Sanjay Dixit is becoming one of the most important intellectual and media voices in India today. Not only his own views engaging, he has also created a special forum for highlighting such dharmic views with a variety of speakers and topics, with his forum, Jaipur Dialogues.
As an author, Sanjay has written decisively on the challenges to India, Hinduism and Santana Dharma. His books present a new perspective that serve to remove existing distortions that continue to be sustained by media and academia that are trying to subordinate India's great civilisation to hostile outside religious, cultural and political forces.
What is most notable about Dixit's current book All Religions are not the Same is the systematic, rational, experiential and concise manner in which he explains the many notable differences between religions. This extends to how different religions look at the human being, society, knowledge, the nature of the universe and the true goal of life. His book is not the product of emotion or political posturing, but arises from well thought out clarity and discernment. He is not promoting any platitudes, bowing down to any faith, or ignoring major distinctions between religions so as not to offend anyone. He reveals the fundamental differences between religions on the inner and the outer, the individual and the collective, at human and cosmic levels, much like a scientific discourse.
He presents Hinduism and Sanatana Dharma in its own right, not according to a monotheistic terminology using inappropriate Abrahamic concepts. He shows how Sanatana Dharma forms a complete system of universal knowledge, no requiring the approval of contrary religions for it to be socially, scientifically or spiritually valid.
His historical and theoretical view of Abrahamic religions explains their inherent separativeness, and irrational claim to the ultimate truth, which implies a negation of all other approaches to the sacred as being unsacred and unworthy. Dixit delineates the beliefs that have caused Christianity and Islam to seek to conquer non-believers, and to fight with each other, which continue to the present day. It is inherent in their exclusivist theology and eschatology.
Their belief in their monotheistic religious supremacy also requires a turning against their own origins in the Judaic tradition, in order to legitimise their claim to be the original and ultimate Divine Truth, compared to which everything else must be removed. Such destructive behaviour reflects their theology and cannot come to an end as long as it exists at their belief-based roots. This fact raises a warning for the future of humanity as an indication of continuing conflicts, perhaps new devastating World Wars, such as the War on Terrorism and the ongoing conflicts in Israel suggest, as well as the unending Pakistani assault on India.
Dixit's book makes clear that we must understand the existential contradictions and dangers in conversion-based monotheism. Unless challenged and removed, no number of treaties or platitudes of peace with those who hold such supremist beliefs will bring lasting peace in the world.
All Religions Are Not the Same
Those who say that all cultures are equal never explain why the results of those cultures are so grossly unequal.
-Thomas Sowell
All Religions Are The Same' is the most prevalent myth Lamong those who advocate the secular idea of separation between religion and State. However, that was the unique experience of the Europeans and they were quite astonished to find that in India, the two not only co-existed in great harmony, but also that the Indian concept of development was inconceivable without spiritual development.
How should we evaluate religions? One way is to measure their outcomes on societies and civilisations. Another is to evaluate them on certain principles. A third is to go to the even more fundamental question of what should be called a religion. Another working method can be to differentiate between 'belief systems' and 'inquiry systems'.
This work, as is my usual practice, is addressed to the lay reader and not to the scholar. The scholar is well equipped to go into the realm of the esoteric and seek his own Truth if that is what he truly pursues. Unfortunately, a great many scholars that I have come across seek not knowledge, but tools to exalt their vanity. That is the main reason for the disclaimer that I am not addressing this book to the scholar. I was enthused to write this book due to the encouragement I received from readers, when I first wrote a series of six articles on this very subject. The articles were appreciated by the lay reader and the scholar alike, and I thought it would a good idea to put all of it together in the form of a book.
The question 'Who Am I' is a basic one, yet is very profound. Different civilisations tried to approach this question in different ways. Most early civilisations tried to find this solution in empirical inquiries from Nature. Many mixed it with their imagination, and yet others looked inwards and found reflections of Nature within, and then created great literature based on their experiences. These civilisations or societies treated Nature as their benefactor and tried to live in harmony with it, using inductive logic. Later arose other thoughts that used axioms and deductive logic, and treated Nature as a product of those axioms. Today's religions can be roughly construed as those following their axioms (called religions), and those following Nature (called Dharmas, or crudely labelled Paganisms). Thus, the truism that all religions are a search for God becomes very inadequate.
It is here that a rough and ready distinction between 'belief systems' and 'inquiry systems' becomes useful. The principal belief systems are the Abrahamic belief systems and revolve around given truths, with a sense of superiority in their beliefs. All of them have Prophets and a Book, and are therefore, also called the Prophetic religions or 'Religions of the Book'. All of them claim exclusive ownership of 'Truth', and at least two of them do not tolerate the existence of any other belief.
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