30 May 2021
[Ms. Thrylokya asked: Pādanamaskāraṃ Swāmi, Gītā says that worshiping unimaginable God is the most inconvenient way to develop devotion on God (Avyaktā hi gatirduḥkham...). For a genuine devotee, contemporary human incarnation of God is everything (Vāsudevaḥ sarvamiti…). The followers of Islam worship Allāh who is unimaginable God beyond creation. But, at least some followers of Hinduism worship contemporary human incarnations of God. Although every religion talks about Pravṛtti, Hinduism talks about Nivr̥tti elaborately. As far as Pravṛtti is concerned, every religion is equal. When Nivṛtti is concerned, can we say that Hinduism is the best religion? -At Your Divine Lotus Feet, Thrylokya]
Swāmi Replied:- Any religion is the message of God to a set of human beings. Depending on the direction of receivers, God gives a message, which is suitable to that angle. In every area of the earth, there are both types of people prone to the worldly life or Spiritual life or to both together. If you say that Hindu religion is the best religion, it automatically means that Hindus are best people. Such a statement is not favourable to establish the Universal Spirituality of religions. We can say one thing, which is that Hindus are more interested in metaphysics of theoretical devotion than the practical devotion. In Hinduism, theory is more and practice is less. When one part is very high, the other part will look very less in the relative sense. By telling like this, we will also not hurt Hindus. Such statements must be spoken with lot of care because our aim is correlation among all religions and not split. For this reason, when I spoke about the merits of all religions, I told that Hinduism is important for knowledge, Islam is important for theoretical emotion and sincerity, Christianity is important for practical devotion and Buddhism is important for love without aspiration for any desire in return and Jainism is important for non-violence.
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