For God's Sake: Understand the Esoteric Truths Behind Your Religion

By Sasha Budhrani

This book explores the connection between rituals, dogmas, beliefs and practices which divide us into different religions. Cultivating inner meaning may unite every being into one Divinity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sasha Budhrani
• Release date: Apr 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311879882

Sasha Budhrani

Writer. Financial Consultant. Full time Mom. Seeker of the Truth.

Book preview

For God's Sake

By Sasha Budhrani

Copyright Sasha Budhrani 2014

Smashwords Edition License Notes:

This free ebook may be copied, distributed, reposted, reprinted and shared, provided it appears in its entirety without alteration, and the reader is not charged to access it.

This book is dedicated to two people. It is dedicated firstly to my Master, who inspires me to search for the Truth. Secondly, it is dedicated to my baby, who is now one with the Truth.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following people:

Dean Clayton Edwards, for not only editing the book, but for also providing invaluable advice for a first time author.

Kunal Mirchandani, one of the brightest social media marketing consultants out there.

Sonam Uttamchandani, my sister, for her unparalleled support.

Ayesha Singh, for her time and effort in providing the aesthetic aspect of the book.

Rashmi Mirchandani and Alex Ocampo, for their genuine effort in providing the cover of this book.

Samer Akkach, for his thoughts on my work on Islam.

Mala Chattani and Lynn Serrafin for their guidance on how to go about the publishing process.

NOTE TO THE READER

I was with my husband in the car one night, on the way home to our two year old boy. It is funny how my deepest conversations occur at the most random times. I usually find myself thinking of philosophical matters mostly in the car, while taking a shower or unexpectedly in the middle of some mechanical, routine part of the day. I don’t know exactly how the topic came about, but on this particular night, my husband and I ended up talking about the miraculous event of Jesus feeding multitudes with his few loaves of bread and fish. Both being the cynical people that we are, we quickly judged this part of the story to be either a mistake in translation or a mere exaggeration of someone who wanted to glorify his/her religion. I was lucky I was with my husband, whom I would consider a spiritual, but definitely not a religious Hindu. I don’t think the conversation would have been the same if I was with a religious Catholic.

Then the story of Draupadi’s endless saree from the Bhagavad Gita, preventing her from being humiliatingly disrobed in front of a crowd, came to my mind. Not being a follower of any particular religion, I would also have considered this only a story. Again, a lot of my Hindu brothers and sisters would strongly disagree or be offended.

I was thinking about researching such popular stories for the most part of the drive home. What started out as simple research, led to more detailed examination of the esoteric meanings of several of the stories, events, ideas, passages and rituals of major religions. I found all that I read too interesting not to share. That’s how this book came about.

Most of the statements in this book are taken from the works of mystics, theologians and spiritual scholars and appropriate references are made. No amount of praise can be adequate for the beauty of their works. It is quite evident that most of them have had some inner spiritual experience of their own. This is probably why someone like myself, who is merely a seeker of that magnificent experience, cannot fully fathom the depth of their feelings. If I could put forth in this book only 10% of the aura that surrounds their works, I would consider myself extremely blessed.

I am not asserting authority over any matter. I am merely trying to put forth in simpler terms what I understood from the great works of learned men. In any case, there is no harm in expressing an alternative way of thinking that may suggest a more direct connection to the Divinity within us. The traditionalist who is easily offended may reject this book at this point, because the thoughts presented herein may shake his belief system. The purpose of this book is to get open minded people to think logically about their chosen paths. It is of no concern to the author whether the reader agrees or disagrees, but the main objective is to get him or her to think. It is not the intent of the author to condescend to any particular group, path, cult or religion, nor to convert anyone from one to the other. On the contrary, this book aims to celebrate our individual religions by delving into their essential, esoteric meanings.

No amount of theoretical research can replace the value of personal experience, which is probably the best way to learn the esoteric meaning of our Great Teachers. If this book can inspire one reader to long for that inner experience, the purpose of this book will have been overwhelmingly fulfilled.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Preface

II. Introduction

III. Exoteric Vs. Esoteric Teachings

IV. Introduction to World Religions

V. Christianity

A. A Brief Historical Perspective

B. Christian Festivals

i) Christmas Day

ii) Lent

iii) The Holy Week

iv) The Last Supper

C. Jesus, The Essenes and the Dead Sea Scrolls

D. Conclusion on Christianity

VI. Islam

A. The Five Pillars of Islam

B. Islam and Other Abrahamic Religions

C. Sufism and Islam

VII. Hinduism

A. The Truth Behind the Vedas

i) The Gods of the Vedas

ii) The Recovery of the Lost Cows and the Lost Sun by the Angiras Rishis

iii) Concluding Statement on the Vedas

B. The Upanishads

i).Kena Upanishad

ii).Katha Upanishad

iii) Isha Upanishad

C. Liberation in Hinduism – Jnana Yoga, Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga

D. Conclusion

VIII. Other World Religions

A. Judaism

B. Sikhism

C. Buddhism

IX. Science and God – for the Skeptic

X. Conclusion

XI. Quotations

XII. References

PREFACE

I am not a writer, nor am I a religious scholar. I have not spent years finding homes in different ashrams (Sanskrit word for spiritual hermitage), living with mentors of various spiritual backgrounds. While I do have a Teacher who has influenced my chosen spiritual path, those teachings progress from a level of interpretation different from the level of understanding of which I speak in this book. Having written this book, my conviction in the teachings to which I have been exposed has become stronger. Those teachings focus on the importance of inner experience, which can be brought about to everyone through his or her own religion. There is no need to convert from one to the other for at essence they are all the same. I only needed evidence of those similarities, which I have found. In these pages, I have tried my best to understand and relay, in simple terms, my interpretation of the diversity that exists among religions.

It has always been baffling to me that something like religion, which implies goodness, purity and all other positive things, has brought about more bad than good in the world as we know it today. On a global level, religion has caused a number of world wars. Though religion may not be the primary cause, it is not uncommon for religion to be secondary or underlying impetus for such wars.

On a personal level, there always seems to be some sort of competition regarding whose God is the real one? The criteria by which people judge this I don’t understand and I don’t think that I ever will, because I believe that the question is flawed. There is no flawless answer to a flawed question.

Firstly, the question implies that there are many Gods. I wouldn’t deny that I used to think that Allah, Jesus, Krishna and other Gods were different and rightly so. Jesus existed amongst us, while Allah sent an angel to reveal the Quran to Prophet Muhammad. Krishna was a Charioteer who taught Arjuna how to face life in the name of duty and epitomized those teachings in one of the greatest scriptures in the Bhagavad Gita. Certainly they are discrete, not only in their form and nature, but also in their teachings, which is evident in the forms and rituals of each religion. I have heard a lot of people, however, who would contest that while their forms and teachings are miles apart, God is one. I doubt that even half of these people truly believe that it is so. How many devout Christians would go to the mosque with the same fervour as they would to church? If we truly believe that God is one, where we go to spend time with God shouldn’t be an issue, should it? How many Muslims would go with as much piety to the mandirs of the Hindus as they would to the mosque?

Well, it could be said that they wouldn’t do so, not because they don’t believe that God is one but because they don’t want to feel like an outsider and because they are likely to be treated like one. By nature, humans (and other living things) are quite clannish as it is. Sometimes it isn’t really about the religion but the followers and that sense of community among them, on which we don’t wish to intrude. It’s the togetherness we value more than the ultimate goal of our religion – which is ironic since I believe that spirituality is an individual matter and that it differs for each and every one of us.

So the question remains, when all the Gods, so to speak, are obviously different, how can there be only one God. The answer lies somewhere in the fact that while they are OBVIOUSLY different, they are LATENTLY the same – extrinsically different, intrinsically the same – exoterically different, esoterically the same. Jesus and Krishna are different manifestations of that Logos, that almighty Word. It was the same Logos through which the Revelation was made unto Prophet Muhammad. To understand this oneness of that Power is one of the two-fold aims of this book.

First and foremost, its goal is to inspire us to find the esoteric side of the rituals and practices of our great religions. If we know that the practices which we follow blindly to please our parents, please our elders or even please ourselves (by thinking that we are maintaining tradition) have a beautiful essence, then our performance of these rituals will not be in vain. A very witty man by the name of Jaroslav Pelikan once said that Tradition is the living faith of the dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. We can’t degrade our rituals by following them blindly. We must glorify the divinity in them by understanding their purpose and applying it in our lives. It would be better if we put more effort into the application of the values than into the process of performing the