Verbatim transcript.
Dr. Singhvi, in addition to having held the presidency of the World Parliament of Religions, as he mentions in his talk, was also
high commissioner (ambassador) from India to England.
What a treat it was to hear you. You made us listen to the music of the soul. You made us experience that music of the soul. And you took us on many voyages of discovery, including the voyage of discovering you and experiencing you. I think you have given us in a sense the fundamental precept of sanaatan dharma, and not only sanaatan dharma: the true essence of all religions, because religion has to be the essence of life. It has to be rooted in truth, and it has to be made sublime in our consciousness, making in turn our consciousness sublime.
Religion in Latin and Sanskrit strangely has the same meaning. In Latin it comes from the word religare [to fasten or bind], and dharma is that which sustains. Both of them sustain and create a bonding.
It is quite remarkable, however, that you speak of your experience of the whole world and you come to the conclusion that perhaps sanaatan dharma provides the yardstick of what religion ought to be.
There was, as I mentioned to you a little while ago, a father [priest], Bede Griffiths, and he spoke in somewhat the same way. He was a Benedictine monk who was very deeply learned in the scriptures of Christianity. He came to India not so much as a missionary but he came to India in quest of truth and understanding. And he came to the conclusion that it was enough for him to declare himself a Hindu person. This is quite remarkable.
I should tell you that when in 1992 I was elected president of the Parliament of World Religions in Chicago, I decided to go into the speech of the first president who had made a speech in [1893] in Chicago. Swami Vivekanda had gone and had indeed electrified the spirit of humanity everywhere. Charles Bonney was the man who was elected president of the Parliament of World Religions, and his speech contains a very interesting riddle or puzzle. He said, "I don't know why we are all here so long as we regard our religion to be the one true religion."
Indeed it is this which has created walls of misunderstanding, hatred, rejection, and proclamation of one's truth as one's truth as the only truth. That is why the Rig Veda, the rishis declared that truth is one. but there are many ways in which we are able to approach the truth. The beautiful phrase is, [Sanskrit words]
In Sankya, in fact, you find a high-water mark of that discourse, not only in the Bhagavad Gita but in many other books of Sankya. Now, I think it is important for us all to realize that we do not share the same perceptions—perhaps we never can—but we can at least know that there are other perceptions and try to overcome the otherness of the others.
There is a story which I learned at the feet of a very great saint. He said that there was some saint teaching and telling everyone about advaita, telling that all of us—the man and the tiger—are made of the same stuff. And people thought that this was a remarkable exposition of advaita. But then there came into the ashram a tiger, howling and rolling, and the teacher was the first to gather his books together and to make sure that he would make his escape in time. But his students stopped him. The students said, "How can you go? We are made of the same stuff. Why walk away from the tiger when he is approaching it?" And the reply that the saint gave is something we should all remember, He said, "I know it. I have taught it to you and therefore you know it. But the tiger doesn't know it."
The point is we ought to understand that our truth is not necessarily the truth of the tiger, our perception is not the perception of the others, but we can share our perceptions in a civilized way. And the tribute you paid to sanaatan dharma tells me of the pilgrimage of your life.
The other day I was telling my friends the difference between a guru and a pupil. As one of the greatest pupils of a guru, you will understand that a pupil is one who internalizes what the guru gives him because the guru has a magnetic gravitation. You have that magnetic gravitation, perhaps given to you by your self-realized guru. But there is a difference between even a guru and a seer, because your guru was a seer. And the guru and the seer have this one difference: a guru knows but the seer sees.
There was a compatriot of yours who learned the Gita a long time ago, [Ralph Waldo] Emerson, and Emerson describes a situation of a meeting between a mystic and a philosopher. When they came out of the meeting, the philosopher said, "I know all that he sees" and the mystic said, "I see all that he knows." Now, that is the fundamental difference.
And I must say, Swamiji, how you have enriched my own life after a brief encounter with you personally. It was a very brief encounter for which I owe my grateful appreciation to my friend Sri Kaarthikeyan, but a much deeper and a much longer encounter through your exposition of your sense of the Essence of the Gita, which you very beautifully described as that remembered by a pupil from his master. I have gone through words which you speak to me in a deeper voice.
Today you conversed with us, and that conversation reminded me of the Upanishads. You talked to us in a spirit of giving, and though we were not speaking while you were speaking, we thought we were in conversation with you because we found ourselves on the same wave length. You gave us what I think the rishis of yore saw: religion as the essence of humanity, and that is what led ultimately to the great theorem, I call it a theorem because Aham Brahm asmi is what you taught us just now.
There is God within you, but the question is, is there enough God within you, and are you sufficiently in God, because I think the entire quest of human life has been a quest of truth through consciousness and a quest of bliss through truth and consciousness. Truth alone does not make way for bliss. Truth, when it is made sublime through consciousness, makes you see what you know, and when you see what you know, you are in a state of bliss.
That is what I thought you had expounded in the Essence of the Gita and today in "The Essence of all Religions," for religion has got to be universal to be religion. Religion has got to be eternal and yet momentary because moment is also a part of eternity. And that is why kriya yoga gives us, perhaps a chance to have an encounter with life every moment and in the course of eternity.
May I say how deeply grateful we are to kind Providence for the arrival of a self-realized saint like you in our midst like you who has carried the message of his great seer and guru to us, not carrying coals to Newcastle? Not carrying coals to Newcastle. We are no longer Newcastle. We are no longer the repositories of that wisdom. We need that wisdom badly in this country.
You bring diamonds to what was once upon a time a quarry of diamonds. It is no longer so. But we need nevertheless the understanding of the duty and the grace of that which is good, that which is true, and that which is beautiful: Satchidananda.
Thank you very much.
