Our Jewish, Christian and Muslim neighbors have just celebrated their high holy days. For Sikhs also, Vaisakhi, a day of unmatched historical significance is here. What could be a better time to explore some lessons of interfaith relations?

History is full of examples of despots and autocrats who tried to convert the multitude to a single religious identity. But it surprises no one that the despots are dead and long gone, while there are many more of the different beats of the distant drummers to which the world's billions prefer to march. If the narrow-mindedness, or should I say pointy-headedness, of the aggressively self-righteous has been cruelly painful in human history, equally moving has been the kindness, the genuine and inherent tolerance of millions. They seem to intuitively grasp that intolerance is wrong, unnecessary and ultimately self-defeating.

We generally think of Judaic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - as having been the least tolerant of those who plowed a different furrow. And that is generally true but not always. True that Judaism's claim to being the chosen people has led to unfortunate assumptions that all others must be inferior. And that is no way to sell the beauty of your product to anybody. A most telling example of intolerance is that both Christians and Muslims in turn burnt the famed library at Alexandria on the asinine grounds that such knowledge as came from those who were not true believers was dangerous.

Hinduism, on the other hand, has a reputation for being the most tolerant of religions, although I believe this repute is largely over-rated. For centuries Hinduism was powerless and its tolerance of those who were different from it emerged from its own helplessness. Whenever Hinduism had an opportunity to flex its muscles, its record of tolerance was drowned in blood. It was Hinduism that decimated Buddhism in India, its land of birth. History suggests that orthodox Hindus might have killed St. Thomas, who is reported to have taken Christianity to India around 52 AD. Within the past 55 years since India's independence in 1947, raging Hindu mobs, with the connivance of the government, accumulated a heinous record of killing Muslims and Sikhs as well as demolishing churches, mosques and gurdwaras. I realize that I am talking of practice, not necessarily of teaching.

But Hinduism has a unique spirit of tolerance not seen in most religions. As long as three pillars of Hinduism are left undisturbed - and I speak of the central place of the Brahmin, caste system and cow worship - like a sponge, Hinduism has shown a breathtaking capacity to absorb from other religions and coexist with diametrically opposing ideas. That is why in Hindu practice one can find customs that range from total vegetarianism to ritual animal sacrifice, from vestal virgins to an insistence on asceticism and celibacy, from monotheism to pantheism and polytheism. In true Indian passive-aggressive mode, Hinduism destroyed Buddhism in India but it also installed Buddha and Mahavir (the founder of Jainism) into the Hindu pantheon. A similar hostile takeover of Sikhism is now in progress.

Christianity and Islam, too, share an ugly history of crusades and jihads, although a true crusade or jihad is one that remains deeply personal and internal. In a similar vein, Sikhism exhorts its followers to engage in dharamyudh or religious crusade everyday but against the demons that lurk in us to destroy us from within. A crusade to destroy or conquer others is no battle for God or virtue; it is just plain ugly and evil.

The record of intolerance is what historians often document and it makes an engrossing tale, but that is not my objective today. As we view the intolerant world around us, we also need to acknowledge and celebrate the lesson in tolerance that continues to mark the historical landscape. I want to look at some telling examples of discovering peace amidst religious differences.

A thousand years ago Andalusian Muslims (Spain was Al Andalus to Muslims) prospered in a multireligious society of Jews, Roman Catholics and Muslims. The largest library in the world was that of the Caliphate of Cordoba with close to half a million holdings. Some of that Islamic influence is still visible in the magnificent architecture. That was a period of awe-inspiring progress in science and philosophy.

Not that differences between these varied people had disappeared, but that they had learnt to allow each other the necessary room. They had realized a truth that Jefferson enunciated much later when he said, "It makes no difference to me if my neighbor thinks there are twenty gods or that there is none." This golden period of tolerance ended partially when the Church turned self-righteously intolerant, and largely when competing schisms in Islam embraced the path of civil war to enforce their own narrow view of reality.

India, too, has had a chequered history in the matter of religious tolerance. From times immemorial Indian society was stratified along hereditary lines, so inter-caste tolerance was non-existent. A divided society was a natural prey to invaders and India lost both its prosperity and its independence. Islam, when it conquered India, was not the aggressive, proselytizing, intolerant movement that it later became. In fact, Akbar who is still remembered as "Akbar the Great" and ruled India from 1556 to 1605, had a vision of starting a new belief system borrowing from the best of Hindu and Islamic Sufi thought. He failed primarily because of his own limited loyalties and because his vision was not acceptable to the clergy of either faith. Akbar's dream was perhaps born more from pragmatic political realities than any idea of a spiritual-cultural utopia. Naturally, clergy as keepers of tradition will always have their own vested interests. It is their income and power that are on the line.

A movement with a unique vision and promoting interfaith harmony in India was Sikhism that arose in the fifteenth century and took final shape two hundred years later on Vaisakhi 1699.

Sikhism taught a message of equality and a single, universal, loving, gender-free God. The values of Sikhism are truly in tune with - and possibly are the precursors of - modern notions of an egalitarian, democratic society that value individual achievement yoked to social awareness. But more of these at another time. My focus today is on interfaith concerns and tolerance of those who are unlike us. This assuredly does not imply any less of a commitment to our own beliefs or the uniqueness of our own worldview.

The founders of Sikhism did not insist that theirs were the only chosen people on the only correct path to the ultimate reality. Instead they exhorted people to a life of introspection in which each delved into the magic and mystery of his or her own tradition.

When Guru Arjan set out to compile the sacred scripture of the Sikhs, he included in it writings of those who came from Hindu or Islamic tradition but had no acceptability in either. Why? Guru Arjan was compiling a scripture that addressed the traditions of the people of India, not of a particular religion. The language he used came from the lexicon of both Hinduism and Islam. The Gurus also coined their own terminology and language. I am sure if Judeo-Christian writing had been widely available, some would have found a place in the Gurus' utterings. When the premier gurdwara complex - the Harimandir - was to be built, Guru Arjan invited a Muslim saint, Mian Meer, to lay the foundation stone.

Guru Arjan's successor, Guru Hargobind even built a mosque for his many followers who still thought of themselves as Muslim. The mosque still exists and Islamic services are held in it. Contrast this with the destruction a few years ago of a 500-year-old mosque by Hindus who are bent upon replacing the structure with a Hindu temple.

An unparalleled example of tolerance is seen in the sacrifice of Guru Tegh Bahadur who accepted martyrdom so that Hindus could remain Hindus and not be forcibly converted to Islam. His death was the ultimate validation of the idea of "being your brother's keeper". There is a certain piquancy to this that has created an awkward situation and it needs to be corrected. Most Hindus respect the sacrifice of Guru Tegh Bahadur to the extent that they would like to count him as a Hindu, forgetting the unassailable fact that the Gurus repeatedly refused any identification as Hindus.

In India there was least interfaith strife in the time of the Muslim king Akbar, and again during the reign of the Sikh ruler Ranjit Singh in the 18th century. It was when these two reigned that Indians had their happiest time. History tells us that, just as for the Jews, Christians and Muslims in Al Andalus, it is only when people coexisted and celebrated their differences that India and Indians knew their best and most productive days.

North American socio-political culture seems clearly founded on the implicit acceptance of religious and cultural diversity. It has produced societies that are sometimes bewilderingly complex mosaics. But it is this diversity that is their strength.

I had a moving experience of the mosaic that is contemporary America when in the wake of 9/11 the local Unitarian Fellowship invited me to present Sikhism. Their choir rendered a shabd from Guru Granth. They had downloaded information on Sikhism from the Internet and prepared display boards on Sikhism. I was truly humbled by their initiative andheartedness when at the end they wanted to present me an honorarium. I should have been the one paying them.

Some other examples come to mind. About thirty years ago when we had no permanent gurdwara in New York, we used to meet once a week in the basement of a Church School; the rent was embarrassingly small and purely nominal. Just weeks ago, when the premier gurdwara in New York burnt down, the neighboring Church offered its facilities. Dear readers, I ask you, if the tables were turned would we extend our hand with the sameheart?

Today, I celebrate diversity and tolerance as the cornerstones of our existence. These values stem naturally from the words of Guru Gobind Singh:

As out a single fire,
Millions of sparks arise;
So from God's form emerge all creation,
Animate and Inanimate.