RELIGIOUS HARMONY:

“A synthetic study of the great religions of the world reveals their inner unity.They have certain basic principles and other non-essential features.The former are common to all and may be summed up in two simple words: “Truth and Love”.These twin principles constitute the eternal verieties of life.”                          J B Kripalani “Pathway to God”  p.- v  

Gandhiji said, “We are all sparks of Truth.The sum total of these sparks is indescribable, as yet unknown Truth, which is God.I am being daily led nearer to it by constant prayer.”

“Artificial or imposed uniformity of views or beliefs, of faith or creed, is divorced from Truth and therefore the antithesis of real unity.We should not confuse Unity with Uniformity but must discern the inner unity in  outer diversity-the One in the many.” 

                                                                                                   J B Kripalani, Pathway to God, p.-vi

Gandhiji said, “as my love for Truth implies toleration and respect for the views of others, I become humble in argument and in corporate life surrender all claim to impose my views on others and where united action is necessary, I must agree to set aside my own opinion and fall in with the common view of the group through which I have to work.This is the Truth of Democracy.”

In their emphasis on the basic principles of Truth and Love, all great religions agree,though all of them are not equally unequivocal about them.However, this unity should be enough to establish the “Fellowship of Faiths”.Only in non-essentials of form and ritual do they differ.Is there anything in these to detract  

From their basic unity? I submit that rites and ceremonies and other outward dogmas and practices were enjoined by the Prophets to meet the peculiar requirements of particular peoples and times. Such non-essentials have no permanent value and must be adjusted to the changing requirements of the times.Adaptation is the law of life and religion which obstinately clings to old and outworn traditions is apt to putrify and ultimately perish.Moreover crude practices may have crept in under the garb of religion and we should be prepred to correct instead of glorifying them. “Just as many Hindu practices e.g. untouchability-are no part of Hindu religion,I say that cow-slaughter is no part of Islam’. Again temperaments differ and even here and to-day, we may find people trading different paths in quest of inner peace. Such honest differences rather enrich the common life of the nation. Says Gandhiji, “When you look at their religions as so many leaves or branches of a tree, they seem so different but at the trunk they are one.’

Again we hear of Hindu culture,Sikh culture,Muslim culture, and so on.But true culture is as free as air and refuses to be bottled up and labeled.If a Hindu or a Sikh denies what is best in Islam, he suffers and is the poorer for it.Similarly if a Muslim closes his mind against the beauties of Hindu and Sikh scrfs his spcriptures, he dwarfs his spirit and misses the joy of a larger and fuller life.The trouble with us lies in our petty sense of possessiveness.We wrongly imagine that our religion and culture are our possessions and vaunt their superiority whereas in their true concept they constitute the common human heritage. “I have more than once read the Quran. My religion enables me, obliges me, to imbibe all that is good in all the great religions of the earth.” Pathway viii

I hold that it is the duty of every cultured man or woman to read sympathetically the scriptures of the world.If we are to respect others’ religions as we would have them to respect our own,a friendly study of the world’s religions is a sacred duty.We need not dread,upon our grown-up children,the influence of scriptures other than our own.We liberalise their outlook upon life by encouraging them to study freely all that is clean.Fear there would be when some one reads his own scriptures to young people with the intention secretly or openly of convertly them.He must then be biased in favour of his own scriptures.For myself,I regard my study of and reverence for the Bible,the Koran, and the other scriptures to be wholly consistent with my claim to be a staunch Sanatani Hindu.He is no Sanatani Hindu who is narrow,bigoted,and considers evil to be good if it has the sanction of antiquity and is to be found supported in any Sanskrit book.I claim to be a staunch Sanatani Hindu because,though I reject all that offends my moral sense,I find the Hindu scriptures to satisfy the needs of the soul.

The charge is a compliment in that it is a reluctant acknowledgement of my capacity for appreciating the beauties of Christianity.Let me own this.If I could call myself,say,A Christian,or Mussalman,with my own interpretation of the Bible or the Quran,I should not hesitate to call myself either.For then Hindu,Christian and Mussalman would be synonymous terms.I do believe that in the other world there are neither Hindus,nor Christians nor Mussalmans.There all are judges not according to their labels or professions but according to their actions irrespective of their profession.      

                                                        Young India,September 2,1936

And I therefore admit,in all humility,that even the Vedas,the Koran and the Bible are the imperfect word of God,and imperfect beings that we are,swayed to and fro by a multitude of passions,it is impossible for us even to understand this word of God in its fullness,and so I say to a Hindu boy,that he must not uproot the traditions in which he has been brought up,as I say to a Mussalman or a Christian boy that he must not uproot his traditions.And so whilst I would welcome your learning the Gospel and your learning the Koran,I would certainly insist on all of you Hindu boys, if I had the power of insistence,learning the Gita.

                                                  Young India,September 22,1927

Believing as I do in the influence of heredity,being born in a Hindu family,I have remained a Hindu.I should reject it,if I found it inconsistent with my moral sense or my spiritual growth.On examination I have found it to be the most tolerant of all religions known to me.Its freedom from dogma makes a forcible appeal to me in as much it gives the votary the largest scope for self-expression.Not being an exclusive religion,it enables the followers of that faith not merely to respect all the other religions,but it also enables them to admire and assimilate whatever may be good in the other faiths.

                                                       Young India,October 20,1927  

“After long study and experience I have come to these conclusions that:

1.All religions are true,

2.All religions have some error in them,

3.All religions are almost as dear to me as my own Hinduism.My veneration for other faiths is the same as for my own faith.Consiquently,the thought of conversion is impossible…our prayers for others ought never to be ‘God give them the light thou hast given to me’,But ‘Give them all the light and truth they need for their highest development.”

Gandhiji’s Message to Federation of International Fellowship-January,1928

GANDHI ON CONVERSION:

Gandhiji was against prosetytizing tendencies in religion. “What is the use of crossing from one compartment to another if it not mean a moral rise?” The so-called conversions are not of the heart and spirit-in some cases “the appeal has gone not to the heart but to the stomach”. Let us by all means chant the beauties of God as we see Him, but as true singers let us also love to hear similar songs from others. If I ever regard another as my inferior, in that act and instant I degrade myself.All thoughts of arrogance, superiority or inferiority complex, must be banishes and the innate equality of all men and all religions recognized in the true spirit. “We must not, like the frog in the well, who imagines that the universe ends with the walls surroundings his well, think that our religion alone represents the whole truth, and all the others are false.” Again, “all religions are springs running from the source and nourish different soils and different people. Why should a Mussalman go crazy over making other people Mussalmans, and a Christian over making other people Christians? After all, in spite of our proselytizing zeal, where are we? What progress have we made?”

The great Prophets all aimed at the moral and spiritual advancement of mankind and were thus comrades-in-arms.Those who believe in incarnation may well imagine that through them the same soul incarnated in different epochs and gave a message distinctive to the age in which they lived. To fight in their names is a travesty of our faith in them.To fight over the different names of God is to insult God. Pathway - viii

Gandhiji About Love :Love is the social aspect of Truth and its most vital aspect as man is essentially a social being.Through love,never through self-seeking, can we hope to attain the light of Truth. Living in society, the law of mutuality imposes on us the obligation to respect the rights and privileges of others as our own. “Love thy neighbor as thyself” is both good civics and good religion-this homely maxim, if practiced, would not only bring heaven on earth but would lift us up from earth to heaven.With the fervor of Buddha and Jesus, Gandhiji has stressed the supreme importance of Love.

According to Gandhiji Truth can only be reached through the gate-way of Ahimsa. Opinions may vary as to his choice of this word but there can be no manner of doubt that with him Ahimsa is comprehensive and synonymous with love from which it springs.He has often spoken of Ahimsa in thought, word and deed. It seems that some of his followers miss this deeper content of Ahimsa- they are satisfied with abstaining from violent deeds but their speech and life lack the grace and culture born of love.True Ahimsa , according to Gandhiji, is a positive and dynamic quality, which like the quality of mercy, “blesseth him that gives and him that takes”. For our own joy and spiritual progress we must return good for evil.

I would not only not try to convert but would not even secretly pray that any one should embrace my faith.My prayer would always be that Imam Saheb should be a better mussalman,or become the best he can.Hinduism with its message of Ahimsa is to me the most glorious religion in the world,-as my wife to me is the most beautiful woman in the world,-but others may feel the same about their own religion.Cases of real honest conversion are quite possible.If some people for their inward satisfaction and growth change their religion let them do so.As regards our message to the aborigine,Ido not think I should go and give my message out of my own wisdom.

                                                          Young India,January 19,1928.

THOUGHT DYNAMICS :

If I want to hand a rose to you,there is a definite movement.But if I want to transmit its scent I do so without a movement.The rose transmits its own scent without a movement.Let us rise a step higher,and we can understand that spiritual experiences are self-acting.Therefore,the analogy of preaching sanitation etc. does not hold good.If we have spiritual truth it will transmit itself.You talk of the joy of a spiritual experience and say you cannot but share it.Well,if it is real joy,boundless joy,it will spread itself without a vehicle of speech.In spiritual matters we have merely to step out of the way.Let God work His way.If we interfare we may do harm.Good is a self-acting force.Evil is not,because it is a negative force.

                                                           Young India,January 19,1928

For instance,if one wants to study the Bhagavata one should do so not through a translation of it made by a hostile critic but one prepared by a lover of the Bhagavata.Similarly to study the Bible one should study it through commentaries of devoted Christians.This study of other religions besides one’s own will give one a grasp of the rock bottom unity of all religions and afford a glimpse of that universal and absolute truth which lies beyond the ‘dust of creeds and faiths’.

Let no one even for a moment entertain the fear that a reverent study of other religions is likely to weaken or shake one’s faith in one’s own.The Hindu system of philosophy regards all religions as containing the elements of truth in them and enjoins an attitude of respect and reverence towards them all.This of course presupposes regard for one’s own religion.Study and appreciation of other religions need not cause a weakening of that regard;it should mean extension of that regard to other religions.

In this respect religion stands on the same footing as culture.Just as preservation of One’s own culture does not mean contempt for that of others, but requires assimilation of the best that there may be all the other cultures,even so should be the case with religion.Our present fears and apprehensions are a result of the poisonous atmosphere that has been generated in the country,the atmosphere of mutual hatred,ill-will and distrust.We are constantly laboring under a nightmare of fear lest some one should stealthily undermine our faith or the faith of those who are dear and near to us.That unnatural state will cease when we have learnt to cultivate respect and tolerance towards other religions and their votaries.

                                                                 Young India,Dec. 6 ,1928.

It is most certainly resented by the people here.Religion after all is a deeply personal matter,it touches the heart.Why should I change my religion because a doctor who professes Christianity as his religion has cured me of some disease or why should the doctor expect or suggest such a change whilst I am under his influence? Is not medical relief its own reward and satisfaction? Or why should I whilst I am in a missionary educational institution,have Christian teaching thrust upon me? In my opinion these practices are not uplifting and give rise to suspicion, if not even secret hostility.The methods of conversion must be, like Ceasar’s wife, above suspicion.Faith is not imparted like secular subjects.It is given through the language of the heart.If a man has a living faith in him it spreads its aroma like the rose its scent.Because of its invisibility, the extent of its invisibility, the extent of its influence is far wider than than that of the visible beauty or the colour of the petals.

                                                                             The Gandhi Sutras.

The reference here throughout is naturally to the principal faiths of the world.They are all based on common fundamentals.They have all produced saintly men and women.When I was turning over the pages of the sacred

 books of different faiths for my own satisfaction,I became familiar sufficiently for my purpose with Christianity,Islam,Zoroastrianism,Judaism and Hinduism.In reading these texts,I can say,that I was equiminded towards all these faiths,although perhaps I was not then conscious of it.Refreshing my memory of those days,I do not find I ever had the slightest desire to criticize any of those religions because they were not my own,but read each sacred book in a spirit of reverence,and found the same funda mental morality in each.Some things Idid not understand then,and do not understand even now, but experience has taught me, that it is a mistake hastily to imagine, that anything that we cannot understand is necessarily wrong.Some things which I did not understand first have since become as clear as daylight.Equimindedness helps us to solve many difficulties, and even when we criticize anything,we express ourselves with a humility and a courtesy,which leave no sting behind them.

Intolerence implies a gratuitous assumption of the inferiority of other faiths to one’s own,whereas Ahimsa teaches us to entertain the same respect for the religious faiths of others as we accord to our own,thus admitting the imperfection of the latter.

The question then arises:Why should there be so many different faiths?The Soul is one,but the bodies which she animates are many.We cannot reduce the number of bodies;yet we recognize the unity of the Soul.Even as a tree has a single trunk, but many branches and leaves,so is there one true and perfect Religion, but it becomes many,as it passes through the human medium.The one Religion is beyond all speeches.Imperfect men put it into such language as they can command,and their words are interpreted by other men equally imperfect.

                                            From Yervada Mandir,March 6,1932.

What is the speciality of Hinduism for which a Hindu need cling to it?

Gandhiji: “This is an invidious question.Perhaps it is also profitless.But I must answer it,if only to show what I mean by religion.The closest,though very incomplete,analogy for religion I can find is marriage.It is or used to be an indissoluble tie.Much more so is the tie of religion.And just as a husband does not remain faithful to his wife,or wife to her husband,because either is conscious of some exclusive superiority of the other over the rest of his or her sex but because of some indefinable but irresistible attraction, so does not remain irresistibly faithful to one’s own religion and find full satisfaction in such adhesion.And just as a faithful husband does not need,in order to sustain his faithfulness,to consider other women as inferior to his wife so does not a pe

Rson belonging to one religion need to consider others to be inferior to his own.To pursue the analogy still further,even as faithfulness to one’s wife does not presuppose blindness to her shortcomings, does not faithfulness to one’s religion presuppose blindness to the shortcomings of that religion.Indeed faithfulness, not blind adherence,demands a keener perception of shortcomings and therefore a livelier sense of the proper remedy for their removal.Taking the view I do of religion,it is unnecessary for me,to examine the beauties of Hinduism.The reader may rest assured that I am not likely to remain Hindu,if I was not conscious of its many beauties.Only for my purpose they need not be exclusive.My approach to other religious therefore,is never as a fault-finding critic but as a devotee hoping to find the like beauties in the other religious and wishing to incorporate in my own the good I may find in them and miss in mine.”

                                                                   Harijan,August 12, 1933.

I am fighting for unity not only among Hindu touchables and Hindu untouchables but among Hindus,Muslims,Christians and all other different religious communities.Do not for one moment believe that I am interested in the numerical strength of Hindus.I have never,throughout my life,laid stress upon quantity.I have ever insisted upon quality at the sacrifice of quantity.If I collected a million false coins they would be a worthless burden to me.One true coin would be worth its value.A religion cannot be sustained by the number of its lip followers denying in their lives its tenets.This great Hindu religion itself will perish in spite of its so-called millions of followers,if its votaries persist in harbouring the evil of untouchability.Not because untouchables can be counted by the millions.It would perish even if they were a handful.Milk is poisoned and has to be thrown away whether you put a little or much arsenic in it.If we believe that we are all children of one and the same God be and that God is Truth and Justice,how can there be untouchability amongst us,His children?God of Truth and Justice can never create distinctions of high and low among his own children.I therefore,invite all without distinction of race and religion to assist this movement by praying for its complete success,so that we may all live in peace and friendship.

                                                                        Harijan.Nov. 17,1933.

Gandhiji in the course of his brief reply said he was glad that the members of the Anjuman had appreciated the movement and understood its true inwardness.He accepted the compliment that he was a life-long student of the world’s religions.He had endeavoured to study the great religions of the world with the eyes of their followers and,therefore,had no difficulty in seeing that the spirit of brotherhood pervaded Islam.He wished that brotherhood had not been confined to Muslims alone as had been done by some.As he read the Quran,he had felt that it was extended to the whole human race.Through the anti untouchability campaign,he was seeking to realize such universal brotherhood.To him the Harijan problem was purely religious.It was a question of purification of Hindus and Hinduism, of a vital change of heart among the so-called caste or high class Hindus.He was of opinion that untouchability in its subtle forms extended not only to Harijans who were Hindus,but also to non-Hindus and was a bar to the achieving of heart unity among the Hindus and the other communities.He,therefore,cherished the hope that the extinction of untouthe anti-untouchability among Hindus would remove one of the greatest hindrances to communal unity.For him the anti-untouchability movement was in no sense hostile to non-Hindu communities. He was,therefore,glad of the recognition of the fact by the Anjuman.He was firmer than ever in his belief in the necessity for Hindu-Mualim, i.e.,communal,unity.His admission of defeat in his attempt to achieve that unity was no admission of despair or abandonment of the attempt His admission of defeat meant only a change in the method of approach.He realized that vital unity was not to be reached by speeches and conferences.It was to be reached by right conduct in the widest sense of the term.As in untouchability,so in communal unity,the change of heart was the real need.He believed in the saying that they also worked who watched,waited and prayed.He was praying all the twenty-four hours for the heart unity of all the communities for whom India was their home.Success of the Harijan movement meant perhaps the greatest step towards communal unity.Indeed,he presumed to claim that if the Hindus really purged themselves of untouchability in its widest sense,it would be a contribution even to world unity.

                                                                         Harijan,Nov. 24,1933

I have not despaired of a heart-unity being achieved in the end.God has sent me this work,and I am doing it in the faith that the way to a real communal unity will be paved through it.It is thus to my mind,a service of the whole nation.The effort I made in 1920-21 to achieve Hindu-Muslim unity will go down to history and will serve as the foundation of the edifice of communal unity whenever it is achieved.I have never repented for having made that effort.For me it was not a matter of expediency.I am not aware of having done a single thing in my life as a matter of expediency.I have ever held that the highest morality is also the highest expediency.Some European friends assure me that I am waging this war against untouchability on behalf of the whole of humanity.Once this canker is removed from Hinduism,Hindus,Mussalmans and others,will sink their differences and will embrace one another as blood-brothers, and all communities will feel that they are all branches of

the same tree. Harijan,Dec. 8,1933.

When you take religion you take all.Religion must govern all life.My activities have no communal taint.It is my implicit faith that,if Hinduism rids itself of the distinctions of high and low ,the Hindus will be in a position to mix with Mussalmans,Christians and others on terms of absolute equality.To-day there is a bar between them.I would like to lift that bar.We may have our private religious opinions,but why should they be a bar to the meeting of hearts? Moreover you should remember that this is purely an internal reform.

“I would love to absorb also Christians and Mussalmans,not by converting them to Hinduism but disarming their suspicion.The minorities will then cease to feel themselves minorities.To-day there is an armed truce between Christians,Hindus,Mussalmans and others.If the Hindus keep their behavior honourable,the suspicions of the others will be disarmed.Why should Hindus have any difficulty in mixing with Mussalmans and Christians? Untouchability creates a bar not  merely between Hindus and Hindus but between man and man. When that is gone,there will be no majority,and no minority.We shall all be one in God.My Hinduism is as extensive as truth”.

                                                                         Harijan,Dec. 29,1933

I must tell these friends that my present attempt has nothing to do with the strengthening of Hiduism.I ask you to take me at my word when I say that I am wholly indifferent whether Hindu religion is strengthened or weakened or perishes:that is to say I have taken up that if my taking up that position results in weakening Hinduism,I cannot help it and I must not care.I tell you what I want to do with Hindu religion.I want to purify it of the sin of untouchability.I want to exorcise the devil of untouchability which has to-day distorted and disfigured Hinduism out of all recognition.I know that if this evil can be removed root and branch those very friends who say religion is the greatest obstacle to the progress of India will immediately change their minds.But if it is any consolation to these friends,I tell them that, if I came to the conclusion that Hinduism sanctioned untouchability,I should denounce it.But even then I would not go so far with them as to say that religion itself is useless and that God is not God but devil.For me the result will be that I shall lose faith in Hindus and Hinduism,but my faith in God will be strengthened.Faith is not a delicate flower which would wither under the slightest stormy weather.Faith is like the Himalaya mountains which cannot possibly change.No storm can possibly remove the Himalaya mountains from their foundations.I am daily praying for strength from God to be able to say to God, when Hindus disappoint me, “Although Thy own creation has disappointed me,I still cling to Thee as a babe clings to the mother’s breast”.And I want every one of you to cultivate that faith in God and religion.It is my conviction that all the great faiths of the world ate true,are God-ordained and that they serve the purpose of God and of those who have been brought up in those surroundings and those faiths.I do not believe that the time will ever come when we shall be able to say there is only one religion in the world.In a sense,even to-day there is one fundamental religion in the world.But there is no such thing as a straight line in Nature.Religion is one tree with many branches.As branches you may say religions are many,as tree Religion is one.

                                                                 Harijan,January 26,1934.

I do believe in harmony between all religions.I have myself worked at it in my humble way.Caste distinctions, in so far they imply superiority of one over another,have to be abolished altogether.That is merely a phase or a grade of untouchability.But in so far as caste in the sense of Varna fulfils Nature’s law of conservation of human energy and true economics,it is good to recognize and obey the law.

You may deny the existence of any such law.I can then only refer you to the few proofs I have given in the columns of Harijan in support of it.I had the honour of meeting Shree Narayana Guru when he was still in the flesh and had a discussion with him on the point.Belief in one God is the corner-stone of all religions.But in practice,no two persons I have known have had the same and identical conception of God.Therefore,there will,perhaps,always be different religions answering to different temperaments and climatic conditions.But I can clearly see the time coming when people belonging to different faiths will have the same regard for other faiths that they  have for their own.I think that we have to find unity in diversity.I need say no more about caste beyond this-that,in so far as abolition of distinctions of high and low are concerned, there is but one caste.We are all children of one and the same God and, therefore,absolutely equal.                                                                        Harijan,Feb. 2, 1934.

I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world.I believe that they are all God-given,and I believe that they were necessary for the people to whom these religions were revealed.And I believe that, if only we could all of us read the scriptures of the different faiths from the standpoint of the followers of those faiths we should find that they were at bottom all one and were all helpful to one another…..And when I ask you to purify your hearts of untouchability,I ask of you nothing less than this-that you should believe in the fundamental unity and equality of man.I invite you all to forget that there are any distinctions of high and low among the children of one and the same God.

                                                                                                                             Harijan,Feb 16,1934

My own detached view may now be stated in a few words.I believe that there is no such thing as conversion from one faith to another in the accepted sense of the term.It is a highly personal matter for the individual and his God.I may not have any design upon my neighbor as to his faith which I must honour even as I honour my own. For I regard all the great religions of the world as true at any rate for the people professing them as mine is true for me.Having reverently studied the scriptures of the world,I have no difficulty in perceiving the beauties in all of them.I could no more think of asking a Christian or a Mussalman or a Parsi or a Jew to change his faith than I would think of changing my own.This makes me no more oblivious of the limitations of the professors of those faiths than it makes me of the grave limitations of the professors of mine.And seeing that it takes all my resources in trying to bring my practices to the level of my faith ans in preaching the same to my co-religionists I do not dream of preaching to the followers of other faiths. ‘Judge not lest yet be judged’ is a sound maxim for one’s conduct.It is a conviction daily growing upon me that the great and rich Christian mission will render true service ti India, if they can persuade themselves to confine their activities to humanitarian service without the ulterior motive of converting India or at least her unsophisticated villages to Christianity, and destroying their social superstructure,which notwithstanding its many defects has stood now from time immemorial the onslaughts upon it from within and from without.Whether they-the missionaries-and we wish it or not,what is true in the Hindu faith will abide,what is untrue will fall to pieces.Every living faith must have within itself the power of rejuvenation if it is to live.                                                                            Harijan,Sep. 28,1935

I have made the frankest admission of my many sins.But I do not carry their burden on my shoulders.If I am journeying Godward,as I feel I am,it is safe with me.For I feel the warmth of the sunshine of His presence.My austerities,fastings and prayers are,I know,of no value,if I rely upon them for reforming me.But they have an inestimable value,if they represent, as I hope they do,the yearning of a soul striving to lay his weary head in the lap of his Maker.

The Gita has become for me the key to the scriptures of the world.It unravels for me the deepest mysteries to be found in them.I regard them with the same reverence that I pay to the Hindu scriptures.Hindus,Mussalmans,Christians,Parsis,Jews are convenient labels.But when I tear them down,I do not know which is which. We are all children of the same God. “Verily verily I say unto you not every one that sayeth unto me Lord Lord,shall enter the Kingdom of heaven,but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven shall enter the Kingdom”, was said,though in different words by all the great teachers of the world.                                                                                  Harijan,April 18,1936

Gandhiji: “You must feel that what you possess,your patient also can possess but through a different route.You will say to yourself, “I have come through a different route’.Why should you want him to pass through your University and no other?”

“Because I have my partiality for my Alma Mater.”

Gandhiji: “There is my difficulty.Because you adore your mother,you cannot wish that all the rest were your mother’s children.”

“That is a physical impossibility”.

Gandhiji: “If you concede that there might be a better way,you have surrendered your point”

“Well if you say that you have found your way,I am not so terrifically concerned with you.I will deal with one who is floundering in mud.”                            Harijan, July 18,1936

Gandhiji: “I would say that the Oxford Group may change the lives of as they like, but not their religion.They can draw their attention to the best in their respective religions and change their lives by asking them to live according to them.There came to me a man,the son of Brahman parents,who said his reading of your book had led him to embrace Christianity.I asked him if he thought that the religion of his forefathers was wrong.He said ‘No’. Then I said: ‘Is there any difficulty about your accepting the Bible as one of the great religious books of the world and Christ as one of the greatest teachers?’ I said to him that you had never through your books asked Indians to take up the Bible and embrace Christianity,and that he had misread your book-unless of course your position is like that of the late Mulana Mahomed Ali’s,viz. that a believing Mussalman,however bad his life, is better than a good Hindu.”Gandhiji continued: “Consider, whether you are going to accept the position of mutual toleration or of equality of all religions.My position is that all the great religions are fundamentally equal.We must have the innate respect for other religions as we have for our own.Mind you,not mutual toleration,but equal respect”.

Khan Saheb: “Take it from me that the world is never going to have ONE  religion.All religions are equal,all prophets are equal.A true Mussalman, to my mind,is one who carries out the will of Allah.I do not know how M. Mahomed Ali came to take up  the position he did.I cannot at all accept it.I can never accept a wicked Mussalman as a Mussalman at all,and he is not worth comparing with Father Elwin or Mahatmaji.The pity is we do not know the religion,and if we know the principles,we have no grip on them. All religions are springs running from the same source, and nourish different soils and different people.Why should a Mussalman go crazy over making other people Mussalmans, and a Christian over making other people Christians? After all, in spite of all our proselytizing zeal,where are we? What progress have we made?” Harijan, Nov. 28,1936.

Q. How then is experience to be passed on from generation to generation without some articulate expression?

Ans. There is no occasion for articulate expression.Life is its own expression.I take the simile of the rose I used years ago.The rose does not need to write a book or deliver a sermon on the scent it sheds all around, nor on the beauty which everyone who has eyes can see.Well, spiritual life is infinitely superior to the beautiful and fragrant rose, and I make bold to say that the moment there is spiritual expression in life, the surroundings will readily respond.There are passages in the Bible, the Gita,the Bhagawat, the Quran,which eloquently show this. “Wherever”, we read, “Krishana appeared , people acted like those possessed”. The same thing about Jesus. But to come nearer home, why are people touched as if by magic wherever Jawaharlal goes? They sometimes do not even know he has come, and yet they take sudden fire from the very thought that he is coming. Now there it may not be described as a spiritual influence, but there is a subtle influence and it is unquestionably there, call it  by what name you like. They do not want to hear him,they simply want to see him. And that is natural.You cannot deal with millions in any other way.Spiritual life has greater potency than Macroni waves.When there is no medium between me and my Lord and I simply become a willing vessel for his influences to flow into it, then I overflow as the water of Ganges atbits source. There is no desire to speak when one lives the truth.Truth is most economical of words.There is no truer or other envangelism than life.

                                                                                                              Harijan, December 12 , 1936

I believe in the Bible as I believe in the Gita. I regard all the great faiths of the world as equally true with my own. It hurts me to see any one of them caricatured as they are today by their own followers and as has been done by the learned Bishop, assuming of course that the report reproduced above is substantially correct. Harijan,Dec. 19,1936

“Then you will recognize degree of divinity.Would you not say that Jesus was the most divine?”

Gandhiji: ‘No for the simple reason that we have no data.Historically we have more data about Mahomed than anyone else because he was more recent in time.For Jesus there is less data and still less for Buddha, Rama and Krishana; and when we know so little about them, it is not preposterous to say that one of them was more divine than another? In fact even if there were a great deal of data available, no judge should shoulder the burden of sifting all the evidence, if only for this reason that it requires a highly spiritual person to gauge the degree of divinity of the subjects he examines. To say that Jesus was 99 percent divine, and Mahomed 50 percent and Krishna 10 percent, is to arrogate to oneself a function which really does not belong to man.”

“But,” said Dr Crane, “let us take a debatable point. Supposing I was debating between whether violence is justified or not.Mahomedanism would say one thing, Christianity another.” Gandhiji: “Then I must decide with the help of the tests I have suggested.”

“But dos not Mahomed prescribe the use of the sword in certain circumstances?”

Gandhiji: “I suppose most Muslims will agree.But I read religion in a different way.Khansaheb Abdul Gaffar Khan derives his belief in non-violence from the Koran, and the Bishop of London derives his belief in violence from the Bible. I derive my belief in violence from the Gita, whereas there are others who read violence in it. But if the worst came to the worst and if I came to the conclusion that the Koran teaches violence,I would still reject violence, but I would not therefore say that the Bible is superior to the Koran or that Mahomed is inferior to Jesus. It is enough that my  non-violence is independent of the sanction of scriptures. But the fact is that religious books have a hold upon mankind which other books have a hold upon mankind which other books have not.They havemade a greater impression on me than Mark Twain or, to take a more appropriate instance, Emerson. Emerson was a thinker.Jesus and Mahomed were through and through men of action in a sense Emerson would never be.Their power was derived from their faith in God.”

“I will take a concrete instance now to show what I mean”, said Dr Crane, “I was terribly shocked on Monday.I counted 37 cows slain on the streets by Muslims in the name of religion, and I offence to the Hindu friend who travelled with me why the Muslims did so.He said it was part of their religion. ‘Is it part of their spiritual growth?” I asked him. He said it was. I met a Mussalman who said, “We both please God and ourselves.’Now here was a Mussalman reveling in a thing that outrages you and me too.Do you think all this is counter to the Koran?”

“I do indeed”, said Gandhiji, and he referred Dr. Crane to the article he had written only last week. “Just as many Hindu practices-e.g., untouchability-are no part of Hindu religion, I say that cow-slaughter is no part of Islam. But I do not wrestle with the Muslims who believe that it is part of Islam.”    Harijan, March 6,1937.

My Hinduism is not sectarian.It includes all that I know to be best in Islam,Christianity,Buddhism, and Zoroastrianism. I approach politics, and everything else in a religious spirit. Truth is my religion and ahimsa is the only way of its realization. I have rejected once and for all the doctrine of the sword.The secret stabbings of innocent persons, and the speeches I read in the papers are hardly the thing leading to peace or an honourable settlement.                           Harijan,April 30,1938

Islam, it is said, believes in the brotherhood of man. But you will permit me to point out that it is not the brotherhood of Mussalmans only but it is universal brotherhood, and that brings me to the second essential of the training for non-violence. The Allah of Islam is the same as the God of Christians and the Ishwara of Hindus. Even as there are numerous names of God in Hinduism, there are as many names of God in Islam.The names do not indicate individuality but attributes, and little man has tried in his humble way to describe mighty God by giving Him attributes, though He is above all attributes,Indescribable,Inconceivable, Immesurable.Living faith in this God means acceptance of the brotherhood of mankind.It also means equal respect for all religions.

If Islam is dear to you, Hinduism is dear to me and Christianity is dear to the Christians.It would be the height of intolerance-and intolerance is a species of violence- to believe that your religion is superior to other religions and that you would be justified in wanting others to change over to your faith”.   Harijan, May 14,1938

Whoever has more of the earthly or spiritual goods has to perform more service to the community, has to be more humble.The moment untouchability and the sense of high and low crept in, Hinduism began to decline.Hinduism is based on the firm foundation of truth and non-violence and,therefore, those is no room in it for conflict with other religions.

It must be the daily prayer of every adherent of the Hindu faith that every known religion of the world should grow from day to day and should serve the whole of humanity.I hope that these temples will serve to propagate the idea of equal respect for religions and to make communal jealousies and strife things of the past.                                                                                                                                                                                      arijan,March 25,1939.

For the information of my correspondent,who is a schoolmaster in a High School, I may say that I have reverently studied the works he mentions and also many other works on Islam. I have more than once read the Quran.My religion enables me, obliges me, to imbibe all that is good in all the great religions of the earth.This does not mean that I must accept the interpretation that my correspondent may put upon the message of the Prophet of Islam or any other Prophet.I must use the limited intelligence that God has given me to interpret the teachings bequeathed to mankind by the Prophets of the world.I am glad to find that my correspondent agrees that truth and non-violence are taught by the Holy Quran. Surely it is for him, as for every one of us, to apply these principles to daily life according to the light given to us by God.

The last paragraph in the letter lays down a dangerous doctrine.Why is India not one nation?Was it not one during,say,the Moghul period? Is India composed of two nations? If it is,why only two? Are not Christians a third,Parsis a fourth, and so on? Are the Muslims of China a nation separate from the other Chinese? Are the Muslims of England a different nation from the other English? How are the Muslims of the Punjab different from the Hindus and the Sikhs?Are they not all Punjabis, drinking the same water,breathing the same air and deriving sustenance from the same soil? What is there to prevent them from following their respective religious practices?Are Muslims all the world over a separate nation? Or are the Muslims of India only to be a separate nation distinct from the others? Is India to be vivisected into two parts, one Muslims and the other non-Muslim?And what is to happen to the handful of Muslims living in the numerous villages where the population is predominantly Hindu, and conversely to the Hindus where,as the Frontier Province or Sind, they are a  handful? The way suggested by the correspondent is the way of strife. Live and let live or mutual forbearance and toleration is the law of life. That is the lesson I have learnt from the Quran, the Bible, the Zend Avesta and the Gita.                            Harijan,October 28, 1939.

I cannot conceive politics as divorced from religion.Indeed religion should pervade every one of our actions. Here religion does not mean sectarianism.It means a belief in ordered moral government of the universe.It is not less real because it is unseen.This religion transcends Hinduism,Islam,Christianity,etc. It does not supersede them. It harmonises them and gives them reality. Harijan, Feb, 1o,1940.