We are blessed to be living in an open, multicultural and multiethnic society where there is not only tolerance but also respect and acceptance for people of different ethnicity, spiritual traditions and beliefs.
Over the last couple of years, I have participated in quite a few multi faith dialogues. I am thankful to my Christian friends and local churches for taking the initiatives to organize such dialogues. These initiatives are true gestures of open mindedness and liberal thinking. Being from Hindu tradition, which has always accepted many paths to spirituality, I truly appreciate the opportunities for such dialogues. It is hoped that, through these dialogues, we will come to understand and accept our neighbours from different faiths. However, not all faiths have shown the same liberal attitudes.
That leads me to ponder on an interesting conundrum. Why do we humans so much love to impose various identities on ourselves and then become prisoners of those self-imposed identities? Are any of our identities even real or just self-assumed or imposed on us by others?
Certainly in our complex human societies we do need identities. If all of us were addressed as “Hey you “ which one of us will answer? That is why we identify ourselves by various names. We also identify ourselves based on relationships such as son, sister, or husband of so and so. Then come our occupational identities such as carpenter, painter, teacher, doctor, scientist, and identities of our ethnicity like being Jews, Arabs Indians, and our national identities such as Americans, Canadians, and Chinese etc.
Those identities are based on our physical material existence and are transient in nature. They do serve a beneficial purpose of identifying our place in nature, and how to relate and interact with our surroundings.
Beyond our myriads of material identities lies our one spiritual identity, realization of which is the goal of Dharma (virtuous, right code of conduct). Our spiritual identity is One Indivisible Whole and quite different from our assumed faith based identities such as Christians, Moslems, Jews, Buddhists and Sikhs etc. Instead of realization of our Wholeness, these strong faith based identities create boundaries around us and end up making us prisoners of our convictions. We now divide the world between US versus THEM. These divisions lead to our prejudices against THEM. Our prejudices are at the roots of our dislikes and or fears of THEM.
These dislikes and fears agitate our minds loosing our tranquility. Without peaceful minds it is impossible to make spiritual progress. Just as it is impossible to see our reflections in whirlpools, it is impossible to connect with our spirituality with agitated minds. To live in spiritual harmony peaceful, tranquil minds are first requisites.
That is why ancient Indian spiritual wisdom teaches us “Bhuva eva sukham, na alpum” meaning “peace, tranquility and everlasting joy reside in One Infinite Eternal Indivisible Reality, and cannot be found in its constituent parts”. There is no room for divisions in such wisdom.
Perhaps, one day, we will all be blessed with such spiritual insight and realize our One essential spiritual identity uniting us with our Ultimate Cause, liberating us from our self imposed prisons of various faith based identities. Then our interfaith dialogue will become even more meaningful and we will truly learn from each other to coexist in peace and harmony. Not just with our fellow human beings, but also with all the other creatures and our environment.
Author/Creator
Chandrakant Kothari