Akhil Gupta’s Bridges Across Humanity explores the often-overlooked commonalities woven through the world’s major religions.
The author explores the shared values and wisdom that bring us together across cultures. Through 54 universal themes, Gupta offers a compelling perspective on how a deeper understanding of these connections could help foster unity in a divided world. Here is an excerpt.
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I remember when my classmate from Stanford Business School, Dan Rudolph, then the COO of Stanford Business School visited me in India from California with his family. His two daughters, seven and nine years old respectively, who were raised in a devout Christian family got quite fascinated by Hindu mythology during their visit to India. They carried home small figurines of Lakshmi (the goddess of wealth), Saraswati (the goddess of knowledge) and Ganesha (the god of fortune). Later one day, when one of the daughters was going to school in California, her mom anxiously wished her good luck for her test. She reassured her mother with the open-hearted, playful confidence younger children so often display: ‘Mom, nothing to worry about. I’ve got Ganesha in one pocket and Saraswati in the other pocket so I’m completely taken care of!’ In our innocence, and as children, we can quite easily and naturally incorporate the concepts of different religions and mythologies into our lives.
I was born in Old Delhi which, to this day, remains one of the most religiously pluralistic places in the world. As a child, I was exposed to the living traditions of many religions and used to be fascinated by the diversity and the commonalities across religions. In adulthood, these commonalities were reinforced through more text-based theological evidence as I looked more closely at the scriptures of all major religions.
Initially, this lesson came to me through the teachings of my parents and a particular scriptural passage (I.164.46) from the Rig Veda: ‘Ekam sat vipra bahuda vadanti’ (‘Truth is one, but the wise men know it as many’). [AD1] This is echoed in the Qur’an, which affirms that the same truth is being spoken in ‘monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques, in which The name of god is commemorated In abundant measure.’ (22:40) Similarly, Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism (the fifth largest religion in the world with twenty-five million followers) taught that, ‘There is one god, named truth, the creator, without fear, without hate, timeless in form, beyond birth, self-existent, (known by) the grace of the Guru.’
In brief, regardless of whether or not the specific term, ‘god’, is used, all religions revolve around the search for some ultimate first principle of existence—whether or not this first principle is depicted as a single conscious being, a plurality of conscious beings, or as an impersonal force; these are all human-made metaphors for the same something that cannot be perceived by us directly.
Thus, it is only natural for the same god to be understood differently across all religions, as all appearances are simply metaphorical approximations meant to illustrate certain aspects of god. Each religion has its own beliefs about how god should be imagined and worshipped, but this does not mean we are all imagining a different god.
In the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, this concept is explained beautifully by the Buddha:
“Objects are frequently known by different names according to different aspects that they present— the god Indra is sometimes known as Shakra, and sometimes as Purandara. These different names are sometimes used interchangeably and sometimes they are discriminated, but different objects are not to be imagined because of the different names, nor are they without individuation. The same can be said of myself as I appear in this world of patience before ignorant people and where I am known by uncounted trillions of names. They address me by different names not realizing that they are all names of the one Tathagata.”
In Hinduism, God is thought to be far too mysterious and all-encompassing to be accurately depicted within a single representation. So instead, Hindus depict god in the form of a vast pantheon of beings (‘gods’) with both human-like and animal-like qualities that each represent the different ways through which God is manifested throughout the universe. This allows each Hindu to form their own personal connection to God based on each person’s subjective preference for one or more of these representations over others. Devdatt Patnaik, an Indian mythologist and author, sums this up well, writing, ‘The idea of 330 million Hindu deities is a metaphor for the countless forms by which the divine makes itself accessible to the human mind.’
Because we are all different, we all imagine god in different ways, and Hindus are very conscious of this fact in their rituals of worship. The particular conception of god that each person chooses to implement in pursuing this shared goal of seeking connection with god is akin to one liking the color yellow while the other likes green. The god or goddess you choose to focus on is simply a personal choice; it doesn’t indicate any kind of superiority or inferiority in one’s particular form of belief or worship. What matters is the intention and practice itself. While a particular deity can help you deepen your intention in worship, it doesn’t make your god or goddess better than anyone else’s god or goddess.
Hinduism is, therefore, considered to be an example of a style of worship known as ‘henotheism,’ in which the existence of a single and overarching God is recognized alongside the more direct worship of lesser gods and goddesses; there are many examples of henotheism outside of Hinduism also. One example we can point toward is the Yoruba religious tradition of West Africa, where everyone strives toward connection with the supreme god, Olorun (also known as Olodomare). This is done primarily through fostering a personal connection with one of the ‘Orishas,’ or anthropomorphic intermediate gods that embody different qualities of Olorun.
Another ancient example of this is the ancient Egyptian religious movement of ‘Atenism,’ which briefly existed alongside the otherwise polytheistic religious culture of the region and is often viewed as the earliest example of monotheism in human history. Excerpts from the ‘Great Hymn to the Aten,’ composed in the 14th century BCE, certainly displays a striking resemblance to scriptural texts from the Abrahamic monotheistic religions:
O sole god, like whom there is no other!
Thou didst create the world according to thy desire,
Whilst thou wert alone: All men, cattle, and wild beasts,
Whatever is on Earth, going upon (its) feet,
And what is on high, flying with its wings.
But perhaps the most familiar example of henotheism for a Western audience is the religious landscape of ancient Greece, where each polis (city-state) was typically dedicated to a particular god or goddess, like Athens, which was named after the patron goddess of the city, Athena. Likewise, three of the major strains of Hindu worship—Vaishnavism, Shaivism and Shaktism—involve a preferential focus on the gods, Vishnu and Shiva, and the goddess, Shakti, all of whom are anthropomorphically depicted in the forms of statues and murals within their corresponding temples, just as statues of Athena and other gods and goddesses were common focal points in ancient Greek religion. These local gods are paradoxically worshipped as though they are the god, but still, the existence of One god—Zeus and Brahman, respectively in these cases—is not forgotten.
Even the god of the Western monotheistic religions is not confined to a single representation. In the Hebrew Bible, God tells Moses that ‘You cannot see my face, for man may not see me and live.’ (Exodus 33:20)
Because of this, God must take on the forms of things that are more familiar to human beings: a burning bush, a pillar of fire, a pillar of a cloud, a booming voice or a whisper. Furthermore, there are passages from other works of Jewish literature that closely echo the Hindu concept of seeing god in many forms, like the following, from the Jewish Talmudic writings:
‘[T]he Holy One said: Because you see Me in many guises, do not imagine that there are many gods.’ So even scripturally, god is said to recognize the fact that human beings cannot possibly comprehend his true nature except by means of indirect representation, or through a plurality of forms.
The words of scriptures, prophets, and other messengers of god remind us that religions are aware of their own metaphorical nature. Nevertheless, God is understood to be One, as reflected in the most important Jewish prayer, ‘Sh'ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Eḥad,’ which translates to ‘Hear, Israel: Yahweh is our God. Yahweh is one.’ (Deuteronomy 6:4)
Similarly, the most central component of worship for Muslims is the frequent affirmation of God’s oneness (known as ‘Tawhid’) through recitation of the phrase, ‘La illaha illallah’ (no god but Allah). This is also expressed clearly in the Qur’an: ‘And your God is one God; there is no god but He Most Gracious Most Merciful.’ (2:163)
And still, Muslims too represent God in a plurality of forms—not visually, but through the ninety-nine names for God in the Qur’an, which once again represent different qualities of the same one God. Rounding out the three Abrahamic religions, all Christians believe that God is one, but many sects also believe in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity: that this one god is manifested as the father, the son (Jesus Christ) and the holy spirit.
But what about the so-called ‘nontheistic’ religious traditions like Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism? Actually, there are cases to be made here as well for the acknowledgement of one god. The main reason why the concept of God seems to be absent from these religions has to do with the degree of emphasis placed on god itself. As opposed to the Western monotheisms, in which everyday worship is centered around god, actual lived religion (as in the above-named religions) has very little to do with god directly. God is seen as too transcendent to foster a clear relationship with, and so, worship focuses more on spirits, ancestors and cosmic forces of cause and effect.
As scholar of religion, Todd Tremlin, observes, ‘in religions that teach the existence of some ultimate power or impersonal divinity—the forces of Tao, Brahman, and Buddha-nature, the creator gods of many African tribes and of early American deists—such ideas are almost completely ignored in favor of more personal and practical deities.’
For instance, Heaven (‘Tian,’ which literally translates to ‘sky’) is the term used in Chinese religious traditions for an abstract and impersonal power that is sometimes seen as analogous to god. In the Analects of Confucius, one of his companions remarks that, ‘Life and death are a matter of destiny; wealth and honor rest with Heaven.’ Heaven is not represented anthropomorphically, and hence, is not a popular target of day-to-day worship. However, it is still thought to be very powerful and influential with respect to human life.
A closer analog to god in Confucius’ day might be the anthropomorphic god called ‘Shang-di,’ or simply, ‘Di,’ a supreme god ruling over a pantheon of other anthropomorphic deities that were thought to directly affect people’s welfare. But neither, Tian nor Di—powerful and important as they are—find their way prominently into the mainstream religiosity of China, then or now. In the case of ancient China during the emergence of Daoism and Confucianism, scholar Ruth H. Ching describes the phenomenon of focusing attention on local gods rather than the one god:
While the official religion focused on a supreme Heaven, people outside the ruling court, however, mainly worshipped local cults and deities. They were more concerned with the practical abilities of divinity, and their conception of gods and spirits concentrated on things that affected people's welfare. Making propitiation was of greater importance than understanding where the powers came from, or why the powers even existed at all.
From personal experience, I can confidently say that this description could just as well apply to the religious landscape of India.
Finally, Buddhism is normally seen as completely atheistic, rejecting the existence of god. Specifically, however, the Buddha rejected the idea of a creator god. So Buddhists do reject the existence of a personal or conscious god who created the universe, but, as the popular author and Buddhist monk, Nyanaponika Thera, explains, they still recognize the truth of experiences that people associate with god.
The lives and writings of the mystics of all great religions bear witness to religious experiences of great intensity, in which considerable changes are effected in the quality of consciousness […] This relative unification of mind is then interpreted as a union or communion with the One God […] The psychological facts underlying those religious experiences are accepted by the Buddhist and are well-known to him; but he carefully distinguishes the experiences themselves from the theological interpretations imposed upon them.
Thus, Buddhism recognizes and affirms those experiences across religions which are normally described as a communion with god, even acknowledging the commonality of this experience across religions. But what other religions call god, Buddhism simply declines to call by any name other than psychological experience, abiding in the unknowable mystery of any ultimate source of experience and creation. The difference lies only in the way we make meaning differently out of the same experiences, which is largely just a result of our differing cultural contexts.
We all stand on the same earth and below the same sun and moon, which provide us with the same light. We are born the same way, in our mother’s womb, as a result of the union between the egg of our mother and the sperm of our father and, according to the National Human Genome Research Institute, 99.9 percent of our genes are identical.
We all have the same anatomy, the same internal systems—the digestive, circulatory, endocrinal, excretory, respiratory and immune systems, which are the same across the human species. The basic structure of our brains and nervous system is the same. The chemical composition that runs through our veins is within the same expected range, regardless of skin colour, ethnicity, etc. We have the same emotions—joy, anger, sadness, curiosity, fear, etc.—and similar facial expressions correspond to those emotions. The instinctive love a mother feels for her child has always been the same across all human civilizations. If there was a different god responsible for creating each of the world’s major civilizations, wouldn’t we expect to see different structures of life in those populations? It should, therefore, be a natural corollary for all religions to agree that human beings across the world, and throughout history, have all been worshipping the same god and that we were all created by the same god; we are children of the same god, though we still may have our differences over how this god should be worshipped.
The unity and affinity between humankind can and should be a reality because we are all children of the same god. However, a lack of religious literacy and genuine interfaith dialogue has created a rift between us, fuelled by the misguided impression that differences across religions can never be reconciled. There are several vested interests that want to create a separate identity for people of different faiths and spread false narratives of one god being superior to another. Our commonalities become clearer when we remind ourselves of our shared biology and cognitive structures, as well as the fact that many ideas and stories from across religions are meant to be interpreted metaphorically rather than literally. DM
You can purchase Bridges Across Humanity: Different Religions, Similar Teachings here.
Akhil Gupta is the founder and director of the Universal Enlightenment Forum and has been associated with Harvard University since 2015. He began as a fellow at Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative in 2015–2016, later served as an Impact Leader-in-Residence in 2023, and has been a frequent guest at Harvard Divinity School since 2017. Gupta is the former chairman of Blackstone India and the former CEO of corporate development at Reliance Industries.