Lots of things are told about the religions. But there is a subjective and an objective religion – the inner religion and the outer religion. The inner religion differs a lot from the outer religion, because the outer religion is set on various outer rituals and rites, different dogmas, caste, colour and creed, and that is man-made. Whatever is man-made that separates man from man.

All Masters, however, spoke with one opinion. So far a competent Master has never created a religion. Religion was rather created by the so called followers of the faith. After the physical departure of those competent Masters they dared to create a religion. All competent Masters respect the religion, because God’s children live therein, and they tell us to follow the inner religion. That is the real teaching- that is universal.

So our faith, our true religion is much more within than outside. For “self existence” we are more bound to the outer religion, because that fulfils our desires. Now it has even become a paid preaching, I tell you. In every religion throughout the world we see these problems. People say, “Our religion is the best one, that is the highest one.”

As for example, when Sant Kirpal Singh visited the West, He was told that “Christ is the only son of God.” The teaching of Christ is very loveable. Sant Kirpal Singh said, “No, Jesus and Christ, they were two. Jesus was the son of man on whose pole the Christpower worked.” Christ is the Power, Christ lived before Jesus. Christ has no beginning and no end. That Power sustains the whole creation and we have a direct and independent contact with that Power.

These Powers, who came into this world, were all one. Some time He came as Christ, some time He came as Guru Nanak, some time He came as Maulana Rumi. He came in various forms, but when they came, they never accepted that outer religion. These religions rather waged war and hatred. All Saints, all competent Masters, even had to live in an atmosphere of hatred – created by whom? By the leaders of these religions. This is a reality, I tell you. God made man, and man made religion.

Our purpose is to let people know the true religion, the inner religion, that is one and the same for everybody, and it is without any shackle.
If there are problems in the world, it is not due to the true religion, but due to the shackles.
 
Those who rise above the shackles, they can do a lot for others. It is called the right understanding. Right understanding is concealed within. Being on the level of senses and under control of our mind, our condition is just like that of a parasitic plant which is spreading on the parent tree. Nourishing on the tree, it remains green itself but makes the tree wither away. So that is our condition.

Just like, there is a hole outside in the grassy ground – we do not know, what is under the grass. If you cut it, you will find, that there are holes. Now we do not know what there is in the holes. If we pour in some water, some insects will come out, if we pour in more water, more insects will come. If we really go within, we can analyse ourselves and we can understand all our problems. By doing so we can become conscious.

If you are a conscious co worker of the divine plan, you are one with this reality, you know the true facts. You know that there is only one Power working behind all the creation. And it is our religion, it is our Dharma, to know that Power. You know a lot of things, may be many more than I do – but whatever I know I have learned by sitting at the holy feet of my Master – He gave me the practical experience; it is not ego, it is His grace, I speak from my life. Because when He withdrew me from the body consciousness, I could see that He is the one who preaches the true religion – let us follow Him. Credit goes to such a Power who is the God into action Power. Christ was the God into action Power, Sant Kirpal Singh came as the Christpower. Their work was one, they never differed with opinion.

Now we have broken these barriers, we have got together, and we have got together with our heart. A time was there when one religion would hate the other one and so many problems were arising out of religion. But this problem is off, the world has become very small and we are getting very, very close with each other, and that is an awakening.
I have respect for all the religions. But whatever is being taught in the religion that is bringing a havoc, I tell you, because in my opinion so far you do not become a conscious co worker of the divine plan, you know nothing about God, you know nothing about Him who is within.

So far we do not rise above the plane of senses and the shackles of the mind, and above the cause and effect of the world, we cannot know, what this world is, how it is existing, what those religions are, who is controlling those religions, and in which capacity they are controlling them, which those powers are, with which man is affected. All this is worth a consideration, because in the three worlds there is no power with right understanding. If there is, that one will rise above the cause and effect of the world. When you rise above the cause and effect of the world, then you know the cause, you see the cause, and the effect will disappear at once. That is not within the intellect of man to know the cause and effect of the world. It is only by seeing, it is only by rising above that we can see.

Now this is a subject which takes a lot of time, rather our angle of view should be changed. By knowing the competency of such a Master we should believe the words of those competent Masters, because they are true. They have seen it, they lived it with their lives. And whatever they have taught, that is truth. We should believe them. Because this teaching is within each one of us. There is a question and there is an answer. There is only one answer to a question, there cannot be so many answers to one question. Suppose, you put me a question and I give you the wrong answer, you would never cooperate with me, since you have the right answer within you.

In this way all these things which do exist over here and are being taught, it is on us to consider it, whether this is the highest one. Highest one means when you have only the single answer, when you do not have many, many answers to one question.

Believe the testimony of the Masters, because they have seen it. They lived with this life, whatever they spoke, they spoke through their practical life. Christ was crucified – by whom? By the leaders of various religions! No common man doubted him. The people were only excited by the leaders of these religions. The same thing happened in India, and the same thing happened everywhere in the world. Guru Teg Bahadur was beheaded. Kabir was given a lot of punishments. He was a word personified form. Nobody could kill Him. The king tried his level best, he even put Him into the fire. He was a word personified form, so He could come out of the fire.

I mean to say, let us pray to God that He should give our lost heritage back to us. And what is that heritage? The consciousness – the right understanding. If there is any important, any precious thing in the world, that is the right understanding, rather the rare right understanding of its special significance with which you can change yourself – you can change your environment and you can change the whole society, you can change your whole religion. A flower in your house even your neighbour will smell, a passer-by will smell it, he will say, “Yes, it is a very beautiful flower over here, it is giving a very good smell.”

So one person with right understanding can change the whole city. Only he should live the inner subject, the inner religion. Inner religion must be taught, but not the outer. We should respect the outer rituals and rites, but not for the sake of the true religion that is within each one of us.

True religion never differs, I tell you. If you take all collectively together, there is only one essence: that is man-making. Man-making is considered to be the highest. All Masters who came in different religions, they rose above the shackles of the religion, and they started man-making. They said, “Man-making is the true religion.”

When man is developed, his soul is developed. Masters come in a religion, they develop the soul, and this is their religion. Because when the soul is developed, it will surely rise, not only in one direction, but in all directions. Much is said about the religions, and much praise is given to the religions, but to the outer religions, not to the inner religion. Because if you praise your religion, you are honoured very much. Everybody will praise you, “He is a good priest, he is a good granthi – he is a good pandit.” All these things are said. But we have to see how far it is true. If really it is true, then it is good. If it is not true, then at least – bad persons do not leave their bad habits, why should a good person leave his good habits? If you have understood something better – if you have understood a good thing in the right way, then you should stick to it. All Masters had to suffer only on this ground that they had understood and they started living with it, and nobody could obstruct their way. They said, “No, it is our way, we have to go it.” It is a time to teach this. It can go like a wildfire, I tell you.

Now Punjab specially was a terrorist area and there were a lot of murders every day. People were very fed up, nobody could help them. And what happened? During these days, the people were so much afraid of the terrorists – I was living here, people came and said, “Why are you staying here, far away from the city? It is just like a forest. Are you not afraid of those terrorists?” I said, “No, I am not afraid of them.” – “Why? You must have made a very good program, you must have much armament with you.” I said, “Yes, I have.” They said, “What type of armament you have?” I said, “Whether living or dead, we belong to Him. So we are not afraid of anything. Our religion is like this.”
Christ also said, “You cannot enter the kingdom of God unless you are born anew.” In my opinion this is a true religion, if really we are born anew. And without right understanding we cannot be born anew. We have to be born there. There were some problems some time in Islam and Hafiz was asked, “What is the remedy for it?” He said, “Take wine.” Because he who takes wine in Islam, he is considered to be an impious person, he will go to hell. Hafiz said, “No, please, you take it, because so far you are intoxicated, you are not creating any sin.” Then he said, “There is still a bigger sin: to burn all the Holy Scriptures, because they are written for you; you are not using them, you are only using them for your wishes.” Because we remember God, we pray to God only for worldly wishes. He said, “Better to burn all those books, better burn the Kaaba. This is still a bigger sin to burn the Kaaba. It belongs to the Father Ibrahim. It can be rebuilt.” He said, “You can do any sin in the world, but don’t cut the throat of human beings, because this is a true temple of God.”

It is a heinous sin not to love humanity, and I think in the terminology of the Saints only love is the true religion. Love alone is the true religion.
We have to awake. If we awake, we will survive with our Masterpower. We have to justify ourselves and then we have to justify the Masterpower within, the Christpower within, and only thereafter we can say that we are human beings.

Once someone went to Vivekananda who had given an advertisement: “Reformers wanted.” So next time many persons with very clean and neat dresses presented themselves there,“O, we will work for Vivekananda.” He said, “Reformers – not of others, but of themselves.”
If really we determine our life to preach the true religion, then there will be a big awakening. I tell you, truth in this time can go like a wildfire. Everybody wants to live with the higher values of life, since the purpose of human life is to meet a good end. Everybody knows that he has to leave this body. That is the highest religion, that is the true living, that is the art of life.

Our boat is in the water, but the water must not enter into the boat. These are very golden things which we can find in the Holy Scriptures. So far you do not adjust yourself before the mirror, even the mirror will not reflect upon you. How can we claim that we are a religious person? These are the things which we must observe; not only observe, we should live with them, and other people will see us and will start living with them. Not only conversing, not only speaking throughout life – they would live with it.
When sitting with a competent Master, you would always have a radiation that will flow to all directions. In this way our thoughts can become holy, our thoughts can become positive and potent, only by understanding and living with it, we are more close to our religion. That is a true religion. This is not my opinion, it is the opinion of all competent Masters, it is from the teaching and it is from the core of the heart. Everybody has it. This power, this religion, our true faith is much more within than outside. Simply to follow the way which we have been taught, is just as if you put oil into the flame. More flame will come. If we have to go in this direction, but we start to go in the other direction, every day we will be farther away from the destination. This is the condition of our leaders. They have adopted the wrong way. They are going to the wrong direction.
All these things we have to consider, because this is very, very important. If we can solve the religion-problems, we can solve lots of things for humanity. Let us print such a material that should not belong to any religion, it should be universal, like Christ did, like Guru Nanak did, their teaching was universal. There should be awakening!
Sant Kirpal Singh created the World Fellowship of Religions. He felt that after some time this started to create pillars. Everyone would say, “My religion is better than others.” He said, “Why should the religion not be taken on the level of man?” He took this subject on the level of man. In the terminology of the Saints, man is much more respected than a religion, because he is the creator of the religion. If there is one person in a religion who would rise above the shackles of the religion, he will be respected by all the religions.

Now Guru Nanak is respected everywhere, Christ is respected everywhere, Kabir is respected everywhere. People love their teaching, because they rose above. They teach the humanity. Let there be such an awakening in the world! Let us print such literature on this ground. First we should have some resolutions, then we should present it, then we should publish it. It doesn’t matter how much it costs, how much hardship we have to bear upon our shoulders, but we should be very strong – strong enough even to handle all these affairs in the name of the true religion. This is called God-work, work of God. It is a God-work, I tell you.

It is also very important to know that lots of things are done now on the level of religion throughout the world creating things like black magic, spiritual healing, and it is creating many other antifacts in our life. Everybody says, “Here is the seat of the soul – here you meditate.” But where to meditate, and how to meditate, that is a big problem. Because before reaching the seat of the soul, there is first the intellect, then the mind, and then there is the spirit. So far you are not free from the intellect and the mind, how can you claim that you are meditating at the level of the soul? And mind in the body is always the astral mind. When you stress upon the mind, it will take you into the chakras. Whereas now the opposite way has started in us. What happens at the time of death? We withdraw from below, transcending all these chakras, breaking the ganglions, we come to the seat of the soul, from here it takes upward trend, then it takes inward trend. Here is the seat of the soul. A Christian is he who takes the cross daily. It is the real teaching. Christ said, “If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.” That is the true religion. You will rise above everything – that is the true religion – then you are able to preach it. How it is true, how beautiful the teaching of the Christ itself is! Nobody can deny it. How beautiful are the teachings of Kabir, Guru Nanak, and Kirpal Singh, they also gave the practical experience.

But there are people who claim that they can lead you to God, they created an opposite path. Maximum they can come to the Aggya Chakra and there one can be led to the astral plane – astral plane is controlled by the negative power, you cannot find a way out. This is why it is said, Rishis and Munis spent much time of their life there, about thousand years. They became the skeleton of bone, but they could not solve the riddle of life. Now in the West I have seen that people are very much engaged in spiritual healing. When we are not able to bear our own burden, how can we carry the burden of other people? How can we justify ourselves? It is not possible. But whatever you wish from the three worlds, that is there.

As I told you today, God asked the negative power, “How did you create the hell and the heaven?” He said, “Your children created wishes, I fulfilled them and in lieu of that, they strengthened my hand. Now I have created the hell for the sinners and heaven for the pious egoists. Both are under my chains.” A sinner from the hell can get out, but a pious egoist cannot come out of the heaven. He has to go directly again into the hell and heaven. So this is the way. Thank you, wishing you all help from the Almighty Power that is within each of us to help us from within.

Talk given by Dr Harbhajan Singh, during the World Conference on Unity of Man, Febraury 4, 1994, at Kirpal Sagar, India