We have four principal religions in the world. They are Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity.
Buddhism is based upon the teachings of Buddha. Hinduism is not a religion in the ordinary sense of the word since it has no founding prophet or organized hierarchy.
The Hindu way and view of life is based on the ancient scriptures called the Vedas, which literally mean knowledge and are felt to be 5000 or more years old. The two epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata are great events which demonstrate truth reigning supreme over the evil.
In Hinduism there are many great spiritual teachers who have been guiding the people towards the realization of God.
Islam, was perfected by God (Allah) finally during the life span of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) after passing through a chain of Prophets starting Adam (peace and salat to him), the first man and first Prophet on the earth.
Islam means peace and complete submission to the will of God (Allah) through faith, prayer, fasting, charity, pilgrimage and the teachings of Mohammad (PBUH) with Qur'an its living scripture.
Christianity is founded rather established around the great personality of Isah Masih (peace & prayer to him) or Jesus Christ with the Bible or Injil as its scriptures.
Writing an exhaustive study of religions is not the aim of this attempt. On the other hand what is attempted is to churn out the resonance of "brotherhood, equality, love and oneness" of mankind from all the religions and the sayings of great men.
Because to-day what religion would have been useful to make a better social order, rather it has become a source of conflict, and tension among the people every where. It is now the need of the hour for us to listen to the golden rules of brotherhood from different sources to attain good sense and National integrity.
Christianity: Love the Lord thy God with your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with your whole strength and with your whole intellect and your neighbour as yourself.
Do that and you live. What, therefore, you wish man to do to you, do the same yourselves to them. If anyone say "I love God", yet hates his brother, he is a liar, because, whoever does not love his brother whom he has seen, he cannot love God whom he has not seen. God has made of one blood all nations of men.
America's Ageless Words: With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in; To bind up the nations wounds; To do all which may achieve a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
Goutama Buddha: Hatred ceaseth not by hatred. Hatred ceaseth by love. This is the everlasting law.
Mahatama Gandhi: I am a believer in the truth of all the great religions of the world. There will be no lasting peace on earth unless we learn not merely to tolerate but to appreciate the faiths as our own. A reverent study of the different teachers of mankind is a step in the direction of such mutual respect.
Sir Dr. Mohammad Iqbal:
Sare jahan se achcha Hindustan hamara
Hum bulbule hein Ish-ki yeh gulistan hamara
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Majhab nahin sikhata apas mein bair rakhana
Hindi hein hum, watan hei Hindustan hamara
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[Better than the whole world is our Hindustan
We are nightingales of this garden (country)
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Religion does not teach hatred among men
We are Indians, Hindustan is our motherland]
Confucianism: Is there any maxim which ought to be acted upon throughout one's whole life? Surely, the maxim of loving kindness is such. Do not unto others what you would not they should do unto you. All within the four seas are brother. How then, can a fine man grive that he is without a brother.
Noble Quran: Mankind is but one nation (2:213, 10:19).
O mankind! fear your Guardian Lord, who created you from a single person (Adam), created out of him, his mate (Hawa/Eve) and from them twains scattered (like seeds) countless men and women (4:1).
Take refuge in Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of mankind, King of Mankind and Lord of Mankind (S114).
O mankind! we created you from a single pair of male and a female and made you into nations and tribes that you know each other (not that you may despise each other).
Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is he who is the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (19:3).
All creation is as God's family, for, its sustenance is from Him.
Unto Allah belongs the east.
Unto Allah belongs the west.
And turn where you will, you will see the face of Allah
(one of the 99 epithets of Allah is "Nur" means Light; so when one sees light in its various manifestations he has seen Allah)
Prophet Mohammad (Peace be upon him): Do unto all men as you would they should do unto you, and reject for others what you would reject for yourself. The most beloved unto God is the person who does good to God's family.
No one is a true believer until he loves for his brother that which he loves for himself. The best of God's children are those who, when seen, remind of God and the worst of God's children are those who carry tales about, to do mischief and separate friends, and seek for the defects of the good.
Be kind to your neighbour and enquire after their welfare daily. Draw the veil in him (conceal what is bad about him). Avoid injury (body and heart). Look upon him with an eye of kindness and pray to God for expiation of his sin.
If you see him doing evil; forgive him and advise to give it up. If you see him doing good to you, proclaim your thankfulness. A Muslim is one in whose hands and words his neighbour is always safe and does not suffer.
Hinduism: Do naught to others which if done to you would cause you pain, Kine are diverse colours, but all milk is alike; system of faith are different, but the deity is one.
Sikhism: Treat others as you like you to be treated by others. Then you shall become a partner in heaven. Regard all men as equal, since God's light is contained in the heart of each.
Jainism: A man should walk about treating all creatures as he himself would be treated. In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard all creatures as we regard our own self and therefore refrain from inflicting upon others such injury as would appear undesirable to us if inflicted upon ourselves.
Judaism: Listen, Israel! You shall not hate your brothers in your heart. You shall not take revenge upon the child of your neighbours; but you shall love your neighbours as yourself. What is hurtful to yourself do not to your fellow men ... Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God, created us?
Toism: Regard your neighbours gain as your gain, and regard your neighbours' loss as your own loss.
Zoroastrianism: That nature only is good when it shall not do to others whatever is not good for its own self. Doing good to others is not a duty. It is a joy. It increases your own health and happiness.
Neil Armstrong: This is one step for man, but a giant leap for mankind.
Swami Vivekananda: "Sisters and brothers of America" (Swami said this while addressing an audience of 7000 strong, in the afternoon of September 1, 1893, at the Chicago Parliament of Religions, in America. Swami proclaimed to the entire world not only the comment of Universal Brotherhood but, indeed the grand Upanishadic message of Universal Oneness).
I accept all religions that were in the past, and worship with them... I shall go to the mosque of the Mohammandan, I shall enter the Christian church and kneel before the crucifix; I shall enter the Buddhist temple where I shall take refuge in Buddha and in his lap, I shall go to the forest and sit down in the meditation with the Hindu, who is trying to see the light which enlightens the heart of everyone. Not only shall I do all these, but I shall keep my heart open to all that come in the future. Is God's book finished? This life is short, the vanities of the world, are transient, but they alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive.
Rabindranath Tagore: We have come to this world to accept it, not merely know it. We may become powerful by knowledge but will attain fullness by sympathy. The highest education is that which does not merely give us information, but makes our life grow in harmony with all existence.
Chinese Proverb: The broad-minded see the truth in different religions; the narrow-minded see only the differences.
Lord Baden Powell: Happiness is open to all, since, when you boil it down, it merely consists of contentment with what you have got and doing what you can for other people.
Benjamin Franklin: When you are good to others, you are best to yourself.
Robert Ingersoll: My creed is this: Happiness is the only good. The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now. The way to be happy is to make others so.
I belong to the great Church which holds the world within its starlit aisles; that claims the great and good of every race and clime; that finds with joy the grain of gold in every creed, and floods with light the germs of good in every soul.
John Wesley: Do all the good you can; by all the means you can; in all the ways you can; in all the places you can; at all the times you can; to all the people you can as long as ever you can.
Heywood Brown: Brotherhood is not a Bible word. Out of comradeship can come and will come the happy life for all.
Edwin Markham: There is a destiny which makes us brothers; none goes his way along. All that we send into lives of others come back into our own.
John F Kennedy: Ask not what you can get, but ask for what you can give to America.
Indira Gandhi: I shall serve my countrymen irrespective of caste, creed or place till the last drop of my blood and when I die every drop of my blood will continue to serve the country.
Lilian Whitting: Let us grow out of the idea that because we do someone a favour or render him a service, that he is thereby under some transcendent obligation to him. Let us recognize the truth that it is we who are obliged if he will permit us to do him a favour.
Edith Cavell: I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred for bitterness in my heart.
Jawaharlal Nehru: My dear children, I see my Priyadarshini in your eyes (Priyadarshini is the childhood name of Pandit Nehru's only daughter India Gandhi, Nehru said this while attending a children's function on his birth day celebration)
Dr Reinhold Neibuhr:
God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can;
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Voltaire: The discovery of what is true, and the practice of that which is good are the two most important objects of Philosophy.
Rudyar Kipling:
East is East and West is West
And never the twain shall meet
But there is neither East nor West
Nor border, nor Bread, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face
They come from the ends of the Earth.
Lao Tzu: By the accident of good fortune a man may rule the World for a time. But by the virtue of love he may rule forever.
Goethe's Mother: I always seek the good that is in people and leave the bad to Him who made mankind and knows how to round off the corners.
Horace Mann: Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves.
Swami Ramdas: The happiest man in the World is he who is free from selfishness and the most miserable men is he who is utterly selfish.
Sadhu JP Vaswani: A young man said to him "The sun of religion is setting" He said to him; The sun never sets. When the sun appears to set here, it rises elsewhere. The sun of religion, too, is rising, ever rising.
A man asked - "of what use is a religion which creates so much noise, discord, strife? Religion has failed". In reply he said "In fact it is not the religion which has failed us, it is we who have failed the religion".
Jay Prakash Narayan: Once posed the question: Why I be good? Why should I love? Why should I serve? And he replied only when I not only know, but when I realize that we are one, will be good, will love, will serve. This only can explain and sustain my urge to be good, to love and serve.
The Gita: I am the same in all beings: to me there is none hateful, none dear; But those who worship me with devotion they are in me and I also am in them.
MA Rahman: Who says we are different when every creation of God is made of three fundamental particles - Protons, Neutrons and Electrons packed in the atoms of the composite elements. If there be any, that is only man-made.
MA Rahman Shah wrote this article for The Sangai Express . The author is Inspector General of Prisons, Manipur.
This article was webcasted on January 25th, 2007.
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