Kingdom of God

What is the Kingdom of God or Dharma Rajya? For our purpose it is a kingdom of truth and justice, of peace and reconciliation, of tolerance and forgiveness, and of mercy and compassion cemented together by unrequited love. Truth sheds lights on everything. Justice takes everyone into account so that all get their due. Forgiveness and reconciliation demonstrate that we are fallible, make mistakes, and we can repair any damage and restore relationships. They spell out hope and trust. Our trust in humanity brings about growth in serene peace. Tolerance is required in a multi-cultural and multi-national world. It is not agreement or acquiescence but saying respectfully what needs to be said, and boldly doing what needs to be done without violating others’ rights. We sorely need to learn the art of learning to agree to disagree in a respectful and compassionate way. Joy and satisfaction result from harmonious living guided by love that makes up for one another’s fallibility. This then for me is the Kingdom of God. This is possible. Here there is safety and security for all; no fear and anxiety for anyone. This is the only heaven I can know on this earth while I keep my faith for a heaven to come after this life or simply dissolve into Eternal Consciousness losing my identity. While I have my identity on this earth, however fragile it is, I want to work for this kingdom that all can enjoy.

While working for this kingdom of God we cannot afford to repeat certain historical mistakes. Hitler came and perished with his big time ethnic elimination. There is still ethnic and religious cleansing going on in different parts of the world. Authoritarian communism failed. Revised or modified authoritarian communism seems to be making economic progress in China. We do not know how long it will last. We do not know how long vicious and all-consuming capitalism will hold sway. One nation (Palestine) that needed to be born long ago in 1948 keeps on being aborted in the face of humanity making the entire humanity a laughing-stock. While Zionism from mostly Europe and North-America strategically created a Jewish state of Israel in the middle East by systematically buying up Palestinian Muslim properties through money power, there are concerns in certain quarters, expressed not too obviously, that oil wealth gulf and Muslim countries learned a great deal from Zionism, and are swallowing up properties in other parts of the world to bring about Islamic dispensation and hegemony in the world without Jihad that causes blood-shed. Interestingly the fundamentalist Muslims are doing this using the very freedom in other countries that they negate persons of other religions in their own countries. To cite one example, there is no religious freedom in Saudi Arabia, the heart of Islam. Another accusation leveled against Islam is expansion and propagation of Muslim population through encouragement of births. While there are many Christian missionaries involved in the work of conversion, there are a few enlightened Christians who are happy with merely witnessing to Christ’s teachings without conversion.

My long religious life and associations with various religions, I have come to the conclusion that we need a spirituality beyond religions that can be enshrined in the Kingdom of God, and that is the driving force behind every action. In the Kingdom of God, people of all religions can come together and work for the betterment and all-round development of humanity that is truly the body of God. In this kingdom, all are treated with respect as God’s children. All are well taken care of as brothers and sisters. All are loved and cared for. All can practice their religions and worship the gods that their religions created in the way they feel right in their conscience as long as they do not violate fundamental human rights of others. The time has come for this great endeavor.

Swami (Dr) Snehananda Jyoti