I became deeply interested in religion – in the feeling, its probable causes, and its expression – at age 24. I began to read about these issues while I was also studying psychology. A not unconnected trigger for my interest was my waving a fist in the direction of the sky, saying “To hell with you” about 3 years earlier. That was because my life-chances had been scuttled by then, for ever.
Yet, by age 30, I had decided that, logically, there had to be a Creator for all that is. By 40, after repeatedly dipping into books on religion (especially a massive tome published by the University of Essex), I decided that all the major religions are equal in their potential; provided that the detritus of divisive dogma was discarded.
This would leave only the 2 core beliefs shared by them; these being: There is a Creator ultimately responsible for the Universe; and that, as we humans are co-created, we are bonded to one another.
By age 50, I realised that only Hinduism offered a cosmology – and what a vista! By age 60, having discovered Easwaran’s ‘The Upanishads,’ I began to obtain a glimpse of mankind’s place in the Universe.
I then contrasted the cosmology of Western science with that of the Hindus. Strangely, there was a broad congruence between the concepts used by some modern speculative scientists and the language (and concepts) of Hinduism. These scientists may have read Hindu metaphysics. The reflection by the latter philosophy of the ancient Vedas also seems warranted by planetary configurations mentioned in the Vedas having reportedly been confirmed, all the way back to 9,000 years ago.
Reading Vivekhananda, Yogananda, and Aurobindo in some detail by age 70, I realised that, in the absence of Good Books of the kind available to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, able Hindu commentators such as these, as well as that great epic the Mahabharatha, had contributed to those vibrant but diverse rivers pouring into the vast lake of Hinduism. There are other lakes of religious belief, large or small, fed by other faith rivers throughout the globe.
In the way that most rivers on Earth flow into their respective seas, all of which are part of a single global ocean surrounding raised lands, there is now a great need for all the lakes of religious belief to have access (for the benefit of their adherents) to that Ocean of Consciousness from which we humans are believed to have risen; and to which we are expected to return eventually.
With a parallel thought, my advice to a few individuals claiming a superior (and exclusive) faith is this. “When you reach that single door to the Celestial Abode, you can expect to find yourself shaking hands with followers of other faiths.”
All strands of existence, whether material or ephemeral, should surely be coming together, all inter-mingled, on an on-going flow through time, just as the waters of Earth’s rivers eventually reach a single global ocean of Earth.
RAJA ARASA RATNAM 