The Remodeling
of our Destiny Sant Kirpal
Singh Ji President,
World Conference of Unity of Man A Mystic bond
of brotherhood makes all men one. THOMAS
CARLYLE DEAR BROTHERS
AND SISTERS : I am happy to greet you
al, who have gathered hare from all over the world. In this momentous session we have to explore and find out ways
and means to cement and strengthen the solidarity of mankind. Nations, like individuals, are swayed by
passions, prides and prejudices which create chasms in the real social order
which are very often difficult to span.
We are living in an age of decadence, when moral and spiritual values
are at their lowest ebb. With all these drawbacks and the numerous divisive
tendencies, there is still a ray of hope of regeneration and
reorientation. This very hope has
brought us together. I thank you
all for the loving response to the call for remodeling of our destiny to secure
a lasting peace. It is said
that “East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet.” That may have been true at one time or
another, or for the author of the dictum, Rudyard Kipling; but certainly it
carries no weight with men of God in the present scientific age, when distance
and space are fast losing their significance, and efforts are being made to
establish interplanetary contacts. The various
countries of the world are just like chambers in the House of God, housing
different nations. Distinguished from one another by geographic, climatic and
historical conditions, facial contours and complexions, languages and dialects,
diet and apparel and modes of worship, all people conditioned by these
divergent factors forms the great organic whole called humanity. With al these
seeming difference and distinctions of color, creed, and caste, and these
diversities in his modes of living and thinking, man essentially and basically
remains man in outer appearance and inner make-up. Unity already exists in the
human form, since each one is born the same way with the same outer and inner
construction, and each one has a soul which is of the same essence as that of
God. We are drops of the Ocean of All
Consciousness, Whom we worship as the same God, calling Him by different names.
Holy men say that the human body is the true temple of God, and that He resides
in the temple made by Him in the womb of the mother, and not in temples made by
human hands, and that the human form provides us with a golden opportunity to
realize Him. Man has three
aspects: physical body, intellect, and a conscious entity. He has progressed physically, intellectually
and mechanically; but despite this, he is unhappy and has not developed
spiritually. He has developed his head and not his heart, and his scientific
knowledge is misdirected to fiendish malevolence. It has created a spiritual vacuum. We stand in
the middle of a two-fold crisis: a state cult of militarism, euphemistically
called “patriotism” on one hand, and an apathy to spiritual development through
knowledge of the True Self on the other.
In the absence of any positive
thinking on both these levels we are morally regressing, and in this said predicament we cannot have lasting peace.
Guru Nanak therefore prayed, “O God, the world is aflame and has passed beyond
our care. Save it by the means You
consider best.” The problem
before us is how to bring about a change in man’s heart and effect his inner
conversion so that he can see truly and clearly and learn to discriminate
between truth and untruth. Since this
lies beyond the scope of body and intellect, it can only come about through an
inward illumination of divine wisdom in the sanctuary of the soul. This is the
individual aspect of the matter. We
also have to forge abiding bonds of
kinship among the nations of the world so that they will treat each other with
genuine courtesy based on inward love and friendliness, and seek the welfare of
all members of the human family, transcending their political ideologies which
create rivalries and international tensions. During my last
foreign tour I was asked on television in the United States, “How can peace be
cemented?” I told them, “Peace can be cemented only when men rise above ‘isms’
and Presidents and Kings rise above countries.” To remain in
any “ism” is a blessing, if we keep in mind the ideal for which we have joined
it and rise into universalism; but if we stick obdurately to the ‘ism,” the
result is again narrow-mindedness and selfishness. Similarly, if Kings nourish their gardens well and keep them
blooming in all respects, they should let al other countries bloom the same way
and further the cause of human
happiness; otherwise there will be conflicts and wars. It has been our endeavor of late to find a
common forum and meeting ground where such momentous issues could be discussed
dispassionately—by separating the non-essentials from essentials and
eliminating difference, in order to find unity in diverse thinking and bring
abiding peace on earth: complete
concord and amity in all spheres of our life. In order to
understand this worldwide movement in which we are participating today, it is
necessary to review its background.
Religious contacts between East and West were established as far back as
1893, when the patriot-saint
Vivekananda went out with the message of the Upanishads and Gita and
represented India at the Chicago Parliament of Religions. His life and living showed a practical way
to demonstrate the essential unity of all religions, to proclaim the message of
which he founded a chain of missions in the name of his Master, Paramhansa
Ramakrishna. Ten years later, in 1903,
another young savant, Swami Ram Tirath, presented the philosophy of Vendanta to
the West in such a lucid manner that he was hailed as a “Living Christ.” Thus the way
was paved for the nest great step, the spread of spirituality or mysticism—the
bedrock of every religion. In its pure
essence, this implies the awakening of man to a consciousness at once
supra-sensible and supra-mental—an immediate revelation. All mystics, Eastern and Western, have
believed in the possibility of direct communion with the spirit and Power of
God through love and contemplation, without the aid of reason and logic. It puts man on the road to inwardness (not
to be confused with escapism), with an active living morality as the essential
prerequisite. This is the religion of
spirit, or the science of the soul, and through it an individual finds his
proper relation to the universe by establishing contact with God through His
expression, the power called Naam,
Shabd, Kalma or word, which is the
Maker, permeating and controlling all creation. The relationship with this power is achieved by developing
reverence for life at all levels of existence without distinguishing between
high and humble—including man, bird, beast, and the lower species. The non-human forms are the younger members
of the family of God. This idea of
the sanctity of life is a living religion of love in the innermost part of our
being. True theism cannot be reasoned
out intellectually or felt on the level of emotions; it proceeds from true
knowledge, which is an action of the soul in perfect harmony beyond the
senses. This is what is called
“spirituality”—the contact of the soul with the Over-soul—and it is achieved by
rising above body consciousness through practical self-analysis, a
demonstration of which can be given by an adept in the process. We call it Para Vidya (the Knowledge
of the Beyond) because it lies beyond our sensory perceptions. This science
of the soul is not something new; it is the most ancient teaching of all. The way back to God is of God’s own make and
stands on its own, without the necessity of scriptural support to uphold its
authenticity. But unmistakable
reference in the scriptures of all religions from the earliest times to the
present day to bear witness to the Un-manifest Reality in its primordial form
of Light and Sound. In the present
age, saints like Kabir and Guru Nanak revived the ancient teachings of the
sages of the past. In more recent times
the torch was kept alive by their successors until the spiritual mantle came to
hallow the personality of Baba Sawan Singh Ji, who during his long ministry of
45 years (1903-1948) gave it the widest distribution possible. In 1911 he began
the work of revealing the Gospel of Love, Light and Life to the Western world
as well. Ruhani Satgang
was founded in 1948 and dedicated to the task of imparting purely spiritual
instruction, shorn of all ritual and ceremony and free from embellishment and
symbol, to all classes of humanity.
Followers of different faiths, beliefs, and creeds meet as Sawan
Ashram—which became its permanent center in 1951—and address large masses of
people coming from different walks of life, who are eager to learn and
understand the elemental truth which form the quintessence of all sacred
scriptures. The discourses converge on
the common theme of establishing direct tough with Reality, and attempts are
made to reproduce and correlate, in simple understandable language, the sayings
of sages and seer of all times.
Presently this is being spread in 209 centers all over the world, which
have helped considerably to remove to some extent artificial barriers of race,
language, and religion, and brought many kinds of human beings to worship the
Nameless Being with so many names. By the grace
of God, a new field unexpectedly opened up in 1957 when Muni Sushil Kumar Ji
sponsored a conference of World Religions with the idea of forming a World
Fellowship of Religions. As a result of
further deliberations there did come into being a Fellowship including most of
the faiths of the world, and I was elected its President. Three World Tours were undertaken and four
World Religions Conference were organized in India, Besides regional conference
in other countries. The purpose was to
disseminate the idea of universal fellowship among people professing different
faiths and beliefs, and it brought about broader and better understanding and a
sense of mutual trust and confidence at the top level among the representatives
of the various religions. But while the
religious leaders were coming closer, a danger was developing among the
followers. Instead of making religion a
cementing force, they made it an instrument to serve their vested interests and
began to form communal groupings bearing the labels associated with their walls
of hatred and distrust. One wonders how
a person professing religion, which is a link between man and God, can run the
risk of forgetting that he is a man born with the same privileges from God as
those he hates, and that he is a conscious entity which is a drop of the Ocean
of All Consciousness. To combat this
danger of religious chauvinism, it was thought necessary to start the work of
regeneration from the roots. Man-making
must take precedence. This can only be
done by inculcating in people generally the humanistic ideas of unselfish love
and selfless service, with special emphasis on man service, land service and
animal service (animals being our younger brothers and sisters in the family of
God. This idea took concrete shape in 1969 with the decision to set up
Man-Making Centers or Manav Kendras here in India and abroad. In India a Man
Center has been started at Dehra Dun at the foot of the Shivalik Range of the
Himalayas. It has set up a hospital, a
home for indigent elderly people, and a school for the children of poor
families in the area. A provision for
farming and cattle-raising on modern scientific lines is a part of the project. Eventually we hope to see a university,
fully equipped with the original scriptural texts of the religions of the
world, so that comparative studies of the truths contained therein may be
undertaken; and a language school to overcome linguistic difficulties. This
convention aims to unite all mankind on the common ground of service to fellow
human beings and faith in Divine Power, and to accomplish that, it urges the
religious and ethical leadership of the world to shed apathy and aloofness and
assume a more prominent role in human affairs.
Such conference in the past have been organized at the level of
religions, and consequently have not been able to achieve integration in the
required measure. A significant feature
of this conference is that it is being organized at the level of man, as
envisioned by saints and prophets like Socrates, Buddha, Mohammed, Christ,
Kabir, and Nanak, so that it may lead to true integration. The challenging task before the religious
and spiritual leaders is to bring about a radical change in the ethical,
educational and economic status of humanity.
Economic uplift is essential, because “a hungry man is an angry man” and
to talk of God to him is a mockery. I am confident
that each one of us fully realizes the significance of this cosmopolitan
meeting and will extend his whole-hearted support toward the fulfillment of its
objectives; developing human understanding and heralding the unity of
mankind. Let us pledge ourselves to
this task, transcending all narrow allegiances and commitments, and stand
united and resolute until its ultimate fulfillment. |