| The worshipper
of Siva or Hari may emphatically say that either the one or the other is the Supreme
Spirit and every other God is but His manifestation for the time being and for the
particular function, but names do not matter. Indeed, Jehovah, Allah and the God of the
New Testament might well be made the central name-piece of the teaching of the Upanishads
and the sense of it would remain unaltered. Pious
men of all religions should indeed study the Upanishads and the Gita in that very manner
to whatever faith they may belong, only substituting their accustomed name wherever the
Supreme Being is referred to. This really means that the Upanishads contain the
quintessence of all faiths in which the divine thirst of the soul for the nectar of
immortality has found expression.
They contain the answer to the yearning appeal. From
appearance lead me to Reality. From darkness lead me to Light.
From death lead me to Immortality.
--Brihadaranyakopanishad, I, iii-28 |
