We have a peculiar idea in India. Suppose I had a child. I would not teach him any religion, but I would teach him the practice of concentrating his mind, and just one line of prayer –– not prayer in your sense, but this: "I meditate on Him who is the Creator of the universe; may He enlighten my mind." Then, when old enough, he goes about hearing the different religious philosophies and teachings, until he finds that which seems the truth to him. He then becomes the disciple of a Guru, or teacher, who is teaching this truth. He may choose to worship Christ or Buddha or Mohammed. We recognize the rights of each of these, and the right of all souls to their own Ishta, or chosen way. It is, therefore, quite possible for my son to be a Buddhist, my wife to be a Christian, and myself a Mohammedan at one and the same time, with absolute freedom from friction. We are all glad to remember that all roads lead to God; and that the reformation of the world does not depend upon all seeing God through our eyes. Our fundamental idea is that your doctrine need not be mine, nor mine yours. I am my own sect. And you are yours.

We have created a system of religion in India which we believe to be the only truly universal religious system extant; but our belief in its universality rests upon its inclusion of all the searchers after God, its absolute charity towards all forms of worship, and its eternal receptivity of those ideas that aid in the full manifestation of God in the universe. We admit the imperfection of our system, because the Reality is beyond all systems; but in this admission lies the portent and promise of an eternal growth. Sects, ceremonies, and books, so far as they are the means of a man's realization of his divinity, are all right; but when he has realized the Spirit, all helps are thrown aside. Ritual, hymns, and scriptures, those things through which he has traveled to freedom, vanish for him, and all that remains is "Soham, Soham –– I am He, I am He."

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