While we celebrate Diwali this year, let's make out a special prayer to all our Gods to include that very important ingredient—religious harmony—in our cocktail of celebrations, says OSWALD PEREIRA
God created human beings, wanting them to be gentle, loving and caring. Our true eternal, combined Father and Mother—God—built all of us in the Divine's image. God's Light shone upon us. It was an eternal Festival of Light. A never-ending, infinite Diwali.
In our pristine glory, the way God created us, there was light and bliss all around. That's how we were conceived; how we were born.
Darkness, evil and ignorance were alien in God's paradisiacal abode. This description of paradise is neither a writer's imagination nor a poet's ode or a Diwali wish or greeting.
All propagators of Religious Harmony: Left to Right, Sri Ramakrishna, Vivekananda and Yogananda
It was an existing reality when we first inhabited this beautiful blue planet. Then as time flew by—centuries and centuries, millennia and millennia of human existence—we progressed materially, even intellectually, but regressed spiritually.
Before we knew it, darkness overshadowed light, evil triumphed over good and ignorance won over knowledge.
But human beings are such geniuses. Aren't we?
God-gifted humans created festivals. So many festivals. To deal with the very evils that they created.
The festival of lights, Diwali or Deepavali, is one such great and special festival. The genius-man over many centuries has been using Diwali as a symbol of the spiritual "victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance."
Wow! What an achievement! What a grand dramatic battle, we humans have been waging over the millennia.
Tenacious human beings that we are, we never give up. Why should we? We are fighters, real warriors, after all.
But aren't we missing something? That small, sweet-sounding, melodious word, which will make our battle with the evil we have inflicted upon ourselves, friendlier and a little bit God-like and remind us of His Image, that is now well-entrenched within us, inspiring us to act, like Him?
That small word, which can be our sword and armour, is harmony. What we really need to end the mess that we have gotten ourselves into is harmony.
Harmony within ourselves, harmony with people around us, harmony with our religion and the religions of others; here in our own beloved country and the equally beloved countries where people of other creeds, cultures and races live.
Sages, saints and avatars have come to this earth and gone away, teaching us harmony, but all their wise words seem to have fallen on deaf ears. Rama, Krishna, Christ and Buddha came and so lovingly explained their philosophy of harmony, but we ignored their core philosophy, and instead commodified their teachings, claiming monopoly over them.
Then arrived sages of modern times, who were avatars in their own rights—Sri Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Yogananda and many others—showing by their own lives how to live in harmony with people of your own nation practising different religions, then extending this principle to people and religions the world over.
But harmony seems to have remained just a sweet, fanciful word, to be never taken seriously.
We may have millions of festivals and billions of celebrations, but the world may never be a better place, unless we live in harmony, and stop quarrelling over whose God and religion is better—yours or mine.
I am sure that the Gods above don't quarrel and are non-competitive, non-monopolistic, non-invasive, divinely blissful Beings, happy to meet once in a while, perhaps during their festivals to share cups, filled to the brim with the nectar of harmony-inducing God-communion.
Says the great sage and yogi, Paramhansa Yogananda: "I have often said that if Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, and other true emissaries of God came together, they would not quarrel, but would drink from the same one cup of God-communion. To me there is neither Jew, nor Christian nor Hindu. I worship in all temples, for each of them has been erected to honour my Father.
"The way forward is a 'federation of all religions and all nations.' Ultimately, it is divine love that breaks all barriers of creed and unites all people and their religions. When you experience that divine love, you will see no difference between one human being and another."
This quote is presented as one of the key teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda in my new book, Beyond Autobiography of a Yogi.
So, while we celebrate Diwali this year around, let's make out a special prayer to all our Gods to include that little but very important ingredient—religious harmony—in our cocktail of celebrations.
Oswald Pereira, a senior journalist, has also written ten books, including Beyond Autobiography of a Yogi, The Newsroom Mafia, Chaddi Buddies, The Krishna-Christ Connexion, How to Create Miracles in Our Daily Life and Crime Patrol: The Most Thrilling Stories. Oswald is a disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda, and practises Kriya Yoga.