Harmony of Religions — Swami Avikarananda

Recorded at the Vedanta Society of Western Washington on October 28, 2017.In this lecture, Swami Avikarananda explores the harmony of religions through the story of his own spiritual search. Raised Roman Catholic, he recalls encountering Jewish and Buddhist friends as a young person while gradually becoming uncertain about his own beliefs and questioning the purpose and relevance of organized religion. His study of different traditions revealed both the ideals embodied by great religious figures and a history of sectarianism, conflict, and abuses of religious authority. Searching instead for principles that could help him become a better human being, he was drawn to Eastern philosophies and eventually to Vedanta because of what he describes as its broad-minded affirmations: the harmony of religions, the oneness of existence, the inherent divinity of every soul, and realization of that divinity as the purpose of life. He explains that Hinduism emerged not from a single historical founder but from the accumulated spiritual experiences preserved in the Vedas and Upanishads, allowing differing conceptions of the Divine to coexist. The traditional story of blind men describing different parts of an elephant illustrates this principle: apparently conflicting descriptions may represent partial encounters with a reality larger than any single viewpoint can encompass.The second half of the lecture focuses on Swami Vivekananda and Sri Ramakrishna as decisive influences in Swami Avikarananda's acceptance of this religious pluralism. Vivekananda's rational presentation of Vedanta, respect for other faiths, and appearance at the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions led him to investigate Vivekananda's teacher, Sri Ramakrishna. He describes Sri Ramakrishna as having practiced different Hindu disciplines as well as Islam and Christianity and, on the basis of those experiences, teaching that sincere seekers can reach the same Divine Reality through different religious paths. Through the parables of the woodcutter who continually advances toward increasingly valuable discoveries and the chameleon that appears in different colors, Swami Avikarananda emphasizes two complementary principles: seekers should practice their own path deeply and persistently while refraining from declaring other sincere paths false. Religious harmony therefore does not require practicing every religion, abandoning one's own tradition, or reducing religions to an identical set of doctrines. Rather, it means pursuing one's chosen path wholeheartedly while recognizing that differing conceptions of God may reflect different temperaments and approaches to the same ultimate reality. Looking back on his journey from dissatisfaction with organized religion to monastic life, Swami Avikarananda concludes that Vivekananda made Vedanta intelligible and relevant to him, while Sri Ramakrishna embodied its ideal of religious harmony through direct spiritual experience. For him, the banner proclaiming the “Harmony of Religions” outside the Vedanta Society expresses both a central Vedantic principle and the culmination of his own search for a practical and universal spiritual outlook.