If Your God is not the God of All, Your God is not God

THE HINDUS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS BLOG IS A SPACE FOR A HEALTHY EXPLORATION OF IDEAS PERTINENT TO OUR MISSION. THE VIEWS AND OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE OFFICIAL POLICY OR POSITION OF HINDUS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS.

By Dr. Anantanand Rambachan, scholar of Advaita Vedanta and Professor of Religion at St. Olaf College, MN

The photo below has been circulating on social media with, as far as I can tell, great approval from those Hindus who are commenting and even recommending that such posters become more widespread.

Let me translate for you. “This temple is a pure place for Hindus. Here, the entry of Muslims is forbidden.”

Places of worship have a right to specify rules and regulations for visitors. Hindu temples, for example, require visitors to remove shoes before entering the sacred space where icons (murtis) are housed. This is not the objective of this poster. Here, the entire Muslim community is singled out and debarred from entry. The language of purity is employed to make the point that the place of worship is polluted by Muslims. This is not dissimilar to the centuries old prohibition against untouchables who are regarded as polluting by their presence and still debarred from many Hindu temples.

This sign in front of a Hindu temple is profoundly inappropriate and distressing because it stands in absolute contradiction to the fundamental Hindu understanding about the nature of the divine. God is not the tribal deity of a particular clan, religion or nation. Taittiriya Upanishad (3.1.1) describes God as “That from which all beings originate, by which they are sustained and to which they return.” Krishna in the Bhagavadgita (9:17) speaks of God as father and mother of all. The implication is that human beings constitute a single community. In the words of Gandhi, "I believe in the absolute oneness of God and, therefore, of humanity.”

One of the most important ways in which we affirm and express this fundamental Hindu teaching about the unity of the divine and the unity of humanity is by keeping our sacred places of worship open to our brothers and sisters of other religions who wish to visit.

“However human beings approach me, so do I welcome them,” says Krishna in Bhagavadgita (4: 11). We reflect divine hospitality by our own generous human hospitality.

A statement of animosity and exclusion at the entrance of a Hindu temple betrays all that is spiritually fundamental to what it means to be Hindu. I speak against this as a Hindu because we must not define the meaning of our tradition by hatred of others. Let us not allow the virus of hate to infect and destroy what it means to be Hindu. Let us not distort the image of God by hate or by worshipping a wrong and small tribal God of our own making.

We must not concede the meaning of our tradition to those of our faith who wish to make Islamophobia the definition of what it means to be Hindu.