This Monk From India - The Divine Life Society

AM I A HINDU
A wave of gratitude came over me for Chidananda, for Yoga, also for Hinduism, which,
being the grandmother of all religions, is all-patience, all-tolerance, as grandmothers are wont to be
with the children who, proud of their new learning, come to teach them. I remembered a story, the
story of a Hindu, who, after having been taught for some years all about Catholicism by
missionaries, had a very revealing reaction when he went to be baptised. The water of the river was
very cold, the man shivered and he said “Ram, Ram, Ram!” The old faith, the old ways were very
much alive in his subconscious.
I thought of Chidananda, who invokes God sometimes as Christ or Krishna, at other times
as Moses, Mohammed or Buddha, for he knows that God has delighted and will ever delight in
revealing Himself in different forms. He says: “By religion is not meant the institutional religion
where the real ideal of religion is lost and only a poor external structure remains, from which the
great ideals exemplified in the lives of the prophets are lost.”
He further writes: “All religions have the same process in their essence, whatever be the
differences in the ritual or ceremonial details.”
If we go to the Source and look at the great and inspired lives of Jesus, Mohammed,
Zoroaster, Buddha etc., and examine the great fountainheads of the various faiths in the world, we
will find that by their practical example, through their exemplary lives, the prophets have shown us
what is the very soul of the religions which they have given to mankind. They demonstrated the
practical living of the religions which they later on gave to their followers, and in these personal
living demonstrations they were all one.
It was a Sunday, and in the hall of the New Delhi hotel, a Protestant prayer meeting was
taking place. All the devotees seemed to be Indian. I sat in a corner and listened to the hymns and
psalms that the minister and the different devotees sang in turn. The minister was American. He
gave a sermon, and when he finished he looked around and came over to me, all smiles.
“You seem to be the only Westerner at my prayer meeting. You belong to our Church”
When I told him I lived in an Ashram, it all started. I should not have answered, but I saw it
too late when he stood up and severely said in a loud, clear voice that many could hear, “May God,
in His mercy forgive you for forsaking Him and going to those idol worshippers”!
I reflected for a while. I wanted to explain to him his misunderstanding about ‘idol
worship’. But how I thought of Swami Chidananda; I wished he were there. I had a book on my lap
which had been given to me a few hours before at a Satsang. It was Swami Sivananda’s Practice of
Bhakti Yoga. I opened it at random and was struck as I read the title of the Sections. “Philosophy of
Pratima”. What a miraculous coincidence! I read it quickly. This is what I read:
“A reputed baron of New York came to me one evening for an interview. During the course
of conversation the baron said, ‘Swamiji, I have no faith in image-worship. It is all foolishness. The
private secretary of the baron who was also with him had a photo of the baron in his pocket-diary. I
took the photo and asked the private secretary to spit on it. The secretary was struck aghast. He
hesitated and looked at the baron. I again commanded him, ‘Go on, spit at the picture. Quick’. The
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