The Reconciliation of Races and ReligionsCheyne, T. K. (Thomas Kelly)
Religion
The Reconciliation of Races and Religions
Cheyne, T. K. (Thomas Kelly)
Bahais
Religion, as conceived by most Christians of the West, is very
different from the religion of India. Three-quarters of it (as Matthew
Arnold says) has to do with conduct; it is a code with a very positive
and keen divine sanction. Few of its adherents, indeed, have any idea
of the true position of morality, and that the code of Christian
ethics expresses barely one half of the religious idea. The other half
(or even more) is expressed in assurances of holy men that God dwells
within us, or even that we are God. A true morality helps us to
realize this--morality is not to be tied up and labelled, but is
identical with the cosmic as well as individual principle of Love.
Sin (i.e. an unloving disposition) is to be avoided because it
blurs the outlines of the Divine Form reflected, however dimly, in
each of us.
There are, no doubt, a heaven where virtue is rewarded, and a hell
where vice is punished, for the unphilosophical minds of the
vulgar. But the only reward worthy of a lover of God is to get nearer
and nearer to Him. Till the indescribable goal (Nirvana) is reached,
we must be content with realizing. This is much easier to a Hindu than
to an Englishman, because the former has a constant sense of that
unseen power which pervades and transcends the universe. I do not
understand how Indian seekers after truth can hurry and strive about
sublunary matters. Surely they ought to feel 'that this tangible
world, with its chatter of right and wrong, subserves the intangible.'
Hard as it must be for the adherents of such different principles to
understand each other, it is not, I venture to think, impossible. And,
as at once an Anglican Christian and an adopted Brahmaist, I make the
attempt to bring East and West religiously together.
RELIGIOUS TEACHERS OF THE EAST
The greatest religious teachers and reformers who have appeared in
recent times are (if I am not much mistaken) Baha-'ullah the Persian
and Keshab Chandra Sen the Indian. The one began by being a reformer
of the Muḥammadan society or church, the other by acting in the same
capacity for the Indian community and more especially for the Brahmo
Samaj--a very imperfect and loosely organized religious society or
church founded by Rammohan Roy. By a natural evolution the objects of
both reformers were enlarged; both became the founders of
world-churches, though circumstances prevented the extension of the
Brotherhood of the New Dispensation beyond the limits of India.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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