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Why I am a Believer: Personal Reflections on Nine World Religions PEOPLE, especially those living in the subcontinent, are not unfamiliar with the idea of conversion to a religion different to the one they were born in. It has happened for a variety of reasons, including the imposition of superiority of a conqueror’s belief and a genuine conviction that a different religion satisfies the spiritual cravings of a person. In the past, the opportunities "to engage in a thoughtful and reflective assessment of the virtues of a faith other than one’s own has generally been the experience of only a few". This limited exchange of views is changing as a result of globalisation.
However, it is because of this that their views assume greater significance. It needs to be remembered that never before in the history of the world have ethnic and religious groups migrated from one part of the world to another in such large numbers and since the migration has been taking place because of better opportunities of satisfying life rather than religious persecution, they have been more open and receptive to the beliefs of others. Thus, Harvey Cox, a Christian can share the spiritual experience of his Jewish wife and also rejoice in the bar mitzvah of their son. Similarly, Amir Hussain, a Canadian of South Asian descent living in the US, found that though his Christian wife discovered her answers through her Christian framework, she helped him find his answers within the Muslim framework. Kartar Singh Duggal discovered that his Muslim wife shared his sense of charity and justice in times when such alliances, in the wake of bloodshed during Partition, were unheard of. This book also contains the experiences of those who have found truth and salvation through Buddhism, Jainism, Confucianism, Taoism, Judaism and, of course, Hinduism. Each one of them has found values of compassion and truth, justice and peace. We are told that we live in a world where the civilisations are clashing. This alone makes the experiences of the contributors important for the more we know "others", the less is the chance of confrontation. The desire to establish superiority of a particular religion is a trait of the past. Obviously, we need to learn to reconcile with the right of the others to follow their own faith. As Karma Lekshe Tsomo, a born Christian who embraced Buddhism says, "No matter how brutally or selfishly people behaved, I felt certain that there must be a way for human beings to live with more love and compassion." One can hope that the more we know about one another, the better placed we are to dispel doubts and suspicions. The contributors to the book are primarily enlightened people and many among them are devoted to teaching and academia. The lucid manner in which they have dealt with the subject of religion in an era when often fundamentalism seems to be on the ascendant will surely make the "otherness" of religions more acceptable.
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Why I am a Believer,
edited by Arvind Sharma, formerly of the Indian Administrative Service
and devoted to studying and teaching comparative religions in Canada,
is in this context an important book for all those who wish to
reaffirm their faith in the essential goodness and efficacy of their
own religion and learn more about others. We live in a world where
religious homogeneity is yielding place to multiculturalism, and that
is why Christianity is no longer a Western religion nor is Buddhism
confined to the mystical and inscrutable East. A few of the
contributors have had the healthy experience and consequently,
assimilation, of other religions because of the otherness of their
wives’ faith.