At the end of his talk aboard the SS Volendam on the deeper side of life, Hazrat Inayat Khan was asked a question about finding common ground between Buddhism and Christianity. Of course Hazrat Inayat himself was not a Buddhist but presumably the question was put to him because he had referred to the Buddha during his talk. In reply, and as he did on numerous occasions, he declared that in truth there is only one religion, and all the different faiths, such as Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam and the rest, are forms given to help a particular community.

This is difficult for many people to understand, and the more committed one is to one’s faith or church, the more puzzling it becomes–especially as ‘faithfulness’ is strongly emphasised in most religions, and to consider that another way might have some validity may appear to be a betrayal of one’s promise to God. In order to grasp what Hazrat Inayat is saying, we need to rise–by a few centimetres at least!–above the denseness of the earth and the distinctions and differences that divide mankind.

What most people consider to be ‘religion’ is the outer form, the rituals, rules and regulations, and even the characteristic architecture that are the tangible expressions of some unwordable inner truth. What is more, those expressions quite naturally have been shaped in ways that can be helpful to the people receiving the message. If a nation lives by the sea, and the people fish for their living, it would make no sense to give them metaphors about flocks and lambs on the mountainside. And Murshid Hidayat was very fond of quoting his father, who said, “The Chinese Buddha has Chinese eyes.” The meaning of this becomes clear when we consider that historically, Shakyamuni Buddha would not have looked Chinese, for he came from northern India.

Perhaps, in order to get beyond ‘religious’ differences, we could think of the image of an orchestra: there are many, highly trained musicians, each one deeply committed to his or her instrument–the violinist to the violin, the flautist to the flute, and so on. But if, like Nasruddin in the story of the lecture, each is simply waiting for the other players to get out of the way so they can at last produce their beloved tones, then the orchestra will not play well. The Composer has given each one a part to play, and they must play together in harmony. Appreciating the notes of others does not diminish our love for our own chosen instrument; quite the contrary, it offers us a much richer experience, and a deeper understanding of the music of life.

Behind every form, and especially the forms of religion, there is beauty, but forms both reveal and conceal; if we look past the form to the beauty which it hides, we may begin to see the unity of all religion, and understand that every human with an open heart can contain the truth of every faith.