<html xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">

<head>
<meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; ">
<title>Sectarianism or Loyalty</title>
</head>

<body lang=EN-US style='tab-interval:.5in'>

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%">
	<tr>
		<td>
<p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center; text-indent:27pt; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<span
lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'><b><font size="4">Sectarianism
or Loyalty</font><o:p></o:p></b></span></p>
<div class=Section1>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:27.0pt; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:27.0pt; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>M</span><span lang=EN-GB
style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>ODERN</span><span lang=EN-GB
style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'> culture demands that one should not be bound
to one creed or <span class=GramE>dogma,</span> swear by one principle or rule
of life or be led blindly by one man. Truth, it is said, has many facets and
the human being is also not a Cyclops, a one-eyed creature. To fix oneself to one
mode of seeing and believing and even behaving is to be narrow, restricted,
sectarian. One must be able to see many standpoints, appreciate views of variance
with one's own, appraise the relativity of all standards. Not to be able to do
so leads to obscurantism and fanaticism. The Inquisitors were monomaniacs,
obsessed by an <i>idée fixe</i>. On the other hand, the wisest counsel seems to
have been given by Voltaire who advised the inquirers to learn from anywhere
and everywhere, even Science from the Chinese. In our Indian legends we know
that Uddhava did not hesitate to accept and learn from more than a dozen Gurus.
That is as it should be if we would have a mind and consciousness large and
vast and all-encompassing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:27.0pt; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>And yet there is a question. While
attempting to be too liberal and catholic one may happen to turn a dilettante.
Dilettante is one who takes an interest, an aesthetic, a dispassionate and
detached interest in all things. His interest is intellectual, something
abstract and necessarily superficial; it is not a vital interest, not a
question of his soul, an urgent problem of his living.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:27.0pt; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB
style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>A spiritual interest is nothing if it is not in
this way a question that touches life to its core. That means a definite goal
and appropriate means to reach that goal, and that again necessarily involves a
choice, a process of acceptance and rejection. The goal is also called the <span
class=SpellE><i>ista</i></span>, the godhead that one seeks, the
Divine that is fulfilled in oneself. Being a personality,<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<div style='border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-bottom-alt:
solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in'>

<p class=MsoNormal style='border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:
solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0' align="center">
<span
lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>Page-99<o:p></o:p></span></p>

</div>

</div>

<div class=Section1>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span class=GramE><span
lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>an individual, one has to choose, one can best
follow the line of evolution and growth and fulfilment of that personality and
individuality – that is the call of the Psyche, the direction of the Jiva. In
other words, one has to be loyal and faithful to one's nature and being. That
is why it is said: Better to perish while fulfilling one's own law of life than
to flourish by fulfilling another's law. By being curious about another's
Dharma – it is this kind of curiosity that led to the original fall of man, according
to the Bible – that is to say, if one is vitally curious, allows oneself to be
influenced and so affected and diverted by what is an outside and foreign
force, because not in the line of one's own truth and development, one asks for
a mixture and intervention which bring confusion, thwart the growth and
fulfilment, as that falsifies the nature.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:27.0pt; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>It is not only bad influences that
affect you badly, even good influences do so – like medicines that depend upon
the particular constitution for their action. In ancient times this was called <i>var</i></span><i><span
lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Lucida Console";mso-bidi-font-family:
"Lucida Console";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>n</span><span lang=EN-GB
style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>asankara </span></i><span lang=EN-GB
style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>or <i>dharmasankara</i>, as for example,
when a Kshatriya sought to follow the rule of life of a Brahmin or vice versa.
This kind of admixture or <i>mésalliance </i>was not favoured, as it was likely
to bring about an obscurity in the consciousness and in the end frustration in
the spiritual life. That was the original psychological reason why heresy was
considered such a dangerous thing in all religions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:27.0pt; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>It is not sufficient to say that God
is one and therefore wherever He is found and however He is found and whoever
finds Him one must implicitly accept and obey and follow. God is one indeed:
but it is equally true that he is multiple. God is not a point, but a limitless
infinity, so that when one does reach Him one arrives at a particular spot, as
it were, enters into only one of his many mansions. Likewise, God's
manifestation upon earth has been infinitely diverse, his Vibhutis, Avataras,
his prophets and viceregents have been of all sorts and kinds. Precisely
because God is at once one and infinitely multiple and because human nature
also is likewise, if one in essence, infinitely multiple in expression, each
one, while seeing and finding the one God, seeks and finds him in and through a
particular formulation. That is the original meaning, the genesis and
justification of creeds<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<div style='border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-bottom-alt:
solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in'>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;text-indent:27.0pt;
border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in;
mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>Page-100<o:p></o:p></span></p>

</div>

</div>

<div class=Section1>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span class=GramE><span
lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>and dogmas. Only, it must be borne in mind, that
one can be faithful even to a particular creed and dogma and yet transcend it,
live a particular mode of life and yet possess at the back of it and as its
support the very sense and consciousness of infinity itself. Where there is
this synthetic and transcendent experience dogmatism has no place, nor conflict
between creed and creed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:27.0pt; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>One can be as catholic and boundless
as infinity, still one can and has to bow down to a special figure of it, since
or if one who approaches it has a figure of his own. Just in the same way as
when one is in the body, one has to live a particular life framed by the body,
even the mind as well as the life are canalised in the mould of the body
consciousness, and yet at the same time one can live in and through the inner
consciousness immeasurably, innumerably in other bodies, in the unbarred
expanse of the cosmic and the transcendent. The two experiences are not
contradictory, rather they reinforce each other.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:27.0pt; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>Uddhava might have had numberless
teachers and instructors, but the Guru of his soul was Sri Krishna alone, none
other. We may learn many things from many places, from books, from nature, from
persons; intuitions and inspirations may come from many quarters, inside and
outside, but the central guidance flows from one source only and one must be
careful to keep it unmixed, undefiled, clear and pure. When one means nothing
more than playing with ideas and persons and places, there is no harm in being
a globe-trotter; but as soon as one becomes serious, means business, one
automatically stops short, finds and sticks to his Ishta, even like the Gopis
of Sri Krishna who declared unequivocally that they would not move out of
Brindaban even by a single step.<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<div style='border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-bottom-alt:
solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in'>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;text-indent:27.0pt;
border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in;
mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>Page-101<o:p></o:p></span></p>

</div>

</div>

<div class=Section1>

  <p class=MsoNormal align="right" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
	<a href="-000_Content"><img src="_Gif%20file/shome.gif" width="53" height="23" border="0"></a></p>

</div>

		</td>
	</tr>
</table>
</body>

</html>
