Whom
The seekers of divergent fruits of dharma
Treading the divergent paths of dharma
Worship with the offerings of divergent dharmas -
Unto that very Self of all Dharma,
Obeisance, Surrender, Homage.

-- The Mahabharata,
Shanti-parvan, 47.50.

In studying the history of humanity the developments of political and economic power are often predominantly emphasised and the role of religion is seen as adjunct and secondary to these forces. Such a methodology results in looking mostly at the alliances of the religious forged with the divisive political and economic concentrations of power.

Religion, however, also exists as apart from such forces, and there it yields a fruit different from the divisive one. It is important that we examine the mistakes made by the religious in the past. It is also imperative that, for religion to serve as a guide to establishing peace, non-violence, unity, and harmony, we learn from those aspects of the religious past which have so often contributed successfully to achieve these desired goals.

Here we propose to present a view of religion as an instrument of harmony that is known, but which has not been examined as a universal cohesive stream running through all the ages and areas of world history. By looking at the successes of religion in establishing peace in the past, we can prepare a plan for the future.

Many forms of dialogue and conference are designed at this time to search for ways in which the religions of the world may find common grounds to help guide humanity in a positive direction. We propose the view that such ground has been established for thousands of years, by ordinary people as well as by sages, saints, philosophers, and theologians. It might be stated that there exists a vast treasury of many millennia of experience in the area of unifying religions (a) as a theoretical framework established by the philosophers, saints and sages, on a didactic basis as well as in a spiritually experiential mode, and (b) in daily life as experiments successfully conducted by the common people in a practical and pragmatic realm, often independent of the systems in theories and theologies.

In contemporary dialogues among religions and in the deliberations being conducted in various councils to examine the constructive and positive role that religions can play, it is essential to delve deeply into the treasures mentioned above and seriously emulate the examples set by sages and philosophers as well as by ordinary people.

The facts we present here, selectively, and by way of illustration for our argument, are well known, but they have not been strung together into a unified theory demonstrating the shared streams that link the various religions. Here we attempt to show the presence of such a unifying single stream flowing through all periods and locations.

In which inter-religious council of the world was it agreed that Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians of all denominations would join the hands before the heart in worship? Who decreed that people of all faiths should kneel or bow in one form or another to the presence of Divinity? Is it a meaningless coincidence that so many mudras (positions) of body, face and hand are so very similar in the icons of Jesus, the Buddha, and the Hindu forms of the Deity? The same is true of the Virgin Mary, Kuang Yin, and the Divine Mother figures like Saraswati and Lakshmi. When was it agreed among various religions that prayers should be counted on rosary, mala, or tasbeeh

by the Christian, Hindu-Buddhist-Taoist, and the Muslim? Who determined that sacred and holy water, whether from Jordan, Ganga, or Zamzam, should be an important component of religious observance for the Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, and the Muslim? Which master architect planned all edifices for worship to point upwards into the sky? When was the agreement signed that incense be burned in sacred places of the Hindu, Buddhist, American Indian, Muslim, and Catholic? How is it that ringing a bell has been part of a ritual among so many different forms of worship in different religions? Who determined that meatless days be observed by the adherents of all religions? Is it strange that what the Asian religions (Hinduism and Buddhism) refer to as dashansha (tenth part of one's income to be donated) is equally considered a bounden duty as tithing in Western religions? Who decided that periods of forty days are the optimum for those seeking purification, whether Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim (as in the practice of chilla), Kadazan, or the Christian observing Lent? Who enjoined the practice of silence and fasting for all devotees of God? Who determined that people of all Faiths should say grace before meals? How was it agreed among the people of all traditions that women, children, and unarmed soldiers or civilians should not be attacked in a war? Who taught to all that an immersion in a holy river would constitute a spiritual rebirth? How is it that so many rituals of a monk taking his vows, such as tonsure, are so similar among the Hindu Swamis and Buddhist and Christian monks, when the histories of their monastic orders are of divergent antiquities?

Who developed the idea that the followers of each religion should have a sacred book, in written or oral form? Who instituted the tradition of song as an offering to Divinity in all religions? How is it that as part of 'a floating mass of wisdom' the people of all religions tell parables and stories that parallel each other, one claiming it to be Hindu, another calling it Sufi, or Buddhist, or Christian? How is it that we find some almost identical passages in Popul Vuh, the Bible, the Koran, Mahabharata, Dhammapada, Avesta, and the Upanishads?

As an international team of researchers on global warming has reported (vide the International Herald Tribune, 8 Sept. 2000, p.2), at Lake Suwa in Japan the deities from shrines on either side of the shore of the frozen lake "were believed to have used surface ice to visit back and forth" and "at Lake Constance, on the border of Germany and Switzerland, congregations at two churches, one in either country, had the tradition of carrying a Madonna figure back and forth across the lake after it froze." What power here unites the adherent of Shinto with the Christian? Likewise, what common connection joined together the proto-pashupati of Mohenjo Daro with the scenes depicted on the Gundestrup cauldron from distant Denmark? How did the Druids, the Brahmins, and the followers of Pythagoras (vide Ovid's Metamorphoses, Ch.15) all develop a faith, in lands so distant from each other? Where shall we look for the common source, if any, of the Vestal Virgins, the Virgin Mother of Jesus, the Virgin Saraswati, the Virgin Wise Woman of the Oneida, and the Kumari institution of contemporary Nepal?

So, one more rhetorical question here: What gives the right to followers of some religions to condemn as 'primitive' (whatever that means!) such uniformly agreed ways of wisdom? Why not simply acknowledge that the unifying streams among religions have always flowed in freedom, irrespective of repression, and that all we need to do is to look at the power of these streams to chart the course for the flow of our own river of history into the future.

It must be admitted, not tongue-in-cheek, but without hesitation and with conviction, that there are forces besides human ones that are the fountainhead from which all urge to worship proceeds, and which further teach all 'chosen peoples' in all centuries and all nations even the way to worship. It is their presence that is the unifying stream among all our religions. It is not mere Jungian theory we reiterate; rather we are emphasising the deep personal spiritual experience that has guided all branches of humanity in tandem and in parallel streams throughout history. It is because of this common source in the Divine Forces that so many symbols, forms, rituals, and verbal or art forms are shared among religions. Homage to these Forces of No-names and All Names!

Religion is (a) experienced internally and (b) is expressed, shared, externally to influence social functions at many different levels simultaneously. It is so because it derives its impulse from many different areas and states of human mind that do not often operate cohesively. Yet in the background there remains a trans-mental divine and spiritual source from which it originates as revelation and inspiration. The original inspiration may become sullied. Divergences could enrich. Instead, they often divide, because of the states of mind of later followers. The common stream of inspiration, however, is never lost and continues to show itself throughout human experience, guiding human beings to much that is noble, beautiful, non-violent, harmonious, and infinitely loving.

Our purpose here is not to psychoanalyse religion by looking at the cause of its failure, but to learn for the future from its past successes. We need not make the futile attempt to empty out an emptiness, to negate the negations, in order to arrive at a positive. Nor need we deny the fact of the empty glass or the effects of negations. But we do not propose here to examine the well-known weaknesses once more, but-rather to recognize and reinforce the strengths.

It may appear in this presentation that we are ignoring the failures of our favoured path and selectively bringing forward some isolated instances of success to justify religion. That is not what is intended. If a type of event can be seen repeating itself in many lands and over many centuries, producing an identical mental experience and consequential social effect, then it behoves us to study its pattern and arrive at a common denominator, so that the same may be utilised in our deliberations. Let us look, therefore, at commonly repeated patterns of truth, goodness and beauty manifested in history through religion, so that we may apply them better.

For our purpose we ignore the alliances of the religious with the divisive political and economic powers, because this has been amply elaborated upon by many analysts. We propose to look at the widely scattered events in which (a) the mystics and philosophers, (b) the common people, and (c) even some personages powerful in polity have maintained the shared experience of religion as a force for harmony. The examples cited here are sketchy and the list is not exhaustive. We are only presenting examples, the likes of which many more can be found, to be knitted into an holistic pattern, and then included in any projections for the future.

Even though in our enumeration above we have first spoken of the saintly and the philosophical, here we first look at the patterns found in society as a whole, so as to apply the results of our studies to the pragmatic world of today.

It is well known that in pluralistic societies the common people, being exposed to the experience of each other's belief systems and practices, often manage to merge them. People begin by sharing experiences and practices out of neighbourly courtesy. This they manage to do without infringing their own basic belief systems. They accommodate the divergent only to the extent that no major infringement of their own faith might occur. They do often compromise with minor infringements. Quite often, too, fresh myths appear to justify such mutual accommodation at the level of the "little traditions". A few random examples may be cited. It is common in the villages of India for Hindus to savour sevai on the occasion of the Muslim Eed festival and for Muslims to share sweets in celebration of divali. In Guyana, the Afro-Guyanese join in the celebration of Phagwa, and in Fiji, kava is served at most Indian celebrations. There also, the indigenous deity Nakovandra has become identified as a divine Naga figure and this Naga image is commonly placed near the entrance to Shiva temples, as nagas are known to be Shiva's ornaments. In some Hindi versions of the myth of Krishna dancing on the head of Kaliya Naga, it is stated that Krishna banished the naga to a ramanaeeka dveepa, a charming island. What island could be more charming than Fiji? And it is the home of Nakovandra, the local version of the Naga. It was to Fiji that Krishna banished Kaliya! Myths take many such local forms.

The songs sung in rituals may be adapted from one religion to fill a need in another. The Hindu folk singer sings:

Oh, under what tree might Rama and Lakshmana, both brothers
in exile, be sheltering and getting all drenched?

The Shia Muslim folk singer, whose ancestors might have converted from Hinduism to Islam, sings at Muharram:

Oh, under what tree might Hasan and Husain, both brothers
in exile, be sheltering and getting all drenched?

To this day such songs of Hindu origin can be heard on the festive and sacramental occasions of Islam in Lahore and other Pakistani cities, and the spring festival basant is celebrated with equal gusto by the Muslims of Lahore and the Hindu-Sikhs of Amritsar, both on opposite sides of the border. And which diehard Hindu is there who has not at one time or another enjoyed the Muslim devotional songs of qavvali? Here is a quotation from an interview with Y. Ziauddin Tucy, the great-grandson of the last Moghul, Bhadurr Shah Zafar, published in Times of India (9th October 2000):

I asked Ziauddin Tucy about Hyderabad. Has it changed? "Yes, it has lost its cultural identity". What was this cultural identity all about? "It was about the love and cordiality between Hindus and Muslims. I, as a child, would sit for days in the Ganesh puja pandals and participate in the festivities. Now this doesn't happen." "What has brought about this change?" "Siasat, politics".

We sit in silence for a while. "You see, Jodha Bai was a Hindu. She was Salim's mother. Bahadur Shah Zafar's mother was Lal Bai, again a Hindu." "Do you believe that the warmth between the Hindus and Muslims has come to an end?" "No, it is there but parde ke pichhe hai, it is behind a curtain."

On the same day, the same newspaper devotes three columns to a report we excerpt here:

MUSLIM CHIEF IN ORISSA VILLAGE PRESIDES OVER VIJAYADASHMI YAJNA.

Manikgada (Orissa). Durga Puja is a festival celebrated by Hindus. Wrong, for in this village, about 90 km from Bhubaneshwar, Muslims celebrate it with as much reverence and solemnity as their Hindu brethren.

There is also more to this festival in this village. For generations, the prasad is brought from the house of the village chieftain, who is a Muslim, and is first offered to goddess Durga. The chieftain also presides over a mass yajna on Vijayadashmi, while Hindus and Muslims distribute the prasad among themselves .....

On the last day of the puja (Vijayadashmi), thousands of Muslims from nearby villages throng Manikgada to witness the last procession of Goddess Durga that starts from the tribal temple located right in font of a mosque. The procession makes its first halt before the chieftain's house, where the goddess is offered prasad.

The village chieftain, Sheikh Habibur Rehman, says: "... ... I fast on Dashmi and eat the prasad".

A villager: Juber Mahammad adds: "Since most of our forefathers were paikas (soldiers with the king) like the Hindus, we worship the swords and other arms on the occasion of Dashmi. It has become our major festival, more than even Id"

Jam Saheb, the Muslim king of the Jamnagar state in Gujarat, western India, considers it his sacred and divine duty to take a leading role in the Krishna festivals. The tradition continues even after the abolition of royalty.

The Indian folk singers of Surinam, Guyana, Trinidad, Mauritius and Fiji often begin their song session with verses like:

Hinduon ko ram-ram
Christians ko good day
Musalmanon ko salam.

Why is it that in reporting on Hindu-Muslim relations most observers fail to mention the Muslim singers who, even in Delhi, sing of Shiva, and the Muslim singers in Surinam, Guyana and Trinidad who sing the Bhojpuri and Hindi bhajans of Rama and Krishna, including the compositions of Tulasidas, to crowds of thousands? And why forget the numerous learned Muslim devotees, like Malik Muhammad Jayasi and Abdur Rahim Khankhana, who composed mystical epics on Sufi-Yogi-Hindu themes and songs of devotion to Krishna? Let us also not forget the Muslim classical dhrupad singers who have to this day kept a Vedic tradition alive. One of the most popular bhajan singers in India who has sung to Krishna at the famous Guruvayur shrine, is a Christian with the name of Yesudas, servant of Jesus. Nor should we ignore the indigenous Fijians who sing Hindi songs.

Indonesia offers one of the most impressive illustrations of how various religions may join together to create a harmonious life style and a unified cultural psyche. In the Indonesian version of the secular, the priests of all religions are paid by the state; it has been made compulsory that if even a single child of a particular religion studies at a school s/he must be given lessons in his/her own religion, and this is done through state support. Nepi Day, the day of silence observed by the Balinese Hindus, is a national day of silence for the followers of all religions throughout Indonesia. Numerous detailed books are available on the subject of how the Muslim religion and the traditions like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata have cohabited in that vast country for so many centuries, and we need not go into the details here. In India, the Mev Muslims, among others are known for singing the stories of Mahabharata as part of their lore and ritual.

Often an accommodation is found to insert the traditions and forms of an older religion into the new religion of a conqueror, or of one who evangelises a local population. An example is the continuity of the Christmas tree tradition in Christianity, even though Odin and Thor have been abandoned and Jesus has replaced them. The two divergent streams are unified and one cannot say where one ends and the other begins. The Christians in Rome adopted forms of the Roman religion into their rituals; the Christian Greeks maintained many of the original Greek forms. The Christians settling in South India adopted the rituals of worship from their surroundings and many major elements of their sacraments and ceremonies, where they would not conflict with the tenets of their own faith, are identical to the ones practised in the surrounding Hindu society. This process of amalgamation continued from the 1st to the 16th century A.D. and was resumed after India's Independence.

Even the forms of a chosen deity remain versatile. The Buddha figures of Mathura, Gandhara, Korea, China and Japan, or of the traditions of the Khmer, Lao, or Thai, each exhibit the features of the people of the respective land. The concept of a black Christ in Africa is well known, and Mother Mary in Kerala wears a sari. The same Divine Mother of the universe in Her twenty-one aspects is worshipped as Tara in India (and in the maritime regions of Indian civilization), Dolma in Tibet, Kuang Yin in China and Kwannon in Japan. The same Sanskrit mantra is transmitted by the Hindu worshippers of Tara and by the Buddhists of the Sino-Japanese civilization. This is true of various other mantras. The mantra of the 'Hindu' Saraswati (a female form of the Deity) is also transmitted as the mantra of Manjushri (the Buddha of Wisdom). Even the word OM is held sacred by three religions, the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jaina, with three different meanings, in accordance with the doctrine of each faith. In the philosophy of the Upanishads OM expresses the One Unmanifest and the three manifest states of consciousness, whereas in Buddhism it represents the merging of the body, speech and mind of the devotee with those of the Buddha. The Jainas see in it the Five Holy Ones of the faith represented by their initial letters a, u, m.

It is the case that some liturgical and ritual forms relevant to the doctrines and practices of one religion are found in another, where they have no relevance. For example, take the formula "dust to dust, ashes to ashes". In the Christian tradition, "dust to dust" is relevant as bodies are buried in the dust, but what is the relevance of "ashes to ashes"? This part of the formula could be applicable only in cultures and religions where cremation is the normal practice, and is undertaken with a formula like this passage from the Veda:

Bhasmantam shariram
The body ends in ashes ---Yajurveda (40.17)

However, the institution of Ash Wednesday and the idiom "sackcloth and ashes", as the way of the ascetic and the penitent, echoes the more elaborate application of ashes in the traditions of India where, as in the ceremony of Ash Wednesday, the marks of a particular faith are applied with the thumb and are placed on the forehead with the recitation of liturgical formulae. One may compare also the Lenten veil before the sanctuary with a similar curtain drawn before a Hindu altar between sessions of worship. These examples are incomplete, but sufficient for our purpose.

The Buddhists of Central Asia converting to Islam brought many Buddhist ideas, including that of the Null, into the Sufi tradition. The Sufis met the Shaivites of Kashmir and were honoured with the title of rishi, a realized sage, through whom divine revelation flows. One such was rishi Nooruddeen, whose shrine, the charar chareef is venerated by people of both faiths, the Muslim converts and the Shaivites. The descendants of the Maya, Inca and Aztec peoples superimposed Catholic saints upon the old deities to conceal their continued worship of them, and merged the elements of the ancient ritual into that of the new. The same experiment is now taking place in Africa, where the indigenous belief systems of the many nationalities of Africa first accommodated the practices of Islam and now are doing the same with Christianity. The Yoruba brought their Orixa deities to the New World. As slaves, they were forced to convert to Christianity, but they merged the two traditions, producing such enrichments as the Santaria of Cuba and Condamble of the Bahia region of Brazil.

Quite often the sacred exists and flourishes with reference to different religions simultaneously. The Dome of the Rock is a point of international controversy because it is being made so by those in power within state and religion. Left to the people, the problem could be solved, gently and over a period of time. This is not mere speculation about a possibility. In Mauritius, the temple of Mama Tukkai (Durga), reputed to grant miraculous healing and solutions to personal problems, is reverently visited by the Afro-Mauritians. There are thousands of shrines dotting the whole of India where Hindus and Muslims worship together; while a Hindu fire ritual is going on in one corner Muslim recitation in Arabic resonates adjacent to it. In many such shrines the resident Muslim Faqir, out of respect for the Hindu adherents of the shrine, does not permit non-vegetarian food. India and Pakistan may be at war, but come the festival of a Sufi saint, the state borders mean nothing and the people from both sides worship together.

Often the religion changes but the sacred is retained. The shrines of indigenous people taken over by theologically more sophisticated religions continue to be sacred. Among the more tolerant lands even the icons are not replaced. An example is the Jagannatha shrine at Puri in Orissa. Elsewhere, the site of the religion of the conquered or the converted may be altered into the church, mosque, or temple of the conqueror or the evangelist, but the site itself remains sacred, reserved for worship, now in a new form. The Sun temple of the Incas in Cusco is an example. A hill near the town of Rajagriha, where the Buddha lived in a hut close to the Bamboo Grove practising his austerities now holds the graves of Muslim divines, but the site remains sacred. The civil war in Shri Lanka alas continues, because those who are responsible for it ignore the genius of the people, but despite the war it is common there for Buddhists to visit Hindu shrines and for Hindus to pay homage to the Buddha.

Almost every believing Chinese worships in Taoist as well as in Buddhist shrines, and all pay homage to Confucius. No one tells them that they must choose only one of the two or three religions. Often Taoist deities are enshrined in Buddhist temples and vice versa. A Japanese may go to both a Shinto and a Buddhist temple and worship the Kami deities and the Buddha with equal devotion. What is more, the images of Hindu origin like those of Narayana and Ganesha are still honoured there.

Migration of Hindu thought and practices to other parts of Asia is well known. It is common in Nepal as well as in Ball to be asked: You are a Hindu? Buddha Hindu or Shiva Hindu? This is no

accident. One of the first inter-religious conferences was held in Bali around the first century A.D., where the followers of the three religions, viz., agama tirtha (now named Hinduism), Buddhism and the Bali Aga met to discuss how the three might accommodate each other, live together and blend into a unifying stream. The success of the resolves made then continues to this day. Why is it that today's councils of the powerful do not look at such successful experiments that humanity has made, learn from them, and re-institute the attitudes that led to such success in the past?

A scholar searching for clues as to the possible unity of religions would need to examine the processes by which Hindu traditions merged with, say, the local Khmer, Thai, or Lao traditions in such a way that in their respective communities it is impossible to state which drops are from which stream. What were the processes by which Hindus and Buddhists accommodated each other in the kingdoms of Java? When Islam arrived, how was it that major elements of the older Hindu-Buddhist culture continued to remain prominent within the framework of Islam? To a visibly large extent they still continue to do so.

One of the major experiments in flowing with the unifying stream in religions has been going on in India for many thousands of years. Here Hindu, Buddhist, and Jaina have constantly interacted. It is said that Buddhism disappeared from India. Not so. Its tenets were absorbed into the Hindu view of life and practices, just as the Hindu forms of the deity were included in Mahayana Buddhism in mainland India, its maritime regions, and in Tibet. In India, the Jainas and the Zarathushtrians both study the Bhagavad-gita with the same diligence as the Hindus. The Jainas offer prayers to the Hindu forms. The shrine in Bodh-gaya, where the Buddha attained enlightenment, is sacred to both Hinduism and Buddhism, for different reasons, and the people of both religions have worshipped there together for a thousand years, notwithstanding the sad situation that political forces, ignorant of the people's genius, today are causing a division.

The kingdom of Thailand is Buddhist, but its major ceremonies call for the presence of Brahmin priests to officiate; the recent Asiad in Thailand, held under the patronage of the Buddhist king, was inaugurated with the chants of 108 Hindu priests.

Common humanity asserts itself not only in unification, which occurs through a natural process not yet understood, but also in other forms. It is but appropriate for catastrophes like those of Kosovo to be reported widely, but why is it that only scant attention is paid to those who risk their lives to protect the members of another community? Europeans in the Nazi era who protected the Jews; Hindus and Muslims who guarded each other's families during the Indo-Pakistan Partition riots; Serbs who sheltered Albanians. What was their motivation? Without having been schooled in scholarly theories of inter-ethnic dynamics and so forth, have not these people risked their lives for a higher purpose than survival itself? What are the mental processes and spiritual values of a Schindler and a Wallenburg? Events and personalities of a positive kind like these should be studied in depth. It does not suffice only to condemn the Holocaust. We also need to look at the spiritual mind-state of those who not only participate in such abhorrence, but actively protected the victims with great risk to themselves. It is in understanding that spiritual state, and teaching children to emulate the same - not as an act alone but as a spiritual state - that we begin the task of rebuilding human attitudes for the better.

We have cited many examples of ordinary people who share their traditions without being told to do so; without someone working out the means to be employed, the processes to be followed, and the systems to be adhered to; without knowing the theories of social dynamics and without having learnt the lexicology of the newly invented 'secular'. It is obvious that there must be some power within religious and spiritual traditions to make the kind of accommodation we have outlined. The official leaders of the organized forms of religion may denounce such unifying streams of religions all they wish, but the common people do not cease to merge with each other. Often local leaders, being from amongst the people, encourage such a merger of traditions, creating forms that are unorthodox in the eyes of the priesthood of each separate participating tradition. The separation is bridged gently and over a period of time, following some hidden dynamics among the people themselves, it is the dynamics that the rest of the society needs to notice, understand, and then accept as a guide to establishing peaceful relationships among religions.

Such unification does not only occur at the level of ordinary people. The wise ones, philosophers, mystics, have been led by their contemplations to find the common principles of various streams. They have even accommodated forms of what appear to others as atheism. While many Hindu philosophers disputed with the Buddhists and the Jainas over the existence of God, it is noteworthy that at least two of the six schools of what is commonly termed the Vedic system do not acknowledge, or at least do not emphasize, the existence of God. Sankhya seeks a soul's liberation and enlightenment but is often interpreted as ignoring God. Mimamsa is the most Vedic of the Vedic schools, dedicated to understanding and reinforcing the philosophy of both daily and ritual acts, but it does not accept the need for a deity. Are we missing something here? All we can say is that these schools deny the existence of a God determined by our definition of the word. (vide Swami Rama, Enlightenment Without God, Himalayan Institute, Honesdale, PA).

The philosophers who travelled from India to teach in Tibet merged the elements of the Bon Po with their philosophical systems, finding a niche for the former in the framework of the latter. Did not the Greeks, much earlier in Gandhara, create a Graeco--Buddhist and a Graeco-Brahmin culture? Is there any historical suggestion of any resistance to their endeavour at creating such an amalgam? How was the accommodation reached? How did the Greek and the Egyptian religions join together? Did not Zeno find the place where Jewish and Greek thought could complement each other? There exists ample evidence of a healthy contact between the Hindu and the Greek philosophical and religious systems. Alexander of Macedon had no problem with paying respect to a Hindu Yogi like Calanus.

Great ones like Apollonius of Tyana travelled to India and learnt from Yogis. The Jewish tradition imbibed certain thoughts from the followers of Zarathushtra. The Graeco-Egyptian tradition produced the Coptic brand of Christianity. Again, Graeco-Hindu thought was absorbed in Neo-Platonism. Porphyry, the Neo-Platonist, composed a treatise against the eating of animal flesh. About the same time, Mani of Iran declared himself to be the joint incarnation of Buddha, Zarathushtra, and Jesus, and preached the doctrine of absolute non-violence. His religion became as widely accepted among many nations as some of our contemporary religions are. The dispute between the followers of Vishnu and Shiva was resolved by Hindu sages who presented the harihara form of the icon that incorporates the features of both manifestations of the Divinity. All this bespeaks the willingness of both ordinary people and mystics alike to accept the possibility that the many may be expressed in one.

We have spoken above of the Sufi rishis like Nooruddeen. This is not an isolated example. Century after century, mystics and sages have challenged the claims of superiority over others of one or another religion. Kabir comes readily to mind. The ten Gurus of the Sikh faith brought together the wisdom of all religions, and of the preceding saints of various faiths, into one holy book, the first and only truly 'secular' and, at the same time, holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib (vide this author's introduction to Swami Rama's transcreation of the same, publ. Himalayan Institute Hospital Trust, Jolly Grant, Dehradun. 1998)

The Arabs and others of Muslim nations absorbed and preserved Greek thought and reintroduced it to Europe, helping to bring about the Renaissance. We could continue giving many more such examples of successful unions of spiritual and religious paths. In recent centuries and modern times, we have examples of men like Pater de Nobili, who wore the sacred thread of the Brahmin, interpreting its three strands as representative of the Christian Trinity. Among our recent guides are people like Thomas Merton, who observed the common goals of Zen and Christianity. Many contemplative Christian monks, like Father Dechanet, started a search for similarities between Yoga and Christianity. Father Bede Griffiths established a Christian Swami order at his Ashram near Truchinapalli. Among the contemporary scholars are men like Raimondo Panikkar, who have presented an introduction to a suggested Christological commentary on the Brahma-sutras and put forward the proposition that texts like the Mahabharata may be seen as a Hindu Old Testament. It is quite possible that some interpretations of certain religions that suggest the presence of intolerance may be modified through deeper study of their holy books. For example, the oft-cited Bible quotation "I am the way, the Light and the Life" may be understood differently when it is realised that the Aramaic language does not have the definite article 'the'. Then the statement is no different from the verse in the Bhagavad- gita, "I am their Deliverer from the ocean of the cycles of death" - and so on.

Having stated that divisive political forces bear much of the responsibility for separation among religions, it must also be said that in the course of history there have been many kings who searched for the meaning of truth in all religions, or in one way or another tried to reconcile the concept of non-violence with their statecraft.

Akhenaton (Amenhotem IV) in the thirteenth century B.C., because of his religious conviction, chose not to resort to armed force. The emperor Khusro of Iran, a follower of Zarathushtra, liberated 40,000 Jews from Babylonian captivity and helped them to rebuild the Temple of Solomon. He also encouraged the Egyptian priests to revive diligently their own forms of worship under his patronage. His son Dara followed in his footsteps. Ashoka in the third century B.C. disbanded his armies and ruled an entire empire by the power of virtue (dharma). He also provided patronage to the followers of different religions while he himself remained an adherent of Buddhism. One of his rock edicts reads:

In as much as one criticises and harms another religion,
he thereby harms his own religion.

Harshavardhana the Great honoured the saintly of all religions. Changiz Khan called to his court the teachers of all religions to find his truth. Finally one branch of his descendants settled on Buddhism, and after Changiz's grandson occupied the throne of Khanbalig (Bei-ching) as a patron of that religion an era of non-violence began in Mongolia and China. Often such policies, based on tolerance and love, are carried out under the guidance of spiritual teachers, just as Kublai Khan was guided by the head of the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism. When Kublai Khan offered to make the Sakya school of Buddhism the only one to be recognised and said that he would command the Tibetans to become followers only of that path, it was his teacher, then head of the Sakya school who dissuaded him from doing so, in order that all interpretations of the Teaching could flourish.

The Hindu kings of Kerala gave the same land grants for Christian churches that they would give for Hindu temples. This was not perceived as any special generosity, or act of tolerance requiring exceptional consideration or deserving particular recognition; it was built into the religious frameworks of the devout kings. It is well recognized that because of such openness of society the Jews of India never suffered any of the indignities that were heaped on these innocent people elsewhere. The synagogues built with the land grants given by Hindu kings continue to be maintained by the adherents of these faiths.

The court of Harun-al-Rashid in Baghdad is known to have become the seat where the highest teachers of all religions met and presented their theses. Akbar the great Moghul is, again, known and recognized as one who gently brought together the different paths and teachings in spite of great resistance offered by some fundamentalists He called the synthesis 'The Religion of God'. His great-grandson, Dara Shikoh, an initiate of the Sufi path, was martyred partly because of the mystical realizations that had led him to translate the Bhagavad-gita and the Upanishads from Sanskrit into Persian.

In recent centuries we have seen similar efforts on the part of the seekers of truth. The Quaker ideal of tolerance and silence is exemplary. It has not been an inactive tolerance, but has given to history great men like William Penn who, with his associates, attempted to create an accommodation with the indigenous Americans. The Quakers also served as a support group for Gandhi and supported the South African struggle for equality among the various segments of the population.

The Persian works of Dara Shikoh were translated into various European languages and helped develop the interest of philosophers such as Schopenhauer in the philosophy of the Upanishads, opening European eyes to the beauty of Vedanta. We need not go into the details of the way Sanskrit was accepted in the European schools of the 19"' century. Numerous European philosophers of note studied Indian philosophy. An age of Oriental Romanticism dawned in the Western world. Long before any Swami visited the United States, the transcendentalist writers opened the way to mutual understanding among the religions of East and West. To this day, the visitor looking at the map of various geographical Features in the Grand Canyon observes that Dutton, the then head of the Geographical Survey of the United States, and an orientalist, gave to these features names like Manu Cloisters, Buddha Cloisters, Brahma Temple, and so forth. Also, because the concept of millions of years of earth's history was new to the West, while it was common thinking in India, the different geological layers in the Grand Canyon were given names like the 'Brahma Layer' and the 'Vishnu Layer'. The US dollar bill carries on it the image of the pyramid and the eye of truth from the Egyptian tradition.

All this goes to show that the coming together of religions is neither a novel idea nor something difficult to obtain. In our modern times guides like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Bishop Desmond Tutu, all apostles of non-violence, have been religiously inspired. Often the ascetic inspired by spirituality conquers the emperor by the strength of his faith.

Teachers of religions have not always sided with orthodoxy. In fact, up to a century ago, all social reforms in various societies of the world were brought about by teachers of religion; those brave and saintly ones who were not overcome by the fear of incarceration, torture, or death at the hands of others of their own religion who were closer to centres of power. The Buddha was a kshatriya prince who abolished the social distinctions among human beings and sided with the democratic forces of the Vajji and Licchavi democratic confederations. Such teachers have usually suffered at the hands of the powerful of their own religions, a fate that the Buddha, because of his high spiritual power, was spared. Saints like Kabir and Nanak challenged the adherents of the religions in which they were born. The social reform movements of nineteenth century India began with religious teachers who emerged from the higher castes and challenged their own caste peer groups to help uplift the downtrodden ones. Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Swami Dayananda Saraswati may be cited as examples, and so also Gandhi. Also, while the attitudes of a large number of male religious guides towards women is only to be abhorred, there are in the history of religions a large number of names of those who have stood by the side of women and given them the veneration due to the incarnations of the Divine Mother. In recent times, let us not forget those non-black priests and bishops who joined forces with the oppressed and helped lead the movements for their freedom. Why should we read history only as a record of the wrongdoing of religions and not equally bring to focus the unselfish dedicated ones who have taught the meaning of equality and service by their example? Those who have valiantly suffered persecution because of their faith are as much, or even more than the persecutors, a part of the history of religions. This is not being said here by way of defence of the wrongdoing in religion, but to help find inspiration from those spiritually powerful channels in religion that have withstood the corrupting influences of the secularly powerful. There is much to learn here.

The role of religious teachers has not been limited to matters of pure spirituality. They have often established guidance for the right behaviour of society in matters like environmental protection. In many lands it is the sacred groves, reserved because of a religious belief system, that constitute the only remaining forests, and these are well protected, not because of a commercial attitude of sustainable development, but because of the sanctity associated with the idea of non-violence towards all living beings. The way of the Kami in Shinto, the worship of the Orixa deities among the Yoruba, the philosophy of the Sangomas, of the American Indian, of the Maori, or of the mystics of the original inhabitants of Australia, the healing doctors of the indigenous people of Africa, all share the view that nothing should be taken from nature without seeking its permission and forgiveness, that not an animal could be hunted or a plant or herb reaped without such a prayer. Though Christian now, the traditional herbal doctors of Malagasy and the healing elder ladies of Tahiti still follow this rule. So long as the traditional concepts of sanctity as taught by the spiritual guides of these societies continue to be applied, their forests and groves continue to flourish. The Bhagavata-purana enjoins, "Let not even a blade of grass be pulled from the ground". Be it, again, the traditional healing doctor in Malagasay, Tahiti, India, or among the American Indian, not an herb is taken from Mother Earth without asking for forgiveness in special prayers. Shinto priests are sometimes still invited to perform the ceremonies of atonement and prayer for forgiveness before a tree is cut down in Tokyo. The ceremonial staff to be given to a Hindu monk (Swami) taking his vows (perhaps cognate with a Christian monk's shepherd's staff) is not taken from the plant without first offering prayers and seeking the permission of the plant. Nor does a good ayurveda physician pluck herbs without following the same rituals.

Credo Mutwa, the Chief of the South African Sangomas tells us of the severe penalties that were imposed on one who would pollute a stream, or slaughter wantonly against the rules that prohibited the killing of specific animals in restricted areas. There exist formal religions in whose teachings "Thou shalt not cut a tree" is enshrined. For instance, the Bishnoi are known to sacrifice their lives to save a tree. Three centuries ago, in one village of Rajasthan, three hundred women and children hugged the trees and were cut down along with the trees by those who came to log them for building a palace. Movements like chipko (Cling!) in the Himalayas have sprung from such like faiths and religious belief systems of both leaders and common people.

Was there ever a conference among the diverse peoples of all continents to find or establish such unity of views in all the different centuries, at many different levels of cultural sophistication? What gathering of wise elders of the world decided that earth is to be looked upon. as mother - no matter what words may be used in whichever language for 'earth' and 'mother? The sun may be feminine in Arabic and in Japanese, but earth is always mother even in the folklores of 'Fatherlands'. By whatever processes, the diverse peoples of the far corners of the world arrived at these points of agreement and that without signing any international treaties and enforcing them with police, armies and economic and political sanctions. All we need to do is to recognize the genius of the spiritual guides and the common people without subjecting them to the will of the politically and commercially powerful. Their faith will do the rest, and will re-establish and reinforce the traditional systems with the necessary flexing of the forms to fit into the changed patterns.

The inspiration is ancient, perennial. If these purer and deeply spiritual aspects of religion are examined and revived in our practice of educating people the problems to which we are seeking solutions here will cease to arise.

As we stated above, it would be most beneficial to students of religion seeking guidance for establishing peace to look at passages in a variety of religious texts. For example the Christian doctrine of ex nihilo creation might be understood by delving into these statements:

This is the account, here it is.
Now it still ripples, now it still murmurs, ripples, it still sighs, still hums, and it is empty under the sky.
Here follow the first words, the first eloquence:
There is not yet one person, one animal, bird, fish, crab, tree, rock, hollow, canyon, meadow, forest. Only the sky alone is there; the face of the earth is not clear. Only the sea alone is pooled under all the sky; there is nothing whatever gathered together. It is at rest; not a single thing stirs. It is held back, kept at rest under the sky.

Whatever there is that might be is simply not there: only the pooled water. The calm sea, only it alone is pooled.
Whatever might be is simply not there: only murmurs, ripples in the dark, in the night. Only the Maker, Modeller alone, Sovereign Plumed Serpent... And of come there is the sky, andthere is also the Heart of the Sky. This is the name of the god, as it is spoken...

Popol Vuh, Transl. Dennis Tedlock[2]
Simon & Schuster, 1985

Of the Beginning of old,
Who spoke the tale?
When above and below were not formed,
Who was there to question?
When the dark and bright were obscured.
Who could distinguish?
When matter was inchoate,
How was it perceived?

Tian Wen: Chinese Book of Origins. Transl. Stephen Field
New Directions Paperback, 1986

Over the whole of Afica creation is the most widely acknowledged work of God... The people hold that 'there was nothing before God created the world:

John S. Mbiti, Afican Religions and Philosophy,
Heinemann, 1969, p.39.

Compare all these with the well.known Creation Hymn of the Rigveda, 10.29:

There was neither being nor non-being then; there was no
movement, nor that upper sky.

Then we look at the repeated statements in Indian schools of philosophy that the reality is

Na san nasan na sad asat
Neither being, nor non-being, nor being-non-being.

The Buddhist shunya, Null, is then explained as being beyond the four-cornered statement that s is; s is not; s both is and is not; s neither 'is' nor is 'is nor'. It is that Null or Nibil from which the creation would be understood to have proceeded as the logos becoming cosmos, the Word (shabda-brahman of the Vedantin and the Sauskrit gramrnarian) becoming the physical universe. We can thus end all disputation on the topic. This is one step beyond ecumenism: depending on the authority of all revelations to help in understanding each other's concent and context, intent and essence. Many problems in the theology of one religion can be solved by studying the explanations given in another. Just a few examples here. The Christian debates about Acts versus Grace can be resolved by studying how the philosophy of Acts as taught by the purra-mimamsa is merged with the philosophy of realization and grace in uttara-mimamsa and texts like the Bhagavad-gits.

Many times the Christian Church suffered schisms on the question of apportioning humanity and divinity to Jesus. A full understanding of the avatara (descent, incarnation, en-fleshment of divinity) theory of the Hindus, together with the tenet of dityansha-samudhbbara (one born of part of the divine), discussed in wonderful detail through the centuries, can be helpful to the Christian theologian, thus bringing the two religions closer together not merely in a form of political co-existence but in a shared doctrine properly understood.

The dispute about the doctrine of transubstantiation versus consubstantiation at the Eucharist may be resolved with the help of the Hindu doctrine and ritual practice of prana-pratishtha, invoking the presence of the divine spirit inito what otherwise would be deemed an inanimate object.

There was always a doubt as to which of the gospels is true. Hundreds of versions were burnt because of the lateral view that if x is true, then non-x must be untrue. But the Hindu tradition has understood that shara-kori, a hundred million, versions of the Ramayana sung in all the universes and in different acons are all correct because God manifests Herself in innumerable ways.

There are well-established tenets in the textual and philosophical traditions of religions to deter disputation. The Bhagavad-gita enjoms:

Do not create confusion of opinions among people; a wise person who lives in yoga and practices right conduct should help all to follow their own paths of action (3.26).

The Buddha advised his followers in Brahma-jala-sutra to ignore all questions of theological dispute that do not have a direct bearing upon the search for enlightenment.

The ancient sages of the Rigveda (1.123.7, 186.4; 5.15.4; 6.58.1, 70.3; 7.27.3, 84.1; 10.10.2, 12.6, 64.5) repeatedly sang of Divinity as being vishu-rupa, multi-morphous. The rishi sang:

Spreading Your Self, expanding like the earth to bear and to fill,
You suckle and watch over all the peoples.
Supporting, sustaining all age groups and leading them
to ripening of old age,
You are glorious in all spheres, multi-morphous with
Your own Self (5.15.4)

This realization of a Supreme Reality as One Self, atman, ever remaining that one indivisible Self and yet taking multifarious forms, could be the basis of a universal doctrine that would unite all religions in a view of "one in many and many in one" (the motto of the Indonesian state), accepting the variety of manifestations revealed to different people at different times.

The One God appears in many forms, He of a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, a thousand feet (Rigveda 10.90.1). Later the vishu-rupa gave way to vishva-rupa, the universe as the body of One God. The Yogi of the Upanishads sang:

The Deity Who is in the fire, in the waters,
The One Who has entered to dwell in the entire universe,
The One Who is in herbs and plants
Unto That Divinity we make obeisance.

(Shvetashavatara Upanishad 2.17)

We are reminded of these thoughts again and again in the ancient wisdom. The insistence on only one planet, one manifestation, one revelation causes conflict among all the 'only ones'. To avoid that we need to hear again what was said in the Song of the Lord:

In whatever way the people approach Me,
so do I respond to them.
In all paths it is My Path that they
are following fom all directions.
Whichever form or aspect of Mine do they worship in faith,
Towards that very form or aspect of Mine do
I sustain their faith.
Endowed with that faith and devotion he seeks to worship
the same very form,
Thereby does he reach the goal desired by him as
I grant to him the same.

Bhagavad-gita, 4.11; 7.21,22.

Here we are not talking of tolerance, co<xistence and such, but a realisation on the parts of all to recognize the many ways of God and honour, venerate and revere them. The most detailed statement of this philosophy is found in the Jaina doctrine of anekansa-vada, the doctrine of no one end Reality is not one-ended. About any face of reality and truth, these seven statements can be made: perhaps is; perhaps is not; perhaps is and is nor; perhaps undefnable; perhaps is and is unignable; perhaps is not and is undefnable; perhaps is and is not, andis unignable. All of these statements are to be seen as correct in one comprehensive whole. This philosophy is taught as a system of logic and science of nature and spirit by the great philosophers and visionaries of reality such as Haribhadra Suri and Kundakundscharya.

Those seeking a way to fmd mutual accommodation among religions need to study in depth both the Vedic visbu-rupa philosophy as well as the anekanta doctrine and make it a part of personal realization. The schools of theology and comparative religion need to bring these principles into greater focus, rather make them the central point of Whching unity in diversity, is is not merel a tolerance for another forced out of fear of nee and destruction, not a mere response to difficult situations created by humanity's ignorance. This is the credo that millions, nay, allions, uphold. AH they need on this path is encouragement granted to them by their guides. It is not to 'give them freedom', for that is not anyone's to grant, but it is to recognise and respect freedom in law and in love, and it is to educate future generations into remaining true to these perennial truths.

Such an education will not be possible, nor will there develop the state of mind that leads to choice of non-violent inclinations, unless the contemplative heritage of all religious and spiritual traditions is revived. The methods of contemplation to retrain the mind, the ways of meditation, also seem to be divergent, but there are certain procedures common to all systems of meditation. The advantage of this core component of divergent meditation systems is that it can be practised within the context of all religious traditions without violating any of their tenets. Its practice would strengthen the faith of each through the purifacation and clarification of the spiritual mind. May we propose that all councils that govern the world begin their deliberations with such a meditation, so that a calm state of spiritual mind may be established before undertaking the decision-making processes.

May we further suggest that such a medication be introduced into educational institutions so that there would develop the states of a spiritual mind that preclude and prevent tendencies to violence, aggression, and mutual intolerance; that such tendencies may be thus washed off right at the ourser; that children might grow into adults who are confirmed in peace, first in inner peace, and through that, in the exterior one.

BLESSING OF INTERIOR PEACE

Without interior peace the exterior environment of peace cannot be established. This Blessing is a collective experience of interior peace and silence to be guided for three to five minutes according to a universal system of the contemplative path.

The meditation follows the one essential practice common to all contemplative systems such as Yoga, Vipassana, Zen, Ch'an, Tao, Sufi Dzikr, Hesychasm in the Greek and Russian Orthodox tradition as taught in the Philokalia literature, and acknowledged in the Catholic faith as the Third Method of Prayer in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola.

This can also be a participatory demonstration of how all religions equally share a certain essence in the contemplative path that leads to interior peace, stillness, and silence.

The words are few but the experience may take three to five minutes.

WORDS OF THE INTERIOR BLESSING OF PEACE AND STILLNESS

(Time: three to five minutes. Spaces between paragraphs represent the moments of silent contemplation.)

Let us bring our awareness to our being,
Let us know ourselves to be the Temple of God.

Let the seat of our thought, the forehead, relax.

Observe the gift of Divinity granted to us in the form of our very life, manifest in each breath.

Feel the flow and the touch of the breath in the nostrils.
This is a gift of grace being granted to us every moment.

Breathe gently, slowly, smoothly;
without a jerk, without a pause between the breaths.

Now, bring to mind your preferred Name for divinity according to your own religion and language.

Exhaling, think that one Name.

Inhaling, think that one Name.

No break in the feel of the flow of breath.
No break between the contemplation of the Name and the Name.

Observe how the mind, breach, and the Name flow together as a single stream.

The entire mind has become a quiet stream flowing towards the infinite Divinity within.
Continue to observe the flow; gently open your eyes.

May this peace prevailing in our minds radiate as a blessing and pervade the consciousness of all beings in the universe.

Om Shantih, Shantih, Shantih.
Peace. Peace. Peace.

PROPOSALS FOR THE WORLD PEACE SUMMIT OF THE LEADERS IN RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY

It is heartening to see that the possible role of religion and spirituality in bringing peace to the world is finally being acknowledged through the current effort at the United Nations. To change that possibility into reality the following proposals need to be accepted and presented.

1. In teaching the history of humanity in all parts of the world, the developments of political and economic power alone have been emphasized.
2. The developments in religion have been included only as adjuncts to the political and economic power.
3. Only disputes in religions are brought into focus, presenting religion as a cause of strife. The role played by pure spirituality within religions in establishing harmony and conciliation has not been emphasized.

   Thus the entire methodology of teaching the role of religion needs to be examined and a new approach to this methodology needs to be internationally established to present a picture which can be a source of inspiration towards peace, equity, and justice. In studying the unifying streams in religion we would arrive at a world history of peace through religion and spirituality and would be able to inspire future generations through examples from the past.

Be it proposed that:

1. The methodology so far adopted in teaching the role of religion and spirituality in history be thoroughly examined by a scholarly body of those well versed in religion, and thereafter that the teaching concerning the role of religion in history be based on the premise that, more often than not, and at the level of common people and spiritual teachers rather than at the level of the politically powerful, religion has played an important role in helping develop some wise, peaceful and conciliatory solutions to human problems and to the overall human quest.
2. In the study of comparative religion and of specific theologies teachers often do not take into account what the particular beliefs and practices of religions actually mean to the followers of a given religion. This is especially true of the way Eastern religions, their belief systems, practices, and historical developments, are explained and interpreted in theological and academic institutions and other podiums in Western countries. It is therefore proposed that all teaching concerning a religion should primarily be imparted by learned and qualified followers of that religion. This is the only way that the followers of various religions will understand each other's points of view. Through the mutual nderstanding generated by adopting this course the various religions will become effective instruments of peace.
3. Be it proposed that the methods adopted by various religions for proselycising should be examined by an impartial, international, inter-religious commission which would fmd and suggest ways in which the religions may propagate themselves without causing hurt and violence, without force, fraud or economic or political coercion, and yet preserve each religion's freedom of speech and expression. Be it further proposed that the leaders of all religions agree to enjoin upon their adherents to refrain from criticising other religions but maintain freedom of expression by stating their own belief systems in an emphatically positive tone.
4. Recognising that certain practices of the contemplative path are common to the followers of all religions, and that with some modifications these can also be practised by those who do not hold a belief in God or religion, be it proposed that in all world councils deliberations shall begin with such a common contemplative experience in silence and that all departments of education and institutions of knowledge encourage their students and teachers learn to train the mind to trigger a peaceful state at will by applying the same contemplative methods.

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