PAUL BRUNTON

PAUL BRUNTON – about Religion:

 

 

I am not a member of any religious faith, in the conventional sense, not a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu. And I will frankly confess here that I was born with no particular leaning towards religion - while the splitting of theological hairs aroused my amusement. But I am a believer in most of the great faiths according to the interpretation which, I hold, their own founders gave to them.

 

I am a Christian to the extent that I concur with Saint Paul in saying: "And if I have the gift of prophecy, and known all mysteries and all knowledge, and have not love, I am nothing."

 

I am a Buddhist to the extent that I realize, with Gautama, that only when a man forsakes all his desires is he really free.

 

I am a Jew to the extent that I believe profoundly in the saying: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one."

 

I am a Hindu to the extent of believing and practicing the kingly science of yoga, the science of union with the spiritual Self.

 

I am a Muhammedan to the extent that I rely on Allah above all else.

 

And finally, I am a follower of Lao-Tse to the extent that I accept his perception of the strange paradox of life.

 

But I will go no further into these faiths than the points indicated; they are the boundary-posts at which I turn back.

 

I will not walk with Christians into an exaltation of Jesus - whom I love more deeply than many of them - over the other messengers of God.

 

I will not walk with Buddhist into a denial of the beauty and pleasure which existence holds for me.

 

I will not walk with Jews into a narrow shackling of the mind to superficial observances.

 

I will not walk with the Hindu into a supine fatalism which denies the innate divine strength in man.

 

I will not walk with the Muhammedans into the prison house of a single book, no matter how sacred it be.

 

And finally, I will not walk with the Chinese Tao-ists into a system of superstitious mummery which mocks the great man it is suppose to honour.

 

I do not believe that God has given a monopoly of Truth to any of us; the sun is for all alike. No land or race can claim a monopoly of Truth, and the divine inspiration may descend on man everywhere.

 

No creed has the power to copyright Truth. Therefore I can take a detached and impartial view of them all. I can perceive why they rose to greatness, and why they are, in some case, in their decline or fall.

 

 

Paul Brunton, in A Message From Arunachala, written while he spent some time with one of the greatest seers of modern times... Ramana Maharishee. The book was first published in 1936.

 

 

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