Does Every Religion Speak The Same Thing?

‘Ekam Sat Viprah Bahudha Vadanti’ – this is a chant from Rig Veda, which I often remember during my contemplations about spirituality and god (if there ever is one). Roughly translated this means ‘Truth Is One, Sages Call It With Various Names’. The more I have started contemplating the same, the more I am turning clueless about the sense behind it, at least the sensibility of repeating it in the current global scenario.

One of the most specious platitudes that we have all learnt to parrot around is this – ‘Every religion teaches/mentions/speaks/emphasizes the same thing’. A little thought about this statement and we will all realize how untrue this really is. While the intention is to increase the amicability among people and to downplay the differences, I believe it is time we stopped taking such statements on face value and faced reality.

Not every religion speaks/teaches the ‘same thing’. Each and every Holy Scripture differs from one another. Right from the creation of this Universe, to the making of mankind, to the concept of life after death and to the final act of judgment, each and every religion has its own say and way. One religion is adamantly monotheist, while another believes in a triumvirate. Some believe in a big pantheon and some others worship anything and everything. In some religions, the soul is indestructible and comes into this world again and again, caught in the cycle of birth, while in other religions, when one dies one stays dead, till the good god feels it time to wake up everyone in one final grand show of settling ‘credits and punishments’.

Instead of repeating the cliché of all religions being the same, we should learn to appreciate the differences and accept the same. Variety is the way of life. A wide variety of species, plants, places and things is what makes this world an interesting place to live. I am sure that none of us would prefer to live in a world where everything has become monotonously similar.

When we go to a restaurant we order what we prefer to eat, taking for granted our right to do so. Similarly when we go out to buy clothes for ourselves, we buy only what we like, again exercising our rights to do so, without even being conscious of it. In neither of these places do we worry about our rights nor do we try to enforce our choice on others. I cannot enforce my choice on another person, because what the other person chooses for himself/herself depends on that person’s age, gender, size and, most importantly of all, freewill. When we can accept to respect the other person’s choice in such crucial matters like what to eat and what to wear, to mention just two, why not accept that there can be wide variety of views in every other aspect of life?

What does it matter to us if somebody decides to worship by kneeling and somebody else decides to worship by prostrating? Why should it matter if somebody grows a beard or a tuft on the head? As long as the other person does not intervene in our choice to sit at the table we want and decide the clothes we would wear, why make all such a hullabaloo about a fictional concept such as gods and religions?! As long as a person behaves in the ethical way, acts in a socially acceptable moral conduct, does not cause harm to another person by words, deeds or thoughts, should we give a hoot to which god s/he worships?!

May be it will be a difficult thing for us grown-ups to shed the boundaries and fences that we have made inside our hearts. But, we should at least teach our next generation, the young children, to spurn the poisonous curse of religion and to coexist amicably. We should not lie to them about there being no difference at all, but should teach them about the differences and also tell them that it is OK for such differences to exist. We should teach them about ‘unity in diversity’, without pulling wool over their eyes about there being no differences. Because the so-called ‘tolerance’ of modern minds seems to be a hypocritical ideal of accepting the others ‘as long as they don’t differ from us in how they speak/feel/write/live’, when it should really have been the understanding of ‘our having the right to live our lives the way we want, while respecting the rights of others to do so too’.

Let’s teach our children about the differences, so that they can all see how trivial such ‘differences’ are and laugh them off. Amen!