Religious Leaders Must Unite

Religious Leaders Must Unite
by Kesava Bharati Dasa
Govardhana, India
I doubt if anything will be the same after the unprecedented acts of violence in New York and Washington DC-except, that is, the God consciousness of true devotees of any bona fide religion. By that I mean the religions coming from the major revealed scriptures of the world, the Bhagavad-gita, the Bible, the Buddhist Sutras, the Koran, and the Torah.
During this wake-up call, I have been thanking God for the gift He gave us all-an understanding of how material nature works and how spiritual philosophy and practices are meant to be applied to adjust ourselves in a way that under any circumstance keeps our consciousness, which means our love, flowing to the lotus feet of the Lord and to the Lord's devotees, wherever they may be. It is more important than ever for the sincere followers of God to share this gift with the world, not by proselytization or conversion, but by helping people learn how to apply spiritual philosophy and practices to overcome the pain of material existence.
Now the value of that knowledge given to us by the original preceptors of all the major religions-how to apply the teachings they received from God-is being brought into focus. In general those teachings emphasize service to God and to His creatures. They do not over-emphasize our own advancement, individually or collectively in a sectarian spirit, as do many modern so-called spiritual leaders. All bona fide religions of the world have the goods, but the question is, Will their members stop their own infighting and their fighting against the imaginary enemy of other religious traditions long enough to deliver those goods to those who need it most, including themselves?
The churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples of America are now filled with people seeking shelter and relief from the pain they are suffering-and no doubt they are getting some relief. But without applying the deeper understanding given to us by God in all the world's major revealed scriptures-that all living beings, not just the members of one's own religion, are eternal spiritual beings, sons and daughters of God, not simply gross material bodies-the emotional relief the Americans are feeling from within their places of worship will be displaced with the business of revenge, a business not taught in any of their own religious scriptures. And from what I am hearing from the news reports, despite many reasonable people's attempts (from different sides of the conflict, including New York) to keep the thing in proper prospective, the overall image being promoted is that of a religious war.
In other words, the propaganda and yellow journalism of the terrorists-that they are fighting the enemies of Islam (read America and the entire Western civilization, nay the entire rest of the world)-has been effective. Now both sides of the conflict are in danger of falling into the trap of analyzing the situation from that pseudo-sectarian-religious perspective.
The United States of America is not fighting a religious war. It is going after criminals, international outlaws who have hijacked not just planes but the hearts of vast numbers of human beings; and they have not run them into buildings, but into the fires of sectarian religious hatred and nationalism-all in the name of religion. But that is not religion. It is simply politics. Will the Muslim world be able to recognize this and unite with the rest of humanity against the real enemy, the criminal element within their own camps, their own borders, and their own religious organizations? Or, perhaps more importantly, will they be able to stop the training camps and schools that teach hatred in the name of religion? And will the Western civilization be able to do the same, stop propping up regimes involved in terrorist activities when it suits their economic and political interests? We should all pray that they do, because if they don't all of us will pay very dearly for such collective ignorance.
Each religion has a name for the criminals that America and the alliance against terrorism have declared war against. Genuine Christians call them heathens. Genuine Muslims call them infidels. And devotees in the other major religions of the world call them by other names. In other words, unbelievers are not the people who belong to another religious community; they are, rather, the so-called members of any religion who do not follow the teachings of that religion, and who go on to teach collective hatred of people of other religions or other nations-in the name of their religion.
Now is the perfect time for the real spiritual leaders of all the major religions to stand up together and confirm that they are all worshiping the same God. And it is time for them to unitedly define as criminal, according to their own scriptures, the elements that have caused the chaos we are facing-selfish, atheistic criminals in the name of religious leaders or followers. It is the perfect time for the true religious leaders of the world to strongly emphasize to their true followers the true teachings of their respective scriptures: How to love all living entities as parts of the same Absolute Supreme Being, who is worshiped by different names and in different ways by followers in different religious communities; and, how to use violence discussed in their respective scriptures, not against other groups of people who happen to call upon a different name of God than they call upon, but against those (even if they be within their own community) who call for violence as a means for spreading their religion.
There is no other hope to restore order in a world now threatened to be split asunder by pseudo-religious hatred, or hatred born from pseudo-nationalism. Violence has proven to be ineffective. Politics has proven to be ineffective. Economic supremacy has proven to be ineffective. Sectarian religion has proven to be ineffective.
The only thing that has not yet been tried is for the genuine religious leaders of the world to stand up together and admit that they are all worshiping the same God and to teach their followers to genuinely love all pious people as family members in a world community under the protection of the same Supreme Father, God. It is only on this platform that the world can unite to successfully fight the most dangerous enemy it has ever faced-super terrorism.