We can balance two cultures if we don't worry about balancing cultures as much as practicing the Truth. If Hindus live according to the Gita, Christians live according to Bible and Muslims live according to the Koran, we would have nothing to balance. It would automatically balance.

The problem is nobody truly lives according to the scriptures and everyone makes their own interpretations. People make a business out of religion. They are more interested in business, their division and cults and so it has become very difficult to balance. Because each one is a frog in the well, he thinks he is the best. He wants others to change and convert and follow him.

It is not important whether you wear jeans, a sari or pants. What is important is that you are truthful, honest, hardworking and dependable. These traits are in religions and people. Balancing doesn't mean that everybody should eat the same way you eat, wear the same clothes, go to the same temple, or worship the same-named God. Balance means that everyone has the freedom to worship the way they want, as long as the basic principles of ethics, morality, and truth have been observed and put in to practice. That is what is missing, and that is why we have more problems.

The Gita does a superb job of helping mankind. It shows how to balance your life. It has a universal, eternal message that does not distinguish one person from another or one religion from another. Really speaking spiritually, go beyond desh, kal, and nimit -- that is beyond this place, time and interactions and its results.  We have to go through these processes and ultimately get the best.  Just like trying to get the butter out of the milk, we have to go through many processes, making yogurt, churning it, separating and extracting the butter and again boiling it to get ghee. Similarly this process of refinement is present in every religion, and they all came to the same conclusion that there is one God.

There is only one set of principles on ethics, love, compassion and helping our fellow mankind. All religions say that. Man will always have problems balancing his life until he become a saint or reaches the ultimate: God or the Supreme Being. Problems lie in social structure, religious structure, and in man's pride, ego, and vanity. Spirituality overcomes these things.  That is why the true spiritual leaders are all alike, there is no difference in them, even though they speak different languages. Truth is one, but the wise speak in many ways. This is true not only with the Hindu saints but with all saints, all religions, at all time.

When we all look at a building from different angles everyone will have different descriptions of the building. No man has seen God perfectly, so however we try to describe it, it is imperfect. It is like ten blind men trying to describing an elephant in ten different ways. Nobody really sees the whole elephant completely. Yet to each one of them that is complete, because that is all he sees.  We believe that our own religion is the only thing. If we penetrate through that and if we are honest and sincere, our own religion will ultimately teach us spirituality.

--Swami Radhanandaji