2nd unifying principle that Swami Vivekananda told in his lecture on 'Common Bases of Hinduism' :
God is everywhere. God is not sitting up there in some corner but He has manifested as this existence. Ekoham bahusyam - The One has become many. Therefore, we do not fight for a specific name or form of God. Each one has the freedom to follow his or her own Ishta Devata. Sister Nivedita writes,
The distinctive doctrine is that of the Ishta Devata, the right of each soul to choose its own path, and to seek God in its own way. (CWSV, vol. I, p. xiii.)
Thus we do not see in India, any community trying to convert a person of other community in the name of its God. 'Ekam Sat Viprah Bahudha Vadanti'- Truth is one, learned persons call it by various names. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, the former President of India writes in his book, 'Wings of Fire' that his pious father after his Namaz would go to work. On the way, when he passed the temple of Rameshwaram, he would join his hands in obeisance . Thus, India has been a land of unity in diversity baffling all scholars.
As God pervades everything, the whole existence is sacred. There are poojas before building the house and before entering the new house. There are poojas before tilling the land and also before harvesting. There are poojas for instruments and gadgets like new Television sets and computers, poojas for parents, for ancestors, for children in all parts of India. The system of pooja differs in various parts of India but the attitude, the Bhava, the vision behind the pooja is the same. Despite all the outward differences our approach, attitude to nature, to society, to family is the same.
God is everywhere. God is not sitting up there in some corner but He has manifested as this existence. Ekoham bahusyam - The One has become many. Therefore, we do not fight for a specific name or form of God. Each one has the freedom to follow his or her own Ishta Devata. Sister Nivedita writes,
The distinctive doctrine is that of the Ishta Devata, the right of each soul to choose its own path, and to seek God in its own way. (CWSV, vol. I, p. xiii.)
Thus we do not see in India, any community trying to convert a person of other community in the name of its God. 'Ekam Sat Viprah Bahudha Vadanti'- Truth is one, learned persons call it by various names. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, the former President of India writes in his book, 'Wings of Fire' that his pious father after his Namaz would go to work. On the way, when he passed the temple of Rameshwaram, he would join his hands in obeisance . Thus, India has been a land of unity in diversity baffling all scholars.
As God pervades everything, the whole existence is sacred. There are poojas before building the house and before entering the new house. There are poojas before tilling the land and also before harvesting. There are poojas for instruments and gadgets like new Television sets and computers, poojas for parents, for ancestors, for children in all parts of India. The system of pooja differs in various parts of India but the attitude, the Bhava, the vision behind the pooja is the same. Despite all the outward differences our approach, attitude to nature, to society, to family is the same.
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