Fresh milk takes time to sour.
So a fool's mischief
Takes time to catch up with him.
Like the embers of a fire
It smoulders within him.
- Verse 71, Dhammapada
When His Holiness the Jagadguru was camping in a quiet village during the course of his tours, a European gentleman came to see him. He seemed to have studied some popular books on Vedanta philosophy and felt attracted by its teachings.
Swamiji, may I know if you are prepared to take converts to your religion? Personally I find much worth in it and I have known very many friends who so love your philosophy and religion that they would like to call themselves Hindus, if that were possible.
The Hindu system of philosophy and religion is bound to attract all thinking minds, but we do not take in converts.
If you think that your system is an invaluable one and is bound to be useful to all mankind, does it not follow that you must be prepared to take in converts?
Not necessarily. Conversion is possible or necessary only when the person who desires to be a convert does not already belong to the religion to which he desires to be converted.
How is that? Do you mean to say that no formal conversion is necessary as those who desire to be Hindus are already Hindus by virtue of that desire itself?
No. I mean that all are Hindus, irrespective of their desire to be called Hindus.
How can that be?
Hinduism is the name which has now been given to our system, but its real name has always been Sanatana Dharma or the Eternal Law,. It does not date from a particular point of time or begin from a particular founder. Being eternal, it is also universal. It knows no territorial jurisdiction. All beings born and to be born belong to it.
They cannot escape this law, whether they concede its binding force or not. The eternal truth that fire burns does not depend for its validity upon our allegiance to it. If we accept that truth, so much the better for us. If we do not, so much the worse for us. In either case, the law is there, immutable, universal and eternal. Such is our Sanatana Dharma.
If then the entire world is Hindu according to you, how do you justify the restrictive caste system?
I only told you that all were Hindus and therefore entitled to seek guidance in the tenets of our religion. I did not say that the guidance will be the same for all. Countless are the varieties of temperament, training, environments, hereditary leanings, pre-natal tendencies and so on, so that it will be impossible to expect any single stereotyped system of conduct for all. Our Dharma taking due notice of this undeniable fact, resolves itself into two parts: 1. Samanya Dharma or Ordinary Law and 2. Visesha Dharma or Special Law. The former guides all mankind; the former and the latter both together guide those who come under the caste system.
If the rules of caste have any spiritual value, why not give the benefit of them to those also who are outside it?
If water is beneficial to a thirsty man, does it follow that it will be beneficial to a man who has fever and therefore feels thirsty?
Your illustration is not fair. There is nothing to show that a special rule of conduct prescribed for a particular caste will be injurious to others, who do not belong to that caste or to any caste at all.
On the other hand, you must realise that there is nothing to show that a special rule of conduct prescribed for a particular caste will be beneficial to others. For, the mere fact that it is prescribed for that caste makes it a special law and, therefore, not applicable to the generality of mankind. If the Sastras are our only guide for telling us that a particular line of conduct is beneficial, we cannot throw them over board when they tell us in the same breath for whom it is beneficial. Our system and, in fact, any system which aims at the regulation of conduct must be based on the principle of adhikara or competency. Those who belong to the castes are competent to pursue the Visesha Dharma; the others are competent to pursue only Samanya Dharma. Further, the nature of the competency required can be learnt only from the Sastras which prescribe the Dharma.
If then the Hindu Sastras are to be taken as the guide for all humanity and if all persons born are, in your view, born in your religion, how do you account for the prevalence of other faiths?
It is their fault that they do not recognise that they are but aspects of Sanatana Dharma. The highest teachings of any other religion do find a place in our religion and are but a phase of the ordinary law laid down there.
Don't you think, Swamiji, that your claim will sound somewhat over-high and that the others may not be disposed to concede it?
The disposition of others to concede the claim of Hinduism is quite beside the point, for the intrinsic worth of anything is always there whether one recognises it or not. As for the claim being high, I desire to point out to you that I cannot possibly put it lower.
How is that?
Please bear with me if I take Christianity as an example to illustrate my point. If belief in the personality of Christ is a necessary condition of salvation, we must be prepared to say that all those persons who have lived before the time of Jesus have been denied the benefit of salvation for no fault of theirs and simply because they happened to be born when Jesus was yet unborn. The same reasoning would deny salvation to those who have lived even at the same time as Jesus or since that time, but may not have even heard of him. Further, don't you think it very unfair on the part of God that He should suddenly wake up on a particular day and prescribe for all mankind a necessary condition for salvation? Did he forget that the people who had the misfortune to be born before Jesus, had souls to save? If He did not forget, did He take care to prescribe for them the means necessary to enable them to attain salvation? If He did so prescribe, His prescription could not possibly have included a belief in the Jesus to be born. Therefore, the only, logical hypothesis, which a reasonable man can accept is that God, even when He created the first man (if there was such a time), Himself simultaneously promulgated also the means for his salvation, for even the first man was certainly in need of salvation. We accordingly say of our Vedas that they were co-eval with the first man (not in the sense that they were created together, for we believe that there was no first creation and that everything is beginningless, but in the sense that they were coexisting) and that they are the revelations of God Himself. Any religion which traces its origin from a later time, any time after creation, and from any teacher other than God, is bound to be imperfect and short-lived.
I understand your point, but Swamiji you have made the assumption that man is not capable of finding out the means of salvation himself and that he requires somebody, be it God, to point them out to him.
Before he can possibly find out the means, man must first know that there is something to be striven for. That there is such a something can be known by us only if somebody who partakes of that something, or has realised it in actual experience, informs us about its existence. This information coming from beyond the range of our experience is itself in the nature of a revelation. Further, how can one possibly know for certain that a particular course of conduct does lead to salvation, unless this is taught to us by somebody who has pursued that particular course and has attained salvation or by somebody who by his omniscience is able to visualise at the same time the pathway as well as the goal or by somebody who is the goal itself? In the first alternative, the question will arise: how did that somebody know before he entered on the course of conduct which he so successfully followed; in the second alternative also, the question how did he attain such an omniscience will require an answer. Therefore, the third alternative, which traces all revelation to God Himself is the only logical hypothesis.
Certainly we need no revelation to teach us that God exists. The means of knowing Him may be difficult to understand and some guidance may be necessary from those who have known Him. But the fact of God's existence does not require any revelation, we can ourselves infer it by the aid of our reasoning faculty.
If the existence of God is so patent a fact and so easily inferable, how do you account for atheists and agnostics in the world? Do you mean to say that their powers of intellect and capacity for reasoning are in any way inferior to yours? On the other hand, you will find that the thinkers who have taken the trouble to think out the existence of God and failed are men of extraordinary intellect. Their failure to prove God is not due to any fault in their intellectual equipment, but to the fact that God is essentially uninferable. Further, assuming that by the aid of reasoning you can infer the existence of God, who told you that there is a God to be inferred? Certainly you depend upon some previous information for that knowledge. If somebody tells you that there is a God, you may try your reasoning powers at proving Him. If you have never heard of God at all, there is nothing to incite or awaken your powers of reasoning.
It is not necessary that I should have heard of God before I exercise my reasoning faculty. The word God may not be before my mind: but a conception of something changeless and eternal, underlying this ever-changing, evanescent world naturally suggests itself to me as a matter of inference.
How?
It cannot be denied that the world is made up of opposites - light and darkness, activity and inertness, pain and pleasure, life and death, and so on. I infer from this that, inasmuch as there is change in the world, there must also be its opposite, a non-changing factor. Inasmuch as everything is dying every moment, I infer that there is a non-dying factor also. And so on. Thus, by mere inference I am able to postulate the existence of a single, homogeneous, eternal unchanging Being as opposed to the many, heterogeneous, evanescent, changing beings.
May I know what is the opposite of a horse? A horse is a positive object of perception. From its existence, you must be able to infer its opposite. What is that opposite? My question may seem somewhat crude, but nevertheless requires an answer.
Well then, Swamiji, I shall say that the opposite of a horse is a 'non-horse'.
Quite right. Is it a positive thing or is it a mere negation?
Inasmuch as I have called it the opposite of a horse, I must say that it is a positive thing.
Is it an animal or do you include in this conception everything else in the universe?
Strictly speaking, I must include therein everything else in the universe for even a stone is a 'non-horse'. But ordinarily as the negation goes with 'horse', it is sufficient to negate the horseness alone: and so, by a 'non-horse' is ordinarily meant an animal which is not a horse.
That is, the conception of the opposite of a particular thing can only be of a thing akin to that thing, but different from it in that particularity. In other words, there is no absolute opposite for anything in the world; the want of a particular characteristic in one thing which we find in another makes us think that they are the opposites of each other. A particular intensity of illumination is capable of being viewed as a particular degree of darkness. Light and darkness are not therefore absolute opposites of each other but only relative aspects of light or of darkness as we may choose to view them. Your theory of absolute opposites therefore has no basis in fact.
Further, you seem to have also misunderstood the scope of inference. As I have mentioned before, unless you have a prior knowledge of the fact that there is something to be inferred, no process of inference can possibly be started in your mind. Suppose a person who has never seen or heard of fire sees smoke. He cannot possibly infer the existence of fire, for to him the smoke that he actually sees is the ultimate fact. A thing which "is" explains itself and does not generate in your minds any desire to know what may be behind it, unless we have already reason to think that the thing which "is" is really not the thing in itself but depends for its existence upon something else. Similarly, if the world is ever changing and if we have never heard of a changeless being, we will accept the fact of the changing world as it is. The changing world will remain the ultimate fact for us. It requires no explanation, for it is there. If it is changing, what else is there to explain? It is its nature to change. If it ceases to change, it will cease to be the world. If however, we have heard of a changeless being, explanations are necessary to justify the changing character of the world, to point out the relationship between that being and the world and to prove that relationship. Revelation is thus necessary even to put us on the track of enquiry by positing the existence of that changeless being. Reason will be of great help to us in that enquiry. In the absence of the sure guide of revelation, reasoning is mere groping in the dark.
Again, if you think that everything in the world is changing and if you want to infer something from this perceived fact, your inference can only be in this way. Everything is changing. If there is another thing, that also must be changing. That is, in the region of inference you cannot get away from the perceived relationship between a cause and a phenomenon. In fact, inference is based only on the invariability of that perceived relationship. If your experience tells you that whatever "is" changes, your inference cannot possibly tell you that there is something which is, but does not change. On the other hand, it will tell you that, inasmuch as that something is, it also must change.
Finally, the utmost that reason may take you to is that something changeless may exist; it cannot tell you as a positive fact that it does exist nor can it tell you what it is.
I am greatly obliged to you, Swamiji for presenting before me the value of revelation in this light: I have never heard it so expounded till now.
But again my initial difficulty in understanding the need for, rather the fact of, several conflicting religions, all purporting to point out the path to the light, remains unsolved.
I told you that the principle of adhikara or competency rules the world. As there are various gradations in competency, there are various faiths suited to those particular gradations.
I can quite understand this. But no religion is prepared to admit that it is intended for people of a particular grade alone. In fact every religion claims to be the highest and the only true one.
Suppose a young boy is simultaneously asked by four persons issuing independent commands to light a lamp, to trim the wick, to fill the oil can and to put out the light. He will be in a hopeless mess and will not at all know what to do. All these things cannot be done simultaneously, but each of those four persons insists upon his command being obeyed. What is the poor boy to do? If a fifth gentleman turns up and says, "Bring me a pair of scissors", he is adding one more command to the four already existing. The boy is already perplexed by the four contradictory commands. Now he has to choose from among five. That is, his difficulty is increased by the advent of the fifth gentleman and not at all lessened. If, however, this gentleman is kindly disposed towards the boy and wants to help him out of his difficulty and if the boy with true faith turns to him for help, the has to tell him emphatically "Bring me the pair of scissors. You need not obey the other commands". That is, to serve as a practical guide to the perplexed boy, he has to say that his command alone is the one to be obeyed and not the others. Similarly, any religious teacher claiming to give practical guidance to those who have faith in him has necessarily to say ‘Do as I ask you to do. Ignore the commands of others’.
That means the religious teachers adopted their teachings to the calibre and competency of the people who came to them for guidance and to the circumstances of the times when they lived. In other words, their teachings were only relatively true, though perhaps the teachers were themselves aware of the absolute truth. In determining what to teach and what not, they were guided more by diplomatic expediency than by unswerving regard for truth.
Rather, they were guided by the needs and the competency of the people. As l mentioned before, a glass of cold water gives comfort to a healthy man when he is thirsty, but is positively harmful to the man laid up with fever. If a physician allows one man to take cold water and prohibits another from taking it, no partiality can be attributed to him. Nor can the cold water be blamed for relieving the one and harming the other.
How then one is to know whether a particular truth enunciated by a teacher is the absolute-truth or only a relative truth?
Why do you want to know it? Is it to determine the relative superiority or inferiority of the several teachers or is it to obtain for yourself a practical guide for regulating your life?
It is really both I want to know which religious teacher has approximated most to truth and then shape my life according to his teachings.
It is an elementary principle that a person who presumes to decide between the relative capacities of two persons must himself possess a capacity higher than both of them, for otherwise he will miss their weak points. Do you think that God has favoured you with such a high power of intellect that you can claim to sit in judgement over the intellects of Christ, Mohammed and other religious teachers? Further, to decide between two conflicting religions, you must know each one of them thoroughly. Can you profess in the least to have made such a thorough study of any one religion, leave alone the others? Again, is our life long enough to permit a thorough study of even a single aspect of a religion? Where is then the time to reduce the result of all that study into practice?
What then, Swamiji, is your practical advice to me?
You believe in God?
I do.
You believe in the wisdom of God?
Certainly.
You believe that that wisdom will be impressed in every act of God?
Of course.
You grant that that wisdom must be apparent even in giving you birth?
It must be.
God then had a purpose, a wise purpose, in giving you birth?
I should think so. Even my birth, insignificant though it may be when compared with the vast interest of the world, cannot be purposeless.
God had a purpose, a wise purpose in giving you birth as the child of a particular set of parents?
That must be. I do not believe in chance.
What more patent purpose need be sought after to explain your being born of Christian parents than that in God's view Christianity was the best suited to one of your competency? The Lord in His supreme wisdom can well be relied upon to judge what is the religion best suited for us. He knows that our poor intellect will be helpless in deciding for us the path which we should tread. He takes upon Himself the responsibility of deciding that path and gives us birth in a country, clime, time and faith best suited for us. Why should we ignore this gracious mercy of the Lord and try to do the impossible by comparing the relative values of the several religions?
I have tried to understand Christianity and follow it to the best of my lights, but very many doubts are cropping up now and then and I have not been able to meet anybody who can solve them. That is why I wanted to study other religions.
Doubts can never be solved unless you approach the persons who have not merely studied their religion but are daily living it. For the purpose of trade, you are prepared to cross the seas and explore the air, but for the purpose of Truth, you want the teachers to come to your door and solve your doubts for you. The attitude that religion is an interesting side aspect of life must go. If once you realise that religion is life itself and not an aspect of it, you will begin to explore the entire world earnestly for a proper teacher. He is ever available and is only waiting for a symptom of real earnestness in you. I am not prepared to believe that there are no such teachers in Christianity. They may not be in the ordinary world of strife, for such a world does not want them nor have they any use for such a world. They may sometimes be found even in the midst of strife, as strife cannot injure them. Go, therefore, in search of such true Christians and ask them in true humbleness of heart to solve your doubts. They will do so in no time and you will find that God, in spite of your doubts, was after all justified in making you the child of Christian parents.
I cannot sufficiently thank you, Swamiji, for your kind words of advice. Please allow me to confess that when I came here I had no idea that I would be going away from you with a sincere desire to be a better Christian. But that is the desire which you have inculcated in me. If your aim is to make a Christian a better Christian, a Hindu a better Hindu, and so on, your religion is certainly more catholic than I thought it was. In parting, may I have your gracious blessings?
Blessings are the monopoly of God and we must all pray for His gracious blessings. Please let me once more point out to you that God has already blessed you with a good physique, a virile mind and a keen intellect. An artist, howsoever capable, provided though he may be with the finest of colours and the finest of brushes and even though he may have thought out the finest of subjects, cannot paint a picture on vacant air. He does require a stable background, be it a canvas or a wall, however crude and worthless. Don't waste therefore your gifts on airy speculations as to the relative value of the various religions. Apply your God-given gifts on the stable background of your God-chosen faith, Christianity. When the painting is completed and you contemplate its beauty, the background will fade away from your view of its own accord. But not till then. Remember that.
- Sri Chandrasekhara Bharati III, Hinduism
