Come One, Come All!

A Significant Vedic Declaration : Ages ago, know not when, a Vedic sage uttered a great truth, perhaps the greatest truth, and one that has gained more and more relevance down the ages. The simple truth is: Ekam sat viprah bahudha vadanti..., i.e., Reality is one, sages call it by various names like, Indra, Yama, Matarishva. The sage found a unity in the midst of variety-- beyond the self-contained universe of matter. At the same time, he has also found a reality in the variety, whatever be its definition.

During the period of the Upanishads the truth of Oneness was researched upon and the Upanishads vie with one another to prove and realize this goal. They came to the conclusion that there is one spiritual reality that is beyond this multiform universe including its manifold lives. But what was, or seemed, insignificant at that time has grown into disproportionate size and importance, like a tail outgrowing the head--it is that part of the truth: sages call it variously. It did not seem, at that time, to have so much potential as we witness today! In later times, this small realization has come to hold the petty human mind at ransom, as it were. It is having its field day. For, it is general human psyche that we build up hatred against all establishments, and cherish to thrive by opposing them! And a well-practised 'hatred and opposition' mentality comes to surface when it takes the form of an establishment. That is how a 'hope against hope' theory devastates public tolerance miserably.

Wrong Approach to Oneness : In course of time, we have taken up one of the names of these gods to rally around, and attributed the Oneness to him and him alone, disregarding the existence of the other gods. Some of us have built our castle in the air and installed our god to be the only denizen of that lofty region. He is limited by many human shortcomings, such as--he is only a male principle, he is merciful to his followers, ruthless to the non-believers, and he doesn't tolerate any reasoning. Well, some others also slowly followed suit and built their own castles and established their own gods. Now these disparate gods are at war over the right to occupy the exalted sphere. Today the changed form of the Vedic declaration stands as: 'Truths are many, sages misunderstood them to be One!' The one God, the Creator or the Ultimate Principle without any distinctions of gender etc, is in a fix where to discover Himself: every group claims its own god to be the only god and says that all have to follow the command of this god whom this group has created. But God has His own creation to look after, where everyone is His creation. If He has created the Cosmos, He has surely created all, living and non-living. He finds that there are some entities called gods by his creatures, which He has not created. Well, it is amusing to conjecture what He will do! Should He then eliminate such gods? If from each of, say, five points, we can disprove the existence of the other four, then logically it can be proved that none of these five points really exists. They cancel each other automatically! But God gives us a chance and says, as it were, 'Either you eliminate these entities or I shall eliminate you with your creation.'

Yes, it is time now to tell the truth--a truth that is not intended to hurt our feelings. Because such is the direction of the great Shankara.¹ Let us set our own homes in order. We owe this responsible duty to all humanity. Let us do it now very urgently before the real culprits could make the truly religious people scape-goats. Religion is a science of self-enquiry, in whatever form it may be. We want to know ourselves, and in that process, come across the secret of this creation also. It is a spiritual science. But unlike the material science, we do not improve upon the crude or gross belief-systems and make the road to Beatitude shorter and smoother. We have to start and continue with this process of upgrading or refinement until we reach the Goal. Let us not create gods to suit our own foolish ideas and idiosyncrasies but follow the God Who is the Creator of ALL without any distinction. If the very basis of our philosophy about god is divisive in its core, then how can we include all in its scope and love all? How can we stop the slaughter of our own brethren? All dogmatic approaches are bound to manifest separateness in the form of fear. It will need to either win you over or finish you off. Therefore, the many cannot be the Truth. Are we in need of cleansing our own homes to make them habitable? Let us honestly think over it and do it if, as, and where, required. Let us scan and review all our systems starting from philosophy and theology about god to our preaching and practice of religions to detect if they are infested with the deadly virus of any type of exclusiveness and its horrible scourge of hatred.

Closed Frontiers? : Oneness and one god are different. The Upanishads² unequivocally declare: Tadeva Brahma tam viddhi nedam yad idam upasate, i.e., the One Absolute Principle, without any specification of gender or class, is Brahman; know It and not this god who is worshipped even as Personal God. The Absolute has been accepted in other two aspects at two descending levels--one is the Personal God as the highest representation of the Absolute and the other is the group of the gods called Indra, Varuna, Yama, Siddhas and others. Devotees are left to choose their own god and call on him with complete faith (shraddha). This faith is not a dogmatic faith like disrespecting the other manifestations of the Divinity while respecting one's own chosen god.

Sri Krishna, in the Gita, does make a differentiation. But it is a distinction without a difference. He says, 'This sacred knowledge should on no account be disclosed to those who do not practise austere living, who have no devotion to Me, who cavil at Me, and are devoid of the discipline of service.'³ It may appear that Sri Ramakrishna also was choosy about giving spiritual knowledge to people. He would tell one of a group of his visitors to go out and enjoy the beauty of the place. Sri Chaitanya did drive out a close relation of one of his disciples and then preached unto them. Are they not exclusive? Yes, they are. It is because they did not initiate abuse of the benevolent teachings. If the teachings fall in the ears of incompetent people, they will misinterpret them and bring colossal misery to humanity. And that is exactly what has been happening in the present-day world scenario. But the protectors of humanity did not exclude the others from the scheme of their saving mission. They have been properly taken care of. Swamiji says, 'If the rich man's son requires one teacher, then the poor man's children should have two teachers each.' Again he says, 'If the Brahmin is born clever, he can educate himself without help. If the others are not born clever, let them have all the teaching and teachers they want. This is justice and reason as I understand it.'⁴ They did in no way close the frontiers of their compassion selectively.

An important defect of a closed system is that it won't allow any reasoning; it does not understand and respect the demands of truth. If a system is open to reasoning it will have the privilege of readjustment and renewals. A scientist generally does not lament over his theories that have been proved wrong. Rather he/she is happy to see a higher version of the same truth, to adopt it to his/her future researches. It is needed for transcending the lower needs. Likewise, while the core Oneness of the Reality remains unshakable, the adjustment should take place in respect of its application. Sri Ramakrishna used to say that the currency used under one clan of rulers is not valid under another clan. Swamiji terms it as 'Old wine in a new bottle.' Unless the old bottles pave the way for new bottles of current fashion the product itself will not sell.

We have to seriously do away with the divisiveness and its concomitant hatred in the philosophy of our godheads and the infallible sacredness about the non-essentials of religion instead of creating more and more rigidity and oppression to safeguard the holy bastion at any cost. Unfortunately, the word religion has been associated with the ideas of a bond, an obligation or a reverence. In course of time, we took up the literal meaning of them. In reality, all these words imply one universal application--to establish a bond between the devotee and the God through reverence and observance of disciplines or austerities like renunciation, service etc. It is more a personal endeavour than a commitment by a group. But as the great Sri Krishna feared, it fell into the hands of incompetent persons who misused it for selfish ends. Indra and Virochana approached Prajapati for instruction about the Atman. Prajapati taught them the definition of Atman. But Virochana, as he was not a competent person, misunderstood the interpretation and went to preach the knowledge he got. His followers remained as demons due to their wrong interpretation that Atman means the physical body. On the other hand, Indra, unsatisfied with the apparent meaning of the definition, persisted on and went through grinding spiritual austerities to finally grasp the real meaning of the word Atman.⁵

However, the followers of each group after devising their own philosophy of a godhead needed organising their fold and felt the necessity of labelling them under strict codes. A grouping shows a herd-behaviour, the same fear psychosis of our stone-age ancestry! And a labelling caused the menace of hatred to breed freely, having been fed on the follies of insincere people. Of course, a labelling is a necessity to organize a multitude of units. Still it should not be under a consideration of recognising one label as 'we' and others as 'they'. All labels should have one affiliation--being different paths leading to the same goal, the Unity. In this context we remember what Swami Vivekananda wanted us to understand a century ago. He said, 'These names, as Hindu, Christian, etc., stand as great bars to all brotherly feelings between man and man. We must try to break them down first. They have lost all their good powers and now only stand as baneful influences under whose black magic even the best of us behave like demons.'⁶

We say we are rational. We do not believe in a rebirth. We are all what we are in this world. But at the same time we are ready to believe in an after-life given a purpose. Yes, this after-life is not a rebirth as humans again in this world, but as super-humans for the purpose of having magnified human enjoyments in heaven which we ourselves had struggled for long to create. Swami Vivekananda disgustedly said, 'I do not believe in a God, who cannot give me bread here, giving me eternal bliss in heaven!'⁷ One day, the great Muslim saint Rabia was walking on the road with a fire in one hand and some water in the other. Asked what was the significance of her carrying the two opposite things, she said, 'I want to set fire to heaven, and to pour water into hell-fire!' Let us ask her, 'Why haven't you done it that day itself?'

How do such contradictory beliefs originate? They do not originate as discoveries in the process of our struggle for finding a meaning in life, but they seem to be ingrained in the basic notions of a religious life, which manifest in this form. Fear and hatred breed the same and not empathy. It is the nature of cause and effect. On the other hand, if rebirth is the sure outcome of a cause and effect then it must be in this world that all scores are settled. Death means the end of an opportunity. The Advaitic affirmation about this is the most rational and practical. No bad action goes unchecked with impunity. A bath in the holy river Ganges purifies one, but the impurities turn out to be more clever than us. Sri Ramakrishna says that the ghosts of lust, greed, etc. in persons taking a bath in the Ganges disembark and wait on the trees on the bank, to resettle on their shoulders after they have finished their holy Ganges-bath! Nothing will be of any help unless we have purified our own mind from the dross of ancient fear, medieval hatred and modern greed. There is no reward in heaven for hatred and injury to a section of children of the same God by His other children. If all are not already His children then how does He claim to be omnipotent? Such a god has competitors and he is no better than a rank despot--cruel, vindictive and demanding!

Conclusion : It is therefore an imminent necessity that our belief-systems be re-oriented for our own survival and, should we say, it is necessary for the survival of our god. Let Him be one with the Oneness, the WHOLE EXISTENCE, and reign as the source of all, devoid of all limiting human attributes and weaknesses --male, female, intolerant or jealous. The Upanishadic Brahman is a Reality, the Truth, devoid of a gender distinction or any kind of duality. Would you believe it, not only gods, but 'you', 'they' and 'we' are the veritable manifestations of It. We were, we are, and we will remain as That in spite of our terrible ignorance about our real nature. This is our dignity as humans, the creatures of One Creator, and not as Hindus, Muslims, Christians or Jews.

References

1.Satyam & apidakaram, Shankara on the Mundaka Upanishad, 2.1.7
2. The Kena Upanishad, 1.5-9
3. The Gita 18.67
4. The Complete Works of Swami Viveka-nanda, 8 vols. (Kolkata, Advaita Ashrama, 1979), 3:193; hereafter CW
5. The Chhandogya Upanishad,8.7-12
6. CW, 6:301
7. CW, 4:368