RELIGIOUS HARMONY---POSSIBILITY OR FANCIFUL DREAM?

RELIGIOUS HARMONY---POSSIBILITY OR FANCIFUL DREAM?

Will religious harmony ever be possible? Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda have initiated the process. But how far is it feasible when the Abrahamic religions are so intransigent in their dogmatic scriptural positions? Will the spiritual wave that Swamiji has said Thakur will inundate the world with in time to come be able to overcome the spiritual dissension that has rocked the world for nearly two millenia? Will perhaps a future descent of the Avatar usher in a new harmonic order of things? We do not know but may only hope that man will rise from this medieval tribalism and mature unto an enlightened modernity. 

Meanwhile, the work for future harmony must go on along realistic lines and not along wishful lines that endanger the existence of the more accepting communities like the Hindus, the Buddhists, the Jains, the Sikhs and other like orders. Human evolution along spiritual lines, as opposed to communal religious lines which may hardly be termed as evolving, must make the future man more accommodating and accepting of mutual cultural differences and, so, amenable to living peacefully as brethren aspiring for the higher ends of life. To that end let us aspire and exert ourselves. May future harmony be along the universal Vedantic lines reinforced by the discoveries of modern science! May man finally be human!

Written by Sugata Bose