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Koreans were predominantly Buddhists and followers of Confucius but in the last 30 years due to intense activity of Christian missionaries, about 30% of them had become Christians and the conversion goes on. Nearly 40 different denominations of missionaries are active in this small state, with a population of 45 million. Communist North Korea, like Islamic States, does not allow any missionary activity.
Q. Mr. Chowdary! I am going to Papua
New Guinea. What would you expect me to do while in that young country?
A. The country as a State or a
nation may be young but the Papua New Guinea people are ancient people.
They have their own culture, heritage and way of life. While they can take
to all the modern technology of advanced nations for making their lives
less painful and less dependant on the vagaries of nature, none should
interfere with and unsettle their ancient beliefs, culture and social life.
We may give modern education including English that will enable them to
interact with other societies and peoples and nations all over the world
but their faith in themselves, for respect to their ancestry and heritage
should not be unsettled. It is presumptuous on our part to think that spiritualism
is contained only in some faiths which have got the means and power to
spread all over the world. All people being children of God, growing in
their natural surroundings have the right to preserve their heritage. Contacts
with the people may need certain adjustments but they should not be forced;
they should be developed with their full understanding and their realization
of the need for adjustment. In other words, changing the faith of any person
in which he is born, is violence. No God or his Prophet or his messenger
would be right in using violence to gain numbers for his flock.
Q. You are grandfather and a wise
man. What are your hopes and concerns?
A. There is a saying in India that
our Government should be smart.
S … for Simple
M …for Moral
A ... for Accountable
R …for Responsive
T …for Transparent
SMART-We are trying to achieve this by using information technology. My hopes for India are extraordinarily high. The new generation wants education, competitiveness, and economic prosperity. They say, “to hell with you who are talking politics all the time”. They say, we don't want divisiveness. First we want to get out of poverty. We want to push for prosperity. To become rich, not to be rich. To be rich means you presume richness. To become rich means, you endeavour, you work hard and try to quit poverty.
But the danger is all these people are fascinated by America, by what they perceive as the ‘easy life' the 'comfortable life'. A seeming misinterpretation of 'western values' is seen in barebody, dancing, and any number of times of marriage. But if you take civilizations, particularly Christian values, they are very good. They put the preservation of the family as foremost. They tell us to love, and shun violence and so on. Also, western values are human values. So we must go deep into that. The superficial understanding is what causes trouble. That can be overcome by insisting on the grandparents and parents spending considerable time with the children, read the Bible, read any moral story and explain it to them in the context of events that are happening today; in the light of what our Sacred Books have said explain the events to them. The precious gift that a grandfather or a father can give children is time; at least in the night, at the dining table for as long as they can.
Q. Religions should bring the best
out of people. Our World Today is not showing that? Why?
A. The reason is there are a variety
of religions; religions which are exclusive; religion that say 'My God
alone is True God, My religion alone is True, and everybody else must conform
to this'. It is that fundamentalism, that exclusiveness, the intolerance
of thought, that is preventing religions from bringing the best out of
people. I may seek God in my way, you may seek in your way. As long as
they are not causing conflict among human beings, every religion must be
held to be valid. There are other religions, like Christianity which was
thinking once upon a time, that every other religion was false. It no longer
does as far as I understand. They admit that there are other ways, especially
I think that under this Pope, a lot of reform and tolerance and respect
for other religions has come about. They respect native cultures; respect
native values, modes of dress, modes of prayer and so on. It is encouraging
plurality.
Allow me to say this: in Islam this reformation has not come. It did not come because it is violent. If the Mullah or the Imam or the religious priest says this is apostasy or this is not Islam, or you have deviated from the true path, they issue a fatwah, a sentence to kill; like in the case of Salman Rushdie for example. You have forfeited your life and they call on the 'faithful' to kill you, whereas this doesn't happen in Christianity.
Q. Why do you think September 11th
happened?
A. It is because of this exclusive
nature, thinking that “Islam is in danger. America is oppressing all Muslims.
They are not for the Palestinians in Israel. They are taking away our Oil
from the Middle East.” But they have forgotten that the same America bombed
the Serbian Christians because they were oppressing the Muslims. The same
America and the NATO forces intervened in Bosnia and separated the combatants
and ensured the Muslims weren't bashed. The same thing in Macedonia, in
Skopje; NATO intervened to see the minority Muslims don't suffer.
Q. How has your belief in Hinduism
helped your journey in life?
A. It has helped me tremendously.
Firstly it taught me tolerance, and respect for other religions. It has
taught me that Truth is so vast, so complicated that a lifetime is too
short to have an understanding of it. Very few people have realised the
Truth in its several aspects. In our limited knowledge, in our limited
vision we think this is the Truth. Be Happy. But don't deny that what others
are seeing as the Truth is not the Truth. So this helps me to preserve
harmony; not to hate others. This is very very important.
Q. Will technical advances help
India a lot?
A. Technical advances will help
everybody. An invention in one part of today's world will benefit all parts
of the world. Globalisation means that the fruits of Science and Technology
and Trade and the natural resources anywhere spreads through collaboration
for the benefit of all peoples on the planet. Technology is very good.
The fruit of human ingenuity, especially the enlightened, those who are
travelling, seeing other cultures will benefit greatly from modern technology.
Let us emphasize the essential commonness of humanity and forget religious
differences. In that way we will be able to share God's bounty, put on
this planet for all of US.
Q. You must have heard of Mother
Teresa and her work in Calcutta. What do you think about it?
A. Yes, I have heard. I have witnessed.
She was a great lady. She took care of thousands of destitute children,
orphans and the poor. She received lot of money from several sources and
she put them to good use, showering her compassion upon the poor, the abandoned
and the disadvantaged. I must, however, tell you about a question that
was loudly asked in India. Was her work totally motivated only by compassion
for the poor, or was it motivated by the intention to gain converts to
Christianity? She confessed that the gain to Christianity cannot be separated
from the compassion to the poor. Jesus Christ was a very great person.
His care and compassion for the poor was very well known. Whether he himself
wanted his followers to gather harvests of converts is doubtful. But the
missionaries are doing this work. Gandhiji had addressed this issue several
times. Many missionaries came from several countries with lots of money
and programmes of preaching and ministering to the poor and the destitute
and the sick. Gandhiji was greatly impressed by the Sermon on the Mount.
He said he was not concerned about the historic person of Jesus Christ.
The non-violence and non-hatred even for the tormentors and compassion
to poor preached and practiced by Jesus Christ greatly appealed to Gandhiji.
Missionaries wanted to convert him. Gandhiji steadfastly refused to be
converted. He said that there was enough spirituality within the Indian
faiths and the people have plenty of it. They needed no more from the Christian
missionaries. He was asked by the missionaries whether when India gained
independence Gandhiji would ban the work of conversion by missionaries.
Gandhiji replied without mincing any words that if he had the power, he
would certainly ban conversion work. He further asked the missionaries:
“Don't you have poor people in your country, America. Cannot your munificence
and plenty of resources be utilized to mitigate the pain of poverty among
your own countrymen? Ignoring them, why do you have to come to India? Is
it not for the sole purpose of gaining converts with ministration to the
poor becoming an instrument?”
I am a Hindu. I have no problem
in accepting Jesus Christ as a man of God, even as an Avatara (incarnation)
and place him among the several Gods that we worship. For us 'several Gods'
does not mean that there is more than one God. A person may worship that
aspect of God which is most appealing and dear to him. If it is knowledge,
God is worshipped in the name and form of Saraswathy; if it is plenty and
prosperity, God is worshipped in the name and form of Lakshmi; if it is
power, God is worshipped in the name and form of Krishna; if it is chastisement
of the wicked and unrighteous, God is worshipped in the name and form of
Rama and so on. Worshipping one aspect of Godhood is not denying the other
aspects or the oneness of all divinity. That is why the Hindus are so tolerant
and all-inclusive, in contrast to those who believe that their concept
of God and form of God and belief and what is contained in their book alone
are true and valid.
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