Questions and Meditations

the other hand, that a sentiment of community may circulate among their numbers. Every fanaticism is the sign of a primal stage of individual and collective development: no inwardly developed individuality or any society cultivating universal values will indulge in any form of fanaticism. But the contemporary world is a great chaos of values and directions and for all those who have not yet found their inner compass, the need of a structure and of a code of conduct is imperative. The great religions: why are they great, how could they generate so much adhesion? Because they each offer the advantage of structuring individual existence from the cradle to the grave in providing it with meaning, a sense of belonging and of direction and a body of immutable values. According to the declared aim of a particular religion, its percepts and its examples, the individual may derive the necessary indications for daily practice and behavior. However, none of these great religions preaches the search for perfection upon this Earth: each one is content to propose a way of salvation and redemption or liberation. None of them is concerned with a durable creation, more and more conscious and harmonious in this material world, although they all advise to observe a conduct as noble and irreproachable as possible during this temporary sojourn. Yet, among all these terrestrial religions, the one named “Hinduism” is potentially the vastest and the most open to mankind’s spiritual future, for it has its roots and origins in an infinite store of inner direct experience which states that “All is That” and “Nothing exists but That” and this material universe is to become the Supreme’s habitation: this is therefore what we must strive for, work towards and give ourselves to. One of the consequences of the infiniteness of this source is that all genuine spiritual experience is accepted and every realized relation to the Divine is respected. *

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