Gandhiji's bhajan in these divisive times? .... ishwar allah tero naam.

Extracts from the Mundaka Upanishad:

Who is God? – God creates all we are; and we have to be willing to belief that everything around emerges from God.

 

From God emerge all the oceans and all the mountains. From It flow out the rivers of various forms. And from It issue all the corns as well as the juice, by virtue of which the internal self verily exists in the midst of the elements.

All the religions – “the rivers of various forms” – emerge from God. We have to be willing to believe that.

 

As rivers, flowing down, become indistinguishable on reaching the sea by giving up their names and forms, so also the illumined soul, having become freed from name and form, reaches the self-effulgent Purusa that is higher than the higher (Máyá).

 

We have to believe that all religions – the “rivers” - lead the way to realizing God; they become “indistinguishable on reaching the sea[God]” – all religions – Hinduism and Christianity and Islam – become “freed from name and form” and from their individual characteristics and realise that there is but one God.

 

Every school going child in India knows Gandhiji’s song: “Raghupati Raghava Rajaram”; which is basically a Tulsidas bhajan. Tulsidas lived in the middle of the 16^th c in Benaras; he was a devotee of Sri Rama; and in this particular bhajan – which glorifies Sri Rama – there is this couplet tucked in and it is the central refrain of the song:

Ishawar Allah tero naam [your name is Ishwar or Allah]

Sabko sanmati de bhagwan.  [give all of us this mind frame to understand it]

That this idea was propounded 500 years ago – by a Hindu poet – does reflect a lot about the socio-cultural systems from within which he emerged; despite being a devotee of Sri Rama, and this particular bhajan of Gandhiji sings the glories of Sri Ramachandra, Tulsidas argues for the truth that God is synonymous with both Allah and Ishwar.