Religion of Love–A Book Review

In my opinion the whole thesis is based on the philosophy of pantheism and the approach is made by the services of mankind. Religion of love is the true religious idea but if the approach is made through the service of mankind only, then the process is made imperfect, partial and unscientific.

Raja Mohendra Pratap
World Federation
Prem MohaVidyalaya
P.O. Brindaban.

Dear Raja Sahib,

In continuation of my last post card, I beg to inform you that I have finished the reading of your book Religion of Love. In my opinion the whole thesis is based on the philosophy of pantheism and the approach is made by the services of mankind. Religion of love is the true religious idea but if the approach is made through the service of mankind only, then the process is made imperfect, partial and unscientific.

As you say the waves of the creations are the different aspects, why a particular type of waves namely the mankind should be partially selected and offered services and why other types of waves such as the beasts or birds, the plants and the stone shall not be offered a similar type of services? In that case how can you say that the worship of a stone is sinful while a man who is more than a stone shall be considered as the object of love? These are some of the questions that arise out of a critical study of your book.

If you so desire I can enter into discussions about it and my opinion is that your approach is partial and unscientific. There is no hesitation to accept the principle of the Religion of Lovebecause the Absolute Truth is, as we have known, Godhead Who is sat, cit and ananda. Without ananda there cannot be any love that is an accepted fact. Your delineation of society, friendship and love among the human beings is based on this ananda portion only but you have avoided the other portions of eternity and cognition of God the Whole Soul. Thus the approach is partial and unscientific. The true religion of love is perfectly inculcated in theBhagavad-gita. When we speak of love there must be the object of love and the lover too. Here in this world we find that the object of love and the lover both are the cheater and the cheated in their reciprocal dealings. That is our experience. But the ultimate end being one Whole Soul, the dual existence of the object of lover and the loved loses identity. In that case the eternity and cognizibility of the loved and lover vanish at once. In this way there arises many questions which may be put forward to you for further discussions to adjust your ideas of religion.

Besides you have not quoted any authority for all your statements. So it is more or less dogmatic. If different men put different dogmatic views about religion and its essentials who is to be accepted and who is not be? Therefore the approach shall be and must be authoritative, scientific and universal. Your delineations do not conform to all these necessary things. That is my main contention. If you have time to discuss on it, I shall be glad to substantiate my contentions as far as possible. My basis of arguments will be Bhagavad-gitawhich is the most authoritative, scientific and universal. To summarise the conclusions ofBhagavad-gita it may be said that,

1) God is one and everything is in Him and He is in everything.

2) To render transcendental service unto God is to serve everything that be, just like to water the root of the tree is to water the different branches and numerous leaves of the tree or to supply food to the stomach is to vitalize all the senses and the sense organs of the body.

3) The parts are automatically served when the Whole is served but when the parts are served the whole may not be served or not served at all.

4) The parts and the Whole being eternally related, it is the eternal duty of the parts to render service unto the Whole.

5) A recipient of the services of the parts, God’s sat-cit-ananda vigraha i.e. the all-attractive Cognizant and all-blissful Personality eternal. He can reveal Himself by His own potency without any help of the external potency called maya in order to be cognizable by the limited potency of the parts and as such He is not only the greatest of all but he is the smallest of all. That is His prerogative.

6) He is better realized when He by His causeless mercy agrees to descend in this mortal world but he He is never realised by the partial speculations of the empiric philosophers however systematic and long-termed it may be.

7) Sri Krishna is the Personality of Godhead and is the Summum Bonum Cause of all Causes proved by fact and figures in the statement of Bhagavad-gita, but He reserves the right of not being exposed to the sensual speculations of the empiric philosophers.

8) One should therefore surrender unto Him if one wants to know Him as He is and that is the real process to approach the Infinite by the infinitesimals.

9) Sri Krishna is easily available by the religion of love i.e. by love and service as conceived by the damsels of Vraja who had practically no education whatsoever and much less any claim for high class birth right.

10) The highest service that can be rendered to the mankind is, therefore, to preach the philosophy and religion of Bhagavad-gita for all the times, all the places and all the people.

I hope you may agree with me and thus make a combined effort in this direction for the benefit of the mankind.

Yours sincerely,

Abhay Charan De

HDG A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada