BAN RELIGIOUS CONVERSIONS. PUT ALL CHRISTIANS BEHIND BARS.

The seed is put in the ground, and earth and air and water are placed around it. Does the seed become the earth; or the air, or the water? No. It becomes a plant, it develops after the law of its own growth, assimilates the air, the earth, and the water, converts them into plant substance, and grows into a plant.

Similar is the case with religion. The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth.

If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything to the world it is this: It has proved to the world that holiness, purity and charity are not the exclusive possessions of any church in the world, and that every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character. In the face of this evidence, if anybody dreams of the exclusive survival of his own religion and the destruction of the others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart, and point out to him that upon the banner of every religion will soon be written, in spite of resistance: “”Help and not Fight,”" “”Assimilation and not Destruction,”" “”Harmony and Peace and not Dissension.”"
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The portents implicit in news (a) and (b) visavis the evil political configuration of India today, should be viewed by all supporters of Sanaatana wisdom, WITH DUE CONCERN.

We will find it difficult to improve on Sastriji’s guidance that Hindus must first and foremost get rid of their own superior spiritual heritage which they must spread on the whole of earth, rather than allow missionary activities to be carried on with increasing virulence and using government and politicians’ support. The Hindus here spoken include those who must be brought back home to the religion they were made to betray – only to be betrayed by the new religion – as well as the psueo and semi intellectual sections among Hindus. It is the rest of us Hindus, welcomingly enlisting all support from people like Sastriji, who should bring about this change from ignorance to full understanding and the associated pride and confidence for the future as carriers of the universal Vedic message.

Yes, as Sastriji says, it sounds glib for anyone to say that the Sanaatana dharma is the only religion which proclaims the oneness of all religions (in that they lead to the same ultimate goal of realizing Divine bliss) – if, in actual practice, the mercenaries are allowed to spiritually de-sensitize the poor and the ignorant with material crumbs like free / highly concessional education, hospital care, and so on. To allow them will mean that we are at the best paying lipservice to the fact of India’s eternal spiritual message for all world.

Not that the material upliftment needs of the needy and the poor should be ignored in this spiritualizing process. Indeed our various missions and Maths and Ashrams must be urged to intensify their activities on the economic upliftment through concessional education and the like, and those organizations must be supported very substantially more than at present, so that the mercenaries cease to be the attraction that they are today for the under-privileged people to turn to CHristianity and lose the deepest strains of spirituality that the age-old traidtions of Hinduism have instilled in their very core.

By the way, I acknowledge having noted with particular interest Gurudev’s affirmation as he puts it: “” I am not really that sattvic when it comes to such matters , for I am more influenced by Krishna and Chanakya than by Gandhi or Buddha! Be that to those what they are to you, is my funda in life.”" I reciprocate by pledging all my support in the form of inputs to his beautiful blogs on spirituality, religion, as well as on so many other topics which I find are enthusiastically contributed to by a number of people, be it thoughtfully, in lighter vein, in brusque terms and in clear terms like Gurudev himself, and in rather loaded language if I may say so (such as myself!). Dissenting notes by some participants add to stimulation to further thought and as long as one is prepared for it, must welcome it since they can expand upon, even recheck, what one wrote in the first instance.