Knowledge Sheet by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Sunday, June 28, 2015

India - Land of Diversity (Part 2)

Continuation from India - Land of Diversity (Part 1)......

 You must have seen that a ‘Born Again’ follower (a sect in Christianity) will never enter a Catholic Church, and a catholic will never enter into a Church of St. Luther. A follower of St. Luther’s church will never go to a Presbyterian Church. They never step into another’s house of worship. But in India, everyone goes everywhere or not? Do you not see Hindus going to a Church, or to a Jain temple?

And do you not see Jains going to a Hindu temple? Haven’t you seen Hindus going to a Buddhist temple also? So everyone freely goes to another house of worship. Why is this so? This is because we have become habitual of living in harmony in the midst of so much diversity.

 That is why in the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna has not spoken about just one path to reach the Divine. In the Gita, Lord Krishna says that some worship the Divine by practicing abstinence and Mittahara (restraint in diet and lifestyle); some others attain the Divine through meditation; some contemplate upon the Divine through Sadhana; some others perform various Yajnas to please the Divine; some perform Japa Yajna (chanting as a means to attain the Divine); and there are some who take to the path of Self-knowledge to attain the Divine, and so on.

 So there are multiple ways and beliefs to attain the Divine, and being able to accept and honour them all is what makes one truly great and noble.

To be continued......

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