I am honoured to be invited to address this auspicious gathering of the 5th All India Seminar conducted by the Forum for religious Dialogue in connection with the Kumbha Mela. The Kumbha Mela is the ancient pilgrimage to the locations where the legendary amrita the nectar of immortality fell. After visiting the Kumbha Mela of 1895, Mark Twain wrote in "Following the Equator: A journey around the world"

"It is wonderful, the power of a faith like that, that can make multitudes upon multitudes of the old and weak and the young and frail enter without hesitation or complaint upon such incredible journeys and endure the resultant miseries without repining.”

Pilgrimage is a basic concept in all religions. For the Jews it means the Exodus from the land of afflictions and slavery into the Promised Land where milk and honey flow. In Islam Hajj is a primary duty of a Muslim which is a pilgrimage to the holy places. The Buddhist life is permeated by dharmam saranam gachami, Sangam saranam gachami and buddhanm saranam gachami which is a walking in communion to that eternal repose and bliss. The Christian community, the Church considers itself a pilgrim to the kingdom of God. The medieval Church considered its pilgrimage to the Holy Land a matter of forgiveness of sins.

However there is always thinking and rethinking about life’s pilgrimage through time and place to the dusk of life. The concept of pilgrimage tells me that man is a pilgrim in this world. He has no permanent abode here; he is bird of passage, a stranger who walks on without clinging to this world. It tells you and me to travel with less luggage serving the Ultimate and getting the heavenly blessings. What does serving the Lord and getting his blessing imply?

Journey of travelling with special dress and abstinence to a definite place denoted as holy is only one perhaps ritual aspect of it. Thinkers have differed in articulation of the journey, but all seem to think that it is a journey to God or the Absolute bliss, the paradise, the truth. How do I travel to God or the Truth who is my absolute future or my destination?

The topic of your seminar is the concept of the other in religions. In the Advaita Philosophy there is no distinction between ‘I’ and the ‘Other’ – tat tvam asi. In Visista Advaita it is a distinction within the one Brahman. In Dvaita Philosophy there is an entitative distinction between ‘I’ and the ‘Other.’ There are also atheistic Indian philosophical schools in which there are others, but not the ‘Other.’ As far as I am concerned, I have to ask who is the other for me a Christian? The other can have two meanings, the other as the ‘Other’, the ultimate ‘Other’ who is my God. Secondly the other as other who is the other person, without qualifications of race colour, nationality. The other here can mean any one who is not myself, the unqualified alien, the foreigner, the stranger, who may be of any religion or atheist, any one who may or may not have a name.

According to the Bible especially the Old Testament God the absolute Other cannot be named. The unnameable Other has to be served and approached in the other who includes the alien, the stranger and the widow. It is then that one becomes just or righteous who is worthy of the eternal paradise. To me as Christian, Christ is the Alpha and Omega of my life’s pilgrimage – the beginning and end of my life. In the Gospel of Matthew chapter 25 there is the description of the last judgement which takes place at the end of life, at the end of life’s pilgrimage. There the eternal judge states: “I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me”. Then those selected to eternal happiness who are called the righteous or just ask. “And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me'” (Mt 25:38-40).

The journey to the Other who is God is in and through the other who faces me. The face of the other is the face of the Faceless. The response to that Face is neither of belittling dominance nor of egalitarian politics but of liturgical service. The one before me is an appearance of the absolute Nirguna. The distance to the divine ultimate is the distance to the human other. You cannot serve God without serving man; not necessarily in your clan, family, country and class. The parable of the Good Samaritan narrated in the Gospel according to St. Luke (10: 25-37) clearly tells us all that religion is call to universalism which is against communalism and fundamentalism.

When the other is seen as the epiphany of the divine, the face of the other calls for a language of dialogue and not a monologue. Language basically and fundamentally is a call to respond to the other who stands in front of me. The other calls for justice and understanding, not to be subjugated, to be reified and used but to consider as other with respect and dignity. It is a language and behaviour that allow otherness around you. Monologues of egoism and ideology with craze for power can kill and enslave. Elie Wiesel the Auschwitz survivor and Nobel Prize winner for peace has remarked: "Has mankind learned the lessons of Auschwitz? No. For details, consult your daily newspaper." Religions also can face the danger of monologue of sectarian ideology where there is no pilgrimage to the other. Religious language has to be dialogical, that is exactly what you do today here in connection with Kumbha Mela. That is the language of pilgrimage where you travel to the other from yourself, your ego, your thought and desires to the other’s agony, desires, thought, hunger and hopes. It is a pilgrimage of love, respect, forgiveness, mercy and understanding. Where are the boat and the ferry man to the other shore? Kabir sang:

“To what shore would you cross, O my heart? There is no traveller before you, there is no road: Where is the movement, where is the rest, on that shore? There is no water; no boat, no boatman, is there; There is not so much as a rope to tow the boat, nor a man to draw it. No earth, no sky, no time, no thing, is there: no shore, no ford! There, there is neither body nor mind: and where is the place that shall still the thirst of the soul? You shall find naught in that emptiness.”

We have to cross the ferry to the eternal that is the incessant thirst or the desire of all desires. The emptiness that we carry with us cannot be filled except by the Other who needs nothing from me but recognition of the Other and finding and serving His images. The Sufi saint and mystic Jalaluddin Rumi(1207-73) wrote,

“You've no idea how hard I've looked for a gift to bring You.

Nothing seemed right. What's the point of bringing gold to the gold mine, or water to the Ocean. Everything I came up with was like taking spices to the Orient. It's no good giving my heart and my soul because you already have these. So- I've brought you a mirror. Look at yourself and remember me.”

The other is a mirror of the Other. May I look at the other as I look at myself. The treasure of the eternal bliss, amrita kumbha cannot be attained except through the other who is in front of you. We are fellow travellers to the absolute Other but we are also travelling to each other. That is what the Bible teaches: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with your entire mind; and your neighbor as yourself." (Lk 10:25)