Interfaith Partnerships towards a Better SOCIETY: Part - 1: PREFACE and INTRODUCTION

Interfaith Partnerships  towards a Better SOCIETY (Published 2014)

Part - 1: PREFACE and INTRODUCTION

PREFACE

When Prof. MM Verma, Convener of the two-day Global Peace Leadership Conference on “Peace and Harmony through Interfaith Partnerships” gave a call for papers through an email on September 22, 2014, I had no idea whatsoever that I would end up compiling an entire booklet on or before December 9-10, 2014 (the dates when the Seminar is scheduled to be held at Jacaranda Hall, India Habitat Centre, Delhi). When I completed and sent my abstract for the paper “Interfaith partnerships towards a better society” on October 15th, I still did not know that the subject would extend into a mini-booklet. But here I am, on 25th of November, writing the preface of a book that I have already forwarded earlier today to Anuradha for page-layout and cover design.

The readers shall keep in mind that my real motive is to write a paper. Therefore, I am using the Abstract written for the Paper as ‘Introduction’.  Since the subject has enlarged, I intend to read basic summary during the Conference.

The subjects that I have raised here are not new. I am airing these views since 2004, when I was first initiated into the study of interfaith.

It is also unfortunate that while some Muslims went on to accuse me of converting to Hinduism; there were very few who realized the seriousness of the issues I was raising. They all had reasons for not accepting what I was saying; some said we will accept what you are saying if some well-known religious leader also endorses it, some scholars said we will not accept it because we have been taught differently and some even criticized and ridiculed me. One well-known scholar of interfaith studies even criticized me that my entire study was in the wrong direction. He said he, for his writings, take what experts of Hinduism have written and compare it with what experts of Islam or Christianity have written; he doesn’t try to read meaning into the scriptures. This argument was not acceptable to me because none of the supposedly Divine Books call for blind obedience; they instead want man to use his or her intellect. Islam too wants adherents to use their intellect and then come to conclusions; we will be rewarded for using our intellect even if we came at wrong conclusions, condition being that the attempt was sincere. Moreover, when the acknowledged experts of one religion too were not seeing in the same direction, often giving theories that were totally contradictory to the theories given by others, it meant that some of them were in the dark. What if all were in the dark because of failure to understand certain vital truths?

Today, the religion of Muslims is far removed from Islam. Muslims will have to convert to Islam if they wish to be seen with respect in the society. Islam never wants the kind of conversion that Muslims at times force upon others. Islam wants that there should be a continuous pursuit to reach the truth. If that sincere pursuit is there and the person is following the path that he has, in his sincerity, found to be true, and practicing righteousness, then nobody else has the right to ridicule or punish that person.

Other than the oft quoted verse from Quran: 'To you your religion and me my religion', there are several verses from Quran which may be quoted to supplement this view. While writing this, I am reminded of an incident that I read related to Prophet Mohammad sending Abuzar Ghaffari to India at the request of a Raja Bhim Sen and his Vazier Ratan Sen to preach the teachings. Abuzar Ghaffari preached the teachings but also said that he has been instructed by the Prophet Mohammad to tell that nobody should change his name, thereby meaning that nobody should convert.

Islam endorses the coming of Divinely Guided Prophets during all ages and all times. Krishna and Rama were also prophets. We unnecessarily bring issues like Hindus believe in Avatar and we believe in Prophet. What is a Prophet? Prophet is one in whom either Noor or Light descended from a source in heaven or who was guided by an angel who descended from heaven. Avatar too is descent of light or some guidance related with Paramatma from heaven. Is there a difference? How foolish of us that Christians talk of Holy Spirit, Quran talks of Rooh and Hindus talk of Paramatma and we want one to shift from his belief from Paramatma to Holy Spirit or from Paramatma to Rooh, when Paramatma, Holy Spirit and Rooh are literal translations of each other.

Some Hindus too are as adamant as Muslims in their belief. They say that there is no concept of heaven or hell in Hinduism and Hinduism believe only in salvation. They merely say this, ask them how many of them are really aspiring for salvation and they have no answer. Fact is that concept of heaven and hell is very much present in Gita as well in Veda and even Mahabharata. Yes, there is a higher concept of moksha but that is true with Islam as well where there is a higher concept of nijaat or shahadat (meaning salvation). Unfortunately, Muslims have been taught that they should work for heaven and not the higher concept despite the fact Quran is mentioning in clear words that we shall aspire for the higher goal.

As I said, effort to reach the truth should be a continuous one. This is even said in Hinduism which says that you should continue to aspire for truth until you find the right guru, who will lead you to the true path. Even when we have found a guru, we should continuously aspire for truth because there may be a better guru; may be somebody with Divine Guidance. It is we who have created the boundaries of religion; it is we who keep hitting at each other on the basis of religion; it is we who at times go to the extent of killing each other for their belief. Quran says clearly that if you kill one innocent human being, it is akin to killing the entire humanity. I am of view that killing on religious ground is not justified unless we have direct orders from a Divine Representative. It is so because we all have erred in our understanding of religion; we all have no right to kill somebody on the basis that he or she has erred.

I say that following orders of a Divine Representative are must because when Krishna was there and ordering his adherents to kill those on the other side and even saying that there is no middle path, either come to this side, kill or get killed or go to the other side to kill us or get killed, it was mandatory on followers of Krishna to do so. Why? Because he was a Divine Representative! Likewise with Prophet Mohammad! And likewise with Kalki avatar [Mahdi]! Other than that, we have no right at all to justify our killings on the basis of religion.

Divine Plan is this that we all shall follow our respective divine scriptures. Let endeavour to reach truth should be a continuous affair. When Hindus would do that, they will go deeper into Vedas and Gita and will find that the real divine scriptures are these and books like Manusmriti, Mahabharata, Ramayana and Purana may have relevance but are not divine in origin. Muslims should try to understand the deeper meanings of Quran and Prophet Mohammad's teachings without bringing into play any biases on the basis of sect or understanding. Likewise, with Christians and Jews and Buddhists! When each will do so, Prophet Mohammad's tradition that Mahdi would dig and bring out scriptures from the caves will come true and all religions will understand and reach the true path not from the teachings of scriptures dear to other religions but from scriptures dear to them. For instance, Hindus will reach the true path from study of Vedas and Gita, Muslims will reach true path from study of Quran and Prophet Mohammad's traditions and likewise Christians and Jews will reach the true path from their own respective scriptures.

One example that I often give! Hindus believe that Kalki avatar will come and Dharam will prevail. Muslims believe that Mahdi will come and Islam will prevail. Christians believe that Messiah will come and Christianity will prevail. Jews believe that Maschiach will come and their religion will prevail. Even Mayans of South America were of view that a Messiah by the name Quetzalcoatl will arrive. Dead Sea scrolls talk of Melchizedek as the final messiah and Gathas of Zoroastrians talk of Sosiants who will achieve the desired goal and eradicate anger and injustice.

All are right and yet all are on the wrong! All are wrongly working to create supremacy of their religion. But God does not want one religion to win and other to lose. Because all religions are based on one or other Divine Teachers! All teachings had one common enemy - Satan, who had been working ceaselessly in all times to misguide us from the true path and create deviations which with time became so digressed that we start comparing one religion with the other. We call it Satan or Mara or Iblis or Shaytan or Tamas or Zulmat or Darkness, it is the common enemy of human kind and it is this common enemy which will get exposed when mankind will realize that the Kalki avatar of Hindus, the Mahdi of Muslims, the Messiah of Christians, the Maschiach of Jews, the Quetzalcoatl of Mayans and the Soshiant of Zoroastrians is one and the same person. All people will cognize him from their own respective scriptures. No religion will win and no religion will lose but those standing for righteousness and truth in each religion will be the victors who will be on the side of the final divine guide having direct relation to God in heaven. Truth will be upheld and untruth will be exposed. This is the divine plan that has to come to light in the near future. Let us be those who become the first of the followers!

My slogan always will be: Ek khuda, ek paigham; Sun le kaash yeh insaan.

INTRODUCTION

There was a time when we used to hear that faith was a personal matter. But unfortunately, we have entered an era when conflict on the basis of faith is increasingly creating a wedge in the society. Many a funeral pyres have been lit or corpses buried of people who too had seen dreams for a better future about themselves, about their near and dear ones, which got shattered either due to political ambitions of some people or due to inability of religious leaders to understand, practice and preach the true faith of their forefathers.

Through my understanding and study of various religions, I have come to conclusion that the real cause for conflict is that we have erred on the understanding of the true faith as laid down in the supposedly divine scriptures. The foundations of the teachings of most religions is ascribed to Divine Guides (avatars or prophets) who at times gave Scriptures having a Divine Source. It were these Divine Guides and Scriptures with Divine Source which were meant to show direction and guide us towards a path of bliss and permanent life. Where we failed is regarding the true understanding of the teachings of these Divine Guides and Divine Scriptures. Knowingly or unknowingly we tried to give a meaning to those teachings which differed from the true Divine Message. Thus we kept deviating from the path, generation after generation, to the extent that today, one religion appears far different from the other; one understanding or approach seems altogether different from the rest.

While we all have reasons to believe that there is One God of this creation, we tend to see the teachings of the other religion as from a different or a pseudo-god while our own teachings  from the True God. Whereas the fact is that the One and Only True God wanted to take humanity to the next level of spiritual elevation and eventual eternity and hence used the medium of avatars or prophets to show direction but teachings of every avatar or prophet was misunderstood, misrepresented or distorted willingly or unwillingly and consequently a separate path emerged which was different from the true path that the avatars (prophets) wanted to show and also apparently different from the distorted understanding of teachings of other avatars (prophets) in another time or part of the world. Thus, distortions got into conflict with distortions and the true path couldn’t be reached.

This paper is an attempt to present only some of the teachings of various religions to reveal the commonality of source of these teachings. Some people are of view that such commonalities exist because each religion has profusely copied the same set of values and teachings from the other. However, this argument fails when we see that the same values or teachings exist in religions propagated by avatars or prophets scattered far apart from each other in time and place. For instance, we know for sure that America was discovered in 1492 A.D., far later than the advent of Jewish faith, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. If the Mayan civilization of South America too possessed teachings same or similar to Christianity, Sanatan Dharm, Jewish faith, Buddism or Islam, then we are left with no option but to conclude that the teachings are the same or similar because the source of the teachings is same.

In my opinion, it is wrong to compare the religion or religious teachings of the religion of Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims. When source has been one, there was indeed just one religion or path that was presented for humanity. Our failure to understand the path resulted in various religions. Those doubting this will not doubt when I show to them the case of Prophet Mohammad’s teachings. There is no doubt that the message given by the Prophet was the same for all those who believed in his teachings. But if sects like Sunnis, Shias and Wahabis emerged out of his teachings, it is because of the failure of one or all of them to understand the true teachings. Today, some aspects of the Sunni, Shia and Wahabi belief appear altogether contradictory from one another to the extent that some of the followers of respective sects go on to term the others as disbelievers or even kafirs. The same is the case with Christianity. Jesus, when he was showing a path for his believers, wanted them to adhere to one faith. But if Protestant and Catholic faith emerged as an aftermath, it was because of differing interpretations and understanding. Hinduism too has had Saivites, Vaishnavites and worshippers of Sakti who had often been at conflict. The present differences between Sanatan Dharm and worship of Sai too may be put in this category. Likewise, views of several Jew rabbi differ to the extent of being altogether contradictory and the Tibetan Mahamaya Japanese Indian and Tantric Buddhists differ extensively though the teachings of Buddha were one and the same for all the followers. If such levels of differences emerged in the followers of one avatar or prophet, it was but natural that differences are in existence today in understanding of teachings given by avatars or prophets far displaced from each other in time, place and language. The true challenge, therefore, is to first understand or conclude that if certain religions call themselves as from divine source, then they are indeed from the divine source; all avatars were propagating the same path and were from the same source, and then we will have to study the commonality keeping these aspects in mind.

Thus, in my opinion, the real and true interfaith partnership for a better tomorrow will develop only when we stop comparing the similarities of one faith with other from the point of view of mere comparison but go deeper into our study and try to understand the common teachings as common because of the commonality of source of their origin.