A comprehensive analysis of all the religions to show their

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
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A comprehensive analysis of all the religions to show their unity
The spiritual knowledge should come directly from the Lord. If He sends His messenger, the messenger is not capable of delivering all the points as told by the Lord and is also incapable of explaining in excellent manner as explained by the Lord. Therefore, the knowledge delivered by the messenger is not as excellent as delivered by the Lord directly. This is the main reason for the Lord to enter the human body to preach the divine knowledge. But if the Lord in human body declares that He is the Lord directly speaking, people become jealous because they think the human incarnation as human being only, since they always see the external body only. They misunderstand that the human being is claiming himself as God.

They cannot tolerate this due to their inherent jealousy and egoism towards the co-human beings. To solve this problem of majority of the people, the human incarnation has to say that He is only the messenger of God. Prophet Mohammad was really the human incarnation. But he never claimed himself as God due to this problem of majority. He said that He was only the messenger of God and that Q’ran was massage of God. Therefore, this Holy Scripture belongs to the angle of majority. The devotees who can realise the human incarnation are always very few only. To this minority the prophet can personally say that he is God or at least he is son of God. The message to minority need not be recorded, which can be orally delivered in person. Thus, Q’ran is a scripture for the majority. On the other hand Gita was the scripture of extreme minority, since Gita was told to Arjuna only.

In Gita, Krishna told that He is the Lord. Here you must realize that the Lord is speaking through the human body of Krishna. In between the Q’ran and Gita lies Bible. Jesus told that He is the messenger of the God, which is the message for the majority. He also told that He is God, which is the message for extreme minority. In between lies the minority for which He said that He is Son of God. Thus, Bible is the message covering all the three phases of public, which are majority, minority and extreme minority. As we pass from one end to the other end in the above order, the egoism and jealousy reduce from 100 to 50 to 0.

For majority dualism (Dvaita), for minority (Visista Advaita) and for extreme minority monism (Advaita) are preached by the human incarnation. Thus, in Christianity and Hinduism you can find all the three concepts. But in Islam you can find only Dvaita. You should not mistake that Islam is incomplete due to absence of the other two concepts. The merit in Islam is that no human being can claim himself as God and thus there is no danger of false human incarnation. But in Hinduism and Christianity there is always danger of fraud human incarnations. Again you should not criticize Hinduism and Christianity due to this danger. Assuming the possibility of danger of accident, will you avoid journey by bus or train or aeroplane? Thus, the positive and negative angles must be understood according to the context. However, in Christianity also, the danger is avoided because the Christians do not accept any other human incarnation as God except Jesus. Hinduism accepts every human incarnation as God. Thus, you can pass from Islam to Christianity to Hinduism.

There is no danger in Islam and Christianity. In Islam no human incarnation is accepted. This is extremity to avoid the danger. In Christianity Jesus was accepted as human incarnation but no other human incarnation was accepted to avoid the danger of exploitation of fraud human incarnations. Thus, in Islam the concept was not admitted. In Christianity the concept was admitted but was limited to Jesus only to avoid the danger. In Christianity the statement ?Jesus will come again? completes the concept because it indicates that the human incarnation is again possible. Thus, the concept is completed in Bible. But by believing that Jesus comes only at the end of this creation, all the other human incarnations till the end are rejected.

Thus, the concept is completed in theory but not completed in practical. In Hinduism the concept is completed in theory as well as in practical. Gita says that Krishna will come again and again whenever it is necessary (Yadayadahi…). This means that the human incarnation will come again and again in several places and in several religions in even one human generation, because there is necessity for such facility. Thus, in Hinduism the concept is completed in theory and practical, but the danger is always full.

Thus, Hinduism recognises several human incarnations of Lord Datta (Krishna) as in the case of Sri Pada Vallabha, Sri Narasimha Saraswati, Sri Akkalkota Maharaj, Sri Sai Baba, etc. Hinduism recognises Buddha also as the human incarnation. Broad minded Hinduism recognises even Jesus, Mohammad, Mahaveer etc., also as human incarnations born in different religions. The universal spirituality is such broad minded Hinduism which is the broad minded Christianity, the broad minded Islam, the broad minded Buddhism and broad minded science. The Universal Spirituality contradicts and is prepared to argue with all religions limited with conservatism, provided these religions are prepared to accept the truth with open mind. The science with conservatism is atheism. When you realize all the three religions, namely Hinduism, Christianity and Islam, you will achieve the total concept, which is the universal spirituality. All the religions are different angles of the same central concept. You must observe the centre through all the angles from all the sides. Then only you can realise the total comprehensive central concept. Now you must see through the angles of Buddhism and science also.

Buddhism speaks about the God present in the human incarnation by keeping silent about God. Silence means that God is beyond words and imagination. It does not indicate the absence of God. Buddhism is misunderstood as atheism. The time wheel (Kala Chakra) and the revolving bright wheel (Sudarsana Chakra) indicate that the time is constantly moving and that you will meet the death certainly one day or other. It indicates that you should hurry in detaching yourself from the world and that you should attach to the Lord as early possible.

At Thy Lotus Feet His Holiness Sri Dattaswami

Anil Antony

universal-spirituality.org
Universal Spirituality for World Peace
antonyanil@universal-spirituality.org

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The only thing all the world’s religions have in common is both a tenet of “souls” and a tenet of before/after life.

All unity of religion stems from that foundation.

But the moment the first additional tenet board is laid upon that foundation, each religion begins to set idiosyncratic specifics in their house-building that takes the focus away from that unity.

The finished house of each religion is thereby different.

Some have a room for violence.

Some have a room for hating every other religion.

Some have a room for a mentalized construct of God.

Some have a room for world domination.

Some have a room for peace.

Some have a room for peace on one side of the house and a room for violence on the other.

Some have a room for a mentalized construct of the fantasy character known as Satan.

Some have a room for reincarnation.

Some have a room for eternal damnation.

Some have a room for conditional entry into Heaven.

Some have a room for their sacred human being fantasized to be “God in the flesh”.

Each house built upon that common to all religions foundation of “souls” and before/after life is different and for understandable reasons.

Though the foundation would imply a base for unity, the remainder of the house of each religion sets the stage for division.

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Sabrina;

All the religions in the world are the feathers of the same bird i.e., God with different colours. There is only one God and there is only one universe. Similarly the man is also only one. Man should aim that one God and he should belong to all the religions in the universe. He should pick up the diamonds from all the religions and use in his spiritual path. One can have love towards the nationality. Every nation has some physical boundaries. The people who are living in that nation have that nationality. Thus there is a meaning in the nationality because it has physical sense. But in the case of religion and spiritualism there is no physical sense.

Every religion belongs to every man. Therefore in religious and spiritual matters all the religions can be used.

The human incarnation in every religion announces that He is the universal preacher. The message of Lord Krishna i.e., Bhagavat Gita is for the entire world. The message of Jesus i.e., Bible is for the entire world. The message of Mohammed is for the entire world. So there is no need of conversion of religions. Just like in science the invention of Einstein is useful for the whole world, every religious preaching is for everybody.

Different scientists belonging to different countries have discovered different scientific inventions. The subject science contains all these inventions. If any invention is removed the science become discontinuous. Similarly the spiritualism consists of the preaching of the preachers belonging to various countries. The spiritualism must be built up by the preaching of Lord Krishna, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Mahavir etc. Spiritualism means truth like science.

Different religions are following their preachers and they have taken the essence of their scriptures into the practice. Such traditional practices are like different experimental parts of Science. The scriptures of different religions are like the different theories in various chapters of science. In science the student does not distinguish the scientist based on his nationality. Similarly in spiritualism one should not have repulsion or attraction to any scripture or tradition in the World.

The spiritualism requires divine virtues, which are emphasized in various religions. The firm faith of Islam, the infinite love of Christianity, the tolerance towards other religions of Hinduism, the social service of Bhuddhism and the non violence of Jainism are important virtues of the spiritualism. These are the practical traditional aspects of various religions, which are more precious than those scriptures. Tradition is the most important essence of the scripture.

One must praise the firm faith of a Muslim on God associated with strict regularity and discipline. People are worshipping God either in the leisure time or on a holiday. But a Muslim worships God on every day whether it is a holiday or not. He worships God regularly at some intervals of time whether it is leisure or working time. The faith on God and the importance to God supercedes everything and every activity. This aspect is a page in the book of spiritualism.

Another page in the book of spiritualism is a tradition of Christianity, which is the infinite love. Bible says “revenge is mine”. The Christians love even their enemies proving that love is infinite. Love is God. God is infinite and so Love is infinite. Such infinite love can only attract the God. The proof of love is sacrifice in service. Christians sacrifice lot of their money for the spiritual works. Their love is so unlimited that they sacrifice money even to the spiritual centers of other religions. Even if some religion is opposing their religion they fund the other religion and this shows their love even to enemies.

Their love in the family bonds is very weak. So the love is stored in their hearts without flowing. This concentrated love in the heart flows entirely towards God and so they sacrifice lot of their earnings for the work of God. They do not store the wealth for their children, and they ask their children to earn and live after certain age.

Hinduism should be another page. The house of every Hindu contains photos of different forms of God. At the same time they find only one God (Para Brahma) in all those forms of God. They treat the different forms of God as the different dresses of the same actor. This indicates that there is only one God for the entire world and Lord Krishna, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, and Mahavir are only the different dresses of the same God. This brings the brotherly hood of all the human beings in the entire world.

Another page must be Buddhism. Buddha kept silent on God because Veda says that God is beyond even imagination. His silence is misunderstood as atheism. He concentrated on the society, which is entire universe. All the human beings in this universe must be uplifted through right knowledge. Buddha means knowledge. Any incarnation of God does the same work.

Jainism is another page. They do not kill any living being. The highest justice (Dharma) is non-violence (Ahimsa). God has given life to any living being. What right you have to kill and eat it? You can kill even a human being if he disturbs the peace and justice of a human society. Lord killed evil people in that way. But to kill a living being which does not harm you in any way is the highest sin. God has given sufficient vegetarian food to all the living beings. Science proves today that non-vegetarian food is not good for health.

Similarly there are precious traditions of other religions which should be copied on different pages of the book of spiritualism. It should be just like a book of science. Spiritualism is the most important practical line to achieve the grace of the God. As the Science is the universal subject, spiritualism must also be the universal subject. The nations may have physical boundaries but the spiritualism is the single ocean in which all the religions mix like rivers.

Every human being in this world must enter this ocean through a river and settle there as a sea fish. The man should not stop the journey while he is in the river. He should follow the journey of the river up to the end where he can find the sea with unlimited boundaries. The man is not moving along with his religion and is becoming stagnant as a river fish only.

At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness Sri Dattaswami

Anil Antony

universal-spirituality.org
Universal Spirituality for World Peace
antonyanil@universal-spirituality.org

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Dattaswami,

Your idyllic wish of how you would like things to be does not reflect the reality of the way they truly are … or were in your family-of-origin :astonished: :astonished: :astonished:.

Though you may think you need that fantasy of yours to cope with difficult personal realities you couldn’t tolerate straight, religious addiction is still an addiction to the drug of religion, and though it may provide you some momentary relief from the pain of division, it is always unhealthy and damaging in the long run compared with recovery and acceptance of reality as it truly is … and moving on with your life.

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The correlation of the scriptures of various religions was done in a detailed way by several prophets who aimed at the world peace. Even I have done this correlation in major topics like human rebirth, concept of human incarnation etc. The effect of such correlation is not much because the devotees of various religions are neither influenced by the unity of the scriptures nor by the unity of human beings having the same bodies of matter and energy externally and the internal souls made of the same pure awareness.

Scriptures are the concepts given by various forms of God. Devotees feel that these forms of God are totally different from each other. Unless you bring the correlation of the various forms of God belonging to different religions, the problem is not solved in the root. You have to come from top to bottom in the solution for difference. The correlation of unity in the scriptures and in the human beings is an attempt of solving the problem from bottom to top. If you can prove the unity of the forms of God and establish the concept of single God in various religions, the scriptures have to be correlated forcibly because one God cannot speak contradicting concepts in various religions.

Like this if you come from the top for the solution, there is always a tremendous binding force acting on the heads of devotees to correlate the scriptures. Even if some little variations exist in the scriptures, they have to be unified by force in the light of unity of God, who is the single speaker of various scriptures.

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One of the three marks of existence in Buddhism, one of the ‘world’s religions’, is anatta, or soulless-ness. It’s expressed in the negative in part because the Buddha’s teachings were a refutation of the Hindu concept of atta or ‘soul,’ and partly because of the dualistic nature of ideas. It’s not exactly the way practiced Buddhists understand it, but it’ll do.

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Ingenium;

Buddha kept silent about God

Buddha kept silent about God. This means that God is beyond words, mind and logic as said in the Veda. Buddha means the Buddhi or Jnana yoga that speaks about the absolute God. Thus He is the greatest incarnation of God. If one thinks Him as atheist, there can be no better fool. Mohammed showed the formless medium in which God exists, which is energy and this is presented by Shankara, because basically energy and awareness are one and the same. The prophet itself means human incarnation. Prophet is carrying on the message of God. The divine knowledge is in Him. Is He not greater than other human beings? Message of divine knowledge is the characteristic of God (Satyam Jnanam ? the Veda) and so we say God is in Him.

Why do you deny it, when God is omnipresent? Then every human being should give the same message of God, since God is omnipresent. But why Mohammed alone gave it? Because the power of God or knowledge of God is in him only. Then the power of God, in the form of knowledge is not omnipresent. In any case, you have to accept that either God or His Power is only in Prophet Mohammed. That is what human incarnation is. You are fighting with us, without analysing the concept of human incarnation. Thus Buddha, Mohammed and Shankara have made the single phase, which was essential to the level of the followers at that time.

The concept of human incarnation was well established by Krishna and Jesus. You can find all three branches of Hinduism (Advaita, Visishta Advaita, Dvaita) in Christianity because Jesus told that He and God are one and the same (Advaita), that He is the son of God (Visishta Advaita) and that He is the messenger of God (Dvaita). The stage of philosophy was expressed according to the required stage of the people of that time.

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My statement was rooted in Buddhist doctrine. You’re referring to what appears to be a amalgamation of devotional Hinduism, Vedanta, Christianity, Islam and I’m not sure what else. But it isn’t Buddhism. The Buddha refuted the God-concept 2500 years ago, likely in response to the rise of belief in a single supreme god, rather than multiple gods, in India. He addresses the subject directly in the Digha Nikáya (Collection of Long Discourses) in the Buddhist Pali Canon.

That “Buddha’s silence about God” teaching is often misunderstood. While it’s true that the Buddha did not respond to Vacchagotta’s question regarding the existence of God, most credible Buddhist scholars interpret his silence to his understanding that Vacchagotta, due to ignorance, was asking the wrong question. The essence of Buddhism is making progress along a path, through deeds. It’s not a set of beliefs based upon the supernatural, including the existence of a supreme eternal being.

Beyond that, elsewhere in the suttas the Buddha was not silent about the God or Creator concept. There is no evidence that he taught such entities as gods exist in other than the deva realm, which is below a Buddha and populated with karmic beings. There are so many sutta teachings – including kamma, dependent origination, causality – that are incompatible and simply cannot be reconciled with the existence of a creator or an original cause. Perhaps the most fundamental of these teachings is that the First Noble Truth, the existence of dukkha (suffering), cannot be reconciled with the existence of a supreme being who is also all-benevolent.

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I agree with Mr. Anthony on this one. I base my opinion on my experience of Christian prayer and and Buddhist meditation. My experience leads me to believe that the essence of all true religions is the same.

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I will agree with Ing. Buddhist believe not that God would be beyond words but rather to dwell upon him would be a waste. The god/s were still privy to the same cycle of samsara as the lowest of beings. So, if they were simply as powerless as mere mortals why worship them? Why not just escape the cycle?

Don’t get me wrong I do enjoy your message about Unification. Do continue the quality posts datta.

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Buddha, kept silent about the unimaginable absolute God and therefore, there is no point of looking Buddha even as the Messenger of God. He was viewed as a learned human being since Buddhists misunderstood Buddha as an atheist. Buddha was concentrating on the removal of desire, which is the life of spiritual effort. This does not mean that He denied God. Suppose, you are going to a foreign country and you require the woolen clothes there.

Suppose a friend concentrates on the point of purchase of the woolen clothes only. Does it mean that he does not believe in the existence of the foreign country? Kauravas looked Krishna in this fourth angle and tried to tie Krishna with a rope. Their mother, Gandhari also viewed Krishna in the same fourth angle and cursed Krishna with cruel death. Accordingly, Krishna was shot dead and died with profuse bleeding from the foot. There is no difference between Jesus and Krishna even in this cruel death.

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Lol. As though he needs the encouragement…

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Well I have been away a bit and I see your point Leda. lol :wink:

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While it is possible – even convincing to argue that all religions are fundamentally the same, such as was argued by Joseph Campbell, I think the means whereby you go about doing this is very important.

To contradict doctrines of the major religions to crush them together into an amalgam and then retrofit this design onto the major religions (such as applying the notion of God to Buddhism), is a fallacy. If I were to retrofit a Buddhist ideology of non-God onto Christianity and explain Christ in terms of being a Bodhisattva, I don’t think too many Christians would accept this line of thought as anything other than heresy of the highest degree; furthermore, most would argue that by invalidating the divinity of Jesus I am also invalidating most of their tradition.

While I agree that there are some similarities between religions, I think that what is impossible is to try and create a value-neutral discussion of this topic. I think we all agree that what is fundamentally the same in all religions is their essence so it becomes important to strip religions down to that essence. But, in doing that stripping, our own perceptions will greatly affect the process. I say there is no god, and that the concept of god isn’t shared across religions so let’s ditch it and go for the meaty means of self-cultivation. However, people like James Legge did indeed believe in God, and furthermore believe that God writ his laws in the heart of every man, so when he would look for the essence of the religions he came across, he looked for hints of the Christian God and for Christian concepts.

The list could go on and on.

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Good point. I tend to find more benefit in the comparison and contrast of religions than I do in trying to boil them all down to some universal essence. IMO, there’s always a need for more tolerance of religious differences, but that requires giving up on being the ‘right’ one. Some people will die before they’ll do that.

As for what we ‘do’ versus what we ‘believe’, deists who practice techniques such as meditation or mindfulness are exactly that. They aren’t practicing Buddhism. I imagine the vast majority of them would agree with that. Not that the Buddha taught atheism, mind you. That presupposes that there’s a god in whom to either believe or disbelieve in the first place. His teachings are more accurately characterized as non-theistic.

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Dattaswami:

I hope this doesn’t sound smart-aleky and somewhat off-topic, but I wondered about something mentioned in the thread of the results of suicide.

If all religions are revealed by the same God, then why does the Old Testament law demand the sacrifice and consumption of sacrificed animals for ritual purposes, and you say that the eating of animals by man is wicked?

Thanks.

my real name

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Iggy-Pop,
That definately holds true for orthodoxic religions . . . but what about orthopraxic or even simpyl ethnic religions?

Just because the religions with the most adherents presently (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and some notable others) are orthodoxic, that doesn’t mean that all religions are, so I am unsure about the distinction between ‘do’ and ‘believe’.

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my real name;

Lord comes in human form to correct the scriptures;

MATTHEW: 5 : 17

“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill”.

The right interpretations of the old traditional scriptures given by Holy Jesus appear to be quite revolutionary. But they are the real essence of the scriptures. Selfish Scholars misinterpreted these old scriptures and established a bad tradition and mislead the public. Certain inconvenient portions of scriptures were removed and certain selfish portions were introduced. The Scriptures were polluted and this happened in Hinduism also. Holy Jesus washed all the dirt in the Christian scriptures.

Similarly in Hinduism the three preachers called Sankara, Ramanuja and Madhva also washed such dirt but the dirt comes often because the wind blows every day carrying the dust. The religion becomes dirty in every human generation. Spiritualism is the brooms stick with which God in human form sweeps it away. For this purpose He comes down in human form in every human generation. All the old is not gold as said “Purana mityeva……” It is also said ‘Taatasya Kupoyam……’ which means that a fool drinks salt water from a well saying that it was dug by his fore fathers. So one should not follow all the old blindly. Analyze it at every step and find out the truth.

Krishna condemned the ritual portions in Vedas by saying “Traigunya Vishayah…”. Similarly Lord Buddha condemned killing of animals in the name of Sacrifices. Veda says clearly “Manyuh Pasuh” which means that one should kill his foolish animal behavior. But instead of doing that, people started killing the animals in sacrifices.

Holy Jesus also corrected several portions of the scripture and showed the true path. Even the Veda, which remains now, is a very little portion of the original Veda. The lost portion of Veda is called ‘Khila Bhaga’. Holy Jesus also told that He came to complete the scriptures, which means that some correct portions were lost. Rituals prescribe certain time and place for God’s worship. But Holy Jesus tells that spirit is important and not the place or time (Matthew 12:11 & 12).

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How very Bahá'í…

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Xunzian,

Who is “Iggy-Pop”? (I know of the punker, but to whom was your post directed?)

I don’t know of any purely orthopraxic religion, so I don’t have an opinion on that. As for ethnic ones, I’m not sure I’d single them out as different somehow, just because they’re limited to a particular culture or population. The mixing of cultures and religion is a fluid thing, anyway, so it’s hard to tell which has influenced which, although you can trace them over time and get some idea. Certainly the indigenous Bon religion of Tibet had a significant influence on the Indian Buddhism that migrated there, as did the Confucianism of China.

Well, of course believing is doing, in a sense. I was distinguishing between how one practices by studying and contemplating the doctrine or teachings and how one practices by performing the rituals or methods. The context was that people may identify principally with one religious tradition, but may borrow pieces of another and then claim that they follow both. One common example is a person who identifies as Christian and also meditates – something that he thinks of as “Buddhist” but which is also a generic technique to gain psychological benefit – and then calls himself a “Christian-Buddhist” or a “Buddhist-Christian”. The two religions conflict at their cores, since one is deist and one isn’t. So you can’t really ‘be’ both, you can only mix and match according to your tastes. Nothing wrong with that, although knowledgable practitioners of either might say that the blending could be a barrier to advancing along the path of either. Of course, tolerance means respecting the rights of folks to believe or do or call themselves whatever they want, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else.