Philosophical Views and Certain Knowledge

[Sunder Hattangadi]

When I read Meister Eckhart's sermons, I distinctly felt I was reading
the Upanishads! (of course he was excommunicated!)

Swami Vivekananda's lectures on Vedanta as a harmonising influence on
the spectrum of religious faiths are also worth reading.

----- Original Message -----
From: Parisi & Watson <niche at ameritech.net>
To: <ADVAITA-L at advaita-vedanta.org>
Sent: Monday, April 26, 1999 8:42 PM
Subject: Re: Re : Philosophical Views and Certain Knowledge


| M. S. Ravishankar wrote:
| >
| > In the same book, there is a chapter in which svAmigaL asks a
| > christian to follow his religion properly and be a good christian
| > rather than convert religions. That is very nice chapter.
| >
| > In one of his talks shrI shrI chandrasekharendra sarasvatI says
that
| > people who convert from one religion to another insult both of them.
| > By the considering that God of their former religion as not good
| > enough to help them and second by thinking the God of the new one is
| > different from the former.
| <snip>
|
| An excellent point, and I understand what you're saying about being a
| good 'whatever' rather than changing beliefs. But, even though I was
| always deeply moved by the music, art, and deep devotion of
Catholicism,
| I came to the point that I could no longer bear its dogmatic
| sectarianism, and I found most of Protestantism even more repugnant. I
| believe I would have similar problems with Judaism and especially
Islam.
| However, far from thinking that Hinduism and Advaita presented me with
a
| new and better God, I felt that it provided the missing key to
| understanding what was really meant by all those medieval Christian
| mystics, and ultimately by Jesus himself. But to this day I am unable
to
| stand up in a church and recite a Christian creed that includes
| exclusive, sectarian views that I do not believe are valid. And beyond
| that, the original purity and freshness of the Christian message has
| been so hopelessly besmirched in the West - and particularly in the
US -
| that it's better, at least for me, just to move to something that is
not
| only more profound and to the point, but that has less personal
baggage.
|
| Robert.
|