While religious practices along with a focus on rituals and traditions are common in many parts of the world, there are nations for whom religion is less important, for instance the Scandinavian countries, and categories of people who reject religion, such as Marxists, materialists, humanists and some scientists. There are others who are deeply spiritual, and yet either reject all formal religion, or, believe in the unity and oneness of all religions. In India, right from ancient times, there are people in both these latter categories.

Beginning with the Upanishads, the deepest spirituality is explained by the Rishis who composed these.  The Upanishads form the fourth category of Vedic texts, following the four Vedic Samhitas (the Rig Veda, Yajur Veda, Sama Veda and Atharva Veda), the Brahmanas, which explain aspects of ritual and include several stories, and the Aranyakas, which include esoteric rituals and their symbolism.

The Upanishads are called Vedanta, ‘the end of the Vedas’, both because they form the last part of the Vedas, and because in them, the Vedas reach the ultimate or highest philosophy.

The focus of these texts, the earliest of which probably belong to the 8th century BCE, is that the aim of life is the discovery of Brahman, the Absolute, the One Reality underlying the world, the eternal, unchangeable, beginning and end of all.

In the Upanishads are the famous ‘mahavakyas’, the key statements, that affirm that  everything is One, and that there is no second, no other.  Those who understand these texts would see all life as part of one unity, and all religions as part of a whole.

 As time passed, there were many in India who discovered the same truth, including Kabir, Guru Nanak, Sai Baba of Shirdi and various Sufis. Closer to our times we have several more, among them Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, who arrived at the ultimate truth through each religion in turn, Ramana Maharshi who explored Vedanta, and too many others to mention. Then there are some who took a step further and clearly saw that the religions, as they existed, had crystallised and were stagnant, and something new was required to express the truth.  A few examples are below.

Known for his profound teachings expressed with the greatest simplicity, Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986) often spoke on religion, and in his last talk, he summed up his ideas.

He said that from the beginning of time, people have found solace in religion, have ‘worshipped the stars, the suns, the moons and their own creations; there has been tremendous endeavour, effort, energy, spent on ancient temples, mosques and the churches’, but one can ask why. Is it out of fear or out of seeking a reward, “from a refrigerator to a car to a better wife, or better husband, or you wait for grace, something that you can hope for, cling to.

This has been the history of all religions. God and money are always together; the Catholic Church has tremendous treasures. You have it here, too, in your various temples, puja and worship and all that triviality; all that is really nonsense. We are trying to find out by enquiring very, very deeply what religion is; it is obviously not all this moneymaking stuff.

We are asking: What is that, which is nameless, which is the supreme intelligence, which has no relationship with all our prayers, with all our gods, temples, mosques, churches? That's all man-made. Any intelligent man must put all that aside and not become cynical, not become merely sceptical, but have a brain that's really active, a brain that enquires into everything, not only the outside world.

Have we got a brain that is enquiring into its own thoughts, into its own consciousness, into its own pains, sufferings, all the rest of it? Have we got such a brain?” Uppaluri Gopala Krishnamurti, popularly known as ‘UG’,  (1918-2007) did not give formal lectures or write books, but had a number of disciples, some of whom recorded his conversations and dialogues.

One of his biographers, Mahesh Bhatt says of him: “UG shuns religious persons, ridicules social reformers, condemns saints, speaks with disgust about sadhakas (spiritual aspirants), detests the chanting of the Vedas or the recitation of the Upanishads and is full of rage when one speaks of Shankara or the Buddha.” UG came to this point after many years of being a spiritual seeker. He said, “I was surrounded by all kinds of religious people….There was a wide gap between what they believed and how they lived.” He did not provide solutions, but exploring for himself, he reached a new state of consciousness and believed that one had to leave all past religions behind.

Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950) put forward a vast and profound philosophy and did not feel that any religion of the past or present contained the whole truth. As he said, “Truth cannot be shut up in a single book, Bible or Veda or Koran, or in a single religion.

The divine being is eternal and universal…All religions have some truth in them, but none has the whole truth; all are created in time and finally decline and perish.”  In his philosophy, he put forward the theory of spiritual evolution.

Scientists recognise that human beings are the product of evolution, but Sri Aurobindo affirmed that they are still evolving, moving towards a higher entity, not only physically, but spiritually, and if one can become conscious of this, the evolution would take place quicker.Mirra Alfassa, known as the Mother, Sri Aurobindo’s companion and counterpart, said, “Religious teaching belongs to the past and halts progress.

Spiritual teaching is the teaching of the future—it illumines the consciousness and prepares it for the future realisation. Spiritual teaching is above religions and strives towards global Truth.” She added that a new world was being born, though it still could not be perceived. When the new creation was realised, there would be no religions and no gods and life would reveal itself in forms representing divine unity.

New age movements across the world express similar ideas. Many believe that the world is moving towards a way of living that would transcend individual religions, nations and boundaries.

Apart from these, even physicists have their own concepts, and finally we look at the ideas of one physicist and futurist, Michio Kaku (b.1947). Based on the trends in quantum physics, Kaku, professor of theoretical physics in New York, predicts a different kind of life in the future with a new type of human being, but unlike the new human being of philosophers, this would be created by science. Science has made so many advances, he says, that one hundred years later we will have the powers that are attributed to gods today—not through magic wands or potions, but through nanotechnology, computers, artificial intelligence, biotechnology and quantum theory.

But he also provides a warning. Science, he explains, is a double-edged sword, and adds, “There are two competing trends in the world today: one is to create a planetary civilisation that is tolerant, scientific, and prosperous, but the other glorifies anarchy and ignorance that could rip the fabric of our society. We still have the same sectarian, fundamentalist, irrational passions of our ancestors but the difference is that now we have nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.”

Thus when we look at prevailing conditions, it may be good to study the ideas of the Upanishads, of deeply spiritual and philosophical people, and of physicists and other scientists, and thus develop a broader view of religion, life and the world.

(A PhD in ancient Indian History, the writer lives in Dehradun and has authored more than ten books. Views expressed are personal)