Spiritual Pluralism Quotes

The Bible is as much a book of religion with me as the Gita and the Koran.

God can be realized through all paths. All religions are true. The important thing is to reach the roof. You can reach it by stone stairs or by wooden stairs or by bamboo steps or by a rope. You can also climb up by a bamboo pole.

To me, I think it's this thing of everyone wanting to make Jesus the Son of God and Jesus the only way to God that is the thing that no longer makes me want to be a Christian.

I was raised in Hawaii in what I call a 'faith-inclusive' family. I never felt I had to choose loyalty to the New Testament over the Bhagavad Gita. It really wasn't until my late teens that I became aware of the ugly concept of sectarianism.

It is against my religion to impose my religion.

All gods have good points, just as have all priests

I came to the conclusion long ago that all religions were true and that also that all had some error in them, and while I hold by my own religion, I should hold other religions as dear as Hinduism. So we can only pray, if we were Hindus, not that a Christian should become a Hindu; but our innermost prayer should be that a Hindu should become a better Hindu, a Muslim a better Muslim, and a Christian a better Christian.

God [is] not the exclusive property of any one tradition. The divine light [cannot] be confined to a single lamp, belonging to the East or the West, but enlightens all human beings.

I grew up around a lot of various religions, so it's a part of my consciousness in a way. Everything from heavy Catholicism to followers of Indian spiritual masters to Unitarian universalists - all in one family. Though the family aspect was stronger than any particular dogma.

We believe that God is big enough to give every nationality their own religion, as he's given them their own taste in food, in plants, in furniture, and housing. I think that each religion has their basic Christ-ish way to get to the Everlasting God.

Our country does not believe in the concept of your God and my God. We believe that all gods are one. We have different ways of accepting Him. All ways lead to Him.

We believe in Sarva Pantha Sambhav. We believe 'the truth is one, there are ways to reach it.

It is great good health to believe, as the Hindus do, that there are 33 million gods and goddesses in the world. It is great good health to want to understand one's dreams. It is great good health to desire the ambiguous and paradoxical.

One Buddha is not enough; we need to have many Buddhas.

There are as many versions of God as there are people in the world.

Beyond the Catholic exclusionary paradigm is a larger one which is the Christian one. Christians claim that if you don't believe in Christ, you can't get to heaven. Well that eliminates two thirds of the world's population!

I don't try to define the cosmos, I know it's unknowable, but I can understand my place in the world and my place in the universe through a mixture of Taoism, Catholicism, Zen or whatever I have at hand.

The long march of Western civilization from pantheons of gods for every taste to one God for all has been thrown into reverse by celebrity worship to give us a plethora of ancient deities to follow.

It is impossible for me to reconcile myself to the idea of conversion after the style that goes on in India and elsewhere today. It is an error which is perhaps the greatest impediment to the world's progress toward peace. ... Why should a Christian want to convert a Hindu to Christianity? Why should he not be satisfied if the Hindu is a good or godly man?

I'm not really hip to too much of the Zen or the Buddhist point of view, but you see I don't have to be because I just know that they're all the same, it's all the same, it's just whichever one you want to take and it happens that I'm taking the Hindu one.