Robert R. C. Zaehner (1913-1974)

[KALKI]

Robert R. C. Zaehner (1913-1974) British historian of religion who investigated the evolution of ethical systems and forms of mysticism, particularly in Eastern religions. The son of Swiss parents who had immigrated to England, Zaehner studied Oriental languages at the University of Oxford. Author of several books including Hindu Scriptures, and Hinduism.

Zaehner said “Hindus do not think of religious truths in dogmatic terms.” and Hindus say, “dogmas can’t be eternal, only the transitory distorting images of truth that transcends not only them but all verbal definitions.”

And then Zaehner goes on to say, “for the passion for dogmatic certainty that has racked the religions of Semitic origins, from Judaism itself through Christianity and Islam to Marxism they feel nothing but shocked incomprehension.”

(source: How certain should we be, the problem of religious pluralism – By Mark Tully).

It was the sublime ancient tolerance of Hinduism that he often stressed, that was the true proof of the wisdom and mature dignity of the Hindu tradition.

"In the family of religions, Hinduism is the wise old all-knowing mother. Its sacred books, the Vedas, claim, 'Truth is one, but sages call it by different names.' If only Islam, and all the rest of the monotheistic 'book' religions, had learned that lesson, all the horror of history's religious wars could have been avoided. Which other religion has its God say, as Krishna does in the Bhagavad Gita, 'All paths lead to me.'

"If only the Church had the sense to allow so many different and seemingly contradictory approaches to God, how much saner its history would have been!"

He also observed that all traditional poems and meditations and philosophical texts of Hinduism are "different-shaped peaks in one vast, grand, interconnected mountain chain, like the Himalayas."

(source: Teachings of Hindu Mystics - By Andrew Harvey p. xv - xviii).