Christian citizens in India!
DO you know the logic of conversion? Perhaps you have not thought of it? If you had thought of it, you would not be doing what you are doing.
Conversion has many implications. Fours are most important: 1) your belief that your religion is what you have got from your god and that you are responsible to that god alone, 2) your belief that Christianity is superior to Hinduism, 3) your belief that Christianity redeemed and civilised the pagan world, and 4) your belief that you can one day wipe out Hinduism from India.
You are wrong in all. Remember, you may have made any transaction with your god, but your society is not obliged to honour it. It has its own compulsions.
The Jews made a Covenant with Yahweh, their god, and Yahweh made them the ?Chosen People?. Are we supposed to honour it? Not at all.
The issue is not whether the Gospels (Bible) are superior or the Gita is superior. The issue is: whether your closed mind is superior or our open mind is superior. The answer must be obvious to even the meanest intelligence. The Hindu civilisation is built on freedom of thought. It has ranged through the whole gamut of experience?from negation to affirmation. But you remained where you were. Your civilization is built on a closed system of beliefs. You have no Buddha as a dissenter.
We believe that the earth will last for billions of years. Not for thousands, as you once thought. Naturally, the Hindu civilisation is built on that long-term perspective.
So, we keep our minds open. We can change the way we live and think, and yet call ourselves Hindus. Even an atheist is a Hindu. You enjoy no such benefits. You say that your ultimate truths are already in the Gospels. So, even to say that you are on a quest, as we are, for the truth is blasphemy to you. You Christians cannot change your basic beliefs, for to depart from the Bible is apostasy. Death was once the punishment for it. So you are condemned to live a repetitive life till the end of the earth. You have to live with your Gospels. And Muslims will continue to live with their Koran, and do namaaz five times a day till the end of the earth.
Thank God, the Hindu can live the way he wants. And he can think the way he wants. He can look afresh at all that had been said by his ancestors and opt for what he wants to believe. Or he can reconstruct his religion on the basis of this latest knowledge of science. Science can never over-turn him, for he never opposed it. What is more, he can die in the belief that he has done his bit to promote God'sdesign on earth.
There is much that we have to know. For instance: 1) from where did we all come?, 2) what are we here for? and 3) where do we go at the end? You say the answers are in your scriptures. They are ?fairy tales?, says George Bernard Shaw. The Hindus have done more thinking on these matters than anybody else. Of course, Christians and Muslims are at liberty to live with their fairy tales. But we Hindus have been thinkers through the millennia. Yes, till the foreign invaders put a stop to our thinking. We must catch up. We must overtake. We must lead.
Dear Readers, we have lost a thousand years. We cannot afford to lose more years in futile disputes with our minorities. They are not with us on this journey. They are in their chapels with their holy books. But we are with the cosmic process.
It is unfortunate, we Hindus are no more sovereign in our own land. There are limits to what we can do. For instance, we cannot write our own history. We cannot ignore the presence of the minorities. But the Christians and Muslims are facing the same situation. They too cannot have their way in this country. It is a mouse-trap in which we are caught.
Christians and Muslims!
Should we live in this trap forever? Should we kill each other in the hope of having the final victory? In the hope of eliminating each other? If we are an intelligent people?that we are?we should prepare the framework of a new society in which we all can be happy and prosperous.
But you have only one thought: how to increase your population rapidly. But society is not obliged to look after the needs of unwanted children.
Remember, in the new society, we want to create, conversion will have no place, for conversion leads to enmity. We must give it up for ever. Exceptions can be permitted.
India has the capacity and the opportunity to show that it can create a new way of life, which can be a model for all mankind. Can we rise to the occasion?
Or, do the minorities want to keep to the route they had taken? History has given us the chance to create a new model of society. Do we want to seize it? Or do we want to throw away that opportunity?
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