The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 2/Practical Vedanta and other lectures/The Way to the Realisation of a Universal Religion
THE WAY TO THE REALISATION OF A UNIVERSAL RELIGION
(Delivered in the Universalist Church, Pasadena, California, 28th January 1900)
No search has been dearer to the human heart than that which brings to us
light from God. No study has taken so much of human energy, whether in times
past or present, as the study of the soul, of God, and of human destiny.
However immersed we are in our daily occupations, in our ambitions, in our
work, in the midst of the greatest of our struggles, sometimes there will
come a pause; the mind stops and wants to know something beyond this world.
Sometimes it catches glimpses of a realm beyond the senses, and a struggle
to get at it is the result. Thus it has been throughout the ages, in all
countries. Man has wanted to look beyond, wanted to expand himself; and all
that we call progress, evolution, has been always measured by that one
search, the search for human destiny, the search for God.
As our social struggles are represented amongst different nations by
different social organizations, so is man's spiritual struggle represented
by various religions; and as different social organizations are constantly
quarrelling, are constantly at war with one another, so these spiritual
organisations have been constantly at war with one another, constantly
quarrelling. Men belonging to a particular social organisation claim that
the right to live only belongs to them; and so long as they can, they want
to exercise that right at the cost of the weak. We know that just now there
is a fierce struggle of that sort going on in South Africa. Similarly, each
religious sect has; claimed the exclusive right to live. And thus we find
that though there is nothing that has brought to man more blessings than
religion, yet at the same time, there is nothing that has brought more
horror than religion. Nothing has made more for peace and love than
religion; nothing has engendered fiercer hatred than religion. Nothing has
made the brotherhood of man more tangible than religion; nothing has bred
more bitter enmity between man and man than religion. Nothing has built more
charitable institutions, more hospitals for men, and even for animals, than
religion; nothing has deluged the world with more blood than religion. We
know, at the same time, that there has always been an undercurrent of
thought; there have been always parties of men, philosophers, students of
comparative religion who have tried and are still trying to bring about
harmony in the midst of all these jarring and discordant sects. As regards
certain countries, these attempts have succeeded, but as regards the whole
world, they have failed.
There are some religions which have come down to us from the remotest
antiquity, which are imbued with the idea that all sects should be allowed
to live, that every sect has a meaning, a great idea, imbedded within
itself, and, therefore it is necessary for the good of the world and ought
to be helped. In modern times the same idea is prevailing and attempts are
made from time to time to reduce it to practice. These attempts do not
always come up to our expectations, up to the required efficiency. Nay, to
our great disappointment, we sometimes find that we are quarrelling all the
more.
Now, leaving aside dogmatic study, and taking a common-sense view of the
thing, we find at the start that there is a tremendous life-power in all the
great religions of the world. Some may say that they are ignorant of this,
but ignorance is no excuse. If a man says "I do not know what is going on in
the external world, therefore things that are going on in the external world
do not exist", that man is inexcusable. Now, those of you that watch the
movement of religious thought all over the world are perfectly aware that
not one of the great religions of the world has died; not only so, each one
of them is progressive. Christians are multiplying, Mohammedans are
multiplying, the Hindus are gaining ground, and the Jews also are
increasing, and by their spreading all over the world and increasing
rapidly, the fold of Judaism is constantly expanding.
Only one religion of the world — an ancient, great religion — has dwindled
away, and that is the religion of Zoroastrianism, the religion of the
ancient Persians. Under the Mohammedan conquest of Persia about a hundred
thousand of these people came and took shelter in India and some remained in
ancient Persia. Those that were in Persia, under the constant persecution of
the Mohammedans, dwindled down till there are at most only ten thousand; in
India there are about eighty thousand of them, but they do not increase. Of
course, there is an initial difficulty; they do not convert others to their
religion. And then, this handful of persons living in India, with the
pernicious custom of cousin marriage, do not multiply. With this single
exception, all the great religions are living, spreading, and increasing. We
must remember that all the great religions of the world are very ancient,
not one has been formed at the present time, and that every religion of the
world owes its origin to the country between the Ganga and the Euphrates;
not one great religion has arisen in Europe, not one in America, not one;
every religion is of Asiatic origin and belongs to that part of the world.
If what the modern scientists say is true, that the survival of the fittest
is the test, these religions prove by their still living that they are yet
fit for some people. There is a reason why they should live, they bring good
to many. Look at the Mohammedans, how they are spreading in some places in
Southern Asia, and spreading like fire in Africa. The Buddhists are
spreading all over Central Asia, all the time. The Hindus, like the Jews, do
not convert others; still gradually, other races are coming within Hinduism
and adopting the manners and customs of the Hindus and falling into line
with them. Christianity, you all know, is spreading — though I am not sure
that the results are equal to the energy put forth. The Christians' attempt
at propaganda has one tremendous defect — and that is the defect of all
Western institutions: the machine consumes ninety per cent of the energy,
there is too much machinery. Preaching has always been the business of the
Asiatics. The Western people are grand in organisation, social institutions,
armies, governments, etc.; but when it comes to preaching religion, they
cannot come near the Asiatic, whose business it has been all the time, and
he knows it, and he does not use too much machinery.
This then is a fact in the present history of the human race, that all these
great religions exist and are spreading and multiplying. Now, there is a
meaning, certainly, to this; and had it been the will of an All-wise and
All-merciful Creator that one of these religions should exist and the rest
should die, it would have become a fact long, long ago. If it were a fact
that only one of these religions is true and all the rest are false, by this
time it would have covered the whole ground. But this is not so; not one has
gained all the ground. All religions sometimes advance — sometimes decline.
Now, just think of this: in your own country there are more than sixty
millions of people, and only twenty-one millions professing religions of all
sorts. So it is not always progress. In every country, probably, if the
statistics are taken, you would find that religions are sometimes
progressing and sometimes going back. Sects are multiplying all the time. If
the claims of a religion that it has all the truth and God has given it all
this truth in a certain book were true, why are there so many sects? Fifty
years do not pass before there are twenty sects founded upon the same book.
If God has put all the truth in certain books, He does not give us those
books in order that we may quarrel over texts. That seems to be the fact.
Why is it? Even if a book were given by God which contained all the truth
about religion, it would not serve the purpose because nobody could
understand the book. Take the Bible, for instance, and all the sects that
exist amongst Christians; each one puts its own interpretation upon the same
text, and each says that it alone understands that text and all the rest are
wrong. So with every religion. There are many sects among the Mohammedans
and among the Buddhists, and hundreds among the Hindus. Now, I bring these
facts before you in order to show you that any attempt to bring all humanity
to one method of thinking in spiritual things has been a failure and always
will be a failure. Every man that starts a theory, even at the present day,
finds that if he goes twenty miles away from his followers, they will make
twenty sects. You see that happening all the time. You cannot make all
conform to the same ideas: that is a fact, and I thank God that it is so. I
am not against any sect. I am glad that sects exist, and I only wish they
may go on multiplying more and more. Why? Simply because of this: If you and
I and all who are present here were to think exactly the same thoughts,
there would be no thoughts for us to think. We know that two or more forces
must come into collision in order to produce motion. It is the clash of
thought, the differentiation of thought, that awakes thought. Now, if we all
thought alike, we would be like Egyptian mummies in a museum looking
vacantly at one another's faces — no more than that! Whirls and eddies occur
only in a rushing, living stream. There are no whirlpools in stagnant, dead
water. When religions are dead, there will be no more sects; it will be the
perfect peace and harmony of the grave. But so long as mankind thinks, there
will be sects. Variation is the sign of life, and it must be there. I pray
that they may multiply so that at last there will be as many sects as human
beings, and each one will have his own method, his individual method of
thought in religion.
But this thing exists already. Each one of us is thinking in his own way,
but his natural course has been obstructed all the time and is still being
obstructed. If the sword is not used directly, other means will be used.
Just hear what one of the best preachers in New York says: he preaches that
the Filipinos should be conquered because that is the only way to teach
Christianity to them! They are already Catholics; but he wants to make them
Presbyterians, and for this, he is ready to lay all this terrible sin of
bloodshed upon his race. How terrible! And this man is one of the greatest
preachers of this country, one of the best informed men. Think of the state
of the world when a man like that is not ashamed to stand up and utter such
arrant nonsense; and think of the state of the world when an audience cheers
him! Is this civilisation? It is the old blood-thirstiness of the tiger, the
cannibal, the savage, coming out once more under new names, new
circumstances. What else can it be? If the state of things is such now,
think of the horrors through which the world passed in olden times, when
every sect was trying by every means in its power to tear to pieces the
other sects. History shows that. The tiger in us is only asleep; it is not
dead. When opportunities come, it jumps up and, as of old, uses its claws
and fangs. Apart from the sword, apart from material weapons, there are
weapons still more terrible — contempt, social hatred, and social ostracism.
Now, these are the most terrible of all inflictions that are hurled against
persons who do not think exactly in the same way as we do. And why should
everybody think just as we do? I do not see any reason. If I am a rational
man, I should be glad they do not think just as I do. I do not want to live
in a grave-like land; I want to be a man in a world of men. Thinking beings
must differ; difference is the first sign of thought. If I am a thoughtful
man, certainly I ought to like to live amongst thoughtful persons where
there are differences of opinion.
Then arises the question: How can all these varieties be true? If one thing
is true, its negation is false. How can contradictory opinions be true at
the same time? This is the question which I intend to answer. But I will
first ask you: Are all the religions of the world really contradictory? I do
not mean the external forms in which great thoughts are clad. I do not mean
the different buildings, languages, rituals, books, etc. employed in various
religions, but I mean the internal soul of every religion. Every religion
has a soul behind it, and that soul may differ from the soul of another
religion; but are they contradictory? Do they contradict or supplement each
other? — that is the question. I took up the question when I was quite a
boy, and have been studying it all my life. Thinking that my conclusion may
be of some help to you, I place it before you. I believe that they are not
contradictory; they are supplementary. Each religion, as it were, takes up
one part of the great universal truth, and spends its whole force in
embodying and typifying that part of the great truth. It is, therefore,
addition; not exclusion. That is the idea. System after system arises, each
one embodying a great idea, and ideals must be added to ideals. And this is
the march of humanity. Man never progresses from error to truth, but from
truth to truth, from lesser truth to higher truth — but it is never from
error to truth. The child may develop more than the father, but was the
father inane? The child is the father plus something else. If your present
state of knowledge is much greater than it was when you were a child, would
you look down upon that stage now? Will you look back and call it inanity?
Why, your present stage is the knowledge of the child plus something more.
Then, again, we also know that there may be almost contradictory points of
view of the same thing, but they will all indicate the same thing. Suppose a
man is journeying towards the sun, and as he advances he takes a photograph
of the sun at every stage. When he comes back, he has many photographs of
the sun, which he places before us. We see that not two are alike, and yet,
who will deny that all these are photographs of the same sun, from different
standpoints? Take four photographs of this church from different corners:
how different they would look, and yet they would all represent this church.
In the same way, we are all looking at truth from different standpoints,
which vary according to our birth, education, surroundings, and so on. We
are viewing truth, getting as much of it as these circumstances will permit,
colouring the truth with our own heart, understanding it with our own
intellect, and grasping it with our own mind. We can only know as much of
truth as is related to us, as much of it as we are able to receive. This
makes the difference between man and man, and occasions sometimes even
contradictory ideas; yet we all belong to the same great universal truth.
My idea, therefore, is that all these religions are different forces in the
economy of God, working for the good of mankind; and that not one can become
dead, not one can be killed. Just as you cannot kill any force in nature, so
you cannot kill any one of these spiritual forces. You have seen that each
religion is living. From time to time it may retrograde or go forward. At
one time, it may be shorn of a good many of its trappings; at another time
it may be covered with all sorts of trappings; but all the same, the soul is
ever there, it can never be lost. The ideal which every religion represents
is never lost, and so every religion is intelligently on the march.
And that universal religion about which philosophers and others have dreamed
in every country already exists. It is here. As the universal brotherhood of
man is already existing, so also is universal religion. Which of you, that
have travelled far and wide, have not found brothers and sisters in every
nation? I have found them all over the world. Brotherhood already exists;
only there are numbers of persons who fail to see this and only upset it by
crying for new brotherhoods. Universal religion, too, is already existing.
If the priests and other people that have taken upon themselves the task of
preaching different religions simply cease preaching for a few moments, we
shall see it is there. They are disturbing it all the time, because it is to
their interest. You see that priests in every country are very conservative.
Why is it so? There are very few priests who lead the people; most of them
are led by the people and are their slaves and servants. If you say it is
dry, they say it is so; if you say it is black, they say it is black. If the
people advance, the priests must advance. They cannot lag behind. So, before
blaming the priests — it is the fashion to blame the priest — you ought to
blame yourselves. You only get what you deserve. What would be the fate of a
priest who wants to give you new and advanced ideas and lead you forward?
His children would probably starve, and he would be clad in rags. He is
governed by the same worldly laws as you are. "If you go on," he says, "let
us march." Of course, there are exceptional souls, not cowed down by public
opinion. They see the truth and truth alone they value. Truth has got hold
of them, has got possession of them, as it were, and they cannot but march
ahead. They never look backward, and for them there are no people. God alone
exists for them, He is the Light before them, and they are following that
Light.
I met a Mormon gentleman in this country, who tried to persuade me to his
faith. I said, "I have great respect for your opinions, but in certain
points we do not agree — I belong to a monastic order, and you believe in
marrying many wives. But why don't you go to India to preach?" Then he was
astonished. He said, "Why, you don't believe in any marriage at all, and we
believe in polygamy, and yet you ask me to go to your country!" I said,
"Yes; my countrymen will hear every religious thought wherever it may come
from. I wish you would go to India, first, because I am a great believer in
sects. Secondly, there are many men in India who are not at all satisfied
with any of the existing sects, and on account of this dissatisfaction, they
will not have anything to do with religion, and, possibly, you might get
some of them." The greater the number of sects, the more chance of people
getting religion. In the hotel, where there are all sorts of food, everyone
has a chance to get his appetite satisfied. So I want sects to multiply in
every country, that more people may have a chance to be spiritual. Do not
think that people do not like religion. I do not believe that. The preachers
cannot give them what they need. The same man that may have been branded as
an atheist, as a materialist, or what not, may meet a man who gives him the
truth needed by him, and he may turn out the most spiritual man in the
community. We can eat only in our own way. For instance, we Hindus eat with
our fingers. Our fingers are suppler than yours, you cannot use your fingers
the same way. Not only the food should be supplied, but it should be taken
in your own particular way. Not only must you have the spiritual ideas, but
they must come to you according to your own method. They must speak your own
language, the language of your soul, and then alone they will satisfy you.
When the man comes who speaks my language and gives truth in my language, I
at once understand it and receive it for ever. This is a great fact.
Now from this we see that there are various grades and types of human minds
and what a task religions take upon them! A man brings forth two or three
doctrines and claims that his religion ought to satisfy all humanity. He
goes out into the world, God's menagerie, with a little cage in hand, and
says, "God and the elephant and everybody has to go into this. Even if we
have to cut the elephant into pieces, he must go in." Again, there may be a
sect with a few good ideas. Its followers say, "All men must come in! " "But
there is no room for them." "Never mind! Cut them to pieces; get them in
anyhow; if they don't get in, why, they will be damned." No preacher, no
sect, have I ever met that pauses and asks, "Why is it that people do not
listen to us?" Instead, they curse the people and say, "The people are
wicked." They never ask, "How is it that people do not listen to my words?
Why cannot I make them see the truth? Why cannot I speak in their language?
Why cannot I open their eyes?" Surely, they ought to know better, and when
they find people do not listen to them, if they curse anybody, it should be
themselves. But it is always the people's fault! They never try to make
their sect large enough to embrace every one.
Therefore we at once see why there has been so much narrow-mindedness, the
part always claiming to be the whole; the little, finite unit always laying
claim to the infinite. Think of little sects, born within a few hundred
years out of fallible human brains, making this arrogant claim of knowledge
of the whole of God's infinite truth! Think of the arrogance of it! If it
shows anything, it is this, how vain human beings are. And it is no wonder
that such claims have always failed, and, by the mercy of the Lord, are
always destined to fail. In this line the Mohammedans were the best off;
every step forward was made with the sword — the Koran in the one hand and
the sword in the other: "Take the Koran, or you must die; there is no
alternative! " You know from history how phenomenal was their success; for
six hundred years nothing could resist them, and then there came a time when
they had to cry halt. So will it be with other religions if they follow the
same methods. We are such babes! We always forget human nature. When we
begin life, we think that our fate will be something extraordinary, and
nothing can make us disbelieve that. But when we grow old, we think
differently. So with religions. In their early stages, when they spread a.
little, they get the idea that they can change the minds of the whole human
race in a few years, and go on killing and massacring to make converts by
force; then they fail, and begin to understand better. We see that these
sects did not succeed in what they started out to do, which was a great
blessing. Just think if one of those fanatical sects had succeeded all over
the world, where would man be today? Now, the Lord be blessed that they did
not succeed! Yet, each one represents a great truth; each religion
represents a particular excellence — something which is its soul. There is
an old story which comes to my mind: There were some ogresses who used to
kill people and do all sorts of mischief; but they themselves could not be
killed, until someone found out that their souls were in certain birds, and
so long as the birds were safe nothing could destroy the ogresses. So, each
one of us has, as it were, such a bird, where our soul is; has an ideal, a
mission to perform in life. Every human being is an embodiment of such an
ideal, such a mission. Whatever else you may lose, so long as that ideal is
not lost, and that mission is not hurt, nothing can kill you. Wealth may
come and go, misfortunes may pile mountains high, but if you have kept the
ideal entire, nothing can kill you. You may have grown old, even a hundred
years old, but if that mission is fresh and young in your heart, what can
kill you? But when that ideal is lost and that mission is hurt, nothing can
save you. All the wealth, all the power of the world will not save you. And
what are nations but multiplied individuals? So, each nation has a mission
of its own to perform in this harmony of races; and so long as that nation
keeps to that ideal, that nation nothing can kill; but if that nation gives
up its mission in life and goes after something else, its life becomes
short, and it vanishes.
And so with religions. The fact that all these old religions are living
today proves that they must have kept that mission intact; in spite of all
their mistakes, in spite of all difficulties, in spite of all quarrels, in
spite of all the incrustation of forms and figures, the heart of every one
of them is sound — it is a throbbing, beating, living heart. They have not
lost, any one of them, the great mission they came for. And it is splendid
to study that mission. Take Mohammedanism, for instance. Christian people
hate no religion in the world so much as Mohammedanism. They think it is the
very worst form of religion that ever existed. As soon as a man becomes a
Mohammedan, the whole of Islam receives him as a brother with open arms,
without making any distinction, which no other religion does. If one of your
American Indians becomes a Mohammedan, the Sultan of Turkey would have no
objection to dine with him. If he has brains, no position is barred to him.
In this country, I have never yet seen a church where the white man and the
negro can kneel side by side to pray. Just think of that: Islam makes its
followers all equal — so, that, you see, is the peculiar excellence of
Mohammedanism. In many places in the Koran you find very sensual ideas of
life. Never mind. What Mohammedanism comes to preach to the world is this
practical brotherhood of all belonging to their faith. That is the essential
part of the Mohammedan religion; and all the other ideas about heaven and of
life etc.. are not Mohammedanism. They are accretions.
With the Hindus you will find one national idea — spirituality. In no other
religion, in no other sacred books of the world, will you find so much
energy spent in defining the idea of God. They tried to define the ideal of
soul so that no earthly touch might mar it. The spirit must be divine; and
spirit understood as spirit must not be made into a man. The same idea of
unity, of the realisation of God, the omnipresent, is preached throughout.
They think it is all nonsense to say that He lives in heaven, and all that.
It is a mere human, anthropomorphic idea. All the heaven that ever existed
is now and here. One moment in infinite time is quite as good as any other
moment. If you believe in a God, you can see Him even now. We think religion
begins when you have realised something. It is not believing in doctrines,
nor giving intellectual assent, nor making declarations. If there is a God,
have you seen Him? If you say "no", then what right have you to believe in
Him? If you are in doubt whether there is a God, why do you not struggle to
see Him? Why do you not renounce the world and spend the whole of your life
for this one object? Renunciation and spirituality are the two great ideas
of India, and it is because India clings to these ideas that all her
mistakes count for so little.
With the Christians, the central idea that has been preached by them is the
same: "Watch and pray, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand" — which means,
purify your minds and be ready! And that spirit never dies. You recollect
that the Christians are, even in the darkest days, even in the most
superstitious Christian countries, always trying to prepare themselves for
the coming of the Lord, by trying to help others, building hospitals, and so
on. So long as the Christians keep to that ideal, their religion lives.
Now an ideal presents itself to my mind. It may be only a dream. I do not
know whether it will ever be realised in this world, but sometimes it is
better to dream a dream, than die on hard facts. Great truths, even in a
dream are good, better than bad facts. So, let us dream a dream.
You know that there are various grades of mind. You may be a matter-of-fact,
common-sense rationalist: you do not care for forms and ceremonies; you want
intellectual, hard, ringing facts, and they alone will satisfy you. Then
there are the Puritans, the Mohammedans, who will not allow a picture or a
statue in their place of worship. Very well! But there is another man who is
more artistic. He wants a great deal of art — beauty of lines and curves,
the colours, flowers, forms; he wants candles, lights, and all the insignia
and paraphernalia of ritual, that he may see God. His mind takes God in
those forms, as yours takes Him through the intellect. Then, there is the
devotional man, whose soul is crying for God: he has no other idea but to
worship God, and to praise Him. Then again, there is the philosopher,
standing outside all these, mocking at them. He thinks, "What nonsense they
are! What ideas about God!"
They may laugh at one another, but each one has a place in this world. All
these various minds, all these various types are necessary. If there ever is
going to be an ideal religion, it must be broad and large enough to supply
food for all these minds. It must supply the strength of philosophy to the
philosopher, the devotee's heart to the worshipper; to the ritualist, it
will give all that the most marvellous symbolism can convey; to the poet, it
will give as much of heart as he can take in, and other things besides. To
make such a broad religion, we shall have to go back to the time when
religions began and take them all in.
Our watchword, then, will be acceptance, and not exclusion. Not only
toleration, for so-called toleration is often blasphemy, and I do not
believe in it. I believe in acceptance. Why should I tolerate? Toleration
means that I think that you are wrong and I am just allowing you to live. Is
it not a blasphemy to think that you and I are allowing others to live? I
accept all religions that were in the past, and worship with them all; I
worship God with every one of them, in whatever form they worship Him. I
shall go to the mosque of the Mohammedan; I shall enter the Christian's
church and kneel before the crucifix; I shall enter the Buddhistic temple,
where I shall take refuge in Buddha and in his Law. I shall go into the
forest and sit down in meditation with the Hindu, who is trying to see the
Light which enlightens the heart of every one.
Not only shall I do all these, but I shall keep my heart open for all that
may come in the future. Is God's book finished? Or is it still a continuous
revelation going on? It is a marvellous book — these spiritual revelations
of the world. The Bible, the Vedas, the Koran, and all other sacred books
are but so many pages, and an infinite number of pages remain yet to be
unfolded. I would leave it open for all of them. We stand in the present,
but open ourselves to the infinite future. We take in all that has been in
the past, enjoy the light of the present, and open every window of the heart
for all that will come in the future. Salutation to all the prophets of the
past, to all the great ones of the present, and to all that are to come in
the future!