Breaking Barriers (4/4) - Interfaith Conference, Panel Discussion

[Music] welcome back to what we expect to be a very spirited discussion between a distinguished panel of speakers presenting six of the major world faiths we are privileged to have as our moderator this evening Provo chica Raja prana of the Vedanta Society of Santa Barbara and a prominent and well-known speaker scholar and writer on Vedanta Thank You everybody we are looking forward to a very very fine discussion this evening I have rarely been on a panel with this stellar group of people that it's the quality of our speakers tonight is incredible I will introduce each speaker as we go along and the first person who will speak tonight is the Reverend Michael Bosse who is senior minister of the East of the West End Collegiate Church and the president of the collegiate churches of New York he received his bachelor's and a master's in divinity and in postgraduate work in Hebrew Scriptures and theology and doctoral work at the University of Exeter on Islam and religious pluralism he is currently pursuing his doctorate in ministry at Duke University Reverend Michael presents lectures speeches and sermons to people and places that range from the University of Cambridge to ambassadors for the European Union I'm gonna ask Reverend Michael Bosse and every speaker to first address this question we are told we are living in a world today that seems beset with intractable intractable problems problems that seem overwhelming and without solution and many people will say religion is the problem I would like them to address this question then tell us how we can be as members of religion how we can be part of the solution rather than the problem okay thank you first I'm humbled to be here it's a wonderful opportunity I'm gonna hold this I don't like to have my back to all of you over here but it really is wonderful to be with you and in five minutes or less we'll solve the world's problems here each of us let me begin by saying this that within the Christian tradition starting a recognition of human nature we have this belief that within each of us there is this internal struggle between that which leads us to the full the kind of fullness of life that God's created us to live and that fit leads us the other way so there is a pathway that leads us to virtue and there's a pathway that leads us to vice to sin and therefore any opportunity we have in a setting like this as people of religion to engage one another encourage us to make the decisions that lead to the fullness of life that God has created for us is needed when we forget that internal struggle we forget the vulnerabilities we have that can lead us away from that path and create divisions among us that's just kind of at the basic level of human nature now at a greater level we also believe that it's not just about our personal decisions there's an another level involved in this there is a famous text in the New Testament that says this that our struggle is not against flesh and blood as against powers and principalities and spiritual forces greater than ourselves and we take that very seriously and the Celtic tradition it frames it this way that there are those thin places in life now a thin place can be that place where heaven and earth seem so close that you catch this glimpse of the transcendent of the divine and it elevates you it pulls you up it lifts you to your best at the same time there can be those thin places where hell and earth are so close that you experience the darkness and the downward Ness and the pole to a place you do not want to go and though we take evil and suffering seriously in our tradition we do not take it more seriously than the power of God to help us and transform us now the reason I mention this is it's very important when it comes to interfaith gatherings for us in our tradition for us to be able to cooperate and do things together we do not need to agree on what we say yes to as far as what we affirm in our religious traditions for us when we stand in the face of evil and suffering and if someone says no to that and is ready to oppose it and stand together with us to do that that's enough for us if people don't know the yes to what they affirm or we have different yeses that does not matter to us the most important thing for us is our ability to stand together and say no and address the human suffering and evil and so for me these type of gatherings are important because together we can stand and say no to that even though our yeses might be different I will ask our next speaker to address the same question and our next speaker is Daisy Kahn who was born in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir and immigrated to the United States where she earned her degree in Art and Design and had a successful career in architectural design she and her husband helped establish the American Society for Muslim advancement emphasizing religious harmony and interfaith collaboration she has launched two programs Muslim leaders for tomorrow and women's Islamic Initiative and spirituality and equality for her work miss Kahn has been honored with numerous awards how would you address that issue well first of all I'm gonna take a few seconds because I love this audience you're the closest to my identity I speak to a lot of people so I'm really happy to be in this gathering because I've grown up in India I've come from a very multicultural multi-religious background and that has informed my life and how I think about things and I grew up in a very harmonious home I was born in a Muslim home my teachers were Hindu my friends that I climbed trees with was Sikhs we bought fresh water for us from Buddhists and we were always told that we're from the lost strength tribe of Israel and then at the age of 16 I landed in Jericho Long Island and got the full immersion into all religions so I can't emphasize enough how important it is for people to experience different religions because I actually experienced them firsthand and the council general was speaking this morning about difference and how do we break barriers is just getting to know one another you know having friends from different religions and cultures and getting to know them intimately as people and that's what breaks down the barrier and the division going back to the question at hand so Islamic theology is very simple it's really no different than all of our core theologies so God is one Creator who has created all of humanity and and then we Muslims are taught in the Koran that we are God's representatives on this earth so it's called halifa or representative or an ambassador because we have the divine spark in us and the divine spark gives us that human dignity and that divine spark has been you know it's called in many different different traditions by different names you know the face of God or the image of God but in the Islamic tradition it's called the spark of the divine or the breath of the divine has been breathed into each and every human being all six billion of us have that and that's what makes us equal and that's what gives us our human dignity and so at the same time because we are created in the divine image we have the ability because we have free will to act divine like so we can be very elevated and reach nirvana and be the highest of the highest human being who's so inspiring to people or we can act godlike in a very corrosive way in an egotistical way where we think we're God and in the Quran it talks about Pharaoh being the example of that who led his people into the sea and drown them all and then of course the other side is all the prophets and the noble people so we are seeing a lot of people who are not grounded in spirituality let me know when I'm time is up who are very egotistical who are beginning to act very godlike and are very judgmental towards another human being so they don't even see the divine spark in any of us I mean in my tradition we are seeing this all over the place right now right Muslims killing Muslims loitering people the kinds of heinous crimes that are committed and so it is all about egoism and this is why spirit is so important and this is why the work of the Vedanta Society and our work is so essential because we have to bring that understanding back to people they are suffering because of their own thinking and their own mindset we can talk a lot more about specifics and how we solve this problem but essentially it's about you know you beginning to act like God and act like God in the sense that God has the ability to destroy God has the ability to take life God has to be you know the attributes of God so you begin to to take that into your hands thank you very much that was quite a time our next speaker is Professor Jeffrey long who is professor of religion and Asian Studies at Elizabethtown College Pennsylvania where he teaches Hinduism Buddhism and Jainism as well as a first-year seminar on Star Wars and Asian philosophy it's on YouTube - professor long has a BA from the University of Notre Dom and an MA PhD from the University of Chicago he has authored several books and many articles on Hinduism Asian philosophy and religious pluralism he is also big rock and roll fan and loves cats so I in terms of my personal tradition I'm a member of the Vedanta Society but it's my great honor tonight to speak on the Jain tradition which I've spent a good deal of time studying and which I was drawn to study specifically because of what it has to say about pluralism and so I'm going to say a little bit about that in my in my five minutes in terms of the question how can we help religion not to be the problem and to be part of the solution one just general thing I would say and my inspiration here is a wonderful book by an author named Amin Maalouf he's written a book called in the name of identity violence and the need to belong and to very briefly summarize what he says if we think of religions as this is how I tend to think of religions as a set of practice is a set of techniques and ways of thinking that are meant to transform us in very positive ways in ways that are meant to unleash our own inner divine potential that divine spark which which Daisy Kahn was just speaking about what happens all too often is we as religious people are not attentive to those practices and what they're doing for us instead we take the fact that we've inherited or that we've taken up those practices as a badge of identity rather like your favorite mascot of your football team or your baseball team and we are all about go team and let's be better than all the other teams and let's show how great we are it's the ego gone mad and in fact it's one of the worst forms of egotism because since it's an identification with a group we lose sight of the fact that it is a form of egotism we think well we're actually sacrificing we're actually doing something for this greater good but we haven't thought far enough we should be thinking in terms of all human beings and the Jain tradition would say in fact not even stopping at human beings but all living beings that that should be our team that our team is all life that our home field is this whole universe and I don't know how much time I have left but do want to briefly mention a couple of minutes okay great so the Jan tradition specifically has developed a really interesting philosophy in Sanskrit it's called on account of odd which means the doctrine of many sidedness and the basic idea is this is a vast and complex universe with many many different facets and it's possible to make a true statement about the nature of existence the nature of life in this world and to make an equally true an equally profound statement that is completely the opposite of the first one because we're all perceiving different facets of this complex reality and at the risk of oversimplifying you can look at the world's religions and see how as Swami Vivekananda said each one has taken up some great peace of the larger truth and each has essentially run with it right so there is a tradition that's expertise is love there is another tradition that expertise is equality another tradition is expertise is peace of mind and so on and you can find all of these in all the traditions but each one has taken some facets of our total experience and gone very very very deeply into it and the best thing in my opinion that we can do as religious people is to not only go as deeply as possible into whatever practice we claim as our own but also to engage with the others and learn from them so that we can get a broader and broader picture of this multifaceted universe and of course the classic story that's often used to illustrate this in the Jain tradition and it's used in the Buddhist and Hindu traditions and I think many other traditions as well it's the blind men and the elephant right we are all people who are feeling perceiving a different part of this complex reality each part we perceive is different so we describe our experience and then someone else says well no I experienced something different from that and instead of saying oh that's wonderful let's let's get our pieces of the picture together we fight about which one of us is right and this is what we need to move away from more dialog more conversation more deep learning across boundaries and less you know Rara my team so thank you very much thank you thank you our next speaker is Reverend dr. T can jitsu NACA gachi who is a buddhist priest ordained in the 750 year-old jodo shinshu tradition of Japanese Buddhism he was ordained in 1980 in Kyoto and came to United States in 1985 serving in various capacity as a Buddhist priest he's now serving at our New York Buddhist church and as president of the Buddhist Council on New York in New York as well as the hiroshima peace ambassador and Nagasaki peace correspondent he is clergy on call and Columbia University and a clergy a community clergy liaison for the New York City Police Department he is also the author of several books both in Japanese and in English so please dr. t can Jitsu knock again namaste thank you so much so yeah first of all my pleasure to be here and so I would like to thank for you know inviting me to be here as a part of the one with a speaker and my tradition is as I mentioned Buddhist traditions but specifically Japanese and Buddhism has developed in a different places so that's why it's a teaching itself fundamental way of thinking is the same but yet there are many variety of teachings so I cannot speak one or one tradition but in general Buddhism itself you know is a Buddha is a first I mean three treasures Buddha Dharma Sangha are all together for any Buddhist so Buddha means awakened one I mean Sanskrit so you know better than me but the Buddha means awakened one so so which means if you listen to the teaching of Buddha instead of bleep the Buddha but rather awaken to the teaching of the Buddha so that's why the Buddhist tradition is not necessarily their faith so we don't really the face doesn't require what you need to be need to have is an awareness or realization because so they that might be one of the difference because we don't believe anything but at the same time we just follow the truth so truth is truth whether you believe or not this is I mean if the you know this border can if I drink the water yeah normally you just feel I would drink it anyway oh good is the first is the one thing for the water does and so this is the nature of the water so whatever you know you think this Bernie on you know burned your tongue or you know worse still this doesn't burn your tongue probably and so so this is the nature so you realize this is what it does and then the human beings we all do things even like a question that I wanted to go back to the questions to you know some people use this water or the revision for whatever different reasons right I mean people use that maybe this may be knife might be might be an interesting one to knife could be you know they can kill with the people but yet you can make a nice cooking and then you know prepare things so for me the revision become problem or solution is give up to the each people or each person how do they use it if use it wrong you know the knife could be very dangerous but if you use correctly then you can create a wonderful food and and all those things to it's the same thing in a medicine to them if you take medicine is a poison too if you take a lot some people take a lot of Medicine in this country so that that's a little for me it's like why do you take all those poisons you I take nothing you anyway but but so so the thing is the revision could be yeah of course you know create the source of you know the conflicts but in revision could also be does you know solution of the problems to again live up to each one how you use it and then so the part of the Buddhism is this awareness is very important sometimes people never aware this knife is dangerous if you use wrong but some people so that that's the difference you know the by using a knife you realize sometimes you cut yourself and you realize you see oh this is dangerous if you made mistake to use it you know the way to use is a very very important so any revision you know the even Buddhism you know although people think Buddhism is all you know I mean peaceful yes yes it is but yet if you use wrong of course people can kill you know and so forth and so that that's why use you know that you really need to know how to use it how how to really so which means you have to understand well enough rounded but really this kind of you know it's tools to you know to the Buddhist part of the teaching is the tools to be aware so it's like we always said the teaching of the Buddha and the words of the Buddha is a point a finger pointing at the moon so in a way you know you just follow this understanding well then you can see the moon but then if you don't sometimes people don't see the obviously the fingers never be the moon right so so I think understand Buddhism in terms of Buddhism understanding is the very important but so if you do this what's going to happen cause an effect so that's why Buddhism always cause an effect and so as long as you don't you know make mistake that way then you're okay but again be careful thank you so much thank you very much Reverend Nucky ducky our next speaker is our Swami server pre Ananda who joined the Ramakrishna order in 1994 and since January this year he has been the resident minister of the Vedanta Society of New York and he is the Vedanta society that was founded by Swami Vivekananda in 1894 before coming to this before coming to New York Swami's Sarver pre Ananda was the assistant minister and the Vedanta Society of Southern California and since his arrival United States he's given retreats and lectures throughout the United States and Canada as well before coming to the United States Swami's Sarver pre nan de served as an acharya or an instructor at the monastic probationers training center at bellomont which is our headquarters in india swami service Swami Saarinen holds degree in business management from Xavier Institute of Management in Bhuvaneshwari he is also the ramakrishna orders rock star his YouTube talks are wildly popular whereas listenership has well exceeded 1 million well one of the biggest problems in interfaith relationships is how do you handle differences between religions Hinduism is very interesting in this respect because there a tremendous amount of differences within Hinduism sometimes I'm invited to give introductory talks on Hinduism to kids in schools and colleges universities and I tell them that whatever I say about Hinduism is true and the opposite is also true do Hindus believe in God yes and no do is God with form yes and no it's God male yes and no God is also female so there are many many differences within Hinduism an enormous diversity within Hinduism so it that's why it's very interesting how does Hinduism deal with internal diversity one way I'll speak to that now one way is Hinduism considers the ultimate reality to be infinite the nature of the ultimate reality is infinite there's a story about how an a little ant went to this mountain of sugar and got a little bit of sugar and dragged it to to its little hole and look back at the mountain and said I'll come back and take the rest of the mountain with me later on which is never going to happen but the the ultimate reality God or whatever you call it because it's nature's infinite it's inexhaustible so no religion no tradition can claim to exhaust the nature of the infinite one thing which helped Hinduism was very long ago in the Rig Veda you find this dictum a COMSAT vipra bahudha vedanta the truth is one the wise speak of it differently now this means the dough you may use different descriptions of God or the ultimate reality in your tradition they may all actually refer to one reality though the descriptions may be different the labels may be different sri ramakrishna famously and this is well known in india he famously said how you go to the same village pond and somebody calls the water there joel somebody calls it pani somebody calls it water but they're all referring to the same reality so different labels different descriptions may be given and that's perfectly alright another way is that for example this whole debate in hinduism about god with form and without form and sri ramakrishna again used to give this wonderful example that it's the same water which is formless in itself in a way and in places where it's it's very cold it freezes into ice which has a form but whether it has a form or no form whether it's melted or or in an iceberg it's the same reality it's water so with far more without form not only that the ultimate reality could be a personal God you could call it our Father in heaven or Allah or Vishnu or Devi or or Shiva or it could be an impersonal principle like pure consciousness in Advaita Vedanta or a state of freedom like Nirvana and all of that also would be perfectly alright I'm reminded of somebody said to Ramakrishna oh the Buddha was an atheist and he said no why should he why should the Buddha with an atheist he realized that ultimate truth which is beyond language and so you cannot express it in accurately in language so that's another important fact how you deal with versity another point is in Hinduism religion is regarded as realization it's not what you believe but as there haven't said what you practice it's not just a faith it's very interesting for us to see in this country religions are called faiths weight is a part of religion and a very important part of religion but it's not all of religion not even the ultimate purpose of religion so religion is realization if there is a God Hindus feel we must see this God if I have an immortal soul I must experience this immortal soul if there is moksha or Nirvana or some salvation to be had we must have it so the different paths are regarded as different ways of realization religion is therefore regarded in Hinduism as different paths to realization it could be the same realization it could be paths leading up to this mountaintop different paths leading to the same mountaintop so this idea if you regard religion as a path and different religions is different paths you can accommodate differences and still say there they're all valid you don't have to choose this path over the earth nowadays with the help of GPS we are all used to that but this path or that path you you're guided to the same destination but that again does not mean that you actually have to practice other religions or you have to give up your tradition or that you have to mix and match you need not shri ramakrishna for example famously practiced different varieties of hinduism and different religions in fact a form of islam a form of christianity and he came to the conclusion in bengali he said geomod thought of as many faiths so many paths but then doesn't mean that we have all got to do it there's this story about how a man dug a well for water and not finding water there he gave up and started digging else fared and he didn't find water there started ringing elsewhere end of the day he was tired he found water nowhere because if he had dug in one place deeply enough he would have found water so the importance of of persevering seriously taking your own tradition seriously that is also very well understood in Hinduism this is in sanskrit it is called Ishta nishta a dedication to your particular ideal but that is combined with a recognition that all the others are also dedicated to their ideal that what the other is is practicing though it may be very different it's still real just like my own practices I have seen in Bell room at our main monastery in near Calcutta on the bank of the river Ganga there's a mosque just outside the outside the monastery and I've seen this simple you know women who are from different villages in central India they have come when they've settled down in poor poor part of Calcutta and they come for chat puja it's a particular puja in Hinduism and they come to the river they have to perform rituals in the river and as they passed by the mosque these are Hindu women as they pass by the mosque they do this quick bow to the mosque because from their point of view it's another way of worshipping God it's not that we are right and they are wrong it isn't there's no point in being antagonistic it's automatic it's very natural there was a rabbi who visited our monastery in India and he said I hear so much about interfaith harmony in India but where are they the the the seminars and the workshops and the committees and it doesn't seem to be nothing much seems to be happening and I thought that's true the reason is in India over thousands of years it's very internalized people common people they sort of they have internalized this idea they wouldn't be able to coat the Vedas and say to you the truth is 1 and the y is speak of it differently but they actually practice it they feel that way so that's one wonderful thing which we can take from Hinduism how you handle dis tremendous diversity in religions and not lead to conflict Robert right in with this I don't know I must have exceeded my time okay Robert Robert Wright who lives in lives in Princeton here he is a Darwinist and not not particularly interested in religion though his latest book is why Buddhism is true he said that this formula the truth is one the wise speak of it differently this can be a resource or a formula for peace between religious traditions so yes thank you thank you very much our final speaker this evening is rabbi Ben Spratt who serves as the associate rabbi of Congregation row depth Shalom in Manhattan and is the rabbi in residence at the road f shalom school he was ordained in 2008 at the Jewish Theological Seminary of the conservative movement and now serves as a reformed rabbi the rabbi has started sure in you my pronouncing that correctly okay a new initiative for families with special needs that now serves as a model for synagogues and churches around the country this year rabbis sprat became co-founder of tribe an initiative to engage Jewish Millennials through grassroots leadership and empowerment please speak to us rabbi been so echoing the wisdom of many others here for one person to try to speak on behalf of Judaism is a bit ridiculous their famous phrases to Jews three opinions or some will say one Jew ten opinions and I actually want to speak you know to the question where we are living at a time where so many of us perceive intractable problems a world that's who often feel stagnant and one of the great rabbis from medieval era Maimonides imagine that each of us go through this world as though we are climbing a mountain in the darkness and we stumble and we fall we lose sight of the trail and even lose a sense of direction and we feel alone in that darkness but every once in a while there is a lightning flash that lights up the sky and for just a moment we can see the path and the mountaintop we could see the peak before us and we can look around and see that we are not the only person traveling on this mountain but then the flash is gone and we're laughs left trying to hold on to that image that milliseconds moment of a spark in the darkness and we don't know when the next flash will come and so many of us as we find ourselves stumbling and falling and falling back into solitude again we fall into despair where it seems as though there is no path for it and we give up keeping our eyes open hoping for that spark again and with our eyes closed there is no path for it so there's something about keeping the eyes open in the darkness hoping for that spark of light and echoing what Daisy had said in many of our traditions certainly in Judaism as well we have this image idea that each of us have within us an image a spark of divinity and so some of this begins in Judaism with the recognition that can we look in the mirror and believe that we ourselves have divinity in us that there is worth at a time when so many of us despair and we find ourselves wallowing in fear can we look in that mirror and believe that we have Worth and purpose in this world and then can we with that look into the face of anyone around us and believe that they to have that spark that they to have the ability to create a flash in the darkness and perhaps from there it allows us to then step into a world where we at least can keep our eyes open believing that we have a spark within us and a spark beyond us but one of the great lessons in the rabbinic tradition of Judaism is that truth can never be achieved alone the early rabbis say very clearly that truth can only exist in karuta in a study relationship in a dialogue and karuta this relationship of learning comes from the roots Ave our friend this idea that truth can only be accessed through relationship and we get to readonly many of the early rabbinic text that rabbis would argue and debate and everything under the Sun but the ideal study partner was the person that was most different from yourself the person who offered the greatest difference and distinction perspective on the world and so it's in that dialogue that rabbis would hope to learn more than they would hope to teach so often I think we live in a world where our intractable problems come from a desire to make the world like ourselves to make the world in our own image rather than to believe that there is what to learn from the person before us so I think in trying to link I think much of the wisdom that's already been presented here are certainly in a Jewish space one of the things that we try to do and often fail at is to actually believe that we in keeping our eyes open can actually become wiser because of the wisdom of another I was so excited about this stellar panel that we have at this point I would like to invite our panelists is there anything that you would like to discuss with each other anything that's stuck in your mind when you were listening to someone in another tradition something you would like explained or something that you find if fascinating please I'd like to open that up for anyone in our panel just a comment on something that Daisy said that I think is of critical importance in all of this is that when I first got into interfaith work it was very difficult because I wanted people to be in settings like this and engage one another meet one another and people live people live such isolated lives it was hard to get people to do so and I remember somebody told me is you can't fault people for behaving exactly like they were taught and then I started to ask the question how do we get people past that then how do you how do you get them to want to engage another and then I learned that there's no amount of data that you can supply to anyone that will change them in fact because of confirmation bias or studies done that you can supply something that is factual and contradicts a person's position and when they read it or encounter it only makes them more entrenched in their own position it's part of who we are but the one thing that changes things which Daisy mentioned which I think we should focus on is relationships sometimes it's not books or information that changes us it's the relationship with another person so that the more we can engage in relationships I think is probably the primarily primary pathway we have to be able to work towards instead of division between religions jay-z speak to that I won't speak about relationships because all of us do this kind of work and I think we understand the importance of that but I'll talk about something that I just experienced recently in terms of conflict right so there was a young there was a young girl because I'm working on anti-extremism type of work right now and my whole mind and my DNA is full of that right now I wish I could get myself out of that and go to that sugar mountain but anyhow I was invited to go to the prison to meet a young girl who had decided to join Isis and she's in prison for two years and she's gonna be out soon because she's you know provided material support but you know it didn't actually join them and I've never done this kind of work all I had with me was my sense of my spirituality and my compassion and that's all I was equipped with and so I was sitting down with her I mean I have to like get her to befriend her now right so this young girl I'm looking at her and I'm and I asked her I said tell me from the moment you were born to your entire life story and then tell me how you end up here and I had all the time in the world and I just sat there as she started pouring her heart out and talking about her abusive childhood and you know 35 homes that she had lived in foster care mother died and that mother mother became blind at the age of seven she was taking care of her his mother from 7 to 11 long and short of it is I was listening to this woman and I began to instead of getting angry at what she had done I began to feel the sense of deep compassion like I really wanted to hug her and you know embrace her and cuz I really began to feel her pain and what she had gone through and anyhow as we were popping up because we've decided that we're gonna work with her and help her she looks at me and she said well I said you know let's talk about these terrorists what made you think that you could join them and still be a human being you know and she says to me yeah but why should I listen to you and not them now she put me in this very awkward position where I would have to justify to her some something from Scripture right and I'm like this is not gonna work so I told her I said I I have only one answer for you and that is that you will never get hurt with my hands if you're in my hands you will never get hurt and I will never harm anyone with my tongue or my hands I said and and you can feel safe in my hands but can you say that about them then she kept quiet and I knew that that was a moment when a shift had occurred so I think that that's these relationships can be used in the same way in our interfaith work and they can also be used to bring somebody who has gone off the deep end for all the wrong reasons and bring people back but compassion love and and the power of emotion and the power of storytelling is where I think the work really lies and all of us are equipped I mean listening to you Swami it's like you know every time I want to go to your YouTube things now and listen I I mean I'm a Muslim but I'm happy to learn from from from your teachings and all the other great luminaries here just a comment on what Reverend was just said about relationships and reminded about good cheran does he wrote a book India unbound and very pointed out diversity I was speaking so much about diversity in India he said diversity is not enough if you actually look at very diverse societies like India or New York what happens is often he gives the example of a tile floor with multicolored tiles so it looks very diverse but if you look closely each tile is of only one color and is a clear boundary between one tile and the other time so they don't mix relationships that are important that that's why relationships are important not just diversity but any any by other speakers like to address speak to this point for myself I'm from Japan originally so in this country I mean because Japan Japan is the kind of Japanese basically so I've never met anybody from the other countries and so forth it makes a big difference actually in terms of you know the common sense in Japan doesn't work here just a simple experience too but I also after I came to New York especially yeah it's really all kind of people here I've been living here about 24 years now and but then the especially after 9/11 and you know all the people together and that feeling of sharing the concerns and then at the same time as we learn all the other religions are working together for peace and everything but of course there are another side of it too so it's always very very good for me the relationship is one of the fundamental things to you know to create the peace maybe before we start talking about these kind of things maybe you could have a tea then maybe you can discuss that that might be a more peaceful way of discussing because if I could also speak briefly to what Swami suburbian and that was just citing about diversity alone not being enough it's certainly true because if we're if we simply know that people are different but we don't really engage with that difference then in fact it can even become a source of conflict because we just have superficial stereotypes that we keep reinforcing again and again and I guess as the professor up here I should say I think education is an is an extremely important part of this entire process of interfaith understanding and I'm very proud to be from a college where we've actually instituted the first major in interfaith studies there the number of colleges have minors and interfaces actually I'm a major in interfaith studies and this is so important because so much of what people think they know about their own religion other people's religions is very superficial and one of the things in particular that people are unaware of is how much each religion has affected every other and even before this evenings panel of we were talking with Reverend vos about his research into a period of history and a region where Judaism Christianity and Islam were very much shaping one another in very basic ways and there's something else from the Buddhist tradition I think worth mentioning the the Buddhist master tick not Hahn makes the observation that Buddhism is made entirely of non-buddhists elements and Christianity is made entirely of non Christian elements and so on that everything is what it is in virtue of its relations with everything else which is also an insight of Jain philosophy and every tradition has grown up in conversation with every other convert other tradition so if each of us knew how much the tradition we practice is indebted to all the others then that could also help to mitigate this because you know you realize that in attacking or hating something else you're your hating part of yourself just add to that point I think there's strength and vulnerability that's important in this kind of work of being able to have the humility the vulnerability not only to recognize how much we have all been made up of what has come before us from every corner of the world but also the Liberty to vulnerability to recognize our own limitations there's a in the in the Torah there's the story of Moses who shockingly actually learns from his father-in-law which is for many of us who have father-in-law's that's so difficult in that you know I think to imagine but his father-in-law Jethro was a pagan High Priest I'm actually of a nation there was an enemy of Israel and the early rabbis were so shocked by the idea that Moses would learn from a pagan priest that they actually imagined they could only imagine that works if Jethro actually had converted to Judaism so the early rabbis refused to read Jethro as what is written in the Torah as a pagan high priest but an early church father Origen says this is the moment where we get to see the greatness of Moses for he recognized that wisdom could come from any person at any place and I think in sin sometimes also recognizing the limitations of our own traditions the ways in which we have been too constricted and too limited in being able to see the expansiveness of the wisdom that's out there and we are all certainly gaining from the wisdom that we're all learning right here right now upon which I'd like to ask another question about how can we make interfaith relevant because it seems very often that the people who engage in interfaith and the people who come to attend interfaith are the very people who are the most broad-minded of the tradition so how do we make interfaith discussion relevant and how do we kind of bring our own enthusiasm from learning to others to our congregations how do we expand that and like to light to go backwards beginning with you you know I think one of the wonders of living in the world today there are plenty of things that are not wonderful but one of the wonders of living in the world today is we have a level of potential interconnectedness that's never existed before different traditions different philosophies different forms of poetry that are clay new things are being created and I think one of the other elements is that 5060 years ago in this country religion thrived because it allowed for there to be centers and clusters of communities that formed and forged strong identity by isolating themselves in the world around them it was the strength of uniformity that was isolationist and in a world like today we're now seeing that the great trend of religion in America is a huge decline that is the big epic story of every faith tradition in America but there's a rise of the nuns and I don't mean religious women not the N Oh enemies a huge number of people that don't identify with religion but are spiritually seeking and are interested in pulling and calling from any source of wisdom they can and as I'm working with the Millennials I'm saying they don't care about the labels they don't care about actually they're very skeptical of institutions but what they are looking for is authenticity which is something that each of our traditions has and there's something exciting that comes when we throw things together collide them together and see what new bubbles up so I wonder if we have the strength in our own traditions the security in ourselves to be willing to throw ourselves in these situations and to see what happens we collide and what new things may bubble up because I think we have a rising generation that's hungry for exactly that I'll take up from there rabbi who talked about the nuns again the a no any not the an un I wonder if bill is yes bill is here he is 93 and he's been in Vedanta since 1955 and every every day you could just raise your hand maybe you don't have to stack yes Larry yes and every day I have I have lunch with him and and he asks me a question almost every other day asked me but Swami what are you going to do about the nuns by virtue means people who are the young people who are not particularly interested in any particular tradition in in organized religion but they have a spiritual hunger so one thing that we see in the world today is a kind of syncretic approach towards spirituality in India have seen young people who are interested in Sufi music and in Buddhist mindfulness meditation in in adwaita philosophy Anna Swami Vivekananda was one of the first to be saw syncretic I think because one of his favorite books when he would go he would have the bhagavad-gita and he would have the imitation of Christ Thomas a Kempis with him that's one of my favorite books too now often this makes teachers of religion uncomfortable because teachers religion would like things to be neat you know people stay in their boxes you can relate to each other but still should be neat and the syncretism is very is very messy people are free to do what they are doing I remember in an interfaith conference when I said this a gentleman from the audience said asked me but Swami is this good this mixing and matching I said I don't know if it's good but it's a fact it's happening all over the world so yes one way of dealing with that problem is what's already happening the nuns themselves that is a category of SBN are spiritual but not religious I don't entirely agree with approach but there is merit to that so the nuns the SVN are they are all signs of what is happening in the world and there is wisdom there there's wisdom there you'll notice that they do not have religious conflict yeah so actually I just went to the namaste bookstore but then the thing is my book was there I brought three books to but but anyway I'll talk about a little bit later but but but then the I just happened to ask the questions but since we are talking about sometimes religious people who don't want to read the books and so forth anymore or something maybe or away from the church at least then what about the books things and I asked the question how's your book sale is it everybody is the stop going to decline or the other religions and so forth he said no they're building another store meaning like more people are interested in a spirituality but then also there's a book for the Buddhism Judaism Hinduism everything is there too and then they say well what about book then I ask and in this oh no everything is you know going growing up I mean I mean so I was actually surprised to you know hear those things so which means people are looking for something you know importance that may be truth in your life or something that they can really found what it could maybe center of their lives to your spiritual life and central so so that particular is I guess for you know any of the revision when we start Buddhism you know anything probably they start from that particular mind right I mean at least the Buddhism you know Buddhists to look for searching for his own path to liberate or you know this is a problem that I have how can I find the you know truth or how can i you know the vertical to solve this particular problem that I have so that was a you know seeking points from that sense I guess I don't know the institutionally maybe not that great but yet in terms of the spirituality or Sikh something that truth is probably is growing in a way because of the unstable of the society - when the society is so stable in people don't look for anything but now it's getting chaotic sometimes people think oh you know what I do for the chaotic these problems but then problems when we have a problem that's the moment you can find the really the truth because sometimes why you know when when life is I mean when the world is so peaceful we don't have to talk about peace and so forth and then but then there also when but then those society become changed to the old now it's a very dangerous situation then the people start talking about or peace forget about the peace we need to you know secure ourselves and so forth so it changed it so so which means you know the the society the problem is not really the problem problem problem is the the way to really realize something important of our life and then so so the questions but my challenge for the the you know the interface part is actually the opposite idea because people who come to the interface you know they always come so I see oh how are you I miss you again which is nice but on the other hand we ever met certain people who are not interested in this kind of work then that's the kind of challenges that we have and so in a way the book I mention it but that's actually challenge to me this about the swastika it's like half of the people feel like this is evil evil and then one the other side is this is you know the one of the greatest auspicious symbols then what is gonna happen if those two things happen you know that you know coming on a table I mean that's I think one of the things - like a terrorist and also the you know the other countries we don't debate what we don't talk right supposed to be so then if we don't talk then how can you do anything you know so in a way the me the most important part is like this dialogue but it could be the dialogue between the one who come to the interface who don't come to an interface maybe the one thing that we may be create but then in order to do that we need to have a safe space to do those things you know they don't bring the weapons or anything we'll just come but it is like a teahouse I mean Japanese tea tea you know it's a historically speaking this is what happens in a tea house is that they cannot bring any weapons because to you know the door is too tiny and then when they come in they have to bow they have to respect in a way and then but then that's a safe space and I mean they have a tea you know they enjoy that tea but then at the same time so that's a human and human meeting not you know terrorists or somebody but then you know review just read different revision but rather it's a people we meet so I think I mentioned very beginning but the people is the one who you know creating the you know fighting not the provisions or anything but you know they can bring anything but it's actually the people the people should be responsible how revisions should be used and how you know they'll be sorry but you got a point I would continue that with with professor long how do we how do we bring how to bring the rest of the barn out there well I'm gonna say something hopefully gonna bold and interesting which is that this spiritual but not religious movement I think is has a lot of hope attached to it actually and again there are aspects of it which which I don't entirely agree with either but one of the things that is very interesting about the spiritual but not religious movement is that it involves quite a lot of pluralism it involves one of the reasons people say they're not religious is because they take religion to mean exclusive allegiance to just one tradition and the attitude of many certainly of my students who put themselves in that category it's not that they're anti religion it there's there's so many awesome religions how do you fit yourself into just one and that makes me think about India it makes me think about what these akan was saying what the Swami's have a peon and I was saying and what I've also witnessed that it's been a very common thing in most of Indian civilization most of history even for people who are not particularly educated in a specific tradition to have this sort of multi-religious respect participating in one another's festivals of worshiping one of those deities in incorporating elements of many traditions in fact into their spirituality I looked at Japan where you know it's not that people practice Shinto or Buddhism they practice Shinto and Buddhism and maybe Christianity too on some level so the the sort of bold comment I'm gonna make maybe it's not all that bold but I don't think that this movement is actually new I think it's new to the west or recently rediscovered maybe in the West that we don't have to think in terms of sealed-off compartmentalized identities and in fact to the extent that the West has exported this idea of separate compartmentalised identities to places like India it's been pretty destructive as a result it is erected barriers which were not present before remember hearing a story from a very respected scholar in my field Arvind Sharma talking about how the during the period of the British Empire there was a census done in Gujarat on you know how many Hindus are there how many Muslims are there when the census takers came back and they said we can't tell because everybody is practicing you know the Hindus are all reading the Quran and the Muslims are all doing puja and you know how do we know and the response they received from the British government was that's not the correct answer we want to know how many Hindus there are and how many Muslims there so people were sort of put into boxes you fast forward to the same region of India in the early 21st century horrible fratricide happening all right people you know were there terrible riots between the two communities in in Ahmedabad in 2002 which at one time did not think of themselves as two communities but one community with these various interweaving strands so maybe we're recreating in the West now what the rest of the world had right all along and we'll need to re export it possibly at some point now this does connect the question of how is interfaith relevant because I think many of the people who are drawn to interfaith are also of this bent of seeing truth and many religions and I think it is a movement that can build and since sister Val Japan I mentioned my Star Wars seminar I'll just quote Yoda really quickly the path the path to the dark side is quick and easy it's very easy to get on Twitter and say something nasty to the whole world because you're in that mood and our technology's made it easy to do that by I'm not referring to anyone in particular anyone and anyone can do that right in anyone anyone is capable of doing that but but the path of the good right the path to harmony is requires patience it's slow we need to study we need to slow down and absorb things and not be in such a huge hurry all of the time and that that's the bent of mind that's required to really you know dig that well deep and not just have the sort of superficial understanding of religions just an interesting fact I had read about that survey you're talking about the census in western part of India during the British Raj they were actually several thousand people who responded whether they're Muslims or Hindus they responded that we are Muslim Hindus and that's something that simply won't happen today today we think we are very clear we are Muslims or Hindus now the question is are we clear or were they more clear than we are maybe they had more clarity this is such an exciting conversation so I think that like like professor long said this is nothing new they've always been spiritual seekers in every society in every century and we've heard of great spirituals to speak is seekers who then become spiritual guides for so many other people and people went all the way to India to join the movements you must have been a spiritual seeker I you know I also was was was in a very dark days of my life here cuz I went through an identity crisis I came from India landed here at the age of 15 in a Jewish neighborhood and then the Iranian Revolution happened I saw this violence committed that name of my religion and I'm like Who am I and I'm sure that some young people here are probably going through that kind of deep sort of internalizing of I don't like what my tradition is doing in the name of my religion and some people if you have the right spiritual guide in front of you to help you with that then you're in a good place but if you don't and you are on this journey all by yourself it can be a very lonely journey I saw I went through the abyss I went around around until I was literally at the point where I said I don't believe in any of this stuff religion is nonsense it's an opium for the masses I was quoting all these great secularists who were saying there's no such thing as God now in Islam the greatest crime is to deny existence that's like the ultimate crime and so I went to my mother and I declared in I knew that she was the only safe person who I could declare this with and I told her right to her face I'd gone after many years and I was English me you know in my own home I said I don't believe in God it's all nonsense and rubbish and she just looked at me and she had tears in her eyes and she said I know you have forgotten God but he has not forgotten you so I pray for the day when you'll find him that's what precipitated my journey I said oh I gotta look for this guy where is he and so I would go everywhere I even landed in ashrams I landed in all the mosques I went to all the spiritual places I was seeking God everywhere and then I went to a library a little place with the neon sign saying Sufi books on it and I opened up a book you know and there was this Rumi poem that said you're looking for God you go to the temple he's not there I was looking for God I went to the church couldn't find him there went to the monastery couldn't find him there went to the synagogue couldn't find him there and you know of course thought he could go to the mosque and God would surely be there and then I looked in my heart and he was there and I think that so that's what we have to help young people with right now I tell people don't worry if you're on a spiritual path it's fine just be just look for God within yourself start with that and then us who are in the religion business who have institutions maybe we can be there for them and I know that the Millennials want action they want to do things so Savea is part of your tradition service is part of my tradition it's part of the Jewish tradition social just as part of all our traditions they want to do savour they want to do service work so we should double up and do more you know community work that they can help the hungry the poor that this thing this is what they love and that is faith in action and I think if we do that collectively or we do that we can do that collectively or we can do that independently and I think that's will once once people start serving others they become godlike they they you know they feel God inside of them and the more they do that then then they will elevate into the practice and they will elevate into the men they'll want to go to the temple they want to go to the mosque and be connected to a bigger community because they'll mature in their own spirituality so I think it's just the process thank you thank you very much we have just a couple minutes so I'm going to ask you to speak for just a couple of minutes because we want to open this up to you so that you can ask questions to our brilliant speakers here I will just say three simple things about this and really my mind spinning with this idea of spiritual but not religious I think that's important when it comes to helping interfaith work first in some sense spiritual but not religious some would describe as those that are spiritual refugees not moving away from faith itself but moving away from religious institutions religious institutions that have lost their sense of purpose and and to be a part of an institution so whose sole reason is to continue the existence of the institution is not enough for the next generation and so they're abandoning that and so for us for us to echo Daisy in LA and they would also say that until someone stands up and says no to the evil the injustice the oppression the marginalization of anybody stop sitting around in your temples and synagogues and churches and talking about it get out there and do something about it and I think when we begin to come together to do something about it we'll see a change the second thing I would say is that until we provide space at the table for those that are both inclusive and exclusive we won't get anywhere because we can gather together like-minded people who might be more inclusive and pluralist and orientation but there are many people out there in the world many who are exclusive istic and until we invite all to the table with respect and civility I don't think we're gonna get very far and the third thing I'd say and I hope this doesn't sound defensive like the problems them not us but I think there's another thing that people are saying when they say spiritual but not religious that is the growing trend of isolationism as individuals loneliness is epidemic and people are struggling and they struggle on how to be in relationships and community and religious spiritual but not religious can be code to say I just struggled to be in the community I don't know what it means to sit next to people who think differently than me that vote differently than me they have different religious views whose babies cry I'm out and we need to help people understand what it means to live in a vibrant and vital community thank you very much for that especially for the last point that we often avoid talking about and this should also be a place where we can ask uncomfortable questions thoughtful questions as well so I will bring this up to you the public I ask that you please do not make your own speeches we've done that we've done that for you so I ask that everyone make their there their questions very clear and concise and then who would you like to ask the question to raise your hand yes in the back I don't know the person on the panel I'm putting this too so I guess anybody could pick up the question but it was very interesting to note that recognizing diversity is not enough but we should try to try to aim for the unity underlying the diversity right so my question is about that so in our workplaces there are a lot of emails and a lot of work and action about diversity and inclusion and up until this point I didn't realize that there were sort of two different things it's only from this panel that I realized that yes there was diversity and there's the second part which is inclusion so what are the things that one could what are the actions both mentally and practically one could take to go from merely recognizing diversity all the way to inclusion that is a few years ago I I was aware of religious tolerance but later on I think the word is religious acceptance and then now the word embrace came up in the panel so I think these are even though they sort of mean the same they are different at a level so you're not merely putting up with somebody else's differences or their natures but you're accepting them but I think the next level is also embracing and feeling that unity so I would like to ask what sort of mental attitudes or some work that each person can do like homework and how do we manifest that practically thank you very much which one of our panelists would like to speak to that why not incredible question and I the word that comes to mind is a word that tends to be misused and I think actually dr. long brought this up pluralism most of us use the word pluralism in the sense of I tolerate your existence and you tolerate mine but true pluralism comes from the recognition and the belief that I have truth and the belief that you have truth and I don't necessarily have to agree with your truth nor do you have to agree with mine but I and a true pluralistic sense would want and desire for your truth to continue and I think in a world like today and I'm gonna use just a political example for right now if we were to have a debate over which is more of a priority environmentalism or jobs we would see the objective in that conversation is for me to convince you to be like me however if everyone agreed with me on my value the world would be a terrible place we need people who are willing to stand for truth that is not our own and I think some of what's difficult in the world today is we refuse to do that so true pluralism is the recognition that yes there are so much the unites us but there are things that are very different between each of our traditions and actually we need to surface those differences and be willing to say I actually see value in that difference that I don't want you to be like me I want you to stand for something different than me because we need that in this world in my mind I sorry in my mind I always thinking of the orchestra because each one has a different you know diversity in a way you know each one has number one too but then when the orchestra comes they you know create something different right I mean if the viola is a number one two and then they can create the you know sound of the violin you know the piano you know everything but yet you know you get the points right so that each vines are different but then but then when it comes to inclusive then they they start respecting you know mutual mutually listen to the others sound but then they respect their own but it could sound as well as the others sound and then so that's where you can create a great harmony that's in my mind always for the interface just yes sharing my way of looking at I would just add that in addition to what what the rabbi said and what the Reverend has just said that when we talk about diversity and inclusion both all too often it seems to be sort of imposed by someone in the human resources office and you know we have that we have that in the education system too we have that at our college as well and it often as a result of that creates the opposite of what it is intended to and we had a very unpleasant and strange case at our College about it's been over a decade ago young man who put a confederate flag up in his room in his windows so everyone could see it simply because it bothered him that this message he felt was being imposed upon him not that he actually disagreed with the message of inclusion so one of the things I think it's very important that we do also is that we look within each religious tradition resources in scriptures in great works of spiritual leaders philosophers support this message right we've all been drawing from within these traditions for the idea of acceptance the idea of seeing the divinity in all beings seeing the divine spark and all beings and loving all beings it needs to come out organically from within the traditions and not be simply imposed right it shouldn't be in that the term we use in our college when we discuss these it shouldn't be an add-on it shouldn't be something that you're just sort of stuck with because that's what society wants but it really needs that the resources for it are existing already within our religious tradition so we need to pull them out and use them for that purpose please just some of something an observation which I think would probably be very strange coming from a monk but I just read somewhere of an interesting question would you want to marry yourself you would not want to marry a carbon copy of yourself you would want to marry somebody at least a little different from yourself so I think that's marriage is a very good example of inclusion and diversity good question many fine responses let's open this up other questions other yes over here again this is not for anyone special panelists and this is this is so informative one of the questions that comes to my mind we talked about sister nivedita and when she got involved in the freedom struggle and politics she had to quit the Ramakrishna movement and many of us shy away from politics including many religions with kind but it is the politicians who many times we see all over the world creating a lot of this divisiveness so my question is how can we bring this these kinds of dialogues you know up and maybe I don't know integrate this kind of mindset into politicians who are the ones creating policy and creating a lot of this is and is it totally wrong to even speak about religion and politics in the same good good question let's open it up I'd like to address that let me just make one point here I remember in a similar conference interfaith conference we in the Ramakrishna order are completely non-political we absolutely stay away from politics and one of the speakers in this interfaith dialogue was talking about the relationships between the the Chaitanya Vaishnava movement and the Mughal Emperors how they had a very complex and very interesting relationship now somebody from our order asked the speaker oh but isn't it mixing religion and politics because we don't do that at all now this speaker he quoted Mahatma Gandhi Mahatma Gandhi was accused of doing the same thing mixing religion and politics and he said but when he was asked he was absolutely unapologetic about it he said the two greatest forces for human good that I know are religion and politics and as long as I live I shall do politics in religion and religion in politics but he meant it in a positive sense yeah but we as monks we don't do that we stay away from politics here a one-word answer vote [Laughter] I would say that part of it is we've always talked about the separation of religion and state but if we understand what political activity actually is it's a way to organize our lives together and that's really a call we all share Luke brethren 10 wrote a book called resurrecting democracy talks about faith in the public sphere and he phrases it this way that we are all called to live in a world we did not create with people we cannot control but with whom nevertheless we must share life and so if that's the world we live in and how it works then we have to be involved politically at some level so I'll give a more practical example of what's going on so many of you have heard that hate crimes against Muslims have gone up by 67% and at the same time hate crimes against the Jewish community have gone up at the same time and the interfaith dialogue that we were doing for the last 15 years finally gets to pay off because we've made friends with one another we trust each other and together we have come and we have formed a Council called Muslim Jewish Advisory Council what is the purpose of this council now this council is actually becoming political because we don't have any other way of preventing these policies so we are together going together as two communities that are usually seen at odds with one another so it's very surprising when you walk into a congressman's office and they see a you know Jewish representatives and Muslim representatives together because they always think of Israel in Palestine that's the only way they think about this issue and we're walking in there and we're saying our communities are being targeted deliberately hate crimes and we need you to do X Y & Z so we're pushing for legislation together so that I think is where the work needs to be when it comes to politics and this thing we need to advocate for one another together and today it's Jewish Muslim tomorrow can be Hindu Muslim it could be any combination of things but if we stand together and we ask politicians please change this because we are your constituents right we're voting for you and you are serving us and it's your obligation to do this so that that's one they wanted to go back very quickly to this notion of the one to the many which is you know on our motto the American motto is from the one to the many right and so when I was growing up in Kashmir I mean we were all in our lane everybody stood in their Lane the Muslims were doing their things the pundits were doing their things the Sikhs were doing their things but when it came time for holidays we were all over each other celebrating each other's holidays not necessarily going to the holidays but a cake would arrive the way that Matai would arrive that rocky would be sent even if you didn't tie it or you didn't believe in tying it that was a way of showing I honor you and I think that that if we do that those little gestures are so important when I started my organization I started sending at every holiday I would send you know an email newsletter and I would say Happy Hanukkah and all of a sudden then I get an e to America and then I said Diwali and they're sending another this is what creates love and brotherhood among states because we honor one another we respect one another and acknowledging that I celebrate you and that's what our religions teach us anyone want to add anything to that then we had a gentleman over here that I agreed to last time so he's gonna have his turn on humble request to the galaxy of religious leads yes I as I was hearing all of you one thing I felt was is it not there in Hinduism or is it not that Swami Vivekananda has said for example like the divinity these partners and the relationships so that basically gave me the perfect example as for mr. Oprah and I said the jewel water we are currently same same thing but that also the going to the other example of the elephant putting different unless we put different pieces together we cannot see the complete picture so if I am hearing only Hinduism I've only see one part of the elephant and Christian part of that elephant so this conference opened my eyes even though I'm not completely religious for Hinduism but it gave me an example of everything together so my request to you is can we have these kind of interfaith conference is more often and this is not just on 150th pas but the n-word stuff sister nivedita maybe it can be a yearly thing next time definitely I will make sure my children are here so they are here so they need a young lady over here hi I really wanted to thank you first for coming here and offering me and everyone else in this hall with this opportunity so this question also applies to everyone so anyone could really pick it up so we all are we're discussing interfaith but at the same time we all still kind of you know we go under a single label like you know if someone were to ask me who or what I recognize myself as I'd say I was a Hindu so what is the actual purpose of these labels and are they really important and do they all lead to the same truth thank you great question who wants to jump in I can try that I can try to start the this won't be the whole answer it'll just be the beginning of an answer but what is the purpose of these labels and I'm gonna tap into the Buddhist tradition if I may that you know we use labels for the sake of convenience because we we're stuck using this thing called language and so we just I can't just call myself me all the time and you would all be calling yourselves me and we've going Mimi mean you know we wouldn't know one would know so we we come up with labels and the labels have a certain convenience I also identify myself as Hindu even though I didn't grow up in the tradition but it indicates a certain view a certain way of living a certain you know it Orient's you somewhere in time and space in history but I very deeply believe that while we should be very very very deeply committed to the spiritual paths that these labels point to we ought to hold these labels very lightly and not be terribly attached to them because that's well again the Yoda that's the path to the dark side right that's that's what because well then my label must be best my label must be better than yours you know I feel threatened because your label is different from mine then we have a problem right but it's it is in fact I had someone I know challenged me very sharply about this issue of religious identity why do you call yourself a Hindu you know you know Hindus are doing this bad thing and that bad thing and so on and we got into a conversation and I talked about well I identify with certain texts certain teachers and I don't know what else to call myself but that deny but then I said well you can call me a Jedi Knight if you want to you know because the label ultimately doesn't matter and I think that's what I see a lot of spiritual teachers in many traditions talking about it the label is not what's important it's what is it that's in your heart that you're trying to inadequately point to with that label do they all point to the same thing I I believe that but then I think there's there's a lot of scope for debate about that because if you look at every tradition as it describes its own aims and goals they're often described in very different terms so are these different ways of saying the same thing are they different parts of the elephant or are they just different and that I think we can debate as long as we can do it in a respectful way and I really like what the rabbi said about how we need to look not only for commonality but also for a difference because it's difference that we learn from now if everyone just agreed there wouldn't really be much to talk about so the labels are helpful if we handle them lightly and where the path is lead that that is up to us to really decide by following them and doing so in relation to one another and for one another I remember when I asked this question of my spiritual teacher at the time because I was also like not wanting a label because I was against all labels and he said to me he said are you following Mohammed I said yes are you following history are you willing to follow his tradition I said yes cuz at that point I had already kind of come back and he said if you're following his tradition then then then you are a Muslim you're following his way so these labels are simply away right the source is the same the destination is the same the journey is different we're all traveling on a different Road but we're going to the same source and the road can be route 45 so that could be the Hindu one it could be Route one it could be Route nine the it's the road that you're going on to reach your destination that's different and but the source are the same because you know Yunus Emre a very famous Sufi chef said once that all religions are different rivers going into the same ocean and ocean is God and the different rivers just take you there and the different rivers have their own way some are straight some are curved so I think that it is I mean I in my own community we have this young Muslims don't want the Muslim label anymore they want to call themselves spiritual or Sufi or goofy or whatever the term is you know they just like I don't want to call myself Muslim it's okay don't call yourself Muslim you don't have to label yourself it's what you are inside that God cares about it's not your outer label if you're if you're afraid don't you know yeah I mean there's another famous Rumi story where the guy comes and knock knock on the door and he says who's there he says me and he said go away and then he says who's there knock-knock me three four times me me me and he says go away and finally the guy on the other side realizes he says we you know and then he says and now you're welcome in other words we're the same [Music] yes I hear see someone back there hi I'm not exactly certain how I'm going to get to this but everybody on your panel sort of had the same philosophical viewpoint and it's obviously very filled with love what I'm concerned about would be Darth Vader or the dark angel or the fallen angel and do you invite everybody into your tent there I was at a protest with Tommy Robinson at against Tommy Robinson at Columbia in which he's very Islamophobic and the whole thing about whether or not one should shut down his conversation became very important of course I was out there demonstrating against what he was standing for but the point is everybody here is similar minded in my work over the past 17 years working in social justice it became very important to bring in the for lack of a better phrase the Antichrist the person that what we stood for represented the antithetical viewpoint and you know again you get it I don't wanna get into the Hegelian dialectic and all of that but everybody here sort of has the same viewpoint to really and it was what the rabbi was saying to bring in everybody into your tent and to have real diversity and real different nests to really have the discussion with somebody who's really not like you at all in any way shape or form and to be able to stay with that person in relationship to understand of course I also feel I have moral superiority which starts out wrong to begin with but I do feel that way yes do you understand what I was trying to get out there but I just make a comment here I just you reminded me of two conversations I had one with a Hindu preacher in Mumbai Airport I was waiting for my flight to the United States and at 4 hours to kill at night and there was this person from a Hindu sect which is very different from our sect I mean our approaches non-dualistic and that was one of the most staunchly dualistic sects so we had this nice you know three hour long quarrel about it was very nice to spend the night I mean time time flew when you're quarreling specially and at the end of that he didn't agree to what I was saying but this person he said well I know I am right but if I did not know that I would say there's a lot of Merit to your viewpoint and then on a flight from from Detroit to Los Angeles long flight there was this person from a Christian Church a very kind of Midwestern Christian denomination who said very interestingly said almost exactly this mirror image of what the Hindu preacher had said a kind of intolerant exclusivist point of view and I argued for what I was saying what we are mostly talking about I argued for this position and at the end of the flight when it was time for the gate for us to get down he stood up and said well Swami it's been an education speaking to you I know I am right but if I did not know that I would say you were talking sense I just wanted to show by what I'm thinking nowadays is actually the wisdom of what we could ordinary people ordinary nice because religious people tend to be I know you know what cigar is about but the thing is for me ordinary this may be a very important meaning like a Hitler or with that's an evil person are you sure well you know the mr. Trump is this really that bad person or you know something I mean because this is for me it's a very important because people has mixture you know with the good man good aspect number as being everything is a people you consider so well but it's here it's always good or bad I mean for me I like gray instead of black and white although I have black and white but anyway so if mixed it then become black and white right but but then but the gray is actually for me it's very important then you don't compare you know that you know this is right and it's wrong and I saw it no judgement means but then we do have a label I mean we do I mean but the understanding is we know we do leh boy then you don't have to worry about too much of labeling anymore because I you know you are labeling already right so then that you could be away from the label it's kind of strange but I mean for me label comes from the division you know if you label you know you you enough from me I mean it's a distinction because what would I believe on that I was not Japanese when I was in Japan because no distinction anyway so that's why Japanese only Japanese the Japanese are why I have to be Japanese right so the same way Buddhism you know although I said Buddhists but because you know you you want to see me as a Buddhist so that's why it's a label but yet in that part of the teaching even part of the Buddhism itself is you know you have to even throw away your Buddhism Buddhist so it's a no attachment is a very important part of the Buddhism so so that's one thing but that and then the one that I try to say ordinary people meaning ordinary means so there's a good aspects and bad aspects so it could be you know I'm correct I know everything but it could be other people might know something too so so which means I may not be totally sages you know I I may make a mistake right so like like that if that's the case you know maybe I can listen to others as well you know things that I have is not perfect you know once you have you realize you're not you are not perfect I am not perfect then I can listen to the other people so for me wisdom that I'm thinking actually I'm thinking of them create some kind of a peace organization but but this is one of the ideas that I feel like it's very important to be don't be sages or don't be you know somebody who are religious or so-called but then be ordinary people so that you can listen to the others and then you can make a mistake but then you know it's okay to make mistakes and so maybe that's the kind of a ground that I feel like important to have at this point because it's always you know black town whites and then it's a little bit tiring for me we're having such a rich discussion here and we have time just for one we had a very insistent question back on this side we could continue this all night and we'd have so much fun this question is for the panel the question is each one of the panelists they tried their best to go deeper into their own religion in their own language in the own symbolism my question is can this be a solution going deeper into the truths of your own religion to the questions and problems we discussed him yeah interesting we were talking about this I call him the Hollywood Swami since he came from Hollywood try to give you a little cachet and Houston Smith who were wrote a best-selling book on world religions that started out what the religions of man and there was rebranded to be more inclusive and he was doing an interview and he was asked a question he's a Methodist pastor I believe before he passed away and said you're Christian but you've studied all the world's great traditions and surely you probably take the best from each tradition for your own spiritual journey now don't you and he said well let me explain it this way he said I'm from Texas and in Texas we drill for oil and said and when you drill for oil it's better to drill one deep well than many shallow ones and so for him the solution for the way forward to be rooted in a spirituality and faith tradition and yet open to others is to go deep within your own tradition as something that reminds me that tied to sister nivedita is reminded of a very interesting question a young Swami asked one of the seniors how did Nevada table how did Swami Vivekananda make nivedita Hindu and the senior Swami looked at him and said no he did not he just made it a bit a Christian to bring in another metaphor we've had many but why not to bring another metaphor and and to bring in the wisdom of the mythologist Joseph Campbell for a moment and Swami you mentioned this you know he imagined that each of the world religions is a different path up the same mountain and each of those trails twists and turns and has a different Vista and when you are a beginner each trail is completely different and it's as though you are standing on a different mountain but the farther you go on that trail the farther you get up closer to the peak you start to realize that these paths have more and more in common and so I think speaking to the idea of digging a deep well the farther you go on your own path you will start to realize that actually you share so much with so many I think we've come to the ED of our end of our question-and-answer series I would like I would like to ask you to please thank our wonderful panelists and to show your appreciation the dancin society and its members our deepest thanks to all our panelists and the speakers first really wonderful evening our heartfelt thanks also to the conference planning committee and all the volunteers who have given so generously of their time and their resources you guys have been absolutely awesome for me it's been a great privilege to work with all of you and we're all so grateful for the extraordinary help we've received from Eva ting the director of events here at W 83 and her staff they couldn't have been more - officer wonderful we're all so grateful to the family of pundit Vasant Rai for allowing us to use the recording of raag Kewanee during our break as you leave please accept a small token of our thanks to you in the form of a box of snacks which will be handed to you as you get to the elevators and you can also take a look at the bookstore on your way out and thank you for spending the evening with us thank you so much [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Vedanta Society of New York

Views: 34,752

Keywords: sarvapriyananda, swami sarvapriyananda, sarvapriyananda latest, sarvapriyananda new york, sarvapriyananda lectures, swami vivekananda, vivekananda, vivekananda teachings, swami vivekananda teachings, vedanta ny, vedantany, vedanta, vedanta lectures, vedanta society of new york, jnana yoga, advaita, upanishads, upanishad (religious text), hinduism, philosophy, spirituality, meditation, guided meditation, wisdom, enlightenment, consciousness, consciousness philosophy, higher consciousness

Id: GvY3Ochsh0Y

Length: 100min 53sec (6053 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 20 2017