Interfaith Dialogue

So we can only pray, if we are Hindus, not that a Christian should become a Hindu… But our innermost prayer should be a Hindu should be a better Hindu, a Muslim a better Muslim, a Christian a better Christian.

If the World’s Parliament of Religions has shown anything to the world, it is this: It has proved to the world that holiness, purity and charity are not exclusive possessions of any church in the world, and that every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character.

The truly human is always experienced in vulnerability, in mutuality, in reciprocity… Vulnerability transforms you.

So long as human beings fundamental nature, aspiring for happiness and wishing to overcome suffering, remains unchanged, these basic values will remain relevant to us, both as individual human beings and as a society.

If we are to be true to these religions [the wisdom traditions], we must attend to others as deeply and as alertly as we hope that they will attend to us…

We need the courage as well as the inclination to consult, and profit from, the ‘wisdom traditions of mankind.’

God is to be heard, not only on Sinai, not only in my own heart, but in the voice of the stranger…

Do not we, too, need to cultivate—I shall not say the habit of religion, but the habit of God?

I think we urgently need to purify the religious atmosphere into one in which believers can have living faith and every soul can communicate with God.

It is my deep-rootedness in Christian faith that enables me to be inclusive. And this is not exclusivity: it is a partial closing, which is necessary in order to be fully open.

I sum up the Jewish imperative, very simply―and it has been like this since the days of Abraham: to be true to your faith is a blessing to others regardless of their faith.

Paradoxically, it is only when one has a deep experience rooted in one’s own faith tradition that one is able to appreciate the value of other religions.

Now who are the greatest benefactors of the living generation of mankind? I should say: Confucius and Lao-tse; the Buddha; the Prophets of Israel and Judah; Zoroaster; Jesus; and Muhammad; and Socrates.

Confucius, Buddha, Jesus and Gandhi have done more for humanity than science has done.

When we survey the whole field of religion… the feelings on the one hand and the conduct on the other are almost always the same, for Stoic, Christian, and Buddhist saints are practically indistinguishable.

The human opportunity, the religions tell us, is to transform our flashes of insight into abiding light.