In past ages people have rounded new religions, formed in the name of God; they have built churches, founded in the name of God and truth; they held their scriptures in esteem and honor, and revered the names of their leaders, of the prophets and seers of the religion to which they belonged. And with all his progress man does not seem to have progressed any further than the religions as known to-day. Bias and bigotry exist in the followers of different creeds, in their temples and churches, in the houses of their prayers, in their congregations of particular communities.
The consequence is that religion and the religious spirit has been enfeebled. This even has reacted upon the minds of others who stay away from religion and yet partake of that tendency towards difference, definition and separation which divides mankind into different sections called nations, races or communities. The reaction culminates into results still worse than the action. All wars, disasters and unhappy experiences that humanity has seen, are the outcome of this spirit of intolerance, division and separation, which naturally comes through lack of wisdom and understanding and through the ignorance of truth.
Then the question arises: what is the way to attain the truth? Can it be attained by study? The answer is that the source of realizing the truth is within man - but man is the object of his realization. There are words of Hazrat Ali, saying that the one who knows himself truly knows God.
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