What is all this stuff about Religious Differences ?

I remember the following prayer we used to recite everyday in school:   

यम शैवा समुपासते, शिव इति, ब्रह्मेति वेदांती न

बौध बुध इति, प्रमाण पटवः, कर्तेति नैयायिकः

अर्हंनित्यथा जैन शासनार्थ, कर्मेति मीमांसका

क्राइस्ट क्रिस्तुरिति क्रियापरारतः, अल्लेती मोहम्मदः

सोयम नो विदधातु वज्चिता फ़लाम, त्रैलोक्य नाथो हरी
(Please ignore the errors in the text)

I knew at that time that these words roughly mean the following:

May the Lord of the universe, the remover of evil, whom  

the devotees of Shiva worship as Shiva,

the Vedantins as Brahman,

the Buddhists as Buddha,

the Naiyaayikas who specialize in knowledge as the chief agent,

those devoted to the Jain religion as Arhant,

the ritualists of the Mimamsa school as Karma,

the Christians as Christ,

the Mohammedans as Allah,

may He grant us all our heart’s desires.

However, I did not know the powerful implication of these words at that time. This prayer holds the key to bridging the religious differences and the resultant problems. How? Read on.

These days, we see a lot of hatred between different faiths, particularly between Hindu and Muslims. For example, you must have come across the following propaganda:

• Fight for protecting your Hindu brothers, else we will be extinct.
• Islam is in danger, come together to protect it.
• These people are out to convert all Hindus. Let us stop their nefarious designs.
• Let us all fight this Jehad against the enemies of Islam.
• Wake up and save Hindutva before it is too late.

This creates an impression that Hindus and Muslims have been fighting and they must fight each other. To support this view are numerous communal riots that have taken place throughout the country over the years. If you are a Hindu, such propaganda makes you view every Muslim with suspicion and hatred. If you are a Muslim, this makes you hate Hindus. Not only that, you feel encouraged to stop being passive and to take active part in this perpetual conflict between communities.

At times, one tends to get carried away with this flood of religious hatred, but then it feels counter intuitive and the heart shouts a loud, "STOP and THINK AGAIN". A question pops up, "As a Hindu, why do I have to hate Muslims and vice-versa?" Imagine the following situations for a moment:

• You are a Hindu and your Muslim neighbor is attacked in a riot, should you not help him just because he is from different religion? 
• You are a Hindu and you come across Muslims in your day-to-day life. Are they all hostile towards you?
• You have a very close friend, and he chooses to embrace Islam one day and becomes a Muslim. Will it change your behavior toward him? Will you consider him as your enemy from that day onwards?
• You have a long term enemy who is a Muslim. If he has a change of heart and becomes a Hindu, will it end your hatred towards him?

The above thought exercises must have convinced you that merely being Hindu or Muslim does not make a person an object of your love or hatred.Then why do WE have to fight THEM? One argument that we hear very often is that you have to do it to save your religion, else it will be extinct. Well, this is a very interesting myth. God is all powerful, and certainly He does not need our help to survive. As an example, Parsis are a very small community, but that does not mean that they have got eliminated by the bigger communities.

You may say that Hindus and Muslims are fundamentally poles apart, so they are destined to fight each other, but let us take a closer look at these differences that can not be reconciled. I list commonly cited differences below:

• Worship different Gods. 
• Different religious beliefs about life, death, soul, rebirth, and God.
• Different customs 
• Different position on idol worship

Worship different Gods

It is a myth that we worship different Gods, instead like the prayer says, we worship the same God  in different form, and give Him a different name. Every religion says that God is all powerful being, present everywhere. How is it possible to have more than one instances of such an all powerful being? It HAS to be the same God for everyone. 

Different religious beliefs about life, death, soul, rebirth, and God

Who can claim that he knows the real truth about the matters of life, death, soul and God? Every religion like Jainism, Buddhism, Parsis, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity has a different view on these issues. But this difference is not sufficient ground to breed hatred between the communities. If Jains and Hindus can co-exist peacefully, why not Muslims and Hindus?

Different customs 

Within Hindus there are wide range of customs practiced by different people. As you go to different states, you see very different customs. So, why should customs cause trouble? We live in a free society; I am free to follow my customs and you are free to follow yours.

Different Position on Idol Worship

Islam prohibits Idol Worship, and this is often seen as a key cause of conflict. However, when I discussed it with some Muslim friends, it became clear that the real objection is to worship an Idol like God. But if we look closely, Hindus treat the Idol not as God Himself, but more as a symbol through which they worship the supreme God. If that was not the case, they would not be doing visarjan of the Idol (Why would you immerse your God in water after you are done with your puja?). This is a vital point, which can really help bridge this gap between the two.

To conclude, religious difference should not cause hatred between communities. As a minimum we should learn to live together peacefully with our differences. At another level, we can also get the benefit of a richer spirituality from our differences. Religion is meant for seeking the purpose of life. Every religion has looked differently and discovered a part of the answer to this question. Let us not just hold on to our partial truth and discard what others have found. Let us use all the knowledge available to form a more complete answer. When we adopt this mindset, we will stop seeing the religious differences as a cause for conflict.  

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Sanjay Srivastava came up with this beautiful quote on this topic: 

If your God asks you to kill me, then he certainly did not create me. If he did not create me, he is a fake God.