In my book the ‘Hidden Footprints of Unity,’ the following quotation heads the chapter ‘Which way to the Cosmos’:
“Now, my own suspicion is that
the universe is not only queerer
than we suppose, but queerer than
we can suppose.”
– J.B.S.Haldane
“Because of my own personal catastrophe early in my life, I became deeply interested in matters relating to faith and destiny. I remember lying on my back at the beach, with nothing to look up to except the sky. I remember shaking my fist in the direction of the stars and saying to the gods up there “To hell with you”. I had prayed regularly and frequently, and broken enough coconuts to signify my devotion to God. Yet, there I was, with no future (apparently pre-ordained). My existence was precarious, un-buttressed by family or friends. So, there was only one way to go — up.
As I struggled to climb up to a firm economic base, I came to realise that there was a coherent current moving me along! The unceasing and unpredictable buffeting was de-stabilising. Yet, I remained afloat. What was the significance of this? How did it all work? As I matured and began to eat well, I embarked upon a search into the various paths to the universal Creator. It is this unending search which I touch upon below. The options available to a seeker are indeed wide. But is there a single track which might subsume all options? Whilst I seek unity in diversity in all matters human and cosmic, like Mahatma Gandhi, “I consider myself a Hindu, Christian, Moslem, Jew, Buddhist and Confucian”.
That is, I am a freethinker. I believe all faiths are equal in their potential. The core belief in all faiths represents a yearning to rejoin the Creator — and offers much the same message. I just happened to have been born into the Hindu faith in this life. It is the core metaphysics of this faith which holds me — because its explanation of the complexity of existence is comprehensive, yet simple.
Why then am I happy about the value of other faiths? Because I suspect that I have experienced them subjectively in earlier lives on Earth. I am comfortable with, and comforted by, them too — but at a different level. I refer only to that core of each faith, leaving aside the trappings and trimmings added by those who constitute the religious institution surrounding each faith.
Whilst each of us must find his path to the Creator in his own manner and time, I looked (in this book) at how the adherents of the major faiths in Australia uphold their beliefs; and whether these adherents are contributing to a unified people in the new Australian nation-state. That is, how tolerant are the adherents of each faith of other faiths? Does each faith contribute to inter-communal acceptance? And to an understanding that we are all on different roads to the same destination?”
My message is that we humans are co-created; we are thereby bonded to one another. We need to look both sideways and upwards while paddling as peacefully as possible on our respective rivers of destiny. Ultimately , all rivers will flow into the sea.
RAJA ARASA RATNAM 