Interfaith Partnerships towards a Better SOCIETY: Part - 2

 Interfaith partnerships towards a better society

The Introduction of this book titled “Interfaith partnerships towards a better society” already tells in brief the subject of discussion and I do not wish to dwell on it again. I emphasized that the true challenge before us is to first understand or conclude that if certain religions call themselves as originating from divine source, then they are indeed from the divine source; and all avatars were propagating the same true path and were connected to one and 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 partnerships 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.

God knows that mankind would deviate from the path that He or His emissaries wanted to preach. That is why Quran is saying in clear words that whatever belief or religion one may adhere to, best thing for a person is adherence to righteousness.

Those who believe (in the Quran), those who follow the Jewish Scriptures, the Christians (who follow the teachings of the Gospels) and the Sabians (followers of John the Baptist or Zoroastrians), any (anyone living in any part of the world) who believe in God, the Last Day and work righteousness, shall have their reward from their Lord, on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.

Quran, 2:62, 5:69, 2:112

Of the numerous (124,000) prophets who preached God’s message only 26 are mentioned in the Quran.  Muslims not only believe in all Prophets mentioned in the Torah and the Bible but also Prophets that came to other civilizations, namely, Indian, Chinese, Aztecs and indigenous people.

To every people was sent an Apostle to teach them in their own language in their own country – making things clear.

Quran, 10:47, 14:4 & 16:36.

In the following verse, you can see it has been made mandatory on Muslims to believe in the revelation given to them and to Abraham, Ismael, Isaac, Jacob and the tribes (thereby meaning revelations that we are not aware of but are indeed revelations) and the revelations given to all the Prophets from their Lord. If only this had been said, we could have said that we are being told only to have a belief but we do not have to adhere to what has been said. But the next part of the verse also says that “We make no difference between one and another of them,” thereby meaning that we are supposed to give divine scriptures of others the same position that we give to the revelation given to us, viz. Quran.

We believe in the revelation given to us, and the revelation give to Abraham, Ismael, Issac, Jacob and the tribes, and the revelations given to Moses and Jesus, and that given to all the Prophets from their Lord.  We make no difference between one and another of them.  We bow to God in Islam.

Quran, 2:136, 2:85, 3:84, 4:152

This is the reason I keep my studies confined to the supposedly divine scriptures and am least bothered about the beliefs or rather the disbeliefs that Muslims, and even people of other faiths, have formed. Despite the presence of aforementioned verse in Quran, you can see several Muslims criticizing supposedly the divine scriptures of others and uttering sentences like the book of the Christians say this and our Quran say this, the Vedas of Hindus say this and Quran say this. For me, if the content of the scripture is anywhere close to being a divine scripture, it is indeed a scripture from God, irrespective of how we have understood them and what meanings we have derived of their content. 

To you We have given the scriptures, just as We have given the scriptures to people before you (Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, etc).  We have protected your scriptures (Quran & other scriptures)  in its entirety.  So judge among people from what knowledge has come to you (from Quran & other scriptures) and do not be carried over by your vain desires (that Muslims are the only righteous and chosen people to lead). To each among you (referring to diverse groups – not excluding anybody) We have prescribed the Law (teachings of the indigenous, native people and Buddhist scholars, Gita, Vedas, Torah, Gospels and The Quran) and an Open Way (Straight Path that all these talk about). If God had willed, all humanity would have been of one single community (this means diversity is part of God’s creation).  God’s plan is to test you in what each one has received (in form of Holy Scriptures or teaching).  So strive, as in a race in all virtues.  The goal of all the people is to God.  God (alone) will tell you the truth in matters of which you dispute.”

Quran, 5:48 

This tells that while scriptures are from one and only God, if there are apparent differences in teachings, there will come a time when God will reveal the truth and henceforth will remain no disputes. This also means that we are told never to fight over religious matters because the different religions are there because there is a Divine Purpose behind them; our goal shall be to establish peace on earth and aspire for righteousness and salvation.

All the Avatars and Prophets, scattered as they were from each other in time, language, culture and region, were actually linked to One Common Source and were disseminating teachings for mankind with the intention of leading it towards salvation. This was the common mission of all. Every message they disseminated had origin in a common source.

More interestingly, the teachings too grew as per a plan which was followed everywhere so much so that when it was time to introduce Devatas, we find that they were introduced in all civilizations, be it Egypt, Mesopotamia, Indus Valley, China, Greece or Latin America. When it was time to initiate philosophical and reasoning based discussions, we find them happening in almost all corners of globe. And when mankind graduated till a level, the higher Manifest Self was introduced almost everywhere which led to development in the belief of Holy Spirit, Paramatma and Rooh; and the teachings culminated when we were led to one abstract, invisible, formless God as the God of all. Despite the gradual up gradation of teachings, the path remained one and the same and even when focus was on Devatas, the one abstract, invisible, formless God was very much there in the teachings and when the Absolute God was introduced, the Devatas and Paramatma still remained an important part of the Divine Creation Plan.

This pattern of evolution of teachings is very similar to how teachings grow as a child grows up. If we take English language as an example, the child is first taught the alphabets, then small and big letters, followed by 3 and 4 letter words, which is followed by simple sentences which grow with time to become more complex, with grammar too increasing by the day. Even at graduate level, a person has no right to say that the A, B, C and D that he learnt way back in Nursery is redundant and useless for him because he is able to comprehend the higher learning only when he remembers the teaching grasped in earlier classes. Likewise, if you do not remember the basic multiplication tables taught in class II, you will never be able to do the complex problems of algebra or geometry later on.

The Prophets too were doing the same. The teachings kept on increasing in dimension, scope and intensity. Wherever it was felt there was a need to send an avatar, he arrived. And it kept happening in all parts of the globe and in all times. This is the reason why the Manifest Self of God (Paramatma) talks through the mouth of Krishna in Gita and says:

Whenever there comes to be laxity in regard to right life (Dharma) O Bharata (Arjuna), and wrong coming to assert itself, then I bring about the creation of myself.

Another translation says:        

Whenever and wherever there is a decline in religious practice, O descendant of Bharata, and a predominant rise of irreligion – at that time I descend Myself.

And tells the purpose of descent as Avatar on earth:

To protect those who are good and to destroy evil doers, for establishing righteousness, I assume being, age by age.

Another translation says:

To deliver the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to restablish the principles of religion, I Myself appear, millennium after millennium.

This clarifies the role of Divine Messengers. Nataraj Guru translates this verse by using words ‘destroy evil doers’ while Acharya Dharma Deva translates the same as ‘annihilate the miscreants’. This shows that the purpose of each of the God’s Avatars is to uphold righteousness, truthfulness and justice and destroy or annihilate those who are on wrong. Read the description regarding Maschiach in Old Testament, Kalki Avatar in the books dear to the Hindus, Mahdi in the traditions of Prophet Mohammad, Quetzalcoatl in the holy book of the Mayans and Melchizedek in the Scrolls of the Dead Sea and you will find the last Messiah doing exactly the same.

How can it be possible that similar descriptions got into books so far apart in time and space? Even if we say that the Hindus, Jews, Christians and Muslims have borrowed similar concepts from each other, how can we justify the presence of the same concept among the Mayans whose country was captured in the early sixteenth century A.D. and whose book – the Dresden Codex – was deciphered as late as the 19th century A.D. Likewise, the Dead Sea scriptures were unknown to the world till almost recently.

As I repeatedly say, it was just One Message that was being propagated by different people, in different languages, different places and different times among people having differing culture and belief. The teachings appear to be different because of this. The message was interpreted differently and people digressed and deviated from the teachings in different ways. Here, we will give some examples to show how the same teachings were interpreted differently despite the fact that the divinely guided people who gave the message were linked to the same heavenly source. If we have formed so many religions that are at conflict with each other, it is because of our own inability to comprehend the message truly.

The Old Testament [Genesis 3.5 (LXX)] says that when Satan tried to influence Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, it said to them that if they eat the forbidden fruit they would become like the divinities (translated by some as ‘like gods’). The actual word in Hebrew means ‘divinities’ which was translated by early scholars as ‘gods’. But the people had no idea who the divinities were? It was their lack of knowledge which made some translate it as ‘God’ [meaning One God] and others like Irenaeus deviated further to say that the plural ‘gods’ referred to ‘believers’.

If you see closely, the same has happened to the translation of the Quran and Vedas. Wherever Quran was talking with ‘We’ and ‘Us’ and at places with ‘He’ and ‘Him’ in Third Person for God, Muslims erroneously concluded that God, when it wants to lay stress, shifts from First Person to Third Person and vice versa. [Read my book ‘Muslims and the Straight Path’; pub. 2010; Real Gain Publications, for the real truth] When the same movement was seen from First Person (singular) to Third Person (plural) and back in Gita, the commentators chose to ignore the issue altogether; I have not seen any discussion on the subject so far.

Likewise, Devatas were the subject of conversation in the Vedas. Entire Vedas are replete with their mention. All Vedic hymns are devoted to one or the other Devata. Based on their inability to understand who the Devatas were, several myths came in circulation, which can be seen in Ramayana, Mahabharata and Purana. The European scholars who studied them couldn’t fathom who these Devatas were and hence translated the Devatas as ‘gods’ (in plural), leading to Christian and Muslim scholars criticize the Vedas on the ground that it believed in multiple gods. They weren’t aware that the concept of One God was very much present in the Vedas as well and the Devatas were subordinate to both God and Manifest Self (Paramatma) but had an important place in the Divine Creation Plan. Unable to comprehend the true role of Devatas, later day Hindu commentators committed the same mistake that the Christian scholars had committed. They translated Devatas as one ‘God’ and where this meaning did not seem logical, gave other meanings like the material fire, the steam engine, Madam Curie’s discovery of radiation and so on. Thus the absurdity in translations continued to increase and the various Divine Scriptures continued to become more distant from each other in meaning and comprehension.

Since we have started with Old Testament, let us see examples of certain subjects mentioned in the Old Testament which the Jews and Christians have been unable to comprehend.

Other than the presence of the term ‘divinities’ (in plural) in the aforementioned verse, three passages in Psalms talk about divinities in plural which have been translated by some as ‘gods’. [Ps. 82.1; 50.1; 82.6]. And very similar to the ‘We’ or ‘Us’ of Quran and Gita against ‘He’ and ‘Him’ for God used in the same scriptures, Genesis, 3.22 too talks of ‘Like us’. I have reasons to believe that neither Muslims, nor the Hindus, Jews or Christians have real idea why this difference exists in their respective scriptures. (See the book ‘Muslims and the Straight Path’ for elaborate analysis).

Psalm 50.1,3 (49.1, 3 LXX) refers to the phrase ‘God of gods’. Even this didn’t give an indication to scholars regarding the true identity of the ‘gods’. Quran too talks in a similar language when it, while referring to the Day of Judgment, says that God will be ‘the judge of the judges’. The Jews and Christians do not know the identity of ‘gods’ nor do most Muslims know who will be ‘the judges’ when God will be the judge of the judges. It is the presence of this phrase ‘God of gods’ in Psalm which make commentators conclude that ‘God’ is ‘the son, who came manifested to men’ while identifying ‘gods’ as believers or even as ‘false gods’. [Christosis by Ben C. Blackwell, publisher Mohr Siebeck, 2011, Page 44].

‘He became human that we might become gods.’

De Incarn. 54

Likewise Psalm talks of phrases ‘sons of the Most High’ and ‘You are gods’.

I have said, you are gods and all the sons of the Most High, but you die like men.

Psalm 82

There are other instances where ‘gods’ is used. [Psalm 96.5; 81.9; Jer. 10.11]. There is great confusion among Christians regarding the identity of these ‘gods’. Mosser [Psalm 82;46] writes, “Iranaeus acknowledges that one can in a certain sense legitimately refer to glorified human beings as gods, but he insists that these are not the same kind of being as the One God.”

Page 44 of Christosis says: “In 3.6.1, Iranaeus begins a new section of Book 3, in which he defends the singular God in distinction to those who might use biblical texts to argue for divine multiplicity.” [Balas, ‘Use of Interpretation’, 32-33]. These ‘gods’ have been referred to as ‘immortals’. Says Ben C. Blackwell: “Two primary characteristics that characterised the gods are that of immortality and power to bring order out of chaos.” [Christosis, page, 46].

The gods have been called immortals even in Homer, II, 1, 503; and Odyssey, 1, 31

Even Plato wrote that immortality is the defining mark of gods in distinction to mortal humans. [Timaeus, 41d)

Theophilus of Antioch hints towards this in To Autolycus 2.24. [See Kaufman, ‘Becoming’, 42]

Other philosophers make this clear as well, e.g., Cicero, De Natura Deorum 1.3, 1.14, 2.17, 2.153. Since the immortality of gods is so entrenched in the cultural grammar, Josephus is able to show the irony on Agrippa who is called a god but then is shown to be all too mortal and dies: ‘I, a god in your eyes... Who was called immortal by you, am now under sentence of death’ [Antiquities, 19.347]

John Passmore writes: “If in comparison with the gods man is “as nothing”, this is only because he lacks their power, and security which derives from their immortality.” [The Perfectibility of Man; London; Duckworth; 1970; 30]

Had the scholars looked into other scriptures, like the Vedas and Upanishads, they would have found that the Devatas (translated as ‘gods’) were presented as immortals there as well.

Inability to understand the real identity of those translated as ‘gods’, Christian scholars created the concept of ‘Son of God’, thus further deviating from the intended meaning. Likewise, their inability to understand the true role of ‘Spirit of God’ led to the creation of the concept of Triad, thereby further distancing the Christian scriptures from other Divine Scriptures, which too were talking about spirit [like the Paramatma in Hindu scriptures and Rooh in Quran].

They will ask the (of Mohammad) concerning the spirit. Say: The spirit is by command of my Lord, and knowledge ye have been vouchsafed but little.

Quran, 17:85

Says the book Christosis: “The first reference to the activity of the triune God is recorded in the first account of creation [Genesis 1: 1-31; 2: 1-4]. There it states: “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” [Genesis 1: 2] and also: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in Our image, according to our likeness’” [Genesis 1: 26]. “Elohim”, the designation for God used in the original Hebrew text, is plural. It means “the Divine” as well as “gods” and should be understood, in light of the gospel, as a reference to the triune God.”

Christosis further says: “The various divine manifestations, for example ‘Angel of the Lord’ [Genesis 16: 7-11, 13; Exodus 3: 2-5; Judges 6: 11-16], ‘Spirit of God’ [Genesis 1: 2], or ‘Spirit of the Lord’ [Judges 3: 10; 1 Samuel 16: 13] are also interpreted as references to the mystery of the trinity of God.”

It is clear therefore that the inability to understand the concept of divinities and Spirit of God and the wrong meanings given by various commentators created a situation where the Christian books, despite talking of the same subject as others, continued to become more and more distant from the rest. The same happened with scriptures dear to people of other religions; thus the distance continued to increase.

Lets give another example from Bible:

“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give your peace.”

Bible: 6:24-26

This description talks of the ‘face of Lord’. Quran talks of ‘Wajhallah’ or the ‘face of Allah’. And Upanishads and Vedas talk of Paramatma as Manifest Self of God. The term ‘Vishnu’ too mean the same. Wajhallah, Vishnu, Face of Lord and Manifest Self of God are literal translations of each other. When these terms were mentioned, in different languages, they meant one and the same thing, but the derived meanings were so different that none concluded that the different scriptures were referring to one and the same Divinity. One Christian commentator says: “The “face” of God is his personality as turned towards man, or else turned away from him. His face hidden or turned away is despair and death.” We found this understanding is not correct, particularly in the light of exactly similar terms in scriptures dear to other religions. Most Muslims too have understood Wajhallah wrongly and Muslim scholars have no idea of the Manifest Self despite the Quran giving ample hints towards it. Likewise, scholars of Hindu scriptures have mostly failed to understand the relationship between Manifest Self of God (Paramatma) with the Absolute God. The understanding of Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh too is blurred and based largely on mythical descriptions.

Returning to Genesis 3.5 (LXX), we see Satan told Adam and Eve if they eat the forbidden fruit, they would become like the divinities. Who were these divinities that Adam aspired to become? Adam is seen as the first of all human creations by Jews, Christians and Muslims. The angels are supposed to be lower in status than Adam; that is why they were asked to bow down in supplication in front of Adam at the time of Adam’s creation (as per description in Quran). If this is so, then who are the ‘divinities’ who are so high that Satan tries to befool Adam in their name. And the fact that Adam ate the forbidden fruit shows clearly that Adam indeed wanted to become one like the divinities, even if it was at the cost of setting aside the Divine Command of not going near the tree (and eating the fruit).

Let us see whether the concept of Divinities is talked about elsewhere in scriptures like the Dead Sea Scrolls. While talking of “The coming of Melchizedek” (who is incidentally same as the Mahdi of Muslims, Maschiach of Jews, Quetzalcoatl of the Aztecs and Kalki Avatar of the Hindus), Dead Sea Scrolls say:

(Ps. 82;1). Scripture also says about him; “Over it take your seat in the highest heaven; A divine being will judge the peoples” (Ps. 7;7-8) Concerning what scripture says; “How long will you judge unjustly, and show partiality with the wicked? Selah” (Ps. 82;2), the interpretation applies to Belial and the spirits predestined  to him, because all of them have rebelled, turning from God’s precepts and so becoming utterly wicked. Therefore Melchizedek will thoroughly prosecute the vengeance required by God’s statutes. Also, he will deliver all the captives from the power of Belial, and from the power of all the spirits destined to him. Allied with him will be all the “righteous divine beings”(Isa. 61;3).

Describing the coming of Melchizedek towards the end times, the same scrolls say:

Then the “Day of Atonement” shall follow after the tenth jubilee period, when he shall atone for all the Sons of Light, and the people who are predestined to Melchizedek. (...) upon them (...) For this is the time decreed for the “Year of Melchizedek`s favor”, and by his might he will judge God’s holy ones and so establish a righteous kingdom, as it is written about him in the Songs of David; “A godlike being has taken his place in  the council of God; in the midst of divine beings he holds judgement”

Interestingly, Dead Sea Scrolls not only talk about certain ‘divine beings’ in the ‘council of God’ but also refers to them as ‘Sons of Light’ and say that the Songs of David too were referring to them. It won’t be unjustified to conclude that the ‘Sons of Light’ are the divinities that Genesis as well as Scrolls talk about. There is reference to Divine Beings at both places! I can give reasons to justify that when Jesus referred to the coming of the ‘Spirit of Truth’ in the future, he was referring to the light of the same divinities descending in pious and pure bodies on earth, one after another.

You are invited to read the prophesies of Prophet Mohammad regarding Mahdi and you will be left with no doubt that the events described related to time when Mahdi would arrive are same as those described for the coming of Melchizedek; this will be a time when the ‘righteous divine beings’ or ‘Sons of Light’ will rule. Interestingly, you will find descriptions related to Kalki avatar in various scriptures dear to the Hindus very similar to the ones given above.