UNITY IN  THE DIVERSITY OF WORLD RELIGIONS

 

 By Dr. Stephen Brena

 

The word "Religion" comes from the Latin world "ligare," to bind together; the same root is found in another Latin word "lex," the law.

 

Religion therefore can be conceptualized as a system of laws and codes that invites men and women to some sets of values and behaviors likely to bring permanent happiness and security in the realization of our true spiritual essence, the divine presence within us.

 

World Religions can be classified in many ways; the easier to understand is a classification based on Revelation. On one side, there is a vast group of religious systems based on the worship of natural phenomena; this group include all the natural religions of the native population of Africa, the Americas, Australia, Polynesia, the Arctic Region, Japan, as well as the ancient Greek-Roman religions, and the religions of the tribes of Eurasia. On the other side, there are the five great revealed religions of humankind, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

 

A 3 rd. group of Religions does not easily fit into the first two groups, these are the ancient Egyptian religion, the religion of the Incas of Peru and of the ancient Chinese, the so called early Taoism.

 

While on the surface all these religious systems seem to be radically different and have been often in conflict with each other, it is however possible to detect and understand five basic principles guiding all of them: Creation, the Trinity, the Cosmic Order, the Fall, the Redemption, and Mysticism.

 

Creation. From the dawn of history to modern times, all people in every culture have affirmed through their religions the belief that the Universe is an Act of Creation, a Big-Bang from an unknown Source, a non material Essence with no attribute such as center or periphery, beginning or end, time and space, a formless Reality, expressing Itself in creation. This essential Reality is the "I, AM " of the Bible and the SAT-CHIT-ANANDA of Hinduism. In Buddhism it is "NO-THINGNESS," a much misunderstood concept which actually conveys the idea of a non material Essence, i. e. a non-thing.

 

Natural religions identify the Essential Reality with the forces of nature, calling them with a variety of symbolic names. For instance, in Shintoism, the native religion of Japan, the KAMI is the revered, omnipresent expression of Spirit in Nature. A KAMI is usually connected with some beautiful natural site such as a hill, or grove of trees, a waterfall. Shinto temples are usually simple, wide-open wooden structures within a beautiful landscape. A KAMI is also the custodian deity of the family, like a Christian custodian angel or a Hindu Deva. The famous beauty of the Japanese gardens is rooted in this traditional Japanese reverence for the harmony in nature.

 

Among natural forces, the power of Time, of the Sun and the Moon is worshiped in all natural Religions under various names and symbols.

 

Also widely worshiped in Africa, Australia, the Arctic Region is a strange Entity whose various names can be best translated as the "Trickster," a mischievous deity which likes to play tricks to humans, now benevolent and protective, now seemingly malevolent and destructive; people live in fear of the Trickster and try to appease it with elaborate ceremonies. In the Bhagavad Gita this mischievous deity is called "Aparaprakriti," in appearance impredictable, in reality the symbol of law and order.

 

Westerners view these deities of the natural Religions as a naive expression of primitive superstitions. But, is this attitude valid? The Sun and the Moon are symbols of the fundamental duality of Nature, the Yang and Yin, positive and negative, masculine and feminine, light and darkness. As for the "Trickster," isn't the famous equation of Einstein E= mc2 the ultimate "trick", melting the seemingly solid matter into explosive energy? How about the puzzling duality wave-particle of Quantum Mechanics? Isn't this another dreamlike "trick" of Aparaprakriti? Did the ancient people of this planet hide in symbolic deities an intuitive knowledge of subtle energies, which modern science has barely started to investigate?

 

The Trinity. With the Revelation, the essential Reality, Spirit, becomes God the Creator, Lord Iswara in Hinduism, Jahveh in Judaism, God-the -Father in Christianity and Allah in Islam. Any act of creation requires: Will, Intelligence and Energy, or, alternatively, Existence, Consciousness, Vibration, SAT-TAT-AUM in Hinduism, the Holy Trinity (Father-Son-Holy Spirit) in Christianity. The triune Essential Reality creates a holographic Universe where all the different forms contain the sacred Whole.

 

All Religions also present Creation as an act of Love, the feminine aspect of the Trinity, divine Wisdom in action through the AUM vibration, the Holy Spirit.,The three Semitic Religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) emphasize the masculine aspect of the Trinity, Wisdom -- or God-the-Father -- while Hinduism balances the creative Wisdom with the power of Love, personalized in the worship of the Divine Mother in Its many creative roles. In Catholic Christianity, divine Love is personalized in the Virgin Mary, worshiped not as a Goddess, but as the mother of Christ. More and more, contemporary catholic theologians tend to indentify the worship of the Virgin Mary with the worship of the Holy Spirit,

 

The Trinity imprints its seal upon men and women, also. Humans are souls (SAT), empowered with Wisdom (TAT), free to use divine energy (AUM) to express their essential divinity, or to deny it as egos.

 

The Cosmic Order. All religions cognize the omnipresence of a sacred "Guiding Intelligence" immanent in all living creatures. Intelligence is a force of Consciousness, Universal Christ Consciousness, which operates both in nature and in humans. Countless myths and legends have celebrated the natural cosmic order guided by a divine Intelligence, as, for example, the myth of Minerva, the Greek goddess of wisdom, having birth from the mind of the god Zeus, the king of all gods, a symbol for universal consciousness.

 

In modern times, science has transformed the intuisional, mithological knowledge into empirical knowledge and is discovering the same Truth. From astrophysics to Quantum mechanics, from evolutionary to molecular biology,  from genetics to neuroscience researchers are discovering a marvelous complexity at work in all natural phenomena and in humans, an ordered flow of information which declares the omnipresence of an intelligent, guiding principle, The "Hidden Face of God", as some leading scientists are starting to call it.

 

World Religions also cognize the Cosmic Order as moral rightousness, goodness, harmony, the etermal Dharma of Hinduism. Throughout history, Avatars, Sages, Prophets of all religions have revealed this Dharma to humanity and called men and women in all ages to follow it in fulfillment of their perennial quest for lasting happiness. The basic principles of the eternal Dharma are the same in all religious systems, even if presented in different languages. For example, the principle of No-Attachment in Hinduism is the commandment of No-Covetousness of the Old Testament, it is the "blessed are the poor in Spirit" of the New Testament, it is the second of the fourfold Noble Truth of Buddhism, and it is the call for moderation of sense plaisures in the Koran, epitomized in the dawn-to-dusk fast during the month of Ramadan.

 

Cosmic Dharma is complemented by the law of Karma, the moral law of the Universe, which mathematicaly binds each person to the effects of his or her own actions. All religious traditions have the conceptions of a universal principle of Causation and Retribution: in Hinduism and Buddhism  the karmic law is satisfied throught an endless chain of hearthly reincarnations; in the three Semitic Religions the same principle is satisfied in some non-terrestrial life-after-death. There is, however, a fundamental difference between the conception of Karma and Reincarmation in the two oriental religions and the concept of retribution in the three semitic religions. In Hinduism Karma is not only a law of retribution but also a principle of redemption through a learning process during each incarnation; on the other side, the concept of retribution in a non-terrestrial life has no redeeming value. In Catholic Doctrine, the concept of Purgatory as a non-terrestrial mode of redemption, comes some what near to the Hindu concept.

 

The Fall. Humans are subconsciously aware that their condition, their health, their happiness are somewhat imperfect and transitory. This awareness of imperfection is the root of the notion of the Fall, a concept common to all religious systems, both natural and revealed.

 

Actually, the Fall has several dimensions. In Neo-Platonic and Gnostic traditions, the Fall starts from creation itself, when the finite Universe "fell" ( so to speak ...) out of the Infinite and the pristine Unity became a delusive diversity. Because truly nothing can fall out of the Infinite, Hinduism puts the same idea in a different way: the "Fall" started when the Infinite "locked a small part of itself into a time-space frame.

 

In an other dimension, the Fall refers to the descent of humanity from a Golden Age to a lower and Darker Age. Reference to such a Golden Age maybe found in the biblical Genesis, which mentions a time when the "Sons of God" married the daughters of man and had children from them. In the biblical narrative such age is followed by progressive degeneration leading to the Flood. Likewise, the Gita Commentary mentions the "Prajapapis, perfect Celestial beings, who took physical forms, married with women and gave birth to an almost perfect human race. In Greek mythology many tales are recounted of gods marrying with women and giving birth to heroes, like the famous Hercules, the son of the god Zeus and the princess Alcmene. Chinese mythology also refers to a Golden Age when the "Immortals" had relationships with women and gave birth to a "joyful race of heroes"; the last of them was Huang-di, the legendary Yellow Emperor of China. (c.2500 BC).

 

In still an other dimension, the Fall refers to man and his disobedience to the Cosmic Order. Man went out of coherence with the universal Dharma when he started to misuse the mighty sex-force like an animal rather then an almost perfect evolutionary being. In reference to this colossal sexual mistake, the Fall of man is often depicted in world's mythologies as the intercourse of a god with an animal, giving birth to a creature which is half human and half animal, like the mythical Minotaur of Crete, a monster with the head of a bull and the body of a man. This monster was killed by Theseus, a legendary Greek hero, a symbol of the "Hero" in that human who is willing to "kill" his own animal or lower "self."

 

With the Fall, evil enters the world. Some so-called dualistic religions, such as Zoroastrianism and Manicheism, believe that two opposite principles, one good and the other evil, predating the Fall, are operating in the universe. All five revealed religions proclaim evil to be a consequence of the Fall, a deceptive force, whose sole purpose is to confuse and divide humankind, the Maya of Hinduism and the Satan of the Semitic Religions, "a liar and a murderer from the beginning," to quote the picturesque description of Lord Jesus.

 

The Redemption. Redemption is presented in all religions as the reversal of the Fall, the retracing by humans of the steps back to compliance with the Cosmic O.rder. Redemption is a conversion of the human will away from ego-gratification to spiritual consciousness. This conversion usually triggers a prolong struggle between the pull of the soul  and the resistance of the forces of selfishness. In many religious traditions this struggle is symbolically depicted as a battle between the armies of Goodness and Evil, such as the battle of Kurukshetra in the Gita, and of Armageddon in the Book of Revelation. This long struggle is also depicted in the hardship of the Israelites in crossing the desert (of egotism) toward the promised Land (enlightenment), reported in the old Testament; it is also depicted in the commandments in the Koran to fight a "holy war" -- the Jihad -- against the "infidel" (the "ego"). It has been and still is a tragedy that the noble concept of the Jihad has been transformed by Islamic clerics into a war against any one who opposes their political agenda.

 

The concept of Redemption as a struggle appears also in many natural Religions in a variety of legend. For instance, in the Celtic tradition of Ireland, a legend is recounted of a fight between malevolent demons ("Fomhoire") and the tribes of the goddess Dana. In the battle of Magh Tuiredh, the good tribes, lead by the god Lugh, defeated the demons and banned for ever the Fomhoire from Ireland.

 

Redemption include two movements; one from God toward men and another of man toward God. The first movement is known as divine Grace and it is acknowledged in all religions as a free divine gift of Love. Divine Grace is freely offered, but human must learn how to "tune into It."

 

Numerous are the practices for the "fine-tuning" of men with divine grace, which are quite commonly advocated by all World Scriptures:

 

- Study of the Scriptures.

 

- Regular attendance to religious rites and ceremonies.

 

- Ritualistic penances, such as fasting at specially appointed times, like Lent for the Christians, the Ramadan for Moslems, the "Navratri" for Hindus.

 

- Personal and liturgical prayers daily; five times a day for devout Moslems.

 

-Oblations and donations, such as flowers, fruits, incense and candles burning, and money.

 

In many natural religions, ritualistic slaughter of animals is also performed as oblation to the gods. Ritualistic slaughter of animals is also frequently mentioned in the Old Testament; it symbolizes the willingness of man to "kill the animal within himself" (the lower self) in the vicarious sacrifice of animals.

 

When performed with regularity and devotion, all this religious practices do open the mind and the heart to the flood of divine Grace, which mightily propels men and women toward redemption. Redemption is fulfilled when humans can truly and selflessly live by the golden rule of all religions: "Love God and love your neighbor as yourself".

 

Mysticism. Mysticism is not a specific religion but a tradition which can be found in all Religions. The word - Mysticism is derived from the Greek "Mistikos", meaning "Initiation". A mystic is an "initiate" into the hidden Truth of God, known as the "divine mysteries", from an another Greek word "Mysterios", meaning "secret rites", the same root as in the word Mys-ticism. Historical, schools of Mysticism can be found in all cultures, such as the Eleusiam, Orphic and Pythagorean "mystery religions" in ancient Greece, the Persian and Roman cult of Mithra, the Neo-Platonic schools in Hellemism and the early Christian Gnostic sects.

 

Mystical traditions are associated with all great Religions. In Hinduism is the Yoga system, whose origin can be traced back to Vedic India; In Judaism is Kabbalah, which traces its origins to the great Rabbi Akiba (c. first century AD); in Islam is the movement of Sufism, dating back to Muhammad himself; in Buddhism is the Zen tradition, witch dates back circa the second century BC. Christianity has also a rich tradition of mystical spirituality, which goes back to St. Anthony the Hermit and to the so-called Desert Fathers (third and forth Century AD). Mystical Christianity includes giant mystics such as Meister Eckard, St. Theresa of Avila, St. Fancis of Assisi, to name just a few of them.

 

Natural religions have some kind of mystical traditions, also, known as "Shamanism." The Shaman usually goes through a period of intense training, or "initiation" by an other Shaman, during which he or she is supposed to receive supernatural powers and knowledge. There is however a fundamental difference between Shamanism and authentic Mysticism: the former is a professional vocation, which in Japan is also a family tradition, while the true Yogi-Mystic is only driven by a selfless, pure divine love for God.

 

All the great Mystics, Yogis, Saints and Sages of the great religions of humanity have left in their writings and in the example of their lives and unmistakable, powerful testimony of Truth:

 

- God is Real, God is Joy, Wisdom, Unity.

 

- God can be known, not as a deity somewhere in the sky, but as our own very essence of divine intelligence and energy.

 

- The way to this realization of Truth is open to anyone who is willing to follow the path of self-discipline, meditation and love.

 

In his magnificent spiritual trilogy, "the Wine of the Mystics", "God talks with Arjuna" and "The Second Coming of Christ, Paramahansa Yogananda has given humanity a complete knowledge of the Universal Dharma in the traditions of three great Religions, and has shown men and women everywhere how to conform, with It (Karma Yoga), how to transcend It in divine love (Bhakti Yoga) and how to realize the supreme wisdom of our own essence (Kriya Yoga).

 

The true "mystery" of Kriya Yoga is Kriya Pranayama (control of the inner life force), to be revealed to the "initiate" during the Kriyaban ceremony of initiation. With the Kriya techniques the Kriyaban receives the :"key" to all knowledge, wisdom and joy. All he or she has to do is to use it, loyally.