Page 77 - Wisdom Unfurled
P. 77

core of all religions and sticking to the gross outer forms only, entails the development of a feeling of hatred within the followers of one religion towards the adherents of others leading to inter-religious jealousies and quarrels.
The aim of all religions is to provide a link between God and man and lead him to realization of the Ultimate Reality. But today it is laden with superstitions, absurdities and bias and its practice has degraded to such an extent that ‘the man of reason and thought gets disgusted at the very mention of the word ‘God’’.
However, the common notion of God in religion is that He is the Creator, Sustainer and destroyer of the world and is endowed with infinite auspicious attributes-Infinite compassion, beauty, power, grace ad infinitum. Whatever excellent quality we may be aware, He is thought to have the same in infinite abundance. He is perfect extension or space, He is eternal, He is not in time but beyond it, the past, the present and the future all being included in Him. He is, as the Upanishad says, ‘from whom everything originates, by whom everything is sustained and in whom everything is absorbed’. This is the Saguna concept of God, God with qualities. This is the Ishwara, Saguna Brahman (determinate absolute), the God of religion, the object of worship and the final approach of almost all the religions. Some passages of the Upanishads describe God in terms of negation of the qualities or gunas of nature namely, sattva, rajas andtamas (tranquility and poise, activity and passion and inertia and indolence). Sankhya interprets ‘gunas’ as strands of the rope of prakriti or nature which binds the purusha or soul while it is in a state of ignorance.
Master refers to the philosophic view which includes the idea of Nirguna Brahman (indeterminate absolute) which is above all multiplicity and distinction and is beyond quality, activity and consciousness. The Saguna and Nirguna conceptions of the Ultimate Reality have generated a great deal of debate in religious circles and it has been generally held that the Nirgunaconception is superior to the Saguna one. The Master is categorical in stating that we err when we hold that one or the other conception alone is right; actually both of them are misleading in that they mask the true nature of Reality. We get confined to one view or the other as long as we are within the fold of religion. The highest attainments in the field of spirituality are possible only we transcend the narrow confines of religion. The Master puts it beautifully when He says, ‘The end of religion is the beginning of spirituality; the end of spirituality is the beginning of Reality and the end of Reality is the real Bliss. When that too is gone, we have reached the destination (DR pg6)’. This is indeed an inspiring revelation which makes a true of transcendence of































































































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