There was a great Vaishnava saint who used to say, “If only mango trees grew on this earth and all the babool trees vanished, how dull it would look! There should be mango trees, but there should also be banyan trees, thorny trees and other types of fruit and flowering trees also. All the varieties should be there, only then can you say how beautiful this earth is.” Beauty lies in diversity, monotony is unpleasant. In this world variety has been created by God. At the beginning of the Ramayana it is mentioned that sin and merit, pleasure and pain, auspiciousness and inauspiciousness, night and day, ascetics and criminals, demons and devas, good and bad, everything has been created by Lord Brahma, the creator, in order to make the world beautiful.
First of all, God created two things: one was light and the other was darkness, and the fun is that they are both linked to each other. Can you imagine darkness without light? So, darkness and light are interrelated. If you want God to create only light and not darkness, He will say, “I can’t do it. If there is light, there has to be darkness.” God has created this world with variety. You can see variety and diversity everywhere. Diversity exists within the house, within the nation; you can see it everywhere. In the history of India there have been many people who envisioned unity in diversity, but their numbers are gradually decreasing. We always wanted unity in diversity. If you look inside an orange there are many slices, but from the outside it is one.
In this world no two people are alike. Two brothers and two sisters are not alike, even twins differ. It is also true that no two fingerprints are the same. In order to prove the identity of a person, the left thumbprint is taken, because no two people in the world share the same print. Isn’t it a great wonder that every person has a unique thumbprint? It is amazing how God creates differences. He has extraordinary plans and strange ways of thinking. It is a scientific fact that no two thumb prints are alike. Therefore, even in modern countries where people are literate, the thumbprint is used because this is the best means of identification. No one can change it. Illiterate people use it instead of a signature, but even educated people have to put their thumbprint on legal documents and property transfers so that they cannot be duplicated.
If no two thumb prints are alike, then no two people are alike. So how can two minds be alike? That means your thinking will not match mine and my thinking will not match yours. However, this does not mean there should be conflict between us. Two people can live happily together despite having different ideas and thinking patterns. It is not compulsory that a husband and wife should think alike. The husband may drink and eat meat, while the wife does not drink and is a pure vegetarian. The husband may gamble, but the wife does not. The husband is extroverted and always jokes with others, while the wife likes solitude. It is fine to have different natures and this should not be a reason to fight. It is not possible that the nature of husband and wife are like carbon copies. If you think marriage can be successful only if the husband and wife have similar natures, then you are mistaken.
This mathematics operates on the principle of plus and minus, not on plus and plus. That is why you find a dichotomy in religions, and differences in opinions and feelings. In English people say, “I don’t want anything”, and in Spanish, “I don’t want nothing”. The difference is in the grammar. So when differences exist in the language, in the clothing, in the habits, and if difference is the cause of conflict, then it will never end. However, the root cause of conflict is not difference, but man’s own weakness; it is his own creation. If the conflict between two societies is considered to be within one’s own mind, that should be corrected. Until you correct your own mind, you cannot change yourself or anyone else, no matter how much you explain. It is good to change the rural masses, but even Lord Buddha failed in this. All the prejudices that he stood against still prevail. Although his knowledge came from within, the people to whom he explained these things could not change themselves.
In reality, we don’t belong to one culture. Everyone in France is not French, just as in India everyone is not Indian. Some have come from Afghanistan, some from Iran and other places. Everyone in America is not American. All the people in Britain are not British. All the people in Saudi Arabia are not Saudi. There is no homogeneity. Everywhere there is a mixed culture, there is diversity, and diversity is the truth. We say there is one culture because of political exigencies. A garden can’t just be mangoes or just roses. In a garden there are many flowers, many trees, and many varieties of plants.