THE WAY TO THE REALISATION OF
A UNIVERSAL RELIGION
(Delivered in the Universalist Church, Pasadena,
California, 28th January 1900)
No search has been dearer to the human heart than that which brings to us light
from God. No study has taken so much of human energy, whether in times past
or present, as the study of the soul, of God, and of human destiny. However
immersed we are in our daily occupations, in our ambitions, in our work, in the
midst of the greatest of our struggles, sometimes there will come a pause; the
mind stops and wants to know something beyond this world. Sometimes it
catches glimpses of a realm beyond the senses, and a struggle to get at it is the
result. Thus it has been throughout the ages, in all countries. Man has wanted to
look beyond, wanted to expand himself; and all that we call progress, evolution,
has been always measured by that one search, the search for human destiny, the
search for God.
As our social struggles are represented amongst different nations by different
social organizations, so is man's spiritual struggle represented by various
religions; and as different social organizations are constantly quarrelling, are
constantly at war with one another, so these spiritual organisations have been
constantly at war with one another, constantly quarrelling. Men belonging to a
particular social organisation claim that the right to live only belongs to them;
and so long as they can, they want to exercise that right at the cost of the weak.
We know that just now there is a fierce struggle of that sort going on in South
Africa. Similarly, each religious sect has; claimed the exclusive right to live.
And thus we find that though there is nothing that has brought to man more
blessings than religion, yet at the same time, there is nothing that has brought
more horror than religion. Nothing has made more for peace and love than
religion; nothing has engendered fiercer hatred than religion. Nothing has made
the brotherhood of man more tangible than religion; nothing has bred more
bitter enmity between man and man than religion. Nothing has built more
charitable institutions, more hospitals for men, and even for animals, than
religion; nothing has deluged the world with more blood than religion. We know, at the same time, that there has always been an undercurrent of thought;
there have been always parties of men, philosophers, students of comparative
religion who have tried and are still trying to bring about harmony in the midst
of all these jarring and discordant sects. As regards certain countries, these
attempts have succeeded, but as regards the whole world, they have failed.
There are some religions which have come down to us from the remotest
antiquity, which are imbued with the idea that all sects should be allowed to
live, that every sect has a meaning, a great idea, imbedded within itself, and,
therefore it is necessary for the good of the world and ought to be helped. In
modern times the same idea is prevailing and attempts are made from time to
time to reduce it to practice. These attempts do not always come up to our
expectations, up to the required efficiency. Nay, to our great disappointment,
we sometimes find that we are quarrelling all the more.
Now, leaving aside dogmatic study, and taking a common-sense view of the
thing, we find at the start that there is a tremendous life-power in all the great
religions of the world. Some may say that they are ignorant of this, but
ignorance is no excuse. If a man says "I do not know what is going on in the
external world, therefore things that are going on in the external world do not
exist", that man is inexcusable. Now, those of you that watch the movement of
religious thought all over the world are perfectly aware that not one of the great
religions of the world has died; not only so, each one of them is progressive.
Christians are multiplying, Mohammedans are multiplying, the Hindus are
gaining ground, and the Jews also are increasing, and by their spreading all over
the world and increasing rapidly, the fold of Judaism is constantly expanding.
Only one religion of the world — an ancient, great religion — has dwindled
away, and that is the religion of Zoroastrianism, the religion of the ancient
Persians. Under the Mohammedan conquest of Persia about a hundred thousand
of these people came and took shelter in India and some remained in ancient
Persia. Those that were in Persia, under the constant persecution of the
Mohammedans, dwindled down till there are at most only ten thousand; in India
there are about eighty thousand of them, but they do not increase. Of course,
there is an initial difficulty; they do not convert others to their religion. And
then, this handful of persons living in India, with the pernicious custom of
cousin marriage, do not multiply. With this single exception, all the great
religions are living, spreading, and increasing. We must remember that all the
great religions of the world are very ancient, not one has been formed at the
present time, and that every religion of the world owes its origin to the country
between the Ganga and the Euphrates; not one great religion has arisen in
Europe, not one in America, not one; every religion is of Asiatic origin and
belongs to that part of the world. If what the modern scientists say is true, that
the survival of the fittest is the test, these religions prove by their still living that
they are yet fit for some people. There is a reason why they should live, they
bring good to many. Look at the Mohammedans, how they are spreading in
some places in Southern Asia, and spreading like fire in Africa. The Buddhists
are spreading all over Central Asia, all the time. The Hindus, like the Jews, do
not convert others; still gradually, other races are coming within Hinduism and
adopting the manners and customs of the Hindus and falling into line with
them. Christianity, you all know, is spreading — though I am not sure that the
results are equal to the energy put forth. The Christians' attempt at propaganda
has one tremendous defect — and that is the defect of all Western institutions:
the machine consumes ninety per cent of the energy, there is too much
machinery. Preaching has always been the business of the Asiatics. The
Western people are grand in organisation, social institutions, armies,
governments, etc.; but when it comes to preaching religion, they cannot come
near the Asiatic, whose business it has been all the time, and he knows it, and
he does not use too much machinery.
This then is a fact in the present history of the human race, that all these great
religions exist and are spreading and multiplying. Now, there is a meaning,
certainly, to this; and had it been the will of an All-wise and All-merciful
Creator that one of these religions should exist and the rest should die, it would
have become a fact long, long ago. If it were a fact that only one of these
religions is true and all the rest are false, by this time it would have covered the
whole ground. But this is not so; not one has gained all the ground. All religions
sometimes advance — sometimes decline. Now, just think of this: in your own
country there are more than sixty millions of people, and only twenty-one
millions professing religions of all sorts. So it is not always progress. In every
country, probably, if the statistics are taken, you would find that religions are
sometimes progressing and sometimes going back. Sects are multiplying all the
time. If the claims of a religion that it has all the truth and God has given it all
this truth in a certain book were true, why are there so many sects? Fifty years
do not pass before there are twenty sects founded upon the same book. If God
has put all the truth in certain books, He does not give us those books in order
that we may quarrel over texts. That seems to be the fact. Why is it? Even if a
book were given by God which contained all the truth about religion, it would
not serve the purpose because nobody could understand the book. Take the
Bible, for instance, and all the sects that exist amongst Christians; each one puts
its own interpretation upon the same text, and each says that it alone
understands that text and all the rest are wrong. So with every religion. There
are many sects among the Mohammedans and among the Buddhists, and
hundreds among the Hindus. Now, I bring these facts before you in order to
show you that any attempt to bring all humanity to one method of thinking in
spiritual things has been a failure and always will be a failure. Every man that
starts a theory, even at the present day, finds that if he goes twenty miles away
from his followers, they will make twenty sects. You see that happening all the
time. You cannot make all conform to the same ideas: that is a fact, and I thank
God that it is so. I am not against any sect. I am glad that sects exist, and I only
wish they may go on multiplying more and more. Why? Simply because of this:
If you and I and all who are present here were to think exactly the same
thoughts, there would be no thoughts for us to think. We know that two or more
forces must come into collision in order to produce motion. It is the clash of
thought, the differentiation of thought, that awakes thought. Now, if we all
thought alike, we would be like Egyptian mummies in a museum looking
vacantly at one another's faces — no more than that! Whirls and eddies occur
only in a rushing, living stream. There are no whirlpools in stagnant, dead
water. When religions are dead, there will be no more sects; it will be the
perfect peace and harmony of the grave. But so long as mankind thinks, there
will be sects. Variation is the sign of life, and it must be there. I pray that they
may multiply so that at last there will be as many sects as human beings, and
each one will have his own method, his individual method of thought in
religion.
But this thing exists already. Each one of us is thinking in his own way, but his
natural course has been obstructed all the time and is still being obstructed. If
the sword is not used directly, other means will be used. Just hear what one of the best preachers in New York says: he preaches that the Filipinos should be
conquered because that is the only way to teach Christianity to them! They are
already Catholics; but he wants to make them Presbyterians, and for this, he is
ready to lay all this terrible sin of bloodshed upon his race. How terrible! And
this man is one of the greatest preachers of this country, one of the best
informed men. Think of the state of the world when a man like that is not
ashamed to stand up and utter such arrant nonsense; and think of the state of the
world when an audience cheers him! Is this civilisation? It is the old blood-
thirstiness of the tiger, the cannibal, the savage, coming out once more under
new names, new circumstances. What else can it be? If the state of things is
such now, think of the horrors through which the world passed in olden times,
when every sect was trying by every means in its power to tear to pieces the
other sects. History shows that. The tiger in us is only asleep; it is not dead.
When opportunities come, it jumps up and, as of old, uses its claws and fangs.
Apart from the sword, apart from material weapons, there are weapons still
more terrible — contempt, social hatred, and social ostracism. Now, these are
the most terrible of all inflictions that are hurled against persons who do not
think exactly in the same way as we do. And why should everybody think just
as we do? I do not see any reason. If I am a rational man, I should be glad they
do not think just as I do. I do not want to live in a grave-like land; I want to be a
man in a world of men. Thinking beings must differ; difference is the first sign
of thought. If I am a thoughtful man, certainly I ought to like to live amongst
thoughtful persons where there are differences of opinion.
Then arises the question: How can all these varieties be true? If one thing is
true, its negation is false. How can contradictory opinions be true at the same
time? This is the question which I intend to answer. But I will first ask you: Are
all the religions of the world really contradictory? I do not mean the external
forms in which great thoughts are clad. I do not mean the different buildings,
languages, rituals, books, etc. employed in various religions, but I mean the
internal soul of every religion. Every religion has a soul behind it, and that soul
may differ from the soul of another religion; but are they contradictory? Do
they contradict or supplement each other? — that is the question. I took up the
question when I was quite a boy, and have been studying it all my life.
Thinking that my conclusion may be of some help to you, I place it before you.
I believe that they are not contradictory; they are supplementary. Each religion, as it were, takes up one part of the great universal truth, and spends its whole
force in embodying and typifying that part of the great truth. It is, therefore,
addition; not exclusion. That is the idea. System after system arises, each one
embodying a great idea, and ideals must be added to ideals. And this is the
march of humanity. Man never progresses from error to truth, but from truth to
truth, from lesser truth to higher truth — but it is never from error to truth. The
child may develop more than the father, but was the father inane? The child is
the father plus something else. If your present state of knowledge is much
greater than it was when you were a child, would you look down upon that
stage now? Will you look back and call it inanity? Why, your present stage is
the knowledge of the child plus something more.
Then, again, we also know that there may be almost contradictory points of
view of the same thing, but they will all indicate the same thing. Suppose a man
is journeying towards the sun, and as he advances he takes a photograph of the
sun at every stage. When he comes back, he has many photographs of the sun,
which he places before us. We see that not two are alike, and yet, who will deny
that all these are photographs of the same sun, from different standpoints? Take
four photographs of this church from different corners: how different they
would look, and yet they would all represent this church. In the same way, we
are all looking at truth from different standpoints, which vary according to our
birth, education, surroundings, and so on. We are viewing truth, getting as
much of it as these circumstances will permit, colouring the truth with our own
heart, understanding it with our own intellect, and grasping it with our own
mind. We can only know as much of truth as is related to us, as much of it as
we are able to receive. This makes the difference between man and man, and
occasions sometimes even contradictory ideas; yet we all belong to the same
great universal truth.
My idea, therefore, is that all these religions are different forces in the economy
of God, working for the good of mankind; and that not one can become dead,
not one can be killed. Just as you cannot kill any force in nature, so you cannot
kill any one of these spiritual forces. You have seen that each religion is living.
From time to time it may retrograde or go forward. At one time, it may be shorn
of a good many of its trappings; at another time it may be covered with all sorts
of trappings; but all the same, the soul is ever there, it can never be lost. The ideal which every religion represents is never lost, and so every religion is
intelligently on the march.
And that universal religion about which philosophers and others have dreamed
in every country already exists. It is here. As the universal brotherhood of man
is already existing, so also is universal religion. Which of you, that have
travelled far and wide, have not found brothers and sisters in every nation? I
have found them all over the world. Brotherhood already exists; only there are
numbers of persons who fail to see this and only upset it by crying for new
brotherhoods. Universal religion, too, is already existing. If the priests and other
people that have taken upon themselves the task of preaching different religions
simply cease preaching for a few moments, we shall see it is there. They are
disturbing it all the time, because it is to their interest. You see that priests in
every country are very conservative. Why is it so? There are very few priests
who lead the people; most of them are led by the people and are their slaves and
servants. If you say it is dry, they say it is so; if you say it is black, they say it is
black. If the people advance, the priests must advance. They cannot lag behind.
So, before blaming the priests — it is the fashion to blame the priest — you
ought to blame yourselves. You only get what you deserve. What would be the
fate of a priest who wants to give you new and advanced ideas and lead you
forward? His children would probably starve, and he would be clad in rags. He
is governed by the same worldly laws as you are. "If you go on," he says, "let
us march." Of course, there are exceptional souls, not cowed down by public
opinion. They see the truth and truth alone they value. Truth has got hold of
them, has got possession of them, as it were, and they cannot but march ahead.
They never look backward, and for them there are no people. God alone exists
for them, He is the Light before them, and they are following that Light.
I met a Mormon gentleman in this country, who tried to persuade me to his
faith. I said, "I have great respect for your opinions, but in certain points we do
not agree — I belong to a monastic order, and you believe in marrying many
wives. But why don't you go to India to preach?" Then he was astonished. He
said, "Why, you don't believe in any marriage at all, and we believe in
polygamy, and yet you ask me to go to your country!" I said, "Yes; my
countrymen will hear every religious thought wherever it may come from. I wish you would go to India, first, because I am a great believer in sects. Secondly, there are many men in India who are not at all satisfied with any of
the existing sects, and on account of this dissatisfaction, they will not have
anything to do with religion, and, possibly, you might get some of them." The
greater the number of sects, the more chance of people getting religion. In the
hotel, where there are all sorts of food, everyone has a chance to get his appetite
satisfied. So I want sects to multiply in every country, that more people may
have a chance to be spiritual. Do not think that people do not like religion. I do
not believe that. The preachers cannot give them what they need. The same man
that may have been branded as an atheist, as a materialist, or what not, may
meet a man who gives him the truth needed by him, and he may turn out the
most spiritual man in the community. We can eat only in our own way. For
instance, we Hindus eat with our fingers. Our fingers are suppler than yours,
you cannot use your fingers the same way. Not only the food should be
supplied, but it should be taken in your own particular way. Not only must you
have the spiritual ideas, but they must come to you according to your own
method. They must speak your own language, the language of your soul, and
then alone they will satisfy you. When the man comes who speaks my language
and gives truth in my language, I at once understand it and receive it for ever.
This is a great fact.
Now from this we see that there are various grades and types of human minds
and what a task religions take upon them! A man brings forth two or three
doctrines and claims that his religion ought to satisfy all humanity. He goes out
into the world, God's menagerie, with a little cage in hand, and says, "God and
the elephant and everybody has to go into this. Even if we have to cut the
elephant into pieces, he must go in." Again, there may be a sect with a few good
ideas. Its followers say, "All men must come in! " "But there is no room for
them." "Never mind! Cut them to pieces; get them in anyhow; if they don't get
in, why, they will be damned." No preacher, no sect, have I ever met that
pauses and asks, "Why is it that people do not listen to us?" Instead, they curse
the people and say, "The people are wicked." They never ask, "How is it that
people do not listen to my words? Why cannot I make them see the truth? Why
cannot I speak in their language? Why cannot I open their eyes?" Surely, they
ought to know better, and when they find people do not listen to them, if they
curse anybody, it should be themselves. But it is always the people's fault! They
never try to make their sect large enough to embrace every one.
Therefore we at once see why there has been so much narrow-mindedness, the
part always claiming to be the whole; the little, finite unit always laying claim
to the infinite. Think of little sects, born within a few hundred years out of
fallible human brains, making this arrogant claim of knowledge of the whole of
God's infinite truth! Think of the arrogance of it! If it shows anything, it is this,
how vain human beings are. And it is no wonder that such claims have always
failed, and, by the mercy of the Lord, are always destined to fail. In this line the
Mohammedans were the best off; every step forward was made with the sword
— the Koran in the one hand and the sword in the other: "Take the Koran, or
you must die; there is no alternative! " You know from history how phenomenal
was their success; for six hundred years nothing could resist them, and then
there came a time when they had to cry halt. So will it be with other religions if
they follow the same methods. We are such babes! We always forget human
nature. When we begin life, we think that our fate will be something
extraordinary, and nothing can make us disbelieve that. But when we grow old,
we think differently. So with religions. In their early stages, when they spread a.
little, they get the idea that they can change the minds of the whole human race
in a few years, and go on killing and massacring to make converts by force;
then they fail, and begin to understand better. We see that these sects did not
succeed in what they started out to do, which was a great blessing. Just think if
one of those fanatical sects had succeeded all over the world, where would man
be today? Now, the Lord be blessed that they did not succeed! Yet, each one
represents a great truth; each religion represents a particular excellence —
something which is its soul. There is an old story which comes to my mind:
There were some ogresses who used to kill people and do all sorts of mischief;
but they themselves could not be killed, until someone found out that their souls
were in certain birds, and so long as the birds were safe nothing could destroy
the ogresses. So, each one of us has, as it were, such a bird, where our soul is;
has an ideal, a mission to perform in life. Every human being is an embodiment
of such an ideal, such a mission. Whatever else you may lose, so long as that
ideal is not lost, and that mission is not hurt, nothing can kill you. Wealth may
come and go, misfortunes may pile mountains high, but if you have kept the
ideal entire, nothing can kill you. You may have grown old, even a hundred
years old, but if that mission is fresh and young in your heart, what can kill
you? But when that ideal is lost and that mission is hurt, nothing can save you.
All the wealth, all the pourer of the world will not save you. And what are
nations but multiplied individuals? So, each nation has a mission of its own to
perform in this harmony of races; and so long as that nation keeps to that ideal,
that nation nothing can kill; but if that nation gives up its mission in life and
goes after something else, its life becomes short, and it vanishes.
And so with religions. The fact that all these old religions are living today
proves that they must have kept that mission intact; in spite of all their
mistakes, in spite of all difficulties, in spite of all quarrels, in spite of all the
incrustation of forms and figures, the heart of every one of them is sound — it
is a throbbing, beating, living heart. They have not lost, any one of them, the
great mission they came for. And it is splendid to study that mission. Take
Mohammedanism, for instance. Christian people hate no religion in the world
so much as Mohammedanism. They think it is the very worst form of religion
that ever existed. As soon as a man becomes a Mohammedan, the whole of
Islam receives him as a brother with open arms, without making any
distinction, which no other religion does. If one of your American Indians
becomes a Mohammedan, the Sultan of Turkey would have no objection to dine
with him. If he has brains, no position is barred to him. In this country, I have
never yet seen a church where the white man and the negro can kneel side by
side to pray. Just think of that: Islam makes its followers all equal — so, that,
you see, is the peculiar excellence of Mohammedanism. In many places in the
Koran you find very sensual ideas of life. Never mind. What Mohammedanism
comes to preach to the world is this practical brotherhood of all belonging to
their faith. That is the essential part of the Mohammedan religion; and all the
other ideas about heaven and of life etc.. are not Mohammedanism. They are
accretions.
With the Hindus you will find one national idea — spirituality. In no other
religion, in no other sacred books of the world, will you find so much energy
spent in defining the idea of God. They tried to define the ideal of soul so that
no earthly touch might mar it. The spirit must be divine; and spirit understood
as spirit must not be made into a man. The same idea of unity, of the realisation
of God, the omnipresent, is preached throughout. They think it is all nonsense
to say that He lives in heaven, and all that. It is a mere human, anthropomorphic
idea. All the heaven that ever existed is now and here. One moment in infinite
time is quite as good as any other moment. If you believe in a God, you can see. Him even now. We think religion begins when you have realised something. It
is not believing in doctrines, nor giving intellectual assent, nor making
declarations. If there is a God, have you seen Him? If you say "no", then what
right have you to believe in Him? If you are in doubt whether there is a God,
why do you not struggle to see Him? Why do you not renounce the world and
spend the whole of your life for this one object? Renunciation and spirituality
are the two great ideas of India, and it is because India clings to these ideas that
all her mistakes count for so little.
With the Christians, the central idea that has been preached by them is the
same: "Watch and pray, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand" — which
means, purify your minds and be ready! And that spirit never dies. You
recollect that the Christians are, even in the darkest days, even in the most
superstitious Christian countries, always trying to prepare themselves for the
coming of the Lord, by trying to help others, building hospitals, and so on. So
long as the Christians keep to that ideal, their religion lives.
Now an ideal presents itself to my mind. It may be only a dream. I do not know
whether it will ever be realised in this world, but sometimes it is better to dream
a dream, than die on hard facts. Great truths, even in a dream are good, better
than bad facts. So, let us dream a dream.
You know that there are various grades of mind. You may be a matter-of-fact,
common-sense rationalist: you do not care for forms and ceremonies; you want
intellectual, hard, ringing facts, and they alone will satisfy you. Then there are
the Puritans, the Mohammedans, who will not allow a picture or a statue in
their place of worship. Very well! But there is another man who is more artistic.
He wants a great deal of art — beauty of lines and curves, the colours, flowers,
forms; he wants candles, lights, and all the insignia and paraphernalia of ritual,
that he may see God. His mind takes God in those forms, as yours takes Him
through the intellect. Then, there is the devotional man, whose soul is crying for
God: he has no other idea but to worship God, and to praise Him. Then again,
there is the philosopher, standing outside all these, mocking at them. He thinks,
"What nonsense they are! What ideas about God!"
They may laugh at one another, but each one has a place in this world. All these various minds, all these various types are necessary. If there ever is going to be
an ideal religion, it must be broad and large enough to supply food for all these
minds. It must supply the strength of philosophy to the philosopher, the
devotee's heart to the worshipper; to the ritualist, it will give all that the most
marvellous symbolism can convey; to the poet, it will give as much of heart as
he can take in, and other things besides. To make such a broad religion, we
shall have to go back to the time when religions began and take them all in.
Our watchword, then, will be acceptance, and not exclusion. Not only
toleration, for so-called toleration is often blasphemy, and I do not believe in it.
I believe in acceptance. Why should I tolerate? Toleration means that I think
that you are wrong and I am just allowing you to live. Is it not a blasphemy to
think that you and I are allowing others to live? I accept all religions that were
in the past, and worship with them all; I worship God with every one of them,
in whatever form they worship Him. I shall go to the mosque of the
Mohammedan; I shall enter the Christian's church and kneel before the crucifix;
I shall enter the Buddhistic temple, where I shall take refuge in Buddha and in
his Law. I shall go into the forest and sit down in meditation with the Hindu,
who is trying to see the Light which enlightens the heart of every one.
Not only shall I do all these, but I shall keep my heart open for all that may
come in the future. Is God's book finished? Or is it still a continuous revelation
going on? It is a marvellous book — these spiritual revelations of the world.
The Bible, the Vedas, the Koran, and all other sacred books are but so many pages, and an infinite number of pages remain yet to be unfolded.
I would leave it open for all of them. We stand in the present, but open ourselves to the infinite future.
We take in all that has been in the past, enjoy the light of the present, and open every window of the heart for all that will come in the future.
Salutation to all the prophets of the past, to all the great ones of the present, and to all that are to come in the future!
