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European : If then the Hindu shastras are to be taken as the guide for all humanity and if all the persons born are, in your view, borin in your religion, how do you account for the prevalence of other faiths?

Swamigal : It is their fault that they do not recognize that they are but aspects of the Sanathana Dharma. The highest teachings if any other religion do find a place in our religion and are but a phase of the ordinary law laid down there

European: Dont you think, swamiji,that your claim will sound somewhat over-high and that the others may not be disposed to concede it?

Swamigal : The disposition of others to the claim of hinduism is besides the point, for the intrinsic worth of something is always there whether one concedes it or not. As for the claim being high, I desire to point it out to you, that I cannot put it any lower.

European: How is that?

Swamigal: ( Swamigal takes the example of christianity to show that as per Christianity those born before christ are denied salvation) Further dont you think it is unfair on the part of God that He should wake up on a particular day and prescribe for all mankind a necessary condition for salvation? Did he forget that all people who had the misfortune to be born before Jesus had souls to save? If he did not forget did he take care to prescribe for them, the means necessary to enable them to attain salvation? If he did so prescribe his prescription could not possibly have included a belief in the Jesus to be born. Therefore the only hypothesis ,which a reasonable man accept , is that God, when he created the first man,himself simultaneously promulgated also the means for his salvation, for even the first man was in need for salvation.We accordingly say of our Vedas that they were coeval with the first man and that they were revelations of God himself. Any religion which traces its origin from a later time,any time after creation, and from any teacher other than God, is bound to be imperfect and short lived.