A Panoramic Understanding of the Ultimate God
Q: Do all paths lead to the Ultimate Principle?
Are all different religions or faiths/sects different paths to the same goal (God)? Did God make different religions as many consider? I don’t think that God has made any religion let alone motivated anyone to create a religion.
Messengers or incarnations have manifested to suit the needs and aspirations of people at different places (countries) in keeping with the times. People made religions based on the messengers and their teachings. Even the teachings of the messengers have to be related with the place, time, environment, and the social and spiritual standing of the people.
Aristotle’s law of Non-contradictions rules out the possibility
How can opposite proclamations of truth of different faiths or religions be rue? In that sense, how can religions represent different paths leading to the same destination? If we look closely, every religion seems to speak different things. For example, the Hindus due to the mythical mythologies penned post-Mahabharat time (roughly about 5000 years) became polytheistic with worship of many Gods. Some claim that their object of worship is the Ultimate God, while some say that all are different names of the same God. Yet others claim that they are different forms of the same God. Catholics and other Christians believe in a trinitarian communion of Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Islam projects God as only one. Many Christians have also considered Jesus himself as God. Buddhism as against all these does not believe in any God. Later, Buddhist followers have considered Buddha himself as God. Though in logical terms, the validity of the diversity of the claims of absolute truth of different religions in a subjective sense, the law of non-contradiction rules out the possibility of different religion’s understanding of God to be equally valid and true from an objective point of view.
Understand the truth: Bits and pieces in continuum
Is it possible to reconcile with these diverse beliefs or even make a reasonable explanation and connect them as different points on the same path and hence, an interconnectedness as a continuum? What is to be understood is that most of the messengers have conveyed their message in allegorical terms or have expressed as parables. One needs to understand the hidden inner meanings of them. Apparently, people have taken them in literal terms and not bothered to question or understand the true meanings of them.
What is to be understood is also the fact the messengers are from different levels or realms of overall divine hierarchy. Since, every religion thinks of its messenger or saviour to be of the highest level or from the highest level, it is likely to irk them when confronted with the truth. One has to view all such deliverances or messages unbiasedly as and as being given to humans in bits and pieces which need to be linked together in a continuum. For this, one needs to rise above man made religions and look at them as a pan-religious reality towards the Ultimate Truth. One can see the light only if one can free oneself from personal and emotional attachment to the messengers or religions and not see them as high or low. Prophets or messengers have appeared from different realms at different times and at different places and conveyed different aspects of the divine hierarchy. Problem arises in digesting and accepting the truth because mankind had identified the messenger and the message as personal and established religions after them. With emotional attachment to the messenger and the religion thus formed, the believers/followers are made to believe that their religion/messenger is the be all and end all or the ultimate. This precludes one to see beyond and accept the truth without prejudice.
Need of the hour: Realize the reality
Neither any incarnation nor messengers like Buddha, Mahavir, Guru Nanak, Moses, Jesus or Muhammad have ever said they are the Ultimate or God. Still, because of personalized religions and every religion considering their religion to be the only correct one or the best, their followers have ended up worshipping their messenger as God. It is something like a spiritual leader points his finger up and tells ‘there is the moon’ and the viewers end up catching the finger instead of the moon. A classic example is of a Hindu manifest spiritual master named Shirdi Sai Bhabha. He had always pointed his finger up and said ‘sab ka malik aek’, meaning the Lord of all is one high above. What have people done? They have caught the finger so to say, and started worshipping him as God at the cost of the message he wanted to convey.
All apostles of different religions are like chronological dots on a line which when connected together reveals the straight chain path to the Supreme Truth. All religions in this context carries some truth but that has got covered with artefacts of paraphernalia. It is this that has led to the schisms between various religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and even between sub-families amongst them.
In closing: rise above religion
No doubt, the concept that all religions lead to the same God caters to our desire for unity and universal brotherhood. To achieve this, one needs to do away with the differences between religions on essential questions. If one is not able to do away with the differences in religious beliefs, it will remain a mere attempt at false unity. To see the light of the Ultimate Truth there is need for delegitimization of religions altogether and accept that absolute truth claims of different religions are relative. If done so dispassionately and with a genuine desire to reach at the Truth, one can go on a straight path without going through the arduous false merry-go-round.
