THE INNERMOST CORE OF ALL RELIGIONS IS NOT THE SAME
The core content of all religions is not the same as apologists for pretentious peace make it out to be. All religions do not preach the same thing. Some convert, some do not. Some claim exclusive possession of Truth, others do not.
By pretending that all religions preach peace as the kernel of their doctrine, one resorts to untruth and it not spiritual to be untruthful. Hence, truth must be articulated freely and fairly but without rancour or the desire to settle scores as yet unsettled with the proselytising religions. Inter-faith meets must be organised but interactive hypocrisy must not be resorted to there. Truth must be thrust out in plainest terms without fear or favour and out of such honest submission and admission will in course of time open up the path to religious peace.
The scriptures of the different religions of the world, especially the dangerous proselytising ones, must be studied from their text proper and information not gleaned from fraudulent online sources that merely cater to collection of co-believers. This will ensure the security of knowledge and will prevent pretence by clerics who selectively quote only the peaceful verses in public discourse and conveniently leave out the violent verses that abrogate the peaceful ones in the sequential order of the scriptural text. Thus, deceitful clerics will not be able to fool the gullible co-panellists from other religions in Inter-faith meets.
If one religion sets out its agenda as that of mass conversion of the adherents of another religion and the other religion, dwelling in passive philosophical acquiescence, merely is expected to submit to such sacrilege, peace between the violator and the victim can never be. This was stated by no less than the seminal savant Sri Aurobindo from his Pondicherry habitat while dwelling on the communal problem then in the thirties and the forties of the last century when he had roundly censured Gandhiji for his policy of appeasement of the Muslim minority, thereby allowing them the unfair upper-hand to ruthlessly rule over the Hindu majority. Aurobindo was rather severe on the Mahatma and considered him 'a bit cracked', to quote the sage of Pondicherry. He considered Gandhiji's fasting and austerity otherwise to belong to the vital plane of his being which gave him the energy to singularly pursue his non-violent agenda of peaceful politics to the absence of a clear comprehension of the wider problems that lay in wait to hit India and her fortunes. In the bargain Aurobindo was categorical that Hindus would be wiped out of the political scene in terms of fair play and relegated to the status of slaves under the Muslim minority should Gandhi thus be allowed to hold sway. And the prophet's words were fulfilled. It was Aurobindo alone among all the great leaders of the day who clearly articulated that peace between the Hindus and the Muslims was impossible unless the Muslims were to alter status and stop proselytising which was, of course, never going to be for it was intrinsic to Islam to convert the infidel.
Today, we are an independent nation with two proselytising noxious neighbours in Pakistan and Bangladesh, both severed parts of undivided India, spitting venom at Hindus and making life difficult for them there. The percentage of Hindus has progressively decreased to a small fraction of what it was at the time of Partition. And all this has been because of our inability to withstand proselytising pressure on account of our ignorance (a) of our own religion and (b) the religions of Islam and Christianity which by force or by deceit or by inducement convert us. To stop this progressive decimation of our religion let us learn more about our own religion and also about the scriptures of these proselytising religions in real earnest and not off-hand from dubious sources or from pious pretenders who will never tell us the whole truth.
Om !
Written by Sugata Bose
By pretending that all religions preach peace as the kernel of their doctrine, one resorts to untruth and it not spiritual to be untruthful. Hence, truth must be articulated freely and fairly but without rancour or the desire to settle scores as yet unsettled with the proselytising religions. Inter-faith meets must be organised but interactive hypocrisy must not be resorted to there. Truth must be thrust out in plainest terms without fear or favour and out of such honest submission and admission will in course of time open up the path to religious peace.
The scriptures of the different religions of the world, especially the dangerous proselytising ones, must be studied from their text proper and information not gleaned from fraudulent online sources that merely cater to collection of co-believers. This will ensure the security of knowledge and will prevent pretence by clerics who selectively quote only the peaceful verses in public discourse and conveniently leave out the violent verses that abrogate the peaceful ones in the sequential order of the scriptural text. Thus, deceitful clerics will not be able to fool the gullible co-panellists from other religions in Inter-faith meets.
If one religion sets out its agenda as that of mass conversion of the adherents of another religion and the other religion, dwelling in passive philosophical acquiescence, merely is expected to submit to such sacrilege, peace between the violator and the victim can never be. This was stated by no less than the seminal savant Sri Aurobindo from his Pondicherry habitat while dwelling on the communal problem then in the thirties and the forties of the last century when he had roundly censured Gandhiji for his policy of appeasement of the Muslim minority, thereby allowing them the unfair upper-hand to ruthlessly rule over the Hindu majority. Aurobindo was rather severe on the Mahatma and considered him 'a bit cracked', to quote the sage of Pondicherry. He considered Gandhiji's fasting and austerity otherwise to belong to the vital plane of his being which gave him the energy to singularly pursue his non-violent agenda of peaceful politics to the absence of a clear comprehension of the wider problems that lay in wait to hit India and her fortunes. In the bargain Aurobindo was categorical that Hindus would be wiped out of the political scene in terms of fair play and relegated to the status of slaves under the Muslim minority should Gandhi thus be allowed to hold sway. And the prophet's words were fulfilled. It was Aurobindo alone among all the great leaders of the day who clearly articulated that peace between the Hindus and the Muslims was impossible unless the Muslims were to alter status and stop proselytising which was, of course, never going to be for it was intrinsic to Islam to convert the infidel.
Today, we are an independent nation with two proselytising noxious neighbours in Pakistan and Bangladesh, both severed parts of undivided India, spitting venom at Hindus and making life difficult for them there. The percentage of Hindus has progressively decreased to a small fraction of what it was at the time of Partition. And all this has been because of our inability to withstand proselytising pressure on account of our ignorance (a) of our own religion and (b) the religions of Islam and Christianity which by force or by deceit or by inducement convert us. To stop this progressive decimation of our religion let us learn more about our own religion and also about the scriptures of these proselytising religions in real earnest and not off-hand from dubious sources or from pious pretenders who will never tell us the whole truth.
Om !
Written by Sugata Bose
No comments:
Post a Comment