The Widsom of the Indian Gurus
Monday, December 1st, 2008I have had a long-standing fascination with many of the gurus from India.
| It started when I first read Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. It filled me with hope and joy, made me laugh, and left me scratching my head in confusion at several intervals. Once of the questions is raised in me is: Why are some religions all-encompassing while other are very exclusionary? |
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Sri Yukteswar, the guru of Paramahansa Yogananda. He wrote a book entitled “The Holy Science”, which was a comparison of the similarities between Christianity and Hinduism. His views were quite similar to Swami Vivekananda, “to show as clearly as possible that there is an essential unity in all religions; that there is difference in the truths inculcated by the various faiths; that there is but one method by which the world, both external and internal, has evolved; and that there is but one God…” |
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Swami Vivekananda brought Jnana Yoga teachings in Vedanta form to North America in the early nineteenth century. After the death of his guru, Sri Ramakrishna, he renounced the world and spent the remainder of his days as a wandering monk. Most interesting were his viewpoints on religion:
“All narrow, limited, fighting ideas of religion have to go. All sect ideas and tribal or national ideas of religion must be given up. That each tribe or nation should have its own particular God and think that every other is wrong is a superstition that should belong to the past. All such ideas must be abandoned.” |
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My question thus remains: Why is it so much easier for the East to accept such notions than the West? Obviously it is easier to bring monotheism into a polytheistic world view (than the other way around), but the wisdom of these gurus seems much more likely to promote world peace and thus I find it perplexing that more people are not willing to be inclusive with their religious views. Now, more than ever, people need to come together and work toward the greater good of everyone, and the greater good of the planet – not separating ourselves from our fellow human beings.
