The Truth is Ready.

22. The Truth is Ready.

Thus the only Book contains the only word of the only God, brought from the seventh heaven by the only Son or the Last Messenger of God. You can look it up now for any guidance though, according to the more orthodox school, the best thing for you would be to get it interpreted by the scholars and official dignitaries of your church. There are other differences of this kind, and even sharp ones, but they are all agreed that everything is ready now—you are ready for the truth and the truth is ready for you. However to make the truth still more handy, the theologians have reduced it to formulas, codified them and numbered them for the convenience of their flock. The truths are pre-cooked, and even pre-digested. They are packed and are then ready for export to the pagans and the infidels.

Hinduism deals in no such truths. At any rate, it considers such truths meaningless. Its truths are truths of a man’s own deeper being. He has to grow into them. The more he understands himself, the more he understands these truths. These cannot be put into formulas, or made into numbered articles of faith. They cannot be easily handed down. They are not meant for memorization, for repetition, for confession. The truths the Hindu scriptures care for are received in a different way— through some kind of self-preparation, through self-churning. One has to get ready for them. One has to be “reborn” in order to receive them. They are meant for the “twice-born”.

One can see for oneself that in this kind of approach, there is no place for ‘’conversion”. True religion can neither be bor­rowed nor lent. A man carries his religion within himself wherever he goes and he has to be his own lamp. The conver­sion one experiences at this level is inner and it is very different from the conversion that different countries have known under the aegis of Christianity and Islam. These conversions were political and military acts, or acts of aggressive hard sale.

Gnostic religions, more psychological in approach, realize that deep truths of the spirit cannot adequately be imparted from outside however hard one may try One may place a most exalted truth before a person, but he will draw his own meanings out of it, meanings appropriate to his particular level of purity and understanding. In fact, he would use these truths for rationalizing and promoting his own petty ends.

But it does not mean that spiritual work is unimportant and that spiritual teachers have no role. It only points to the difficulties of the work. Knowing the difficulties, Hinduism, therefore, does not try to pronounce final truths ex cathedra on the other hand, it offers a spiritual culture, a spiritual discipline to raise the capacity of a seeker of truth. It does not burden a man with truths and morals beyond his capacity; on the other hand, it discusses many kinds of dharmas, atma-dharma being the highest. It helps different men having different capacities and different starting-points to choose their own *dharma.*

Thus we find that Hinduism does not teach a God who reveals Himself only to a chosen individual, letting others receive their truth from this exclusive source. On the other hand, it speaks of truths which are revealed wherever there is seeking, the purity of aspiration, and necessary preparation. Nor does it believe that there is only one revealed book; in its view, the words of all seers, all atma-darshins, past, present, and future, have scriptural value. It knows of course that not all visions are God-visions and not all excited utterances made with foaming lips are words of God, that many revelations claiming a divine source are in fact projections of a less laudable source. Id sires many revelations, often a projection of the puerile and the pernicious. Yoga teaches us to be wary of them. But this is another question and we shall not go into it here.