Darshan of Swami Krishnananda in 1998

by Swami Krishnananda

31. Dialogue Between Religions

(Darshan given in September 1998)

A visitor: Is it possible that you can speak about the dialogue between Christian and Hindu?

Swamiji: There are big books, but ending in nothing finally. These dialogues compiled in huge volumes end in no conclusion. “I agree with you, but I differ from you.” Like that there are many books. We don't have any such thing.

Visitor: You don't have a specific book or opinion about it?

Swamiji: What kind of opinion? If I am a Christian, I will have the opinion of a Christian only. You want a person whose opinion is universally acceptable. That is what you want. There is no religion like that which is universally acceptable in all details. In generality it may accept all things, but in particular matters they differ. What are you aiming at finally?

Visitor: In this dialogue, to point out that there is a unity between everybody, between humans. Every human is equal to another. But religions are not here to satisfy the goal for which they are here. I mean, religions are not doing their duty now. They are a sort of doctrine separating people, and not leading to a spiritual level, and the unity is only possible on the spiritual level. That is the aim of my study and of my research.

Swamiji: You are writing something?

Visitor: Yes.

Swamiji: What are you writing?

Visitor: It's my PhD thesis.

Swamiji: Oh, you are preparing a PhD. On what subject?

Visitor: On law, and specifically on the status of personal law in different religions, and through this...

Swamiji: Law in different religions? How many religions are there in the world?

Visitor: I'm taking the Muslim and Christian, and I'm taking also the Hindu example as cohabitation between Muslim and Hindu. I took a specific judgment which was given by the High Court of Delhi, very beautiful judgment on how they make the interpretation of justice in the Koran, sometimes going beyond what Muslims expect. I mean, when one is a human, he can be more just than the religious people who pretend. I don't know if I can make myself clear. And through this study what I aim to say is that people cannot meet and cannot be unified...

Swamiji: You know, there was such a thing as the Crusades in early history. Why did it take place? Why were they so fanatic? And they destroyed all the Muslims.

Visitor: Because it is a power.

Swamiji: They butchered the Muslims in the name of Christ.

Visitor: Yes. It is the power, because it is not the will of Christ, not at all. It was a pretext; it was not the reason. The Christ would not admit this, but even today if Christ comes and goes to the church, they would kick him out because there is no spirituality. This is why Christian people like to come to India – not to get the culture.

Swamiji: Religion and spirituality are not identical things. They stand apart. Religion, if it is to be universally applicable, should consist in the soul's aspiration for the Almighty. It is not linguistic. It is not Islam, it is not Hinduism, it is not Buddhism. It is the soul surging forth for union with the Ultimate Creator of the universe. Christians don't like this because you cannot surge like that to God Almighty. You maintain a difference. Christians hate mysticism. Islam also hates mysticism. Both don't like it because mysticism is an attempt to bring God down to the earth plane and make Him immanent, rather than transcendent. But all the Semitic religions are worshipers of a transcendent God. Transcendent God means He is far away.

Visitor: Yes. Also, this is not Christ. This is one of the characteristics that the church is trying to put on Christianity, which is not from the nature of Christianity. They say Christianity is a historical religion, while God is something transcendent. It is not acting with people, with the world...

Swamiji: A historical religion in the sense that it began at a particular time.

Visitor: No, not in this sense. They are arguing to say that the church, which is the body of Christ, which is the tradition...

Swamiji: Nowadays it is not the body of Christ.

Visitor: But that's what 'church' means in the theological meaning: the body of Christ and the unity of all Christians. This has nothing to do with Christianity. I agree with you about this because even Christ said, “My kingdom is not from this world.” He means from another level of being spiritual; and, also, he never said that God is outside. On the contrary, he always said that God is everywhere in all his teachings.

Swamiji: Even in the lofty teachings of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, the transcendent aspect of God is still continuing. They cannot say He is in the heart of every atom. They don't accept that. But these people are highly mystical people – St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. They are highly logical Aristotelian and Platonic theologians. But in spite of that, they keep God above: O thou God. Mysticism is debarred, because mysticism is an attempt to bring God to the level of everything in the world. It divinises the entire earth and the whole heaven. The earth is nothing but the body of God. It is mysticism. There is no place where God is not, and there is nothing in which God is not present. That is a mystical touch given. People like Jakob Böhme and Meister Eckhart – you must have heard of these people – they were called God-mad people. They were called God-mad, like Ramakrishna Parmahamsa of India. Have you heard of Ramakrishna Parmahamsa? You don't know? Oh, he was a great saint. He was the Guru of Swami Vivekananda. He was a great mystic of India, and his first disciple was Swami Vivekananda.

Vivekananda was a staunch Hindu, and he gave his lectures in the Parliament of Religions held in America many, many years back, and he argued what Hinduism is. It is not a creed or a cult of a particular class of people. It is a universally embracing upsurge of the soul towards God. Where the element of God as an immanent principle is absent, the spirituality becomes dampened. You cannot keep God above in the sky and then worship Him, which is the emphasis of Semitic religions. In Eastern religions, even in Taoism and Hinduism, they don't keep God on the top, in the sky; otherwise, you cannot contact God. If there is no link between you and God, what is the search for God? He is inside your heart.

The Spirit that is calling you towards God Almighty is God Himself. God is calling God. You are only an emblem of that Mighty Being. Such persons who live a godly life attempt to think like God Himself, and speak like God. They are the great masters of mysticism. They are Godmen. The essence of spirituality is to make everyone a God-oriented individual. You think like God only. You don't think like a Lebanese lady or anything of the kind. You have no religion at that time. God Himself has no religion. He is neither a man nor a woman. He has no language. It is the language of pure existence, pure awareness, pure delight, ultimate freedom.

If anyone can conceive what that could be, such people run into raptures of being possessed by God. They are the saints and sages. Everywhere, West and East, you have such people. They look like uncommon, crazy people afterwards. God-mad, they say, because there is no language, there is no word to describe what it is. A poorest language we are having, and poor words, so they use all kinds of letters and languages, and concoct. 'God-mad' means possessed by God to such an extent that one becomes crazy, as it were, with the inundation of God inside oneself. If God enters you, what will you think at that time?

Visitor: I am possessed.

Swamiji: You will not be a human being. All the angels of heaven will start scintillating through your body. Gods will descend into you. You need not go up to them. The whole earth will melt down into a resplendent radiation.

Visitor: Is He entering me, or I am becoming aware of His existence in me?

Swamiji: Both mean the same thing. God entering you and your becoming aware of the fact of God being everything, they are the same thing. You know how God thinks? You cannot even imagine what God's thought would be; and such a thing will possess you, and you do not know what you will feel at that time. Therefore, we call them God-mad, that's all. They are no more human beings.

Visitor: And do you think it is possible to remain in this state of God-mad, or sometimes it is like...

Swamiji: No one has ever succeeded in being in that state for all time. For some time it is possible. I told you Ramakrishna's name, a saint of Bengal, who is the Guru of Swami Vivekananda. I was telling you just now. He was a God-mad man, fully possessed of God. But sometimes he enters into a trance of God – so intensely enters into it that it is difficult for him to come down. He cannot come. Going up and coming down. So he used to adopt a peculiar technique of keeping in front of him some sweetmeats which he liked best. When you see the sweetmeats, the trance will come down immediately because the dear object to sitting in front of you. Any dear object will pull you down from that. So he used to keep before him this very beautiful sweet of Bengal and think of it before going up. That memory of this interesting sweet will bring him down. Otherwise, they say, the whole body will break. He used to have various illustrations to explain what it is, like an elephant entering a thatched hut. The body is like a thatched hut, and a mad elephant has entered into it. What will happen? The hut will be broken to pieces. So human beings cannot contain the entry of God for a long time. It will destroy the health of the body and they will break it down completely. So too much attempt also, beyond the capacity of the physical frame to tolerate it, is to be avoided. That's why some social contact is maintained. If you completely cut off all social contact to the maximum limit, then you will not be fit for living in the world afterwards. God will take possession of you.