La Illaha Illallah, the statement of Unity, means not only that there is no God but one God. It means all gods are of one God. This is the crux of all faiths, be it Hinduism, Christianity or Judaism. When you tear away the veils cast by the interpretations of history, you find that the essence of spirituality is found in the simplest of mantras like summa iru or om.
In this day and age religion and spirituality cannot be considered one and the same, when in fact most religious leaders look down upon spiritual offshoots of the religions to which they belong. Yet they fail to realize that by focussing on the superficial aspects of their religion they are undermining its very meaning.
Islam simply means submission, not necessarily to God but to the interconnectivity of all things. To exemplify; you see millions of Muslims bowing down to the Ka’bah and call it worship while I see millions of human beings bowing down to themselves and call it humility. It is this gap in perception that is the root cause of most religious disputes.
Hinduism venerates the aspects of the divine personality, manifested in the form of deities, just as Islam has 99 names for God. The purpose of both of these practices is to call upon the many facets of God when one feels the need for that specific function of His divine personality. I do not see a difference between calling God by 99 names and venerating God in 99 forms. It is the worship of idols that is prohibited by Islam, and that must never be mistaken with the practices mentioned above.
Do not concern yourself with the restrictions of religion as then it merely serves the purpose of a labelled jar. Religion in its current form equates to blasphemy, as religious leaders make it their sole purpose to segregate communities and facilitate animosity when disputes arise.
This has led to the rise in popularity of new offshoots of spiritual faiths. The issue with these is that while being inspired by the crux of these religions, they soon lose focus of this as their practices are not sound as they did not stem from the same proverbial plant – if I may use that analogy. Neo-spirituality is a joke. It represents the vain attempts at strengthening what is really superficial faith.
Those who seek will find no comfort in belief as belief implies inhibition. The moment you are convinced of one thing you immediately shut off the possibilities of any other belief holding true. This is the danger of dualistic perception, it does not allow for the search for divine truth. In order to be spiritually awakened, one must do away with conviction and enter Oblivion through Union. Only then will the dualistic limitations of our perception be cleansed by the realization that la illaha illallah; all gods are of one God.
