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WORLD January 16, 2000 VNN5285 Comment on this story Communal Integration BY AIRAVATA DAS MAYAPUR, INDIA, Jan 16 (VNN) — On December 20th 1999, Dr. Sheikh Makbul Islam, Ph. D., an eminent Muslim scholar from Calcutta, visited Shridham Mayapur for an interfaith dialogue. Airavata Dasa, head of the Department of Interfaith Communications, showed him around Mayapur and acquainted him with the activities of the Department of Interfaith Communications. Dr. Islam found the aims and activities of the Department of Interfaith Communications uplifting and inspiring. Dr. Islam read the books written by Airavata Das, The Hidden Treasure of Al-Qur'an and Chand Kazi & Chaitanya, and specially came to Mayapur to meet the author. First of all, he appreciated the writings of Airavata Das and expressed his complete satisfaction. He mentioned that the book Chand Kazi & Chaitanya is a milestone in creating mutual understanding between the different religious communities. The book very nicely defines the reasons of the misunderstandings between the different religious communities and shows the means to mitigate such misunderstandings. Later Dr. Islam said that his main field of work is Communal Integration: defining the obstacles for communal integration and finding means to lift these obstacles. One of his questions was: "How can communal integration be achieved peacefully and harmoniously?" Airavata Das answered that the example of integration of people of different backgrounds was shown by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. He was the greatest propagator of the teachings of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in the modern age. He was traveling around the world and requesting people to chant the holy name of God. Once while in Tehran, Iran Srila Prabhupada was challenged by one Muslim: "Why should we chant the name of Krishna we have Allah's name?" Srila Prabhupada answered: "No, no. We are not forcing you to chant Krishna's name, you chant Allah's name but do it sincerely." Everyone in the room was satisfied with such a perfect answer. So this is the great example of uniting different communities. If people will sincerely chant the holy name of God and follow their scripture without deviations then communal peace and harmony can easily be achieved. Srila Prabhupada teaches that in this age of quarrel and hypocrisy the only means to reach peace and love is to chant the holy name of Krishna. Dr. Islam liked the story and chanted the holy name of Krishna. Furthermore Airavata Das pointed out another impediment to communal integration. The impediment of fear within people that if they associate with members of other communities too closely, they will loss their religious identity. Religious people generally try to keep their religious identity and in this way become quite sectarian. What is the reason for such fear? The first reason is people have doubts about their own religion. Secondly, an insufficient amount of spiritual knowledge. And thirdly, deficiency in following their own religion. Because people are full of doubts, don't have enough knowledge and don't follow the scriptures properly they develop fear of losing their religious identity. This creates a sense of defensiveness and repulsion towards followers of other religions. We can often observe how religious people aggressively try to defend their religion although no one is actually attacking them or their religion. This is also a psychological problem. This problem also stems from religious leaders who fear losing their followers if they allow their followers to associate closely with members of other communities. Therefore such leaders advise their people to not read other scriptures or go to other places of worship. The only way to mitigate this fear is by education. Spiritual knowledge is the destroyer of all fear. On this point Dr. Islam and Airavata Das agreed to organize a series of interfaith dialogs in Calcutta. Comment on this story  Contact VNN about this storySend this story to a friend
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