religions what is the origin of all world religions
doesn't matter buddhism with no god christianity with this super personality the father in heaven
or hinduism with this variety of approaches in in religion and gods and goddesses
where is the what is the origin of all this and all these religions where how do they spring up
where do they spring up from there must be some origin some fountainhead from where they sprang
out the fountainhead the heart of all religions is experiential what happens is that some individuals
in some part of the world in some time in history past present or even present the future encounter
something that is out of the ordinary it is not ordinary in any sense at all it's extraordinary
they encounter an experience that transforms their lives and they are so in you know so
charged up by this experience that they wished in a way to make an impact on greater society
they wish to give expression to their experience and somehow they feel very motivated most of them
feel highly motivated to in a way translate their experience into some kind of you know
ideas for greater society this is the origin of all world religions this is how they sprang up
in some religions you had one or two prophets who were the founders whose spiritual experiences with
the foundation stones on which the religions were built this is judaism abraham moses are
the key founders of this religion christianity of course christ islam muhammad buddhism buddha
so all these religions have some personalities who encountered an experience which can be classed as
spiritual now what we mean by spirit we leave it alone for the time being don't try and analyze it
they seem to have an out of out of this world or extraordinary experience now be very careful when
we talk like this i mean you find people who are reporting they were abducted by aliens and they
destroyers you see you'll be very watchful so for every one person who is making claims
of spiritual experience there are hundreds who are absolute idiots who are completely nutters
so you do shift them but how do you shift them the way you shift them is this
see to what extent this experience have made them better human beings greater human beings
well adjusted human beings or deranged human beings to what extent they have
good ability to transform their own lives and the lives of people who come near them
and you see i'm now using very subjective language say when i say transformation what do i mean by it
i mean what do i how do i define wholesome and acceptable and not this alien invasion all that
how do i distinguish well it's very tricky it is highly subjective when society can perhaps
choose the wrong guys because they somehow find them more attractive and and reject the
right guys so it is very subjective in a way whole of greater society will in a way dictate
how we value them or sometimes devalue them there is no fixed rule it's an open game it's best to
be very open and clear about this this whole business so the spiritual experience of certain
personalities during their own lifetimes they did not bring about major sometimes
for example in the christ in the in the story of christ during his own lifetime he was hardly
even faith was crucified he was hardly recognized he was ostracized he was vilified in his own life
only few hundred years after he went away he was gone then suddenly christianity started to jail
and his experiences and his teaching suddenly caught on so you can see society was lagging
behind they couldn't catch up and it took time before the greater society
took on his ideas and were able to digest his ideas and incorporate them within the system see
there's a disjoint and in the life of buddha his spiritual experiences immediately transformed the
whole of india during his lifetime he transformed almost all of india become buddhist in his own
lifetime not waiting for him to die and then recognize him so we got this variety variety
of different you know i'm just showing you how the spiritual experience forms the fountainhead
of world religions and sometimes they are immediately taken on sometimes they take
a long time for this idea to filter through and affect the greater society it kind of takes time
to filter through but the source of all world religions is experience experiential dimension
this is the heart of religion in fact the reason why this part is sometimes this dimension of
religion is often overlooked and forgotten and when you do that you pay heavy price
if you ignore this experiential dimension to your religion your society will move away from religion
they'll become secular they say look this is just airy fairy stuff unless it becomes experiential
and they are allowed to participate and experience this thing called spirit of god for themselves
they're going to move over at some stage and what's the best example today the reason why
the youth today modern youth hindu as well as known hindu youth are moving away from their
religion is because the really the experiential dimension religion has been overlooked or has been
kind of pushed aside pushed aside not given enough prominence not given is in a central position the
moment you do that this is the youth you know you tell them oh there's a god in heaven and you
know you do this and that you go to meet him he's not satisfied he's not convinced he'll move away
so he must go to temple and do this and this will help good things will happen to you he's
not convinced he can do good things for himself without visiting the temple same with the western
youth you see the churches are being abandoned dramatically do you know how how dangerous the
situation is i'm talking about the christian tradition basically forget about the church
being abandoned the youth in the christian schools that i go to when i ask them how many believers
really you think the religions have something for going for it or how many eighties and agnostics
my experience is showing now because i've been in the system for about 15 years now now it's
showing very clearly that majority of them are atheist agnostics they moved away from religion
me