Unifying Philosophies and Religions

[dattaswami]

Unifying Philosophies and Religions

 

You may doubt how Shankara said that the soul itself is God (Advaita). On the other hand, Ramanuja (Vishishtha Advaita) and Madva (Dvaita) said that the soul is not God. This contradiction in the three sub-religions of Hinduism[1] can be resolved by one simple point: these three philosophies speak only about the soul in a human incarnation and not about the soul of every ordinary human being. When the selected human being is charged by God (human incarnation), you can treat that human being to be identical with God (Advaita) for all practical purposes and at the same time, the imaginable human being acting as medium for the entry of the unimaginable God is totally different (Dvaita) from the unimaginable God. Both the versions are valid. When the electricity charges the metallic wire, you can have the following two simultaneously true versions:

1. The electrified wire can be treated as electricity itself for all practical purposes, since the wire touched anywhere gives an electric shock.
   
2. The electricity and the wire are totally different entities from each other, since electricity is a stream of electrons while the wire is a chain of metallic crystals.
   

This resolution of the contradiction between the sub-religions of Hinduism is a stepping stone to removing the contradiction between the religions in the universe for establishing world peace. Uniting the philosophies of Hinduism is like converting the house into one big hall by removing the internal walls. Uniting the religions in the world is like uniting all such big halls to make one biggest hall.

 

 

 

[1] The Advaita (monism) of Shankara, Vishshtha Advaita (qualified monism) of Ramanuja and the Dvaita (dualism) of Madhva are the three main Hindu (Vedantic) philosophies, which have different concepts about the relation between God and soul.