It was the Statesman of Calcutta who in reviewing the work of the last convention suggested that, in an assembly like this, it is the point of contact between the different religions that should be brought out rather than the points which distinguish one from the other. As 1 think the suggestion is good, and as I have dwelt on the distinguishing marks of Saiva religion and philosophy in my former paper,† I address myself to the question of the elements common to the Saiva religion and other systems of faith.

This aspect of the question is familiar to our religious writers and I quoted a dictum of one of our Acharyas who is at least 8 centuries old, in my last address, and it could bear repetition and should in my opinion form the plank on which we should all meet. It is to this effect. " Religions, postulates and text-books conflict one with another. It is asked: which is the true religion, which the true postulate and which the true book? That is the true religion, that the true postulate and that the true book which, not possessing the fault of calling this false and that true, and not conflicting with them, comprises reasonably everything within its fold." But how is this possible? Where can the meeting ground be, between a religion which acknowledges no soul and no God, and a religion which bases its faith on the immortality of the soul and a Redeemer? They seem to be poles apart. There are such differences innumerable between one religion and another and no amount of argument and explanation could minimise the differences.

Argument would lead to acrimonious debate and heated controversy.

* The first paper that was read before the Convention of Religions, Allahabad 1911.

† Vide page 273 ante,

It will not do for one to try to convert the other. We are yet to see persons who have been converted by argument. There must be a predisposing state of the mind in all conversions. For argument also to be useful, there must be a pure heart and an unprejudiced mind. If one enters into a controversy with prepossessions of all kinds, and each is convinced of his own truth, no agreement will be ever possible. Even in my private talks, I avoid discussing with any person whose mind, I know is prejudiced. With this one element absent, 1 have talked to persons of all persuasions, free-thinkers included, and by the time we parted, we had become dearer to each other.

However, our scheme is this. It takes stock of the fact that there are essential differences between man and man. Owing to differences of heridity and environment, facilities for acquiring knowledge and their absence, and a hundred other similar causes, people differ in their intellectual, moral and spiritual equipments. If in a single family of half a dozen children, fostered under the loving care of the same parents, one should turn out to be an idiot and another an intellectual giant, one a vagabond and another a saint, it is not merely heridity alone that seems to count. There seems to be something behind all these to account for the disparity. Our Hindu writers try to account for it by the law of karma and past experience or Purva Punya. Be this as it may, the differences in the moral and intellectual calibre of people are a fact and no amount of education or correction seems to be of any use in such cases. Apart from cases of physical and mental defomi- ties, one cannot minimise the difficulties of the mind itself. Man must think. You cannot shut out his mind. As we imbibe knowledge and acquire learning, our minds begin to think and ponder over the same problems which have agitated men's minds from the very beginning of time.

And with all the guides and mentors and correctives we possess, we take to particular lines of thought which, in the end, are all limited. But it is never too late to mend. We can outgrow our thoughts and can change; and we do change, both consciously and, in most cases, unconsciously. Even in the case of a single individual, with a little introspection, it might be perceived, how he had been changing from time to time, though he never changed his outward observances, his attendance at Church on Sundays so to speak. Thoughts about the reality of the world, his own individuality and the existence of a Supreme Being, have assailed him from time to time, yet he has emerged from all these triumphantly in the end, and he had become a Godly man.

Hence we arrived at the truth that all religions are necessary so as to serve the cause of progress of man in all stages of moral, intellectual and spiritual development. What will serve one will not serve another equally well. One could not be easily hustled from one stage to another with profit. One of our Acharyas instances the case of a tree and its produce. One cares for the leaves alone and does not care for the flowers or the fruit, however tempting the latter may be. Another cares for the flowers alone; another, the raw-fruit; and another the mature fruit; and yet another rejects such parts of the ripe fruit as the skin and stone etc, and drinks the rare sweet juice alone. Yet the tree had its uses for all, and each derived benefit from it according to his need. One writer puts it in another way also. To reach a .city or a hill top, there may be any number of ways, some shortcuts and some circuitous, some dangerous and rough, and some smooth; yet each is filled with a desire to reach the goal, to climb the hill-top. Yet there is a third mode in which they present it by the simile of the ladder. It is called the Sopdnamarga - Sopanam meaning ladder.

As there are so many rungs to the ladder and each has to be climbed in order, before one can get to the top, each different religion forms one rung or other of the ladder. Each rung is necessary, and one cannot reject each as false or untrue. And our Sastras proclaim that all religions are from God and all are acceptable to God, whether these religions] may be said to have a divine origin or a human origin.