| Awaken Bharata |
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| Books By David Frawley |
| SARVA DHARMA SAMABHAVA : UNITY OR CONFUSION OF RELIGIONS | |
| Freedom,
Tolerance and Pluralism
What then is the alternative? What is the way of bringing understanding on the level of religion and social harmony between religious groups that often have very different, if not hostile beliefs? For this what is needed is a real tolerance between religions, which requires that we respect diversity in the religious realm, not make all religions the same. Members of different religious communities must recognize that other religions often teach something different about God, truth, salvation or liberation than they do. Rather than pretending these differences do not exist we should acknowledge them and allow people the freedom to examine these. Equality of religions has been used to try to create tolerance through uniformity, but true tolerance is based upon freedom to be different, not on the assertion of some artificial sameness. We should tolerate all people, even if they do not agree with us. Tolerance of differences creates harmony, not pretending that differences do not exist. In fact if we only tolerate people if we make them the same as we are, we are not really being tolerant at all.Similarly, members of other religions should learn to tolerate Hindus and respect the fact that Hindus do not always agree with them on matters of religion - that Hindus have their own spiritual and ethical views that other religious groups must consider as well. Should Hindus seek to redress the historical wrongs committed upon them by aggressive attempts to convert them, members of the religions involved should be willing to hear the Hindu point of view and honor it as they would their own grievances. |
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