Book Title: Wisdom Roads
Author(s): Lorrence G Muller
Publisher: Continumm New York
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SHREE CHITRABHANU
S.C.: Everybody says that, you have to say that. And that, you are the God. God is not outside. Bernard Shaw says: Beware of those whose God is in heaven.
L.M.: The famous playwright.
S.C.: George Bernard Shaw-he said, they don't see God in life. They only see God in church, or in heaven. But no, God does not live in walls. God lives in life. So ultimately, as we purify, we are coming closer to God. Complete fullness of goodness is Godhood-goodness in full bloom is Godhood.
L.M.: A perpetual spring, always spring. Then suffering has a purifying role.
S.C.: Yes.
L.M.: At the present time, there is still a lot of competition among the different religious traditions. Keeping in mind your own personal experiences with interreligious dialogue here in America, what do you think are the prospects for the religions working together for the benefit of humanity, and indeed for all creation?
S.C.: If we unite, we will unite through feeling love and reverence. Not through religion. Religion will not unite us. Religion often starts as a new movement. It is a kind of shop, a new religion is open.
Someone will say: Why don't you join my shop? The religions are the different shops in the name of God. Everybody is selling the commodity of God. They sell their own concept, their own belief. And the moment a person leaves the religion, they will say he is an atheist. One Catholic priest who is in an important position in the church said to me: If I give this up, then they will take away my collar.
L.M.: If he left his position in the hierarchy?
S.C.: If he left his Catholic belief. He told me that then the people will not believe in him, they will not follow him. I don't want to be lonely at this age. I am not able to take such an adventurous step as you have taken. He is a very wise-man. So his feeling was, if the religious person gives up his religion, his
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