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Sri Ramakrishna: The ‘New Man’ of the Age – III 49
and the modern. As mentioned earlier these five
types of harmony were not merely a matter of
toleration and social accommodation. They were
derived from a true vision and understanding
of Reality and were based on two fundamental
principles that Sri Ramakrishna seemed to have
followed in his life.
The first principle is unity in diversity. Sri
Ramakrishna had realized that underpinning all
the diversity of the phenomenal world there is the
substratum of infinite, unchanging, unbroken,
non-dual consciousness. All the diversities finally
lead to a basic unity. Having established himself in
the basic unitary consciousness, Sri Ramakrishna
could see harmony in all forms of diversity.
The second principle is of acceptance. Sri
Ramakrishna accepted diversity as a part of the
divine plan. It should be noted that Sri Ramakrishna
did not try to find the common ground
among religions or among the sects of Hinduism,
nor did he try to ‘harmonize’ religions
or sects. He simply accepted all religions and
sects as they are, with all their differences. He
did not try to iron out or reconcile those differences.
He just accepted them as the unique
features of religions and sects.
Conflicts and quarrels arise only when
people refuse to accept diversity—diversity of
religions, diversity of sects, diversity of human
temperaments, and so forth. Conflicts and
quarrels arise when people take the stand that
their religion alone is true and all other religions
are false, that is, they are not religions at
all. They claim that they believe in an omniscient
and omnipotent God but, at the same time,
they refuse to see that God himself must have
created diverse religions and that diversity is a
part of God’s plan of the world.
Sri Ramakrishna accepted religions and sects
as they are. Where others saw conflicts, he saw
harmony; where others saw error and falsehood,
PB July 2011
he saw truth and reality. To establish harmony
among religions it is not necessary to formulate
any big theories. All that is needed is to simply
allow people to follow their own religions or
sects without disturbing others. Religious conflicts
arise when religious leaders with their
narrow views and ignorance of other religions
spread dogmatism and fanaticism among common
people. In recent years religion has come
to be associated with politics in many countries,
especially in India. This has aggravated religious
conflicts and made religion one of the chief
causes of social violence and unrest. Regarding
this Swami Vivekananda says: ‘Now, in my little
experience I have collected this knowledge—
that for all the devilry that religion is blamed
with, religion is not at all in fault: no religion
ever persecuted men, no religion ever burnt
witches, no religion ever did any of these things.
What then incited people to do these things?
Politics, but never religion; and if such politics
takes the name of religion whose fault is that? ’ 15
There are, however, signs that the situation is
changing fast. The Internet is bringing people all
over the world closer to one another. Through the
Internet people are coming to know about other
religions and are able to appreciate the good points
in them. They are learning to think for themselves
independent of the influence of religious leaders.
Harmony of religions is no longer a matter to be
decided by religious leaders. It is being taken up
and practised by the common people. The ideas
of harmony that Sri Ramakrishna lived and taught
are now practised more and more by people in
many countries, although many of them may not
know about Sri Ramakrishna or his message of
universal harmony.
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References and Notes
14. Gospel, 155.
15. Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 4.125.
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