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Address by Sant Kirpal Singh Ji
must learn to rise above body-consciousness and be able to join the family of God. All great Masters had said so. So this is the thing on which we have to stand and put our shoulders to the wheel. I will request our foreign delegates and also to those here that they should sink all differences of forms and rituals and other things and devote our souls to God. The differences will remain because temperaments are different and there are different modes of thinking. But the purpose is the same I should say.
I would just give one little example. Well to sit for worship of God, man must take a bath. This is in India and other countries where there is abundance of water. But in Arabia you find there is dearth of water. There they authorise washing of only hands and face etc. with water before saying prayers and where there is not even that much water, they prescribe that you can besmear your hands, face and feet with earth too. This is called Tayammam. The purpose is that while you sit down in prayer you should be wide awake and you should wash your hands off the body and the world nnd there should be nobody between you and your God.
So this is only the outer aspect I am putting before you but this can only be lasting if you have inner contact within. Why all these differences, dissentions and fights when we are all aiming at the same Reality? If we look at the ultimate purpose for which these are meant we will find it is the same. As Shamas Tabriz said, "If you sit in prayer for a hundred years you cannot become the true worshipper of God, if by so doing you have not developed the love of God, and without love of God you cannot know the Reality". God is love. Our souls are also love and they are of the same essence as that of God. Our Souls are consclaus entities, a drop of the ocean of life, of course hemmed in by mind and matter. We have just to analyse our self and rise above the body-consciousness. Only then we can open our inner eye to see the light of God and thus become true religionists, whether we belong to one denomination or the other.
So with this object in view, the other night, some people were nomi nated to draw up a Constitution for the World Fellowship of Religions. I would request all people, not only people assembled here but all the foreign delegates to draft the Cons:itution and send us their rough drafts. All these will be considered and one final Constitution will be drafted with their concurrence. I have got this opportunity, to request you all to draw out a draft constitution for consideration. We have to from a Constitution for all world religions' Fellowship and establish a common ground on which men belonging to different religions can sit together to work out ways and means for better understanding of each other. These are the two principles that I have put before you. I have not put before you anything new. It is already there but the pity is that we i ave forgotten it.
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Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
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