as your good friend.