Introduction of Dharma
Introduction
Religion is about relationships. Every religion
tries to enable the human person to relate to the divine and to the
rest of creation in a harmonious and mutually enriching fashion. It is
from this perspective that the importance of the relationship between
religions need to be appreciated. The alienation between religions, or
a relationship of mutual hostility, even apathy, implies a
contradiction of the very idea of religion. Physicians need to heal
themselves first. We need to work earnestly towards bringing about a
wholesome relationship of constructive cooperation among religions.
In this regard, we need to reckon a long period of
inter-religious alienation among world religions. Even a casual sense
of history will enable us to see that there is nothing religious about
this unfortunate state of affairs. Several factors have contributed
both to its genesis and to its perpetuation. Some of them were
accidents of history and geography. Some of them were ideological as
in the case of western triumphalism and religious imperialism. The
rise of secular materialism has been yet another factor. Setting the
cat of competition among the pigeons of religions served the need to
deflect attention from the onset of this unspiritual worldview.
Complicating all these was western ontology that insisted on defining
everything else on its own terms. It insisted, besides, on casting
everything in terms of a neat opposition in which one part of reality
was white and the other black. [This pattern is very much in evidence
in the US adventure in Afghanistan] This aggravated the animosity to
the unfamiliar and the alien. More than in any other field of
knowledge, reductive western ontology resulted in spreading
deep-seated anxiety and hostility towards eastern religions. In this
the western world, for some strange reason, overlooked the fact that
all religious were of eastern origin and that the only religion (or
quasi-religion) crafted in the west was materialism. That being the
case, it was inevitable that the spirit of distrust directed against
eastern religions spread, eventually, to Christianity also. Hence the
emergence of the Post-Christian era in the history of the west.
Religion is a domain of power. One aspect of the
power of religion is its penchant for entering into combinations with
the other forces in the given field, the forces in the political,
economic and cultural domains of its milieu. Each time this kind of
combination takes place it modifies the genius of the given religion.
It is for this reason that no religion continues to exist in history
in its pristine purity, making it necessary for religions to undergo
periodic renewal, or succumb to the forces of degeneration and gradual
demise. In their historical existence, all religions have entered into
combinations, in varying ways and degrees, with political forces. The
spirit of triumphalism in the religion founded after Jesus Christ, who
was as meek as the lamb, is a hybrid of the biblical faith and western
colonial imperialism. From this outlook, there was hardly any chance
for any inter-faith dialogue. Triumphalism presuppose an arrogant
unwillingness to know and value the other. It conjures up the spurious
duty to conquer and assimilate other faiths. This spirit is still at
large in the sphere of religion and we should do all we can to
exorcise ourselves of this Unholy Spirit.
From the inter-faith perspective, colonialism is a
curious phenomenon. It was colonialism, as we have seen, that
unleashed the imperialistic impulse into the encounter between
religions. Yet the desire to understand religions objectively was also
a by-product of colonialism, as colonialism brought religious
communities into contact with each other to an extent that never
happened prior to that. The serious study of non-Christian religions
began to attain academic acceptance and prestige in European
universities from the second half of the 19th Century. The point of
interest for us here is the practical truth that cross-cultural and
inter-faith encounters must move towards a deeper understanding both
of one's own faith and the faiths of other peoples. It is from the
inter-faith engagement that we began to understand that the spiritual
truth of one's own faith is best understood through the
epistemological distance afforded by the inter-religious perspective.
Yet another factor relevant to the inter-faith
movement is the rise and fall of nation states. Religions -in the
European context, denominations- tended to identify themselves with
particular nations states. As a matter of fact, religious or
denominational kinship played a decisive role in European nationalism.
It is from this very context that the idea of the inferiority and
superiority of religions purchased it new legitimacy. Religion was the
deepest source of the morale and identity of a people and their
subjugation was never complete unless their gods were humiliated and
their religions denigrated.
This brief survey would serve to prove that
inter-faith relationships were modulated by everything other than
religious or spiritual considerations. This continues to be case even
to this day. Relationships of mutual hostility between religions are a
sure sign of the erosion of the spiritual core of these religions.
Unfortunately, we did not have the spiritual discernment or skill to
diagnose the religious sickness that this portended!
Here a brief word or two on spirituality is in
place. We need to be wary of the widespread tendency to equate
religion with spirituality, whereas they are, often, contrary to each
other. That is certainly the case during periods of religious decay,
as happens to be the case at the present time. Religious communities
are crafted on the principle of sameness. They are, hence, marked by
homogeneity. The foremost religious sin is heresy, which is,
literally, claiming the right to "choose for oneself". This is
demonized and eradicated, not so much because God is too anemic to
stand it, but because this disturbs the religious values of uniformity
and conformity. But, what the religions wish to root out as heresy
might well be, from an objective perspective, the spirit of prophecy,
the vocation to articulate the costly truth. Jesus of Nazareth was
seized of this perennial problem in the theatre of religions. No
prophet, he said, was acceptable among his own people. The inter-faith
movement needs to be erected on the foundation of spirituality, not of
religion, as we have known religion for these many centuries.
Secondly, religion tends to be oriented on the
profit and comfort of individuals. "Personal salvation" or the moksha
of individuals is the foremost religious goal. Not so, in the case of
spirituality. Spirituality is like an ever-expanding ripple. From the
individual it spreads and embraces the world around. Spirituality
integrates the salvation of the individual with the transformation of
the society. That is why values such as love, truth, justice,
compassion, and so on are basic to spirituality. Spirituality puts the
spotlight on our shared destiny as a species and not on the
metaphysical profit or loss that an individual might incur. Contrary
to popular belief, spirituality is profoundly this-worldly. But
spirituality is this-worldly precisely because it has a true sense of
the divine. This-worldliness sans godliness is the genius of
materialism. Spirituality is godly materialism, if you like. Quality
of life as well the health and wholeness of the whole of creation are
basic to spirituality. This need not necessarily be the case with
religions. It rarely has been.
This too has a material bearing on the inter-faith
movement. Salvation shops can only compete among themselves. Not so in
the case of shared spirituality, which shifts the focus from the
efficacy of individual salvation to the collective destiny of our
species. In the process, the spirit of competition is replaced by the
spirit of a shared sense of mission.
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