Pittsburgh_Patrika_October_2015

The Pittsburgh Patrika, Vol, 21, No. 1, October 2015
Swami Dayananda Saraswati
(August 1930 - 23 September 2015)
Swami Dayananda Saraswati, the founder of Arsha Vidya Gurukulam
that is committed to educating disadvantaged children
in many parts of India, and a defender of Dharma-based
philosophical/religious traditions, died in Rishikesh on
23 September, 2015, after a prolonged illness. He was
a disciple of Swami Chinmayananda.
Swami Dayananda made his case that proselytizing
faiths such as Christianity and Islam practice spiritual
violence since they start on the premise that their approach
is the only valid one in man’s spiritual quest,
and all others’ approaches are false. Discerning lay persons, however,
savor the irony that the three Abrahamic faiths—Judaism, Christianity and
Islam, with the latter two heavily into proselytizing—have been violently
disagreeing through wars and persecution on who among them is right.
While we can get the biographical details of Swami Dayananada from
the Internet, one point is worth recording here.
At the turn of the millennia the United Nations invited world religious
leaders to come up with a resolution on the need for people of
diverse faiths to live in harmony. Leading theologians from the Abrahamic
faiths (Judaism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam’s two branches), and
others from Dharma-based schools (Teravada and Mahayana Buddhism,
Jainism, Hinduism, Sikhism) joined to draft a resolution that all could
agree on.
The first draft contained the term “tolerance” in the resolution. When
Swami Dayananda suggested that they need to replace “tolerance” with
“mutual respect” in the resolution, there was considerable opposition from
Christian theologians. This is what Rajiv Malhotra writes on this (Source:
http://tinyurl.com/Huff-Post-Swami-Dayananda):
“… … Swami Dayananda Saraswati insisted that in the official draft
the term ‘tolerance’ be replaced with ‘mutual respect.’ Cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger (who later became Pope Benedict), [leading] the Vatican delegation,
strongly objected to this. After all, if religions deemed ‘heathen’ were
to be officially respected, there would be no justification for converting
their adherents to Christianity.
“The matter reached a critical stage and some serious fighting erupted.
The Hindu side held firm that the time had come for the non-Abrahamic
religions to be formally respected as equals at the table and not just tolerated
by the Abrahamic religions. At the very last minute, the Vatican
Swami Dayananda... ... Continued on Page 31
24