The Fellowship of Faiths

(Principal, Pachaiyappa’s College, Madras)

The World Fellowship of Faiths is a characteristic movement of this century. For every day, thanks to the radio and the aeroplane, this world of ours is becoming a small place.

The problem of making all the nations of the world live in amity and peace, though professing various religions, is becoming as urgent as the civic problem of making all the citizens of a town live in amity and peace, though belonging to different creeds. In the world conditions of today a movement like the World fellowships of Faiths is a very welcome one indeed.¹

From another point of view also the movement comes at an opportune time. During the last thirty years there has been a great revival of interest in the literature of mysticism. It began, I think, with the publication of James’ ‘Varieties of Religious Experience’ in 1902. This was followed by Dean Inge’s ‘Lectures on Christian Mysticism’ and Miss Underhill’s standard book on ‘Mysticism.’ And in their footsteps came a host of scholars who had carefully studied the lives and writings of the famous saints and mystics of the world belonging to various faiths. What do we learn from their books? We learn that behind the careers of all the mystics–whether they are Neo-Platonic, Christian, Muslim or Hindu, whether they are ancient, mediaeval or modern–there is a common mystic path with the same more or less well-marked stages as well as the same beginning and end. The path begins with the so-called Awakening and goes through the well-known stages of Purification, Illumination and Union, corresponding more or less to our Karma, Bhakti, and Jnana. The very fact that there is a correspondence between the three Neo-Platonic terms of Purification, Illumination and Union and the Hindu terms of Karma, Bhakti, and Jnana shows that behind all the lives of the saints belonging to these schools there is the same steelframe of a mystic path.

This discovery disposes of the exclusive claims of any particular religion. The religions of the world are like the languages of the world. Just as all the languages of the world are different manifestations in different circumstances and surroundings of man’s desire to express his thoughts and feelings, so all the religions of the world are different manifestations in different environments of man’s spiritual hunger for the Eternal and Infinite. All religions are the embodiments of the religious sense of man. Therefore they ought to be like brothers and sisters, allies in a common cause, making battle against a common enemy and not warring against one another. The common enemy is worldliness, skepticism, rationalism.

The conclusions of the students of mysticism and comparative religion in the twentieth century have changed the out-look of religious missionaries. No enlightened Christian missionary of today, I hope, believes that all of us must become Christians before we are saved, any more than any enlightened Hindu believes that all nations outside India should be born in the frame-work of our caste system and become Brahmins before they attain Moksha. The one belief is as absurd as the other. The enlightened attitude in religious matters today is that of not simply toleration but of appreciation and veneration of other faiths than one’s own.

Long before Akbar called his Parliament of Religions, in this country the Bhagavan of the Gita said in a famous verse, "Howsoever men approach me even so do I accept them, for the path which men take on every side is mine." But those who quote this verse and plead for toleration should also remember its counterpart which is repeated twice in the Gita, namely, "Better one’s own Dharma though imperfect than the Dharma of another even if it is perfect. Better death in one’s own Dharma. The Dharma of another is fraught with fear." In other words, our toleration and appreciation of other faiths should not end in indifference to our own. This warning of the Gita is repeated by Asoka in one of his pillar edicts. He says that it is his policy to encourage all creeds in his kingdom, but desires that everyone should follow his own creed ardently. In our own. day Mahatma Gandhi has once again repeated this warning. He says, "I want that the cultures of all the lands should blow about my house. But I don’t want to be blown off my feet by any." I cannot too often quote these three passages. No, our feeling of reverence towards other faiths should not land us in coldness, indifference and latitudinarianism. On the other hand it should induce us to strengthen and purify our own religion. The conclusions of the students of mysticism and comparative religion should make us re-interpret our faith and shift the emphasis from non-essentials to essentials, from what is local to what is universal.

But appreciation of other faiths and re-orientation of our own are not enough. Our endeavour should be to infuse the spirit of religion into all our secular activities. It is in the spirit of religion that we should approach all social arrangements, economic problems, industrial difficulties and, above all, international relations. During the last century in England Ruskin tried to spiritualize Political Economy. In our own day in India Mahatma Gandhi has spiritualized Politics. It is said that there is no more cursed game than the game of Politics. And yet can anybody point to a single incident in the long career of this saint, who is an out and out politician, in which he did not apply the standards of private morality to public affairs? We cannot have, one conscience for the individual and another conscience for the State. If it is wrong for you and me to cheat our neighbour or to break into his house and steal his property, it must be wrong for one nation to cheat another nation or, breaking all promises, steal its property. We all know what is happening in international relationships today in Europe and the Far East. In place of international law and order we have international brigandage and dacoity. We cannot forget the rape of Abyssinia as long as we live. A Christian nation inhabiting a country which contains the very centre of Christendom–Rome–comes down on an inoffensive, simple, Christian population in another country and robs, murders and massacres men, women and children. Austria disappears over-night, and Spain is being cut to pieces and mutilated. This morning we have read about hundreds of people killed in the Barcelona air-raid. Are not the Christian missionaries in India in a rather embarrassing situation on account of all these atrocities in Europe? They can no longer point their finger of scorn, as their predecessors did, to the evils in Hindu society and blame Hinduism for all of them. After all, what is there in Hindu society comparable to the rape of Abyssinia? But let us not blame one another. The aim of all of us who have faith in religion is in all humility to try and infuse religious spirit into all departments of activity. Religion is not a water-tight compartment. On the other hand its life-giving waters must flow into all secular fields, irrigate them and make them bear fruits of justice and peace. If the World Fellowship of Faiths succeeds in bringing into existence in all countries organizations which encourage the re-orientation of their own religions, the toleration and appreciation of other religions and, above all, the infusion of the spirit of religion into all social, political, economic and international relations, it would be paving the way for a World Federation of States, which alone is the guarantee of a lasting peace for mankind.