In one of his essays on Indian culture, Sri Aurobindo writes emphatically, “[Hinduism] is in the first place a non-dogmatic inclusive religion and would have taken even Islam and Christianity into itself, if they had tolerated the process” (The Renaissance in India and Other Essays on Indian Culture, CWSA, vol. 20, p. 147). This statement, when taken literally by the so-called liberal, leftist intelligentsia of today might be interpreted through their lens of what they define as Hindu chauvinism. On the other hand, those on the other side of the political spectrum who would like India to become a so-called ‘Hindu nation’ may view it as an endorsement of their narrow Hindu-religio-political ideology. This essay tries to take the reader beyond any of these two surface-level readings of this statement and instead attempts to explore the relevance and significance of this deeply layered statement for present-day religiously diverse India while keeping in full consideration its implications for the future of inter-religious harmony in the country.

I

Sri Aurobindo through his writings helps us see that human nature is very complex and this complexity also explains why different people need different ways or paths on their spiritual journey. Each religion has captured some essential aspect of the Great Truth and each has made some important contribution to the overall march of humanity. The Supreme Being and Nature will not want any uniformity; diversity is the principle of Truth. So there will always be diverse paths, diverse religions and diverse teachers of the Truth showing different ways to the Truth. Sri Aurobindo has explained that this multiplicity is also the truth of the Overmind, and because before the advent of Sri Aurobindo that had been the highest Truth established on the earth, the result is that at present we see an even greater diversity of paths and ways to God. As we begin our analysis about the necessity for a healthy co-existence of diverse religions, it might be intellectually satisfying and also liberating to know some of these deeper reasons for the necessity of diverse religions.

Humanity’s response to a diversity of religions has either involved a sense of disharmony and conflict, or in recent times, a somewhat more tolerant but often aimless, postmodern religio-moral relativism resulting in an ethical void. Sri Aurobindo tells us that the truth of the Supermind will surely and gradually compel more and more sections of humanity—and signs of this awakening are already there all across the world—to strive toward a greater harmony between the diverse religions and spiritual paths. This may be accomplished either through something like a world-religion which will include the truths emphasized by different religions but harmonized in the light of a greater supramental truth that has not been a part of any religion so far, or through something that is sort of an a-religious spirituality that transcends all religions. In fact the first may be a beginning step for the second. But regardless, a diversity of paths and ways will be there.

In an essay titled “Religion in the Post-Modern Condition: Some Lights from an Interesting Correspondence of Sri Aurobindo”, Supriyo Bhattacharya (2009)1 reminds us of a fundamental teaching of Sri Aurobindo that the spiritual truth is a truth of the spirit, a truth of the Infinite, which is one but expressed in an infinite diversity, and thus can assume an infinite variety of aspects and formations. He argues that the religio-ethical relativism of the postmodernist readily dissolves in the light of the deeper truth of the spirit that Sri Aurobindo speaks of in these words:

...the domain of pure spiritual self realisation and self-expression need not be a single white monotone, there can be a great diversity in the fundamental unity; the supreme Self is one, but the souls of the Self are many, and as is the soul’s formation of nature, so will be its spiritual self-expression. A diversity in oneness is the law of manifestation; the supramental unification and integration must harmonise these diversities, but to abolish them is not the intention of the spirit in Nature. ...in mental formulation the difference must remain until one can exceed mind altogether and in a highest consciousness integralise, unify and harmonise the many-sided truth of the Spirit (The Life Divine, CWSA, vol. 21-22, p. 921).

II

Let us now explore the implications of some of these deeper truths in the context of our topic of present interest. To begin with, we must ask ourselves the most basic question—what type of Hinduism does Sri Aurobindo speak of in this sentence? It is definitely not the externalized, religiosity-laden Hinduism that can assimilate the truths of other religions; only the real essence of Hinduism—or what we refer to as Sanatana Dharma—can take within its fold the spiritual truths that are the basis of other religions. As Sri Aurobindo said emphatically in his famous Uttarpara speech in 1909:

But what is the Hindu religion? What is this religion which we call Sanatana, eternal?...That which we call the Hindu religion is really the eternal religion, because it is the universal religion which embraces all others. If a religion is not universal, it cannot be eternal. A narrow religion, a sectarian religion, an exclusive religion can live only for a limited time and a limited purpose….It is the one religion which impresses on mankind the closeness of God to us and embraces in its compass all the possible means by which man can approach God. It is the one religion which insists every moment on the truth which all religions acknowledge that He is in all men and all things and that in Him we move and have our being (Karmayogin, CWSA, vol. 8, p. 11).

Thus we understand that Sri Aurobindo forcefully shuns the narrow sectarian variety of Hinduism, and is concerned with that Hinduism which is a truly universal, eternal religion having the ability to comprise and contain within itself the truths of all religions. We will explore this point further a little later on in this essay.

When we take a serious look at most of the problems related to the religious divide in India, especially with regard to the co-existence of Islam and Hinduism, we easily discover that these problems are primarily rooted in a messy religio-political nexus that is basically led by selfish interests and lust for power. We can agree that for a healthy future of India, at the minimum we need—perhaps it is also inevitable, though it may not happen in the immediate future—a healthy co-existence of these two important religions. A purging and cleansing has to happen, and for the effective dislodging of this religio-political nexus, the two religions themselves will also have to transform into more synthetic and inclusive versions of themselves.

We generally assume that as compared to Islam, Hinduism has been and is a much more inclusive religion. While this is true to a very large extent, we should also remember that the more orthodox, conservative or rigid versions of Hinduism don’t allow any inter-mixing of religions. There are several temples in India where even today non-Hindus are not allowed to enter. The term ‘meleccha’ has been used by people from within the Hindu culture to refer to outsiders, or people belonging to other religions. It is from within the Hindu culture that a group of social outcastes and untouchables emerged. So exclusivity has not been entirely unknown to Hindu religion. But what Sri Aurobindo keeps reminding us is that these social evils were a result of the decay and decadence that had crept into Hinduism, (some of these practices might even have started in response to particular difficult circumstances prevalent in certain times) and are not part of the deeper truths that form the core of Hinduism. Unless we go back to the true, the wider, deeper, non-dogmatic and inclusive variety of Hinduism, we can’t hope for any sustainable inter-religious unity. Similarly, we can’t hope for any idea of unity to emerge from within the fold of the more exclusive and orthodox Islam. But because there also exist other more tolerant, open and inclusive strains of Islam, it is those versions of Islam which will have to take the lead in such an endeavor. In any case, the effort to bring the different religions closer must start on a people-to-people basis, with the practitioners of these religions who have the most non-dogmatic and inclusive view of their religions coming together and recognizing the necessity for a closer union and synthesis. In an editorial written as far back as 1906, Sri Aurobindo envisioned the future of Indian nation where “the Mahomedan, the Hindu, the Buddhist, the Christian in India will not have to cease to be Mahomedan, Hindu, Buddhist, or Christian, in any sense of the term, for uniting into one great and puissant Indian nation. Devotion to one’s own ideals and institutions, with toleration and respect for the ideals and institutions of other sections of the community, and an ardent love and affection for the common civic life and ideal of all—these are what must be cultivated by us now, for the building up of the real Indian nation”
(Bande Mataram, CWSA, vol. 6-7, p. 169).

Particularly with respect to creating a meaningful Hindu-Muslim unity, Sri Aurobindo has given us the following deeper and truer formula:

Of one thing we may be certain, that Hindu-Mahomedan unity cannot be effected by political adjustments…It must be sought deeper down, in the heart and in the mind, for where the causes of disunion are, there the remedies must be sought. We shall do well in trying to solve the problem to remember that misunderstanding is the most fruitful cause of our differences, that love compels love and that strength conciliates the strong. We must strive to remove the causes of misunderstanding by a better mutual knowledge and sympathy; we must extend the unfaltering love of the patriot to our Musulman brother, remembering always that in him too Narayana dwells and to him too our Mother has given a permanent place in her bosom; but we must cease to approach him falsely or flatter out of a selfish weakness and cowardice. We believe this to be the only practical way of dealing with the difficulty. As a political question, the Hindu-Mahomedan problem does not interest us at all, as a national problem it is of supreme importance.
(Karmayogin, CWSA, vol. 8, p. 31).

Even though Sri Aurobindo made this statement in 1909, it is amazing how applicable and relevant it is for today’s India. It is significant because since independence most of the efforts to address the problem of Hindu-Muslim divide in India have been led by a political motive, instead of really going to the roots of the problem and dealing with it at the level of the hearts and minds of the people from these religious communities. It is also true, at the same time, that despite the much politicization of this religious divide, there are very big sections of Indian population belonging to both these religions who continue to peacefully co-exist.

Given the present state of affairs concerning the religious divide in India and the world, even a mutually respectful co-existence of different religions will be a great step ahead. At the same time we should recognize and remember that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother would want us to hope and aspire for a much more glorious future than mere respectful co-existence. This aspiration for that future will certainly have to co-exist with the work we must do at present, starting with the individual level, by seeing the good and the true in all religions other than the ones we are born into or other than the one we practice.

III

With a consideration to all that has been said so far, let us now take another look at the opening statement and explore the implications of Hinduism, or the Sanatana Dharma, to be precise, completely integrating within itself Islam and Christianity (provided they had tolerated the process) for the present and future of inter-religious harmony in India.

When understood generously, we can recognize that this statement does not mean that as a result of Hinduism integrating Islam and Christianity within its fold there wouldn’t be any separate existence of these religions. It only implies that the literalist or fundamentalist factions of Islam and Christianity could also become more tolerant and Indian-ized by going through an assimilation process led by the more inclusive and non-dogmatic nature of Hinduism. Inclusiveness of a religion, however, implies a two-way flow of ideas. Therefore, as a result of this integration process, Hinduism too would become richer because of its assimilation with Islam and Christianity. This is an important point to be remembered because certainly no single religion has the monopoly over truth, just as no single viewpoint has the exclusive claim over truth.

Let us now go a bit deeper to see if Sri Aurobindo means something more when he says that Hinduism would have or could have taken religions like Islam and Christianity within itself. To do so it is also important to consider this assimilation process that is being spoken of here, and also what is meant when we say that Hinduism is an inclusive religion. In order to remain inclusive, Hinduism should have the capacity to integrate the spiritual realizations, truths, and experiences revealed within the fold of other religious traditions, otherwise it is not inclusive at all. Going by historical record, we can see that what we now know as Hinduism has taken in elements from all sorts of traditions—Vedic, Upanishadic, Buddhist, Jain, Tantric, Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Sikh—all of these and many others have been synthesized into what has now become Hinduism. But it is important to emphasize that for Sri Aurobindo, Hinduism is not any particular belief or practice but essentially an inner experience that is available to all humans. It is this experience-based Hinduism that might become, as he says in an essay published in Karmayogin on June 19, 1909, the “basis of the future world-religion” (CWSA, vol. 8, p. 26).

“God gives Himself to His whole creation; no one religion holds the monopoly of His Grace” (Words of The Mother – III, CWM, vol. 15, p. 27). Sri Aurobindo and the Mother remind us that each religion is only a partial expression of the Truth and they all, in their own unique ways, have helped the mankind in its progressive march.

Each religion has helped mankind. Paganism increased in man the light of beauty, the largeness and height of his life, his aim at a many-sided perfection; Christianity gave him some vision of divine love and charity; Buddhism has shown him a noble way to be wiser, gentler, purer; Judaism and Islam how to be religiously faithful in action and zealously devoted to God; Hinduism has opened to him the largest and profoundest spiritual possibilities. A great thing would be done if all these God-visions could embrace and cast themselves into each other; but intellectual dogma and cult egoism stand in the way. (Sri Aurobindo, Thoughts and Glimpses, SABCL, vol. 16, p. 394).
Because each religion brought to mankind some important aspect of the Truth, the future of humanity requires that these religions embrace and “cast themselves into each other.” This is the kind of integration or assimilation process that Sri Aurobindo is speaking of in the statement we have been discussing.

A few more insights from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother will help us gain further clarity on this topic, especially about the future of religion itself (and thereby the future of inter-religious harmony). While speaking of the role of religion in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Sri Aurobindo once said that there will be “no place for rigid orthodoxy, whether Hindu, Mahomedan or Christian in the future. Those who cling to it, loose hold of life and go under—as has been shown by the fate of the Hindus in India and of the orthodox Mahomedan countries all over the world.” (Letter dated 23 February 1932, published in the Bulletin, Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education 52, February 2000, p. 80). This helps us see that for Sri Aurobindo religion is useful as long as it doesn’t turn into a rigid orthodoxy—no matter what religion it is. If present multi-religious India has to fulfill her mission of being a spiritual guru of the world, she has to move beyond the rigid orthodox religiosity to a more inclusive and wide-embracing spirituality (whether it is religion-based spirituality or religion-less spirituality). We must also remember that the true spirituality thrives on diversity and shuns uniformity. In order to keep a healthy, pluralistic society we need healthy dialogue and acceptance of different religious truths and beliefs.

These ideas are also echoed in the following words of the Mother (Words of The Mother – III, CWM, vol. 15, pp. 27-29):

“Instead of excluding each other, religions ought to complete each other.”
“The spiritual spirit is not contrary to a religious feeling of adoration, devotion and consecration. But what is wrong in the religions is the fixity of the mind clinging to one formula as an exclusive truth. One must always remember that formulas are only a mental expression of the truth and that this truth can always be expressed in many other ways”
(6 December 1964).
“All religions are partial approximations of the one sole Truth that is far above them”
(April 1969).

But is there a future beyond religion? Perhaps the true harmony between religions is only possible when we can boldly envision and work towards creating a world without religion, but a world steeped in true spirituality. But before proceeding further it is important to understand the difference between the two. In an essay Sri Aurobindo wrote for the June 19, 1909 issue of Karmayogin he gives us a glimpse of where the world is moving in term of its religious or spiritual destiny. He writes:

The world moves through an indispensable interregnum of free thought and materialism to a new synthesis of religious thought and experience, a new religious world-life free from intolerance, yet full of faith and fervour, accepting all forms of religion because it has an unshakable faith in the One. The religion which embraces Science and faith, Theism, Christianity, Mahomedanism and Buddhism and yet is none of these, is that to which the World-Spirit moves. In our own [referring to the true spirit of Sanatana Dharma], which is the most sceptical and the most believing of all, the most sceptical because it has questioned and experimented the most, the most believing because it has the deepest experience and the most varied and positive spiritual knowledge,— that wider Hinduism which is not a dogma or combination of dogmas but a law of life, which is not a social framework but the spirit of a past and future social evolution, which rejects nothing but insists on testing and experiencing everything and when tested and experienced turning it to the soul’s uses, in this Hinduism we find the basis of the future world-religion. This sanatana dharma has many scriptures, Veda, Vedanta, Gita, Upanishad, Darshana, Purana, Tantra, nor could it reject the Bible or the Koran; but its real, most authoritative scripture is in the heart in which the Eternal has His dwelling. It is in our inner spiritual experiences that we shall find the proof and source of the world’s Scriptures, the law of knowledge, love and conduct, the basis and inspiration of Karmayoga (CWSA, vol. 8, p. 26).

We see that on one level, Sri Aurobindo tells us that the future world-spirit is moving in the direction of a synthetic and inclusive eternal way (Sanatana Dharma) which takes the best from all present world religions. And on another level, the more we understand and appreciate Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s vision of the future we find that they compel us to envision with them a world beyond religion, a world where the inner seeking, the spiritual seeking is the basis for human unity. This is also quite clear from some of the following quotes of the Mother (Words of The Mother – III, CWM, vol. 15, pp. 29-30):

“Religions are based on creeds which are spiritual experiences brought down to a level where they become more easy to grasp, but at the cost of their integral purity and truth.
The time of religions is over.
We have entered the age of universal spirituality, of spiritual experience in its initial purity.”

“Religious teaching belongs to the past and halts progress.
Spiritual teaching is the teaching of the future—it illumines the consciousness and prepares it for future realisation.
Spiritual teaching is above religions and strives towards a global Truth.
It teaches us to enter into direct relation with the Divine.”

So essentially, it comes down to each one of us to see which of these truths sits better with what we feel inside us—whether the world-spirit is moving towards a synthetic world-religion or to an age beyond religion. There is no right or wrong answer here because each answer will be an expression of a partial truth. The true Truth will be beyond any of these expressions. But in the answer that we discover for ourselves is hidden the seed of the future we envision for India, especially regarding the co-existence of diverse religions and faiths in India. In this answer also lies the beginning of the individual responsibility we give to ourselves, each one of us, regardless of our religious backgrounds or spiritual leanings, who is concerned with the present and future of inter-religious harmony in India. At the very minimum, this answer helps us come face to face with the truth that we must move beyond the straitjacketed debate between the so-called secularist and religio-chauvinist arguments, and begin to look for deeper understanding of the core of the issue. Only through a deeper understanding of the problem we can envision a more sustainable and lasting solution. Regardless of what the ultra-rationalists among Indian intelligentsia might say, India will never give up her deeply embedded religio-spiritual character. But if India has to fulfill her mission of being a spiritual guru of the world, she must raise herself above all sentiments and ideologies that smell of narrow chauvinism, no matter which religion they come from. And she must aspire for the Truth of the golden bright noon of the future which Sri Aurobindo sums up rather well in these words: “The Truth of the Divine which is the spiritual reality behind all religions and the descent of the supramental which is not known to any religion are the sole things which will be the foundation of the work of the future”
(undated letter, published in the Bulletin, Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education 53, February 2001, p. 72).