Spirituality and Religion

In the Wednesday session on "Spirituality and Religion", Mr. Sraddhalu Ranade of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram (SAA) said that every religion began with someone who had profound inner experiences. The disciples, in their aspiration to have similar experiences, adopted the external forms or activities of the founder and clung to them. Differences among religions surface when people talk of forms. "We forget we are all interested in God, not the founder."

Since religions were unable to give the followers the experiences the founder had, "almost every religion offered salvation after life." This, Mr. Ranade said, was a "practical compromise" that all religions have had to make. Maintaining that religions often ended up emphasizing one or the other aspect of God's realization, he said that man should seek to realize all aspects of God's realization. Spirituality, he pointed out, was everywhere, if only one chose to see it. Aurov i l l e Ou t r ea ch April 2005