In Part 10 of Swami Prakashanand Saraswati’s explanation of the Gita, he delves deeper into the nature of God-realization. He explains that even God-realized saints remain ever-humble, always longing for more of God’s divine vision. True realization is a gift of grace and reveals the eternal, personal form of God as the ultimate object of devotion.
According to Swami Prakashanand Saraswati..
Dear souls: We explained three religions of the world: Chinese and Japanese religions. Now we’ll learn today about Christianity, Islam, Jewish religion, and Parsee religions.
Read Part 1 Here:- Swami Prakashanand Saraswati’s Speech on the Gita – Part 1
The JEWISH RELIGION, JUDAISM, is a quite old religion, around 3,700 years old. Its prophets are starting from Abraham, Isaiah, Jacob, and the last one, Moses. Moses was supposed to be the most important prophet of the religion. The philosophy is very simple. For instance, Moses, when he came from his trip to Mt. Sinai, he was enlightened. Then he got Ten Commandments from God as said by him. Those Ten Commandments are the guidelines of all Jewish people, and they relate to just our normal dharm- keeping good in the family, the society, trying to be good, virtuous, don’t harm others, don’t kill animals unnecessarily. These kind of things. Have a normal family life. They are all simple commandments for making a person good.
Read Part 2 Here:- Swami Prakashanand Saraswati’s Speech on the Gita – Part 2
Their philosophy relates to heaven and hell, and just one supreme God. Is he supreme God? And no person can impersonate God because God is God, human is human, prophet is prophet. And that God has created heaven and hell. Those who follow the path of righteousness according to Moses, they will be graced by God. And the grace of God will happen on the day of judgment when all the dead will rise and God will reward them with heaven or punish them by sending them to hell. These are simple explanations of the religion. Their devotion is mainly to synagogue, their church. Going to synagogue, following the rituals of synagogue, reciting their scripture, the Old Testament, also trying to be good, respecting the holy day that comes once a year and celebrating it -these are all general principles they follow in their religion. The day of judgment will be in the end. Then all will be dead. That’s the simple philosophy of Judaism or Jewish religion.
Read Part 3 Here:- Swami Prakashanand Saraswati’s Speech on the Gita – Part 3
Then came around 2,600 years ago another religion. It started from Persia, Parsees, Zoroaster religion, Zoroastrianism.Judaism came from Palestine. So coming from Persia, they were called Parsees. Parsees from Persia, Persian religion. Persia is a Mohammedan country. Their philosophy is very similar to Jewish philosophy. God is one and only one. But they say God could be worshipped through fire. Anyway, they also have a day of judgment, rising from dead, hell and heaven when God will award heaven to righteous people and hell to unrighteous people. They talk of also a devilish power and a Godly power. They call ahuramazdathe good power, and the bad power, just like in the Jewish religion is a satan, shetan, devilish power. Angramainyu they call this bad power, evil power. And ahuramazdais you can say God’s good power or God himself. So to follow the teachings of ahuramazdarevealed by Zoroaster in their scripture is their path of devotion. Their scripture is in Persian language actually because it came from Persia. So those who follow that path, they are rewarded heaven by God at the day of judgment. And before judgment, as person is on this earth planet, he has to follow the path of righteousness. So as an image to worship, they have the fire. It’s called sacred fire, and it burns all through the year, year after year, forever. They should not put it off. It could be a big flame or actual fire, but something is kept on burning. It’s very important for them to keep it burning because it represents the image of God. So through that fire, they worship God. So their philosophy also is very simple, hell and heaven, day of judgment, rising from dead, God will award. And God is also not described but is the image of God. They say God is just a divine power. That’s all.
Read Part 4 Here:- Swami Prakashanand Saraswati’s Speech on the Gita – Part 4
Now come to Christianity. Christianity, we all know, is a very prominent religion in the West. It has about three main sects. Then there are many more subsects, like orthodox, protestant, Catholic, are three main. Then it branches out to many more. It also started from the same place Jewish religion started. Means Palestine. And started by Jesus the Christ. He was also Jewish, Jesus. But his philosophy was slightly different from Jewish religion, so his religion was made separate. They believe in New Testament. And the New Testament, it was originally in Hebrew; they translated into English many times. So Jesus Christ, Jesus the Christ, he was son of God, and God lives in heaven. And Jesus Christ was, he conceived Holy Ghost, and he was the path, the only path to salvation. That’s what they say. The only path to salvation, only through Jesus Christ. They also believe in holy trinity – father, son, and the holy ghost. Father is God. Son is Jesus Christ, and holy ghost also impersonal, you can say power of God, or grace of God you can say. So, all these three together form a trinity, and all the Christians believe in the trinity.
Read Part 5 Here:- Swami Prakashanand Saraswati’s Speech on the Gita – Part 5
They also have a satan, the evil power. Actually, the word satan is the real Urdu word shetan. Urdu word shetan. Shetan means evil. So satan, shetan, betrayed Adam and Eve. And when he betrayed Adam and Eve, so God was angry with them and sent them to earth from heaven, and they started human civilization. So in the human civilization they talk again about rising from dead and day of judgment. So when all will die, everyone, when everyone will die, then at the very end they all will rise. And when they all will rise, they come to God, and God will again reward them; to righteous people heaven and to evil people hell. They’ll be just dying in hell, suffering in hell; other people will be enjoying heaven, heavenly luxuries. That’s their philosophy also in gyst.
Read Part 6 Here:- Swami Prakashanand Saraswati’s Speech on the Gita – Part 6
What is their devotion? Devotion is also going to church, trying to be righteous, loving their neighbor as thyself, trying to be good, not hurting others, to be true Christian. That’s all their devotion. Although they call God, “father” – they gave a new word. “Father” is more intimate than the God of Moses or God of Parsees. Their God is just God the supreme, the creator of the world. But the God of Christianity is father. God. Father. God father. When you say father, some intimacy. God father. Yes. But how your father looks like? They have no conception, no description ever, just he is your father. They stress on the word HE; he. Means they accept the personalism of God but in what kind of personal form they don’t describe, just, he is your father. Just one sentence: He is your father. That’s fine.
Read Part 7 here: Swami Prakashanand Saraswati’s Speech on the Gita – Part 7
So you have to get away from the evils and the effect of the shetan, satan, and try to be good. In Parsi religion they say one more thing. They say all the evil things were created by that evil power in the world. All the ugly things, evil things, the bad things, the bad situations, all the bad happenings, bad things, ugly things, bad situations, bad happenings, they are all the creation of the evil power. And all the good things in the world, including human beings, are the creation of their ahuramazda, God power. So all the good things by God, and all the bad things by that evil power, they were created. That’s slight difference in Christianity and Parsee.
Read Part 8 Here: Swami Prakashanand Saraswati’s Speech on the Gita – Part 8
Now we come to Islam. I’m just talking in brief. It started around 1400 years ago, means after Christianity. And Islam is a pure Mohammedan religion. Its prophet was Mohammed. So Mohammed, they use the word Ilham, means he received some message in meditation, like this. It’s called Ilham. So whatever Ilham he got, he just wrote it down and that became Quran, their scripture, the Quran. In that Quran, he says they are the messages of God, they say. So he also made some rule of conduct for their people. Because in those days the poor were living without family. They couldn’t afford to have a wife sometimes. And the wealthy, the rich, they had many, many wives ;2. 4, 10, 15, 20, like that. So he made a rule, no more than 4 wives you can have. You can have up to 4 wives, that’s all. This kind of social rules. Don’t commit adultery. These kind of things. Means he was like a social reformer of his time. So his Quran is like a social reform at that time. And he also said one God, and named it Allah. Allah means God. And he also made, just like we have mantra in our Sanskrit, he made one sentence. He called it Kalima Shahada is their Kalima. There is no supreme God than Allah, Allah is the supreme God, and teachings of Mohammed is the only way to reach Allah. That’s the meaning, is their kalima.
Read Part 9 Here: Swami Prakashanand Saraswati’s Speech on the Gita – Part 9
So he made a very direct grip upon his people. So he made very strict rules of devotion, and how to reach to Allah. So he said that you must recite this kalima in your mind. OK. Or on some kind of bead chain, then have fear of God and have faith in God and Mohammed. Strict faith in God and Mohammed the prophet, the first part. Second part, you must do namaz 5 times a day. Namaz means prayer. Pray God. Praying God, they have a style with their own kalima. Kalima means the sentences of Quran. So with those kalimas, reciting those kalimas – actually it was recited by the Mohammedan priest – so they just get up and sit down and kneel down and get up, and pray God, like this, 5 times a day, morning to night. So this praying God, they call it namaz, & faith in God and Mohammed, 2 things. And third thing, give alms, is very important. Give alms to poor and to mosque to protect your religion. That’s very important, the third thing. And the fourth thing, fasting. Once a year there is about 40 days of fasting they do. Once a year. Is a kind of religious period at that time. So they fast whole day, don’t eat anything. They only eat in the night. Late night or very early in the morning they eat whatever they can eat and drink. Then the whole day from sunrise tosunset, they don’t eat anything. That’s 40 days fasting. They call it roza. And the 5th one, pilgrimage, going to Mecca, Mecca Madomah, from where they started their religion, place of Mohammed. Mecca is in Arabia. So from all over the world wherever they are, they have to go to Mecca at least once a lifetime. They call it Hadj. So hadj, roza, alms, and namaz and faith in God. These 5 are their principles of devotion every Muslim has to follow.
And Muslim word means a righteous person, literally it means. So they bind their religion very tightly. You should not go anywhere else. And also they believe in hell and heaven and punishment and reward and day of judgment. It’s all very common in all the religions Means when everyone dies, then the day of judgment will come, and all will rise from grave with folded hands before God, trembling. Then God will reward some of good people heaven and send the rest to hell. (In Christianity they also insist on one particular thing – to prepare for day of judgment, be careful.) So in this way ALL THESE 4 RELIGIONS they have somewhat similar philosophy and very similar path of devotion – to be righteous person. So how it coincides with our Gita and our religion?
In Conclusion:
Swami Prakashanand Saraswati, in gist, outlined the main tenets, history, and similarities between the Christianity, Muslim, Parsi and Jewish religions. He pointed out how they share some significant similarities in their beliefs about God, Satan, and a day of judgement. In Part 11, he will continue to illuminate the deeper truths of religion, leading us to knowledge about the ultimate divine love and realization, as shared in the Gita.