This post is my story of how I came to discover the principle that the light of core spirituality instantly removes the darkness of ignorance born out of misunderstandings of what religion truly teaches.
The story of this discovery begins with the reason why I am interested in the universally inclusive and unifying spiritual education can be traced by reaching back to 1947 when India was partitioned into two countries on religious grounds.
Historically, India has been known to be a pluralistic country where diverse people live together practicing their own religions. Moslems and Hindus coexisted for centuries in ‘peace’ but, perhaps, they never succeeded in building lasting bonds of humanity between the masses. Coexistence does not necessarily lead to a closeness of the hearts. Physically we may live together, yet our hearts may be miles apart.
Segregated growth of generations of the Hindu and Moslem communities resulted in degenerate human behavior. As a result, unrest on both sides of the partitioned land resulted in large scale savagery based on religious identities. The ensuing rioting included looting, burning, rapes, butchery, and homelessness in a shameless orgy of religious hatred resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of refugees.
I was a child witness of the heinous crimes against humanity and the outrage of my parents at the wanton killing of innocents. This experience left a permanent mark on me and it has been constantly moving me to build bridges across the hearts and minds of people across the traditional lines of division.
The need is no less now than back in 1947. Human condition has not improved in the intervening years. We were told that the savagery was an act of uneducated masses and things would improve with the spread of modern education. That promise remains unrealized.
Born in 1937 in India in the state of Punjab, I grew up in an atmosphere of intolerance and turmoil that, according to some estimates, may have been responsible for up to a million deaths and fifteen million homeless refugees. At the same time, I had an invaluable opportunity of dialog and discussion on moral and spiritual topics with my parents on our daily morning walks. In addition, my schools had a system of teaching social, ethical and spiritual values. Both my parents and my teachers instilled in me the moral and spiritual values of inclusiveness where religious bigotry had no place whatsoever. My young mind struggled to reconcile this open and inclusive perspective with the religious overzealousness and intolerance leading to widespread violence and human suffering. The savagery I witnessed moved me to think about doing something about preventing it. It must never be allowed to repeat itself anywhere in the world. But I did not have a clue about what can be done.
A look into my background offers some possible answers to the unresolved question. My family and I moved to Canada where I built a career, and a home. My midlife days passed in relative comfort. Then, I had an encounter with a spiritual teacher from India, my Guru Late Swami Vishwatma Bawra, who woke me up from slumber and got me thinking my childhood thoughts once again.
I learnt from my Guru, Swami Vishwatma Bawra, that the universe is not a mere collection of separate individual beings. On the contrary, it is an intimately and indivisibly connected system of beings, animate and inanimate, thoroughly pervaded by the ground of being. This unifying principle essentially comprises the core spirituality of religion.
I learnt that identity savagery based on religion is the result of the ignorance of its core spirituality. The light of core spirituality, I learnt, can instantly dispel the darkness of ignorance. Those people who understand the core spirituality of their respective religions know what their religions really mean. They respect and love each other; they are in fact incapable of hate and bigotry. I found the answer I had been searching: Spiritual light dispels darkness of ignorance.
The basic idea is incredibly simple. There is one reality of infinite scope underlying the universe and all its beings. This reality is at the centre of the core spirituality underlying all religion. Being infinite in scope, it is incapable of being grasped completely by any one perspective leaving it open to multiple interpretations – some in the supernatural domain and some in the domain of nature. We are all one in its oneness; and the multiplicity of our perspectives does not detract from its oneness. We must use mass education to raise deep human consciousness to base our inter-relationships on this oneness.
Today’s world urgently needs a new discipline of moral and spiritual education to provide a clear path of getting past our personal concern to that for our family, from the family to the faith community, from the faith community to the larger community, and from the larger community to all beings in the universe. This new discipline of education promises to eliminate intolerance and usher in an era of not merely tolerance, but also of mutual understanding, respect and universal love.