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I would wish you “Merry Christmas” but you might have an issue with that, so I won’t. (It’s a pity, though, because Christmas is a festival celebrated all over the world by Christians and non-Christians alike and has a charm all its own.)

First, allow me to introduce myself. I am a teacher. I work with teenagers in schools in North India and help them navigate their adolescent years which, by all indications are getting increasingly difficult each passing year.

I am also a Hindu. The difference between you and me, though, most likely, is that that is not my primary identity. I am a human being and an Indian first and foremost (as are you). Everything else is secondary. 

I believe all humans are worthy of dignity and respect, regardless of their caste, creed, background or religion. What do you believe?

Incidentally, I received my primary education at a Ramakrishna Mission School in New Delhi. Because of the nature of the school, I got quite a grounding in the Hindu scriptures, but at no point do I remember our teachers (who were sanyasinis) teaching us to hate other religions or consider ours supreme, the way many of you do.

In fact, one of the first things I remember memorising as a child was Narendra Nath Dutta (Swami Vivekanand’s) speech to the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893. He began his speech by reminding his audience that there were many ways of reaching the divine: 

“Sisters and Brothers of America,

I will quote to you…a few lines from a hymn which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is every day repeated by millions of human beings:

“As the different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their water in the sea, so, O Lord, the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.”

He then went on to give an admonition that is worth pondering:

“Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization, and sent whole........

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