This is our earth, not yours or mine or his. We are meant to live on it, helping each other, not destroying each other. This is not some romantic nonsense but the actual fact. But man has divided the earth, hoping thereby that in the particular he is going to find happiness, security, and a sense of abiding comfort. Until a radical change takes place and we wipe out all nationalities, all ideologies, all religious divisions, and establish a global relationship -- psychologically first, inwardly before organizing the outer -- we shall go on with wars. If you harm others, if you kill others, whether in anger or by organized murder which is called war, you, who are the rest of humanity, not a separate human being fighting the rest of mankind, are destroying yourself.
This is the real issue, the basic issue, which you must understand and resolve. Until you are committed, dedicated, to eradicating this national, economic, religious division, you are perpetuating war, you are responsible for all wars whether nuclear or traditional.
This is really a very important and urgent question: whether man, you, can bring about this change in yourself -- not say. "If I change, will it have any value? Won't it be just a drop in a vast lake and have no effect at all? What is the point of my changing?" That is a wrong question, if one may point out. It is wrong because you are the rest of mankind. You are the world, you are not separate from the world. You are not an American, Russian, Hindu, Christian or Muslim. You are apart from these labels and words, you are the rest of mankind because your consciousness, your reactions, are similar to the others. You may speak a different language, have different customs, that is superficial culture -- all cultures apparently are superficial -- but your consciousness, your reactions, your faith, your beliefs, your ideologies, your fears, anxieties, loneliness, sorrow and pleasure, are similar to the rest of mankind. If you change it will affect the whole of mankind.
This is important to consider -- not vaguely, superficially -- in inquiring into, researching, seeking out, the causes of war. War can only be understood and put an end to if you and all those who are concerned very deeply with the survival of man, feel that you are utterly responsible for killing others. What will make you change? What will make you realize the appalling situation that we have brought about now? What will make you turn your face against all division -- religious, national, ethical and so on? Will more suffering? But you have had thousands upon thousands of years of suffering and man has not changed, he still pursues the same tradition, same tribalism, the same religious divisions of 'my god' and 'your god'.
The gods or their representatives are invented by thought, they have actually no reality in daily life. Most religions have said that to kill human beings is the greatest sin. Long before Christianity, the Hindus said this, the Buddhists said it, yet people kill in spite of their belief in god, or their belief in a savior and so on, they still pursue the path of killing. Will the reward of heaven change you or the punishment of hell? That too has been offered to man. And that too has failed. No external imposition, laws, systems, will ever stop the killing of man. Nor will any intellectual, romantic, conviction stop wars. They will stop only when you, as the rest of humanity, see the truth that as long as there is division in any form, there must be conflict, limited or wide, narrow or expansive, that there must be struggle, conflict, pain. So you are responsible, not only to your children, but also to the rest of humanity. Unless you deeply understand this, not verbally or merely intellectually, but feel this in your blood, in your way of looking at life, in your actions, you are supporting organized murder which is called war.
The immediacy of perception is far more important than the immediacy of answering a question which is the outcome of a thousand years of man killing man.
The world is sick and there is no one outside you to help you except yourself. We have had leaders, specialists, every kind of external agency, including god -- they have had no effect; they have in no way influenced your psychological state. They cannot guide you. No statesman, no teacher, no guru, no one can make you strong inwardly, supremely healthy. As long as you are in disorder, as long as your house is not kept in a proper condition, a proper state, you will create the external prophet, and he will always be misleading you. Your house is in disorder and no one on this earth or in heaven can bring about order in your house. Unless you yourself understand the nature of disorder, the nature of conflict, the nature of division, your house, that is you, will always remain in disorder, at war.
It is not a question of who has the greatest military might, but rather it is man against man, man who has put together ideologies, and these ideologies, which man has made, are against each other. Until these ideas, ideologies, end and man becomes responsible for other human beings, there cannot possibly be peace in the world.
It seems that we have always been at war with each other. History is full of military conflicts and too many of those conflicts were caused by religious differences. Recent news also show mass killings and abuses in Kosovo, Bosnia, Rwanda; all caused by religious intolerance. Violence based on religious differences is one of the most powerful and so far unending cause of suffering in the world. Does it have to be this way? What makes our religious beliefs so powerful, that make us treat others inhumanly, only because they hold different religious beliefs. Is it because we take our beliefs too seriously? Or perhaps because we are convinced that we alone possess the Truth? What is Truth?
It is not easy to define Truth. Once we define Truth, it ceases to be and becomes something else. It becomes our own conception of Truth. Something totally different from that which IS.
If I decide to look at the sun, our sun, the one that gives life to our planet. If I look at it through special filters to protect my eyes, am I being truthful if I say that I am looking at the sun? If I do that, I would be looking at the light of the sun, nothing else.
Looking at the sun would mean that we would be able to see the sun, even the internal sun, everything that makes the sun, the sun. And all that at the same time. I and you, we all would have to experience the sun totally, in an instant.
If I were able to do that, could I even communicate my experience to others? Could I write about it? If I had such an experience of seeing the True sun, that experience would probably change me, but I could not share it with anybody, because once I start putting it into words I would have to rely on my memory, and my memory interpretation would be distorted and tainted by my own opinions, beliefs and prejudices.
If two people had the same true experience about the sun, even though they could never communicate their own experiences to each other, they would never go to war arguing who had the only true experience. Truth does not require faith from us. It is not a belief! But, it illuminates all things equally.
We who are attending this Parliament represent all (or most) religious traditions of the world. We are here together because we feel that we can meet in peace, and with respect for each other. I also believe that we are willing to take the steps that are necessary to make our present and future different from the past, and create a new world where our children can grow without the fear of repression or of religious persecution. In order to achieve that we don't need to give up our beliefs, except the one that makes us believe that we alone possess the Truth.
Maybe some of you are thinking -- why do I have to give up the belief that my religion is the true one? Is Truth going to be found to be different? Then I would ask: what is more important: my belief, whatever that belief is, or Truth? Isn't more important to keep Truth incorrupt than to assume that my belief is the true one? And, particularly when everybody else is going to assume the same thing, that what they have been taught to believe, are the only statements that are the true ones. It is that kind of thinking that has kept us all in the dark for thousands of years. It is not possible for any of us to possess Truth, or the possibility that Truth agrees with our sense of separateness and our divisions, with religious intolerance and sectarian denunciation and violence. Why! -- Because we know in our heart that we are one family, we know that Humanity is One, and we know that we all are rooted in that Absolute Truth.
This is what I would like to propose: I propose that all of us who are attending this Parliament of the World's Religions adopt the principle of Truth -- absolute Truth as the ultimate reality -- that we all should bow and aspire to. If we do that we would be resolving an old conflict that has kept us divided for thousands of years. The One Truth would be that which connects us all.
The individual who believes in a personal god, and the one who does not share that belief would be united and able to relate to each other, by their mutual reverence for Truth. The same thing would become the aim and practice of the members of all the other religions, nationalities, castes and colors. We would all mutually recognize each other as brothers, because we would all be sharing our common love for Truth. In this way we, beginning with this parliament, would be converting this Institution, this Parliament, into a true brotherhood of men and women whose main characteristic would be the reverence and pursuit of Truth. And whose main concern would be the welfare of humanity.
Truth as we have been considering it, is One and Total. It can never be possessed by anyone, or by any group; and is always unknown. Although its influence is to be felt everywhere, and by each of us in our own heart. It is unknown because we can never know all the ramifications and depth of every thing that we try to understand, and the consequences of every action that we take. All things are connected and there is no way that the limited human mind can encompass all the connections and every result of our actions in an instant. Any yet, we sense in our mind's heart that there is a continuous connection between our intuition and the reality of that Absolute Truth. Absolute Truth is the common essence of ourselves and all other beings in the entire universe, it is Universal, it unites and includes everybody and everything.
If we are going to be honest, we must be careful to keep this vision of omnipresence "pure", uncontaminated by any limited or personal belief, expectation, or assumption. Otherwise it can be seen to have acquired limits and it ceases to be true.
We can have any belief as long as we hold that belief in comparison with Truth. It has been said that Truth meets the following criterion: "Truth is true at all times, in all places and for all people." In other words, our belief system is what we believe to be true, and Truth is that which IS. The two of these are separate. Our choices which result in our actions should always reflect our love and respect for honesty and Truth. If we begin to act impersonally, impartially, with love for all, and no longer allow ourselves to be limited by our old belief systems, but change so that we are in accordance with the spirit of Truth, we may notice that our belief system will start to change. It will widen. It will improve. It will include a greater sphere of the whole world without imposing on them our beliefs. We will then act as true brothers to all beings. The more we depend on the spirit of Truth -- the more we act in accord with Truth -- the more Truth will reveal itself to us. It is an ever-growing conviction, and we become -- we can make ourselves, we can suggest to others -- that each of us may become a living representative of the one living Truth which imposes nothing on others, but only offers itself in humility for complete inspection and use.