Harmony

At some point of time in Science there emerged two theories which were supposedly irreconcilable. One was that of Newton, that light consisted of particles, which was very popular till Christian Huygens proved it wrong. According to the latter theory, light was wave. Thus there were two scientific dogmas which had their own followers and believers. But nobody was in a position to refute or accept one over the other. This was the prevailing condition till Quantum Mechanics came and established the wave particle duality. Thus it took a higher level view to understand the apparent contradiction. This higher level view enabled the scientific world to reconcile the supposedly irreconcilable. It was established that both both corpuscular theory of light and wave theory of light were true, but they were relative truths. The absolute truth, which is a notch higher than either of these relative planes, can be used to harmonize these relative truths and bind them just as one would put several pearls on one string and form a dazzling necklace. 

When we look into the world of religions we find many doctrines and dogma. Each claims itself to be superior to the others, each claims itself to be the only “True” path. However such doctrines and dogmas are also relative truths, conditioned by time, space and matter. They are limited in time because sometimes such doctrines change from one age to the other. Inquisition was perhaps more apt during the medieval age but not so in the modern age. They are limited in space because some geographies and cultures would be far more susceptible to accept them than others. They are limited in matter because beliefs, values etc. which condition the doctrines and dogmas arise in mind and in society which are inherently materialistic. They are however inherently contradictory with the scriptures. All scriptures declare God as infinite, limitless. However the doctrines and dogmas tend to impose limiting adjunct on the supposedly infinite, limitless concept and thereby make God limited. A thing which is limited in any way cannot be called God by definition. Therefore doctrines and dogmas defeat the purpose they are for. These are thus relative truths. There are many such relative truths because all religions and cultures have their own doctrines and dogmas. Being relative they are supposedly irreconcilable. Anybody believing in one doctrine to be true and all others to be false behaves like those four blind men who mistook the different parts of a elephant as the whole elephant. Thus every religion tends to see a part of the infinite and assumes that the part that they view is the whole, thereby setting a limiting adjunct on the limitless and fathomless. Then they fight against each other claiming that the limit or boundary imposed by them is the “only” hole through which one can know the infinite. Those who believe in formless aspect think it to be blasphemous that God can be with form, while others who believe in forms think that formless aspect is mere hallucination. They should do well to stop and ponder whether they are doing a grave injustice to the supposedly omnipotent and omniscient entity by either denying it the power of assuming form or rejecting its impersonal state.

Just as science has been able to reconcile between the two conflicting theories, one wonders whether it is possible to reconcile the myriads of doctrines and dogmas which impose constraints on the infinite aspect of God. The attempts were made by mystics of all ages and belonging to all religions. They all saw the truth, not through the prism of doctrines and dogmas, but openly and they reiterated the same. Sri Ramakrishna in particular practiced almost all possible paths mentioned in the scriptures and found them all to be true. Swami Vivekananda declared that various states of an established religion are mere progression from truth to truth and not from error to truth, i.e. from one relative truth to another till the absolute is reached. In the analogy of Sri Ramakrishna, the roof can be reached using stairs, ladder, rope or even a bamboo pole. It is only necessary to reach the roof without thinking about the various means, by just adopting one of the means, that which appeals to one individual most. In fact the various means are present suiting the tastes and preferences and various temperaments. One size fits all does not apply to spiritual practices and any established religion which makes the mistake of forcing people to follow a path, cannot progress much in terms of spiritual enlightenment.Therefore the real harmony results from understanding, being and becoming rather than in advocating and blindly following certain doctrines & customs. Customs are meant for social life in which lack of harmony is obvious, they can also be adopted in the beginning of a spiritual path. However as one advances along the path all these doctrines and dogmas, just like the various limiting adjuncts, should drop off, as the old and worn out leaves fall from the trees. As one approaches the grand unity, harmony becomes more and more manifest as one is able to transcend the narrow boundaries and is able to associate with everything and everybody in a free spirit.