“The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.”
When asked what faith I belong to, or what tradition I come from, or what religion I practice, the easy answer I am always ready with is Hinduism or, in some contexts, Vedanta. Others see me as belonging to the Hindu faith or tradition or religion. This is certainly a convenient way to identify myself or to be identified by others.
But what does it really mean when a person is said to belong to a faith, tradition or religion? How is a person’s religious identity defined?—such questions have been on my mind for a while.
I was born and raised in a Hindu family which was neither dogmatically religious nor stubbornly secular. We visited temples occasionally and observed the usual festivals, but the emphasis in the family was not so much on meditation and religious study, or on ritualistic worship and pilgrimage, as on living a life firmly entrenched in dharma, or values such as honesty, truthfulness, unselfishness. My father taught me a few short prayers in Sanskrit, which I dutifully recited everyday since my early childhood, and I still do. When I was nine, my mother gifted me a few booklets containing quotations from Swami Vivekananda. He captured my interest and imagination, and I kept reading him, gradually moving on to his bigger books that comprised his lectures, writings and letters.
All of my questions related to life, its purpose, and my own place in this world found answers in Vivekananda that resonated with my teenage head and heart. Eventually that led to my joining the monastery after graduating from the university. As a monastic novice, I got a chance to do more serious study, and to practice the method given to me by my Guru.
All that said, I have never felt, nor I think I ever will, that I have read “everything” in the Hindu, or Vedanta, tradition. I suppose no one from any of the world religions can make a claim like that. Having been around for centuries, these traditions are just too vast, too varied, too complex, to be mastered fully in a single lifetime. I am certainly not familiar with every practice, every ritual, every festival, every whatever, of the tradition to which I “belong” or which I am often invited to represent in interfaith panel discussions and gatherings. If I represent anything, it is only my limited understanding, practice and experience related to Hinduism.
Nor can my religious landscape be said to be exclusively Hindu. There may be insular communities and individuals in the world who find nourishment only in their own tradition, and that’s fine. But by and large, in the increasingly diverse and crowded world in which many of us find ourselves, it is impossible to keep “other” influences out of our orbits. And why would I even want to do that, unless I have convinced myself that I have nothing to learn from others.
I grew up studying in a Jesuit-run school and a Jesuit-run college. Although religion per se was not the focus of my study or conversations then, I cannot overlook the influence of my close friends and the dedicated teachers from different faiths that shaped my thinking. After joining the Ramakrishna Order, I was exposed to more opportunities to study from Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist and Sikh sources. My present religious identity cannot be conveniently compressed into the generic label “Hinduism.” Religious purity is as much a myth as racial purity. Every one of us is a hybrid of varied influences, some of which are obvious, many of which are not. All identities in today’s world tend to be hyphenated.
What is my religion then? Yes, I am Hindu, but this statement needs nuance. Perhaps it may be good to reimagine the role of religion in today’s world. I should at least try to express what my idea of religion has evolved into.
When questions regarding the world, its origin and purpose, and one’s own place in it arose in the human heart, answers began to emerge, often starting with dreams and speculations but quickly maturing into deep insights, confirmed through revelations that bypassed the senses. The answers that arose in different minds, and the worldviews they generated, were diverse in many ways. Understandably so, because those answers were in different languages, using different symbols and imageries, and built around different conceptual frameworks. What is remarkable is that, stripped of all technicalities and verbiage, they all pointed to the same truth. Those who found the answers and embodied them in their lives became knows as prophets and incarnations, saints and mystics. Their lives showed that it was possible to transcend all human limitations, attain wisdom and experience peace and joy that was not of this world. They became the role models which inspired others who followed.
This process occurred over and over again, across centuries and continents, and crystallized into what we today call the world’s religions. The wisdom and the practices that evolved found expression through the written word, thus the arrival of scriptures. The efforts to live religiously led to rituals and festivals, to theology and mythology, and to art and music. It is an ongoing process that keeps moving forward.
Because learning almost always begins at home, our religious identity gets defined largely by the environment of our upbringing. But it flowers and evolves over time, especially when we encounter views different from the ones we are familiar with. In the globalized societies of today, brought together by the frequency of travel and the ease of the internet, we are exposed to more varied influences than was possible even a few generations ago. What we think and how we think about the ultimate questions of life and its purpose is shaped by the range of ideas we are exposed to.
We may identify with a certain religious tradition, but what we know about it may be only what we had access to. No one knows “everything” about anything. From what little we know, some things may be more relevant to our life situation than others. Some things in our tradition may resonate with us more than other things. We may interpret some of its aspects in our own way, not necessarily in the way someone else does. It is this kind of independent thinking and differing interpretations that, over time, give rise to sects and denominations within a tradition.
No religion is a monolithic whole. In no religion does everyone think alike and practice alike. Not everyone even within each sect thinks identically or interprets everything in the same manner. There is always a range of variations. We can see this in our own families. Even if everyone in the family identifies with the same tradition (perhaps also being a part of the same religious community), does everyone agree with everything in the tradition? Does everyone think and practice in the same way?
The presence of many sects and denominations, and the robust disagreements and debates between them, are not a problem in itself. The mushrooming of divisions doesn’t mean the tradition is disintegrating. On the contrary, it is a sign that the tradition is alive, it is growing and evolving, that its people are creative and have learnt to think for themselves, not merely to follow blindly like sheep. Vivekananda’s words come to mind. He said the following in his lecture in California on January 27, 1900. Although Swamiji is speaking here about Hinduism, this is true for other traditions as well:
“The stronger the current, the more the whirlpools and eddies. Sects are not signs of decay, they are a sign of life. Let sects multiply, till the time comes when every one of us is a sect, each individual.” (CW 8. 75)
Four years earlier in London, on May 14, 1896, Swamiji shared a similar idea, recognizing the value of diversity but also emphasizing the underlying unity:
“We see how glorious it is that there are so many religions, how good it is that there are so many teachers and prophets, instead of there being only one … Just as in social life the greater the number of occupations in every society, the better for that society, the more chance is there for everyone in that society to make a living; so in the world of thought and of religion…. It is a most glorious dispensation of the Lord that there are so many religions in the world; and would to God that these would increase every day, until every man had a religion unto himself!” (CW 6. 16-17)
It is this “each individual” being “a sect”—or every person being “a religion unto himself”—that I choose to call “personal religion.” I am not suggesting that we consciously create a religion of our own by choosing and assembling elements from whatever religious ideas we are familiar with. That doesn’t work and is usually a disaster. Nor am I subscribing to the popular label, “spiritual but not religious,” and suggesting that we hold on to spirituality and reject religion. I think I understand why some may want to do that, but it also betrays both a warped idea of “religion” and a vaporous notion of “spirituality.” Is it ever possible to separate spirituality from religion? Does religion without spirituality even deserve to be called “religion”? What is spirituality without “spirit,” and how would we have any idea of spirit without recourse to religious sources?
A “personal religion” is not something to be created. It already exists. Those who take religion seriously simply need to look in their hearts to discover their personal religion. A majority of the elements within me will probably be from one tradition (whose label I’ll carry), but how I think of myself, the world, and God will be an inseparable mix of all the ideas that have shaped my life and influenced my thinking—the ideas from diverse traditions that have been absorbed, filtered and modified in my mind and integrated into a wholesome experience, producing an inner landscape that has made my life meaningful, my goal clearer, my practice fulfilling. The way I relate to the world, the way I understand my own existence, the way I pray, worship and meditate—in all the nitty-gritty details—will be my own unique way of practicing religion. In effect, I have become a sect of my own, although that’s not how I may think of it (and I don’t have to).
I may carry the label of belonging to a certain religion, tradition or faith—and that is all right and perhaps inevitable in a world bent upon labeling and pigeonholing. But it will be good for me to realize deep down in my heart that I am not an island. I am a river that has been fed by numerous other rivers, streams and lakes. I’ll be indistinguishable from other rivers when I merge into the ocean. The labels of identity—such as Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish—have a useful role to play. They unite people around common ideals and goals, and form strong communities which support their members and do much good in the process.
But identity-labels also become markers of separation. If I am Hindu, then I am obviously not Muslim, Christian, or Jewish. My community will support me but it may also threaten, or be threatened by, other communities when its interests conflict with theirs. Such identities produce the “me and mine” (or “we and ours”) versus “they and theirs” syndrome—and from it come all the problems we see all over the world, problems related to sharing of resources. I need more for me and mine and if they stand in the way, I am going to fight them. Also, what is me and mine is better than them and theirs—so we have more reasons to argue and, to prove the point, even go to war.
The distinguishing markers don’t have to be only religious, they can also be related to gender, color, race, wealth, nationality, and so on. The more ways we devise to separate ourselves from others, the more we open the door to doubt and suspicion, chaos and confusion, viciousness and violence. It is this problem which Swami Vivekananda highlighted in a letter he wrote from New York on March 21, 1895:
“My master used to say that these names, as Hindu, Christian, etc., stand as great bars to all brotherly feelings between man and man. We must try to break them down first. They have lost all their good powers and now only stand as baneful influences under whose black magic even the best of us behave like demons.” (CW 6. 302)
Identity is important because it does perform a useful function in life, especially when the circumstances are ideal. But life being what it is, the circumstances are not always ideal. And we being who we are, we are not always at our best either. We cannot ignore the fact that we don’t live in a perfect world. So it is good to be clear-headed about the role of identities in our lives.
While we may be identified in specific ways with regard to religion, gender, race, color, and nationality, it may be best to recognize all of these identities as only provisional. These will slip away from us when we die (which may be sooner than we imagine) and, if we acknowledge the possibility of rebirth, we’ll come back with new identities. All of these provisional identities, which get shuffled in every life, will vanish for ever when we go beyond this monotonously boring cycle of birth and death. It is then that we discover our true identity, which is beyond birth and death, beyond all labels, beyond all distinctions, an identity which is divine, eternal, infinite and unchanging.
There is nothing to distinguish one river from another after they all merge into the ocean.