Many of the over 150 who attended Swamiji's discourse on "The Essence of All Religions" at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi felt that this talk was particularly noteworthy. Accordingly, we are providing not only pictures and audio but also a substantial write-up of Swami's talk as well as a verbatim transcript of the lovely closing remarks by Dr. L. M. Singhvi, former president of the Parliament of World Religions and high commissioner (ambassador) from India to England.

You can follow the write-up and the transcript below, if you wish, while you also listen to the tallk using this link (3.2 Mb; 69 mins).

Pre-discourse

Much has to be done before a "Swami event". Attendees are rarely aware of all the preparations. Here is a look at a few for this talk.

Deborah leads choir rehearsal— finding a nook in which to practice
at major events can be challenging!

Veteran multitasker Daya handles both call and flowers

Zack and Jemal start setting up a book and CD display — they've got many boxes to unpack

Gyandevi and Sri D. R. Kaarthikeyan, Chair of tonight's event, share a light moment

Lipa, Claudio, Ana, Vibha, and other gurubais chat while awaiting tea

Swami arrives and finds old and new friends awaiting

The room fills up as 6:30 approaches

Master watches over all the activity

Chairman Kaarthikeyan turns to special guest Dr. L. M. Singhvi, who would later sum up Swami's talk

Swami greets Dr. Singhvi

Swami's Discourse

Preceding Swami's talk was a musical programme of some of his songs that particularly embody his philosophy in song. These were presented first by a small ensemble, then the larger choir. Swami joined the choir to solo and sing along on the last of these pieces.

Swami's still-rich baritone rings out on "Peace"

Swami began his talk by explaining there were many ways to approach his topic but that he would do so from his own experience of searching for truth. He felt that what he was being taught in his family's church didn't mean anything, and that everyone was merely talking about opinions rather than real truth, so religion seemed the last way to go to find truth. By contrast, he found the approach of science more honorable because scientists tested what they believed. Yet he also noticed that scientific truths seemed to change every decade or so, and he was not pleased with scientists he knew.

Thinking he might become an astronomer, he recalled that it took astronomers many years to realize there were galaxies beyond ours. But religion he found even more narrowly focused. Nor could he imagine how fighting could go on in the name of love, of a God of love

Truth, he felt, had to affect one's life. Maybe, he thought, systems had the answer, but look at Communism—100 million Russians and Chinese have been killed by their own governments. He turned to the arts hoping to find truth. No matter what he studied, however, there was always something missing. He wanted to write plays to help others find truth, but realized he didn't have it and why inflict that on others.

Swami describes his long search for truth even from a young age

One night he realized there had to be some uniting truth. But if there were a God, what could he be? Surely not someone like a policeman waiting to throw us into Hell. That night, he said, he discovered Vedanta, though he knew nothing of it. It occurred to him that if there were a God, He must be consciousness, and his consciousness would have to come from that. Consciousness must be part of the universe for anything to manifested through consciousness. And if God's consciousness is manifested through our own, then our duty must simply be to discover our relationship to that consciousness and be more in turne with it.

By analogy, Swami pointed out how music cannot be heard on strings alone—only if they are stretched over a sounding board. We, God, everything around us are a sounding board. If we are in tune, everything around us is in resonance, and with resonance we can accomplish great things. Swami made the further analogy of how singers develop their voices by attunement to their teacher's voice. The voice is the only instrument the teacher cannot show the student how to place. The student must learn how the teacher does things and gradually get an understanding. He doesn't develop the same voice as the teacher's but his own. By watching the guru, the student sees how he does it and can become the same. When the sound is really good, the body becomes our sounding board.

When we feel that life itself is our sounding board, Swami said, it is amazing how many things go right. If they happen over and over, they can't merely be coincidences. He recounted two unique personal experiences of "coincidences" in his own life.

These attendees, who came from afar hoping to meet Swami
but unaware he would give this talk, rejoice in their "coincidences"

There is only one truth, Swami asserted. We don't speak of Hindu or Christian physicists. One country, India, has the right word for religion, sanaatan dharma. It is the religion of the universe, the simple truth that when God created the universe, he had nothing with which to do it except by bringing it out of his consciousness. Matter is not solid but a vibration of energy. How can this be? By example, when a propeller is turning, it looks as if it is solid yet it is just individual blades. These truths could not have been taught until very recently, for the world was not ready. Everything that seems real will not seem that way when at death we must leave it.

Who do we look to to understand the truths of religions? The saints. In an organization, if promotion must go to either a saint or an accountant, it goes to the accountant. In spiritual organizations, business people are the ones who rise. Religions tie truth to their dogmas. The saints are not listened to, as a rule. They are inconvenient voices.

The only criterion of religion is whether you love God, Swami said. If so, he laughed, you can believe in sacred crocodiles and it will not matter because it's a matter of being in tune.

Swami's wry humor often shone through his by turns poignant and serious talk

All religions talk about heaven being up and hell being down. But what is up for us is down for somewhere else, and vice versa. Pointing to his forehead, Swami said, "Heaven is up here". Religion is about our relationship with truth.

There is a lot of untruth in religion also, Swami affirmed. It is not enough to say "it's all a matter of belief". Swami told the auidence he had come to believe that to test the value of any spiritual truth, he must test it against sanaatan dharma. The only religion that teaches kaivalya moksha is Hinduism. Christ taught it, Swami said, but Christians don't; they think if by being good one goes to Heaven for eternity, and by being bad, to eternal Hell (though he didn't mention the Christian teaching on the role of informed and full intention).

Rapt audience members follow along

Samadhi, Swami explained, is being in all people. God put his consciousness into every atom. When the sun shines on slivers, they also shine but otherwise are in darkness. So too with ourselves. We must break out of our ego to understand we are that Infinite One. This is how Yogananda could see into everyone's thoughts and be as much in other bodies as in his own. It is by getting outside our little bundles of self-definition that we can understand we are in everyone else. If we can just get out of the little layer of ego, we are at infinity.

The beautiful thing about religious (spiritual) truth, Swami pointed out, is that it is the only field in life in which everyone is in agreement. All who love God, no matter their religion, know the same truth, and when they meet each other, they know each other. But in science, real agreement is never found. A new scientific discovery gains acceptance not by being reasonable but because the old generation has to die and the new one grows up with the idea.

Jesus spoke of the religious truth of kaivalya moksha, Swami said . . for instance, when he said the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, a tiny little thing that gradually grows and expands. It is samadhi, growing from our little seed of ego to realization we are in everything. This, declared Swami, is the essence of religion. It must be brought down to one simple reality: us. We ourselves have to define what religion is.

If we understand who we are, the heaven we seek means looking at our own life and raising our own energy. When we are happy, energy rises, and when we are sad, it falls. When energy goes down in the body, it goes back to our animal origins. That is Hell. Heaven is the reverse. This is the essence of yoga. It's not theory but fact. When we can go deep enough in ourselves, there is a rising current; the polarity tied at the base of the spine begins to rise (kundalini). It's not a matter of belief. "I don't talk about religion but spirituality", Swami said, "and spirituality is experience", raising our own energy

"Understand that God is in you", Swami encouraged, "nowhere else". Only when we find Him there can we find Him everywhere else. When we do—when our energy can be lifted and we are centered in ourselves—we find we are a sounding board for God and He for us.

The goal of religion (or spirituality) is Satchitananda. Everyone is looking for it but doesn't know where to find it. This world is based on the principle of advaita. We cannot have one thing without its opposite. By analogy, a tuning fork with tines moving in opposite directions creates a single sound. Once we understand that we won't be happy seeking a good time because then we'll have have to have bad times, success in one area means disappointment in another. It has to end in nothing. The sum total of all human experience has to be zero.

How ironic, Swami noted, that people can go for many lifetimes working and struggling and striving quite literally for nothing. We cannot have anything without also having its opposite. We must learn to live in our own center, and that what we seek (God) has no opposite. This is the essence of religion. If we understand that religion is defined by us, that we are the definition of everythng that is true and that we must understand and explore this to its depths, we will be one with God.

Although our families may oppose our spiritual endeavour ("sooner or later we all have to disappoint his mother at some point"), Swami concluded, families receive a benefit if we succeed; for once we achieve moksha, seven generations of our family backward and forward will be freed as well.

Two generations take heart at the reminder
of benefits for families of those who reach Self-realization

A true sounding board of voice and life alike,
Swami closes by chanting "God, God, God " accompanied by Nirmala

Post-discourse

Immediately following the discourse, the audience was invited to pose questions for Swami. Although the interchange is not written up here, the questions and answers are on the accompanying audio (at approximately the 45-min position in the audio).

"Now I'd like to ask . . ."

Dharmadas points out a raised hand

Sangeeta translates a question phrased in Hindi

At the end of the discourse, Dr. L. M. Singhvi, obviously touched by Swami's words, gave a delightful commentary and personal observations. A verbatim transcript is available (at approximately the 56-min position in the audio).

There will be much to reflect on long afterward

Time to head home: Sadhana Devi waits
with some of the items returning to the Gurgaon ashram