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Ekam sat...

Congratulations to all the contributors, especially LordSurya, for making this article a featured article.
The quotation "Ekam sat.." from the Rig Veda is said to perhaps best capture the Hindu spirit. Well, I consider it to be of relatively minor importance. Personally, I consider the Upanishadic insights like "Aham Brahmaasmi" or "Tat twam asi" to best capture the Hindu spirit. There are problems with the interpretation of the quotation too - "Essentially, any kind of spiritual practice followed with faith, love and persistence will lead to the same ultimate state of self-realization." - Is that so? Saying that there could be many possible paths to a goal and saying all paths lead to the same goal are two very different statements, and the leap from the first to the second simply cannot be made.I remember bringing this up earlier, and I was asked to give references.
link1
link2 Section 'Can all “Religions” lead to God?'
'The Hindu proclamation that “different paths lead to God” certainly does not mean that any and every crass act can lead to God simply by calling it “religion”. Sanãtana Dharma makes ample distinction between dharma and adharma, between spiritual elevation and spiritual degradation.'
'To suggest that adharma leads to God as much as dharma would indeed be a negation of the entire Hindu spiritual thought.'
link3
Also, "...since temporal systems cannot claim sole understanding of the one transcendental Truth", is there no point in meditation? :) --SV 02:36, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Responses I read your proferred articles and your points. Here is my reaction. Your first complaint is that an illogical jump from the idea that 'one goal achieved by many paths' and 'all (indiscriminate even) paths lead to the same terminus' was objectionable. This statement and leap was never made. Let us see verbatim the claim:

"Essentially, any kind of spiritual practice followed with faith, love and persistence will lead to the same ultimate state of self-realization. Thus, Hindu thought distinguishes itself by strongly encouraging tolerance for different beliefs since temporal systems cannot claim sole understanding of the one transcendental Truth."

First, we see that the spirit of the Ekam Sat statement is faithfully retained. "faith, love and persistence" are the prerequisites of a successful path. These are part and parcel of Dharma. Where you got the idea that the article was attributing Hindu acceptance of adharmic paths as legitimate ways to Truth is not apparent to me.

As for your query on meditation... It says that Hindus believe that it is important to have "tolerance for different beliefs since temporal systems cannot claim sole understanding of the one transcendental truth." This is no way implies that meditation or such paths are invalid! In fact, quite the opposite! All it is stating SOLE understanding. I cannot be a yogi, meditating, and honestly claim that ONLY meditating will help one reach God. Nor can I be a Catholic who says that ONLY baptism and confession will help one reach God. If either path is followed with "faith, love and persistence", which implies a purity of heart and earnest longing, hence the faith and love, and discipline, hence persistence, Truth will be found. This is a statement of pluralism which rebels against exclusivism.

In response to the cutting of Ekam Sat statement. The other 3/4ths do not restrict the meaning of that idea. If today I say " God is one, though everyone sees him as different, whether Allah, Yahweh or Ishwara." The meaning is quite the same. Just because I demonstrate my 'eternal' statement with culturally limited names doesn't strangle my stated belief. Hindus don't quite the entire rig vedic double-shloka because it's not neccessary. The statement is whole in and of itself, and quoting the rest is redundant.

As for the bharatvani articles. Perhaps some Hindus have a fawning self-deprecatory desire to make analagous all Hindu ideas and gods with Abrahamic tradition. But most absolutely and completely do not. Ghosh and Gandhi for instance; most Hindus scoff at the identification of Krishna with Christ, and some of the examples mockingly referred to in the articles are first-timers for me and my family; we have lived in India and have many Hindu friends. By the way, people like Tagore and followers of many sects, especially Shaivaites in the south and people like the Chaitanya Vaishnavs or Ramakrishna Advaitins don't really care about monotheism Abrahmic-style. Frankly, Tagore and the ADvaitins feel they have transcended monotheism and gone to absolute monism; this has been a long-standing tradition since the 8th century CE. "Tat Twam Asi" is clearly a completely different ballgame from I AM THAT I AM since it not only defines God as incomprehensible being but identifies the HUMAN soul with that Godhead/Monad.

The articles you quoted represent a rather, in my own opinion, limited conception of Hindus. Most Hindus, who are villagers, are quite happy with thinking of Krishna or Shiva and the other manifestations of a single eternal truth. Most Hindus speak about EKam Sat as defining the Hindu spirit because it has been noted for centuries that Hindus have a peculiar knack for freely accepting religious ideas not their own and not seeing a need to convert. I welcome more discussion on these topics.--LordSuryaofShropshire 13:43, Apr 29, 2004 (UTC)

Faith, love and persistence : Dharma might imply faith, love and persistence, but faith, love and persistence need not imply Dharma. One can have faith in adharma, love of adharma, and persistence in adharma. So "faith, love and persistence" are not equivalent to Dharma.

Tolerance of people of other faiths, and recognition of many possible paths to the truth, is a natural, important and pleasing consequence of Hindu philosophy, but not its defining characteristic.

("Perhaps the Hindu spirit,...., is best captured in")

Sorry, I missed "sole" in "...claim sole understanding..."

I cannot and will not claim that meditation is the only path to God, but I can and will say that baptism and confession will not bring anyone closer to God. If someone classifies meditation and baptism as equally valid paths to the Truth, it is a great example of what I was trying to say, in the sense that I don't know on what basis someone can classify Christianity or Islam as Dharmas. Dharmas should be verifiable, and is there anything in the two religions which can be verified?

The other 3/4th of the verse is important because I believe that the author is warning against considering something as Dharma (for e.g. Christianity or Islam) just because it is labelled a religion.

One can give any name to the One Truth, Brahman, Allah, Yahweh, the Great Void and so on. But the important question is when a Vedantin talks about Brahman (or a Buddhist talks about the Great Void) on the one hand, and a Muslim talks about Allah on the other, are they talking about the same thing? NO. There is absolutely no relation between what the two have in mind.

If, for example, baptism and confession is another way leading to God, then in my view, there would be no reason to oppose the conversions performed by the Christian missionaries in India. But I strongly oppose them, because I believe it is not another way, but a dead end.

Response to SV Okay. Well, the problem is that you're talking about Dharma, whereas the Veda shloka didn't talk about dharma The other 3/4ths of the quotation talk about sundry names, so that's not at issue. The Ekam sat phrase is talking about general conceptions of truth, which may or may not be dharma. The phrase only speaks about Truth and what it is referred to as, i.e. in what way people approach the truth. Dharma isn't at issue here. Also, there is a great legacy of Hindus, for example, in the Mughal rule who would frequently comment on how a Muslim was 'adharmic' because he didn't follow 'his own book' (qu'ran).

As for 'faith, love and persistence,' that was talking about a path. The question here is about "Truth," not dharma. You're talking about dogmatic issues, as to whether a path is ethical. I wrote 'love' because a central ethical concept in Hinduism, gleaned from the Upanishads, is that ahimsa and oneness with other living beings is essential to human nature; empathy and nonharming.

Multiple truths - A muslim may feel Allah is truth, a catholic that baptism is essential to salvation, and a Hindu that only cremation is suitable for the deceased. However, these are posits of truth, faith, understandings (known by many names). Whether that truth is ultimately reached by these ideas is a different story. If I believe god to be a man, another believes God to be a woman, and we both live ethical lives and finally, upon death, meet god and find that God is sexless, then the Hindu idea of One Truth by many names is to be understood. But note that people's arguments about whether this is God or that is god, or that they believe God to be relative, or that there is no God (buddhism, jainism), doesn't matter. The central spiritual underpinning of Hindiusm remains the same, that multiple paths can lead to the same truth. Just because Allah, Yahweh and Brahman POINT to completely different ideas DOESN'T MEAN that the three aspirants of each God, all moral, good people, will reach different truths! That's why the sentence says truth is one.

--LordSuryaofShropshire 13:32, May 6, 2004 (UTC)

P.S. The reason Hinduism isn't cool with missionaries is that they often are seen to attempt to bind Hindus into an exclusivist, frequently insulting viewpoint. By decrying other people's paths as patently false they go against the very grain of much of Indian culture which asks for free expression of belief. The problem is that Christians, especially converts, are very fond of crying foul about "idol-worship" (which is a bogus claim anyway) and insulting deities, talking about how Hindus and non-Christians will burn in hell without a temporal acceptance of Christ. I personally have no problem with Indians becoming Christian, but I dislike the common disease of religious bigotry that brands everyone as false and lets them know it. However, I might add that religious and philosophical understandings of the truth of many paths are muddied by communalism. I use the word a lot because I feel it defines much of the world's problems today. Once somebody stamps himself Christian, or Hindu, or Muslim, esp. in diverse countries like India, they set themselves off from non-Christians, non-Hindus, non-Muslims. We're trying to break across sectarian boundaries, and lower religion is not helping. Thus, we see Hinduism accepting of Christianity, but are Hindus going to take lightly when one of their pack leaves, or another pack barks at them? We have to differentiate between religion and its adherents. --LordSuryaofShropshire 13:39, May 6, 2004 (UTC)

Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni and so on are not "sundry names". They are there as representatives and upholders of Dharma. You can't replace those names with Tom, Dick and Harry.

The other 3/4th is important because it refers to the "One Truth" and not some general truth. A person may say a glass is half full and another may say it is half empty. It does not take a genius to figure out there can be such situations and that both points of view can be correct; this is NOT what the verse is talking about.

And because the other 3/4th refers to Dharma, the 1/4th is complete in itself, but ambiguous, and it does not mean that we can insert random adharmas of our choice to go along with the 1/4th.

You say (or support the line) in the article, talking about the Ekam Sat phrase, that "Essentially, any kind of spiritual practice followed with faith, love and persistence will lead to the same ultimate state of self-realization", and in the discussion that "The Ekam sat phrase is talking about general conceptions of truth, which may or may not be dharma". It will be easier for me to argue if you are consistent. And if you stick to the second version, refer to the first two paragraphs of my current response. And by the way, can you point me to any Christian or Islamic scripture which talks about self-realization? For these religions, God is something external, and the question of self-realization simply does not arise.

Part of your argument consists of projection of Hindu ideas onto other religions. As an example, "God is one, though everyone sees him as different, whether Allah, Yahweh or Ishwara." is just a projection of Hindu ideas onto other religions. (But at the same time,you also say "most Hindus scoff at the identification of Krishna with Christ").

Christianity and Islam are just a set of beliefs. Jesus, the one and only true God's only begotten Son died for everybody's sins; Mohammad is the seal of Prophets and Koran was dictated to him by the one and only true God. You buy the package, and you buy a ticket to heaven. If you don't, you go to hell. There is no searching, no travelling. You either accept the whole package of beliefs or not. You cannot pick and choose what you like. It is like a house of cards, one falls, and the whole house collapses. That is why otherwise reasonable people end up denying the theory of evolution. They are not paths leading anywhere, more like tickets to an exclusive club. And this is the origin of believers and non-believers, and hatred. Can you show me anything in Hinduism or Buddhism which preaches hatred to people of other faiths? And would a SINGLE Christian priest or Muslim mullah even acknowledge the possibility of paths to the truth other than their own? NO. And therein lies the crux of the problem.

And I would like to take up your point about differentiating between a religion and its adherents, and turn it around completely. People are the same everywhere, it is religions like Christianity and Islam which are responsible for preaching hatred towards unbelievers, responsible for inquisitions and jihads. Take the religions away, and the adherents are just as good or bad as anybody else.

And since you personally have no problems with Indians becoming Christians, do you have no problems with Indians becoming Muslim either? (Christianity and Islam are sister religions with similar theologies.)

"Thus, we see Hinduism accepting of Christianity,...". No, it is some Hindus who are accepting of Christianity, by wrong understanding of Hindu philosophy.

Coming to the "faith, love and persistence", can you tell me what you mean by Truth with a capital T, if not Dharma, or self-realization? I am not asking if a path is ethical or not, I am asking if it is right or not. And I ask again, is there anything verifiable in Christianity or Islam? --SV 02:20, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

They call him Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni, and celestial noble-pinioned Garutmaan. To that Truth which is One, sages give many a name: they call it Agni, Yama, Matarisvan.

Dharma was not even a term used this far back in the Rig Veda. The strongest equivalent of dharma the Vedics had was Rta, and even it was not fully developed in so early a mandala as the first. This stanza should convey the same meaning if it were amended to

They call him Zoroaster, Yahweh, God, Allah, and the soaring fleet-footed Hermes. to that Truth which is One, sages give many a name: they call it Allah, Hades, Devi.

The hymnist, I would aver, is not speaking about some set system of religion. He is merely pointing to the principle of reality, Truth, and saying it is One, however one looks at it. The reason such a great deal is made of this verse is because it asserts something that no religion before or since has said, that whatever one shrieks the truth to be, that it cannot be what another man says, we are in the end looking for the same thing. We are unified in our search.

"Essentially, any kind of spiritual practice followed with faith, love and persistence will lead to the same ultimate state of self-realization", and in the discussion that "The Ekam sat phrase is talking about general conceptions of truth, which may or may not be dharma" You were frustrated by what could look like my inconsistency, but I think we're attacking the same truth from different angles :) When I said may or may not be dharma, I was referring to a general conception of truth. A man may never have heard or theorized the term and ancillary ideas of dharma, and yet live a thoroughly appropriate life. If you think about it, the professional businessman in, say, chicago, taking care of his wife and kids and never shirking responsibility, is being quite the ideal of dharma. And yet he may never have heard of it or thought of it that way.

What I meant to say about Christianity and Islam, the adherents as opposed to their practiced faiths, is that in the end it boils down to what we do and who we are, not what we profess. If a Muslim gives to charity, is self-sacrificing for the good of his family and community, and kind to all, but a Hindu is thieving and selfish, the former would certainly get my vote of confidence for salvation. My point is that the ideals are less important than following through on those ideals.

I believe most Hindus and non-Hindus who have heard this idea have been in agreement that it talks about religious and intellectual pluralism. For example, I can read Shakespeare's King Lear in a nihilist strain, you a deconstructionist, another as pure narrative, and yet we all walk away having imbibed great truths.

The primary import of Ekam Sat is not mere philosophy since it has been quite faithfully followed for millenia, that to decry another for his professed faith, for the skin of religion, is short-sighted. His/her works, person, should be the consideration. Shri Ramakrishna tried to explicitly demonstrate this by showing he could find Jesus or follow the Five Pillars of Islam and find God. Self-discovery needn't be expressed in more concrete terminology; the idea is that it is inherent in spirituality. Hindu bhaktas carry this very idea, that by undying and self-dissolving love of God in chosen form we break down the ego, become immersed in true consciousness, find Truth. This idea is no different from that of the Christians in Christ, the Muslims in Allah, etc.

As for conversion from one religion to another. I, and corresponding Hindu thought, believes that one invested in true spirituality will succeed in any faith he or she adopts. However, fanaticism in any religion is never an answer. The man who becomes Christian and then spits on his mother's picture of Krishna, or in more subtle ways becomes vainglorious, is only failing to follow Christ's message of understanding and peace. Before we accuse others of idolatry we must lead the stainless life, the life of pure adherence to the ten laws, the Be-attitudes. A great statement by a Muslim mystic was something along the lines of: "You may burn the Holy Qu'ran, you may destroy the sacred Ka'aba, you may even curse the Prophet's great name, but never cause pain to another human being." Now the point is that people running to religion and taking the heft of the scripture, the regal nature of the cultural dress, and forgets the actual tenets, is not following religion but joining a flock of sheep, a pack of animals. This goes for Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, Christians, whatever. This is, in my humble opinion, what Swami Vivekananda called true religion, the religion of heart unfettered by communalism.

I differentiate strongly between what I like to call communal religion and spiritual religion.

What people of all religions must avoid, Upanishadic and post-Upanishadic Indian thought explains, is empty sacerdotalism. This includes the blind devotion to communalism, that by proclaiming acceptance of one temporal idea or figure, we are saved, if not all else are damned. This religious bigotry is rebelled against in Ekam Sat. The gods names are not irrelevant, but in context show the various sects to be pursuing, through different means, the same singular Truth. It is this idea that has given strength to so many Hindus through so many years and resulted in unparalleled religious tolerance. The stated prerequisites I gave, as are I would believe implicit in Hindu philosophy, faith-love-and-persistence. A Christian or Muslim, or Hindu for that matter, with true love, would not hurt another for not adopting his or her religious creed. Bigotry has no place in the truly spiritual heart. Ekam Sat does not speak to the gross physical body of religion, but to its spiritual core, whether accoutred in the garb of the Mandir, the Pir, the Church, the Temple. It is One. If you find this explanation lacking, I cannot add more. That is how I and many others view it. Please offer some course of rectifying the misunderstanding of the dictum.--LordSuryaofShropshire 17:06, May 9, 2004 (UTC)

"They call him Zoroaster, Yahweh, God, Allah, and the soaring fleet-footed Hermes. to that Truth which is One, sages give many a name: they call it Allah, Hades, Devi".
To use a crude and colorful analogy, if you think of Hindu philosophy as a man, this statement is like hitting his head with a sledgehammer.

As a minor aside, Zoroaster was a teacher, and should not be in the list. The name you were looking for is Ahura Mazda. There is an interesting theory that the Mazdeans were originally Vedic Aryans who moved to Iran due to differences.

I have said what I could to convince you, and I don't think I can say much more.

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa did not find Jesus or Allah. Ramakrishna-Muslim (6.2-6.4) "But is the story true? Ram Swarup finds that it is absent in the earliest recordings of Ramakrishna’s own talks. It first appears in a biography written 25 years after Ramakrishna’s death by Swami Saradananda (Sri Ramakrishna, the Great Master), who had known the Master only in the last two years of his life. Even then, mention (on just one page in a 1050-page volume) is only made of a vision of a luminous figure. The next biographer, Swami Nikhilananda, ventures to guess that the figure was “perhaps Mohammed”.6 In subsequent versions, this guess became a dead certainty, and that “vision of Mohammed” became the basis of the doctrine that he spent some time as a Muslim, and likewise as a Christian, and that he “proved the truth” of those religions by attaining the highest yogic state on those occasions."

The different Hindu schools of philososphy talk about admitting various sources of knowledge(only perception and inference; perception, inference and scripture, etc.) and rest on a solid foundation of logic. Do you see any logical basis in Christianity or Islam? To emphasise my point, a quote from Purva Mimamsa (Wiki stub) "Its adherents believed that revelation must be proved by reasoning, that it should not be accepted blindly as dogma."

I advocate questioning all religions, including Hinduism. But Hinduism and Buddhism have an experimental part, yoga/meditation which at least gives an avenue to people to verify those theories.
I am keeping an open mind by questioning the validity of every path, and it is you who is being dogmatic by assuming the validity of many paths.

I think you are not looking at religions like Islam and Christianity correctly, you are making the religions into what you think they should be.

I think you would benefit by studying other religions better. If I may venture to suggest some books:
Arun Shourie, Harvesting our souls : missionaries, their design, their claims
Ram Swarup, Hindu view of Christianity and Islam
Ram Swarup, Hinduism vis-à-vis Christianity and Islam
Ibn Warraq, Why I am not a Muslim
Arun Shourie, The world of fatwas, or, The shariah in action
Ram Swarup, Understanding Islam through Hadis
(I have not read, or read only parts of, some of these books.)

Bharatvani is a site I love, you should check it out sometime.

An article of interest, Article "The Hindu, unfortunately, interprets Muslim behaviour through his own value system or frame of reference." Though the context of this remark is slightly different (replace "Muslim behaviour" with "Islam"), I think it is very relevant.

We seem to have come to an end of this discussion, and as the cliche goes, we can agree to disagree.

Coming to sacerdotalism, I seemed to detect an anti-Brahmin bias in the older, longer version of the article, but let us keep that discussion for some other day. :) --SV 03:02, 13 May 2004 (UTC)