Nostra Aetate - In Our Time

73 carrying 13 trillion cells, my friend. There are 13 trillion cells in your body, God is pervading every cell and you don’t have to take one step outside to commune with your creator God. There is no need for any mosque, temple, church or any specific place. All of these things we make, artisans make, and we then make them more sacred. If a mosque is destroyed or a temple is destroyed we are ready to kill any number of people. The human body is the most sacred temple which God creates for each one of us, the most precious temple that we have. Why don’t we see the preciousness and the sacredness of the human body? This is the challenge and if we can do that, if we can bring this spiritual consciousness to every child, then hurting any human being, even by word of mouth let alone by arms or by bullets, is sacrilegious. If you hurt any human being then you are anti-God, however often you visit a place of worship. You are also deceiving yourself. So, the time has come when we need to deconstruct these organised religions. I am using a slightly harsh approach, so it is very difficult. I was deeply impressed by the Cardinal. In his start- ing point he said: “We need to do something different.” We can’t go in circles, we cannot go on like that, and therefore, friends, it’s time like Buddha said to uphold “Dharma” – religion. Note that he did not say Buddha Dharma, although he has been made into Buddhism. Guru Nanak did not talk about another religion. No, they all talked about one God and we should all relate to one God, one Creator God who is inside of us. Through meditation on the value of truth, compassion, justice, love, we should imbibe those values and tell our children that “you are free to write your own scripture, your own Bible, your own Koran and to be your own prophet, your own Guru, doubt everybody, all these big, big people”. I teach my young children three things: to doubt, to debate, and if necessary, to dissent. This is spirituality. You should teach people, young minds, to dissent, that it’s right to dissent, to disagree and assert one’s human autonomy. You are the creation of God. What is there for you to feel ashamed about? Each human child should be celebrated and we should give them equal freedom, eco- nomic equality, completely. All of us human beings own this planet earth, all of the land, the forests, the water and the mineral wealth. This entire spectrum and everything else is commonly owned by us according to the Vedas. So, friends, I can go on and on but the time is not available. I will finish it here and I would love to engage in fierce debate. I don’t want you to accept; you should doubt whatever I said. You should debate and, if neces- sary, dissent: “Get out Swami, we don’t agree with you.” Thank you so much. BROADENING INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE AND COLLABORAT ION FOR OUR T IME Swami Agnivesh celebrating Earth Day 2016 with reli- gious leaders of various communities, Amritsar, India