Question: Would you call what unites us a religion?
Sri Chinmoy: It is the life-principle that unites us. If an individual wants to call the life-principle a religion, then he is perfectly right to do so. If he wishes to call it a philosophy, again he is perfectly right. But whatever we call it, we have to know that it is the code of life, the life-principle, that unites us with the rest of the world. If we call it the universal religion, then we feel it is all one. If we call it the universal God, then it is all one. But if we say that ours is the only religion and that all the other religions are useless, then our religion cannot unite the universe. Whatever claims to be the best cannot unite. Only the universal feeling which grows within us and around us can unite us.
Sri Chinmoy, My Rose Petals, part 5, Agni Press, 1976