INTERRELIGIOUS FRIENDSHIP SUMMARY 632 WORDS

Dr. Sarvepally Radhakrishnan, internationally reputed philosopher, humanist and statesman, was also an eminent Orator, educationist and prolific writer. The Extract “Interreligious Friendship” is the first part of the last article in Recovery of Faith. Here he presents a highly readable and enlightening argument stressing the transcendent unity of all religions.

          Dr. Radhakrishnan says there is a common element in all religious experiences. It has a common foundation on which it rests its faith and worship. The gift of God’s spirit is varied as how men are varied from each other. The variety of experience adds to the spiritual richness to the world. The unity of the different religions cannot be achieved in external level but it has to be realised in inward and spiritual way. The Hindu seer does not show prejudice to other religions. He looks upon it as aids to our knowledge of God. He does not believe that salvation is received only through any one particular religion.

          Those who rest upon truth are convinced of the relativity of doctrines about God or ways to reach him. The Hindu tradition refuses to reduce religious experience to a dead level of uniformity. The contradictions are suitable only for this world. Kabir, the 15^th century apostle of Hindu-Muslim unity said: ‘The Hindu God lives at Benares; the Muslim God at Mecca. But he who made the world lives not in a city made by hands. There is one Father of Hindu and Muslim, one God in all matter’.

          Buddha was opposed to all set views or closed system of thought. He insisted that his followers should concentrate on the way that leads to enlightenment. If we adopt any definite views, we get concerned about defending them which results in pride and disputations. Any way which relieves our spiritual blindness is permissible. Micah says: ‘Let every man walk in name of God and we will walk in the name of our God. Respect for other views of God is a mark of authentic religious life.

          There is liberal view in Christianity also. Clement argues that the Greeks were led to Christ through philosophy and Hebrews through law. Islam, the religion of truth does not claim it has the sole monopoly of truth. It believes the revelation given to them by Abraham and Ishmail, Isaac, Jacob and that given to Moses. The Quran affirms that, ‘There is no people among whom a warner has not been sent’. The variety of uniform which people wear here make them as strangers, when death has taken off its mask, they will know one another. Kant, a German philosopher argues that religious dogmas are only to regulate our reason, heuristic fictions, symbols of inscrutable reality of which we are unable to know that it is in itself though we can know what it means to us.

           All outer names given to God are man-made distinctions. We must admit faith in the one God of all mankind who is worshipped in many ways. A true religious man has a sense of Humility. He submits to the reality felt by him and is aware that his particular view may be inadequate. A person filled with excessive and single-minded zeal has no sense of inadequacy. Fanaticism is the outcome of a secret and excessive pride. One cannot say that there has been no other revelation in the past and that there will be no other in the future.

         We are divided in the outward forms of our life in God. A deeper understanding of different form will lead to a united comprehension of the truth of spiritual life. All religions advance the cause of peace, justice and freedom. The love of our fellow religion should also pass in to the love of our neighbours. All religion possesses Holiness, purity and chastity.