October 2011 - Advaita Ashrama

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for the validity of the truths claimed by different
religions has universal significance.
3. Separation of Spirituality from Religion
· We have seen that Sri Ramakrishna’s
teaching on direct experience as a principle of
verification has enabled Vedanta to face the
challenges of science and rational thought. This
principle of direct experience also enabled Sri
Ramakrishna to separate spirituality from religion.
By religion is meant a way of life based
on faith in God and moral order; observance of
rituals, customs, and the like; and allegiance to
some institution. Spirituality is a personal quest
for meaning based on a view of the ultimate Reality
and aims at higher fulfilment through direct
mystical experience of the ultimate Reality.
The outer aspects of religion, such as customs
and rituals, show much diversity and are the main
cause of quarrels and conflicts among religions.
The spiritual aspects of the different religions
present a good deal of uniformity. Sri Ramakrishna
held that spirituality forms the most essential
aspect of all religions. When he said that all
religions lead to the same goal, what he meant was
that the spiritual paths of all religions lead to the
same ultimate goal. The separation of the essential
spiritual aspects of religions from their outer
forms that Sri Ramakrishna brought about has
now become a widely accepted view. More and
more people, especially in the West, now regard
themselves as spiritual rather than as religious.
4. Harmony of Religions · Harmony of religions
is a unique and well-known feature of the
spiritual renaissance associated with the avatarahood
of Sri Ramakrishna. No other spiritual or
religious movement in the past had given so
much importance to the doctrine of harmony
of religions. It is true that a general outlook of
religious harmony prevailed in India right from
Vedic times. But it was more of the nature of religious
liberalism and tolerance than a definite
622
Prabuddha Bharata
doctrine based on a metaphysical truth or verified
experience. The oft-quoted Vedic dictum
‘Ekaṁ sad viprā bahudhā vadanti; Truth is one,
sages call it by different names’ in its original
context indicated an identity of divinities, and it
was not so well known until Swami Vivekananda
popularized it as a Vedic authority for the principle
of religious harmony.
In modern times, under the term ‘religious
pluralism’,3 the doctrine of harmony of religions
is being accepted by more and more people all
over the world. It is followed in most of the spiritual
movements that have sprung up in recent
years. In this context two points regarding Sri
Ramakrishna’s concept of harmony of religions
deserve special mention.
In the first place Sri Ramakrishna’s teaching
on harmony of religions is based on direct experience.
We pointed out earlier that every religion
has three levels of function: the social, the intellectual,
and the mystical or spiritual. Most of the
statements on pluralism or harmony of religions
that we come across pertain only to harmony at
the first two levels, namely the social and the intellectual.
Sri Ramakrishna’s message of harmony
of religions emphasizes harmony at the mystical
or spiritual level. He was the only person who actually
practised the spiritual methods of different
religions, gaining thereby the direct experience
that all paths lead to the realization of the same
ultimate Reality, which is known by different
names. Sri Ramakrishna alone attained the harmony
of religions at the experiential level.
The importance of this fact is that pluralism is
a way of deciding the validity of religions. World
religions have different goals. To decide the validity
of religions based on these goals would be
‘religious relativism’, not pluralism. To decide the
validity of any universal phenomenon we need a
fixed standard or unit. To determine distance we
use the fixed unit of metre or foot, to measure
PB October 2011