30 March 2015 - QA 5

If Jesus was enlightened, why did he not speak about karma and rebirth?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Those day there was no tape recorder, no video cameras, so what he spoke was written 70 years after his passing away (known as the Bible).
He just shared what he knew with people around him. Even now there are some scrolls which says different things.
You should always remember that the Bible was written 70 years after his demise and then it has been re-written and changed so many times over the ages. There are 72 versions of the Bible and 72 sects of Christianity today. Each one says only they are right and the other is not right. An Orthodox Christian will never go to a Catholic Church, a Catholic will never go to a Protestant Church and a Protestant will never go to a Born Again Congregation. These are man-made.

Same way with Buddhism. There was just one Buddha but there are 32 sects of Buddhism. The same has happened with Islam. There was one Prophet Muhammad, but there are so many sects of Islam today and they keep fighting with each other. I would say, do not get into fights and narrow-minded interpretation of scriptures.
People think only they have the key to heaven and everyone else is going to hell. In fact, they create hell for everyone else. Fanaticism is almost in every religion.
Buddha always advocated non-violence but see what is happening today. Similarly, Upanishads always talked about bliss. You can’t even count the number of sects today! There are so many saints, so many philosophies and so many sects.
We should honor everybody and look at the world as a bouquet of flowers. We should celebrate diversity, honor everyone and not be a fanatic. But, you should stick to one path, not shop around taking a little from here and a little from there and then make a hotch-potch of it all. That is not good. Stick to one but have mutual respect for everyone.