The Best Religion

The best religion?

The following is a brief dialogue between a bearded scholar and a religious guru.

In a round table discussion about religion and freedom in which many scholars and gurus were presenting ideas and opinions as to how to make the world a better place, the following conversation between two participants took place at a recess...

A bearded scholar maliciously, and also with interest, asked a religious guru: "Hi guru, what is the best religion?"


The bearded man thought the guru would say: "My own religion" or "The oriental religions, much older than Christianity."

The guru paused for a while, smiled and looked at the bearded man in the eyes, which surprised him because the bearded man knew of the malice contained in his own question.

The guru answered: "The best religion is the one that gets you closest to God. It is the one that makes you a better person."

To get out of his embarrassment with such a wise answer, the bearded man asked: "What is it that makes me better?"

The guru responded: "Whatever makes you more Compassionate, more Sensible, more Detached, more Loving, more Humanitarian, more Responsible, more Ethical."

"The religion that will do that for you is the best religion."

Hearing this, the bearded man was silent for a moment, marveling and even today thinking of his wise and irrefutable response:

"I am not interested, my friend, about your religion or if you are religious or not. What really is important to me is your behaviour in front of your peers, family, work, community, and in front of the world."

"Remember, the universe is the echo of our actions and our thoughts."

"The law of action and reaction is not exclusively for physics. It is also of human relations. If I act with goodness, I will receive goodness. If I act with evil, I will get evil."

"What our grandparents told us is the pure truth. You will always have what you desire for others. Being happy is not a matter of destiny. It is a matter of options."

Finally he said:

"Take care of your Thoughts because they become Words.
Take care of your Words because they will become Actions.
Take care of your Actions because they will become Habits.
Take care of your Habits because they will form your Character.
Take care of your Character because it will form your Destiny,
and your Destiny will be your Life..."

"and..."

"There is no religion higher than the Truth."



PS:
1) In case you're interested, the bearded scholar is Brazilian theologist Leonardo Boff and the religious guru is the Dalai Lama.

2) Subjects and greetings of the conversations modified for mysterious presentation to initially hide the identities of the two beings. Ha!

3) I got this from an email circulation and it seems to be in a few blogs and discussion groups. I presume the conversation really took place.