What Is Hinduism?: A Guide for the Global Mind

University

Preface

Hinduism as a religion is coming once more into the light today. There are several reasons for this. First, Hindu-based teachings of Yoga, Vedanta, Ayurveda and related disciplines have gained popularity worldwide. Second, Hindu immigrants, particularly to North America and the United Kingdom, are now among the best educated and affluent immigrant groups and are honouring and not rejecting their religion by doing so. Third, the current Indian government of Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been promoting a much more positive view of the Hindu-majority culture as the basis of national development; a view that other political parties, including the Congress, are taking up and showing more respect for Hindu traditions.

Yet Hinduism is not just a local religion of India, its people or culture. Hinduism is the basis of the oldest and most diverse of the world’s great religions, whose original name is Sanatana Dharma, ‘the eternal tradition of Truth’. To understand it we must go back to its broader principles and adaptable practices, which can far exceed what most of the world regards as a religion today, being more akin to experiential spirituality than to any dogma or commandment.

Though born in the United States, I have been fortunate enough to connect to the Hindu tradition from its ancient Vedic roots to its many contemporary gurus. Over several decades, I have written extensively on important aspects of Hindu thought, including Yoga, Vedanta and Ayurveda, in a number of books and articles. This Hindu experience has compelled me to write on the underlying system that has provided the inspiration for my writings and my inner quest.

My examination of the world’s spiritual and religious traditions, East and West, led me to Hindu-based teachings of Yoga and Vedanta that I found the most compelling, comprehensive and articulate. This culminated in an encounter with the universal view, Sanatana Dharma, behind these. As few people today—including a great majority of Hindus—understand the profound background of this complex tradition, I have tried to present it in a contemporary idiom, so that others might share in the discovery.

I am not writing about Hinduism from an academic perspective, which, however interesting, is a second-hand view that is often artificial in its presentation. The academic approach is not the view of the artist but the art critic. It is not the view of the practitioner in the field but the critic peering in the distance, often with a different agenda and his own biases. Hinduism, with its subtle and mysterious teachings, affords endless ground for academic investigation, but such an approach will not provide a first-hand understanding of this vast tradition that antedates by millennia the views according to which it is usually judged.

I am writing about Hinduism as someone who has become immersed in the Hindu tradition, discovering that tradition at the core of his own being, not as a novel identity but as a doorway to one’s true Self. Many Hindus have requested me to write a book expressing their vast tradition to the contemporary mind, particularly for the sake of modern educated Hindus among whom it is fashionable to denigrate their own tradition without having really studied it, and for their children, particularly those in college, to help them appreciate their heritage in a society that has little understanding of it.

Fortunately, I have been able to meet people in India from all backgrounds, including swamis, yogis, traditional Brahmin priests, social activists and political leaders, Ayurvedic doctors, Vedic astrologers, musicians and modern Hindus of all types, including businessmen, writers and journalists, extending to the Marxists. India contains probably a greater diversity of points of view—spiritually, intellectually and politically—than any country in the world, as it contains all the views of the modern West along with those of its own ancient teachings extending back thousands of years.

I have endeavoured to study the Hindu tradition from its Vedic and Puranic roots including the Vedas, Vedanta, Samkhya, Yoga and Tantra, examining original Sanskrit texts and having discussions with traditional teachers. In the process, I discovered that a tremendous gap exists between how the Hindu tradition formulates itself and how others view it. What people in the West think characterises Hinduism is often inaccurate, prejudiced and contrary to its real teachings.

Inside the Tradition View

To address the many distortions about Hinduism, this book offers what could be best called an ‘inside the tradition view’, attempting to portray the higher side of Hinduism that has sustained it through the ages while many other religions have come and gone. The book attempts to reveal Hindu Dharma in its greater beauty, profundity and significance. Such an inside view naturally differs greatly from the usual ‘outside the tradition view’, which is all what most people have encountered in the accessible books on the subject.

In this regard, we should remember that such inside the tradition views are easily found relative to Christianity, Judaism and Islam. They are accepted as representing these traditions directly and in an authentic manner. It is only in the case of the Hindu tradition that the West and even modern Indians wish and insist that while being presented by its critics and detractors, it should be looked at objectively and fairly. Therefore, an inside the tradition view of Hinduism is important to create the necessary balance, though it has its own value as well.

If there were only outside the tradition views available on Christianity—presenting it according to images of the crusades, inquisition, witch burning, slavery and the colonial genocide of native peoples—Christianity would look gruesome, and not the religion of love that its followers believe it to be. Similarly, if Islam was presented only according to the impressions created by Islamic terrorism and the records of the peoples it conquered, one can only imagine how negatively it might be judged.

The Hindu tradition is usually portrayed according to social evils in Indian society, especially the caste system, though caste by birth is not universal to Hindu thought and is a distortion of earlier Hindu social orders. At the same time, Christianity and Islam are seldom judged according to the inequalities in their societies, though many of these have existed over the years. Meanwhile, Hinduism’s lofty Vedantic philosophy, deep yoga practices and towering modern gurus, which are almost unparalleled elsewhere, are usually ignored in academic studies or denigrated in media presentations. For those who may claim that my view is slanted in favour of Hinduism, I ask them to take it as a counterweight for the many books slanted against it.

Naturally, much of this vast ancient tradition cannot be dealt with in a single volume. This book does not attempt to discuss all the teachings of Hinduism, its different branches, teachers and scriptures. It is aimed at understanding the Hindu view of the universe and the orientation of the Hindu mind. It is meant to address the questions that people may have in trying to understand what is behind the Hindu tradition in its several dimensions.

I have written various books on Hindu Dharma and on various aspects of its thought which cover other aspects of this venerable tradition, including texts on historical, social and political issues, as well as details on Hindu worship, Yoga and meditation. This particular book is part of one such longer series of related titles.

The book consists of a series of reflections in the first section, and questions and answers in the second, addressing Sanatana Dharma, the universal tradition behind Hinduism and the yogic spirituality that derives from it. The book portrays Hinduism as both a universal approach and as a well-defined tradition with a complete spiritual science and culture of its own.

I have written this book as one who is Hindu not by birth but by inner affinity and deeper experience. I am not hesitant to identify myself with the Hindu tradition, though some people may think it is politically incorrect and culturally backward, particularly for a Westerner to call himself a Hindu. On the contrary, I think that joining the Hindu tradition is the most transformative spiritual association that one can make, acknowledging its great teachings and connection with the cosmic mind that is perhaps the jewel in world civilization.

This yogic universalism of Hinduism is not a superficial unity of accepting all religions as they are as true but providing an appropriate place for every type of spiritual practice. In this regard, Hinduism reflects the spirituality of the future, after which humanity has moved beyond all dogmas to a greater art and science of Self-realization. It is likely that the West’s encounter with Hinduism will eventually transform not only Western religious and spiritual systems but also its science and philosophy, reformulated under the umbrella of the universal view that we find within Hinduism. Hinduism can provide the basis of a cosmic spirituality and planetary dharma, not by converting people to a new belief but by incorporating all human spiritual knowledge into an experiential spirituality at an individual level.

Acknowledgements

I have drawn an inspiration from many Hindu leaders and organizations, including Sadguru Sivananda Murty of the Shaiva Mahapeetham, Sivaya Subramuniyya Swami of Hinduism Today magazine, Ram Swarup and Sitaram Goel of the Voice of India, Swaminarayan Organisation (BAPS) and Pramukh Swami, Swami Dayananda of the Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, Swami Chinmayananda, and Dr. B L Vashta who, besides being my primary teacher of Ayurvedic medicine, brought me into the fold of Hindu thought.

This book is meant to encourage deeper thought and inquiry. If it succeeds in this regard, its purpose has been fulfilled. Compared to the Eternal Dharma, we as human individuals are but dust and must always look deeper to understand its profound and many-sided message.

Let us examine humanity’s most ancient, intricate and enduring spiritual and mystical tradition which, of all the religions of the world can most rightfully be called ‘the Eternal Tradition’, in order to better understand our own deeper, spiritual potential at a personal level. The eternal teaching begins and ends with the Self, the revelation of our true being, which is pure consciousness, freedom, bliss and immortality beyond time and space, birth and death, suffering and limitation.

May all beings recognise that Supreme Self!

May all cultures build their new societies upon It!

—Dr. David Frawley

(Pandit Vamadeva Shastri)

February 2018

Part I

Hinduism, Sanatana Dharma and Religion

An Overview

Truth alone wins, not untruth. By Truth is established the path that leads to the Divine, by which the seers, who have fulfilled their desires, reach to the Supreme abode of Truth.

Mundaka Upanishad III.1.6

There is no attainment higher than Self-knowledge.

Shankaracharya, Upadesha Sahasri

The Search for a Universal Spiritual Tradition

Human Aspiration for the Eternal

Throughout history, wise and discriminating individuals from all lands have sought a truth that is universal and eternal. This has been a quest not only of philosophers and mystics but also for all of us in our deeper moments, as we aspire to know the ultimate meaning of our existence. Deep inside ourselves, we long for an absolute truth through which we can permanently transcend suffering and death and gain lasting bliss and immortality. Many great thinkers, looking beyond the names and forms of historical religions and philosophies, have envisioned an enduring tradition of inner knowledge that reflects this universal truth and allows people to access it without any external boundaries limiting their search.

Truth, in the higher sense, is that which is immutable and unchanging. It remains the same for all times and for all people. It is not a fad or opinion of the moment, but the very ground of existence. Such an eternal truth must be honoured and respected in society for civilization to have any real meaning or higher values.

The quest for universal truth, and a tradition to sustain it, is not merely a spiritual quest, but the essence of all knowledge. In any field of knowledge, we are striving to understand universal laws, which like the law of gravity are common to all human beings regardless of their backgrounds. Science formulates itself as an understanding of universal physical laws. Art portrays the underlying creative forces behind life.

All religions have some sense of the eternal within them, however imperfectly this may be formulated or expressed. After all, religion is the field of life meant to address the spiritual reality behind the universe, which is not limited by time or space. The attempt to connect human beings with the eternal is the essence of true religion and experiential spirituality. Yet, as they have been institutionalised, religions have limited this eternal truth to a particular leader, book, or church as the ultimate, which removes them from universality and consigns them to partiality.

Religion has too often been turned into dogma and authority, a vested interest in the outer world in which the discovery of truth at an individual level is set aside. Such a reduction of the spiritual to particular time-space coordinates is the denial of any transcendent reality. However, this belief-based view of religion is easier for the human mind to appreciate as it looks for quick and convenient answers to life’s vexing problems. It is also easier for society to regulate a belief and so this belief based view of religion has remained dominant historically, particularly in the Western world.

Because of the tendency of organised religion to become a social control mechanism rather than offering a real spiritual path, discerning individuals have looked beyond it to mystical and yogic teachings. For this reason, the search for universal truth has been conducted more beyond organised religion, than through it. This inner search has taken Western people in the direction of dharmic traditions like Hinduism and Buddhism, which are more experientially based, less dogmatic and offer more individual freedom of approach to the ultimate meaning of life.

The Universal Tradition and the Synthesis of Religions

In the current global age where the different cultures of the world are in constant communication, there is a new movement towards a universal spirituality. This has led to an effort to combine the religions of the world into a global or planetary religion that encompasses all religions and affords each an honoured place. Many Hindu teachers and thinkers from India have had such ideas. This seeking for the unity of world’s main religious traditions is a valuable endeavour and can provide much insight. It is an important factor in interfaith dialogue. However, it is not without its limitations.

We must recognise that what is originally formulated in a fragmentary manner cannot easily lead to wholeness. We cannot create the universal by putting together particulars. We cannot create the unity of a tree through gathering together its various leaves that have fallen on the ground. We must return to the original root in order to do so.

By validating limited approaches in the religious realm along with their vested interests, there is the danger that we may validate these limitations and strengthen their divisions. It is like trying to create unity in humanity by accepting all the different borders that exist between nations as fair boundaries. True unity occurs when we set aside outer differences and recognise the essence of consciousness as our true nature, in which all external distinctions lose their significance. This manifests when we emphasise the universal Self within us as more important than any outer name or form.

More important than accepting all religions as they are, we should discern what is universal in religion and spirituality, which is the search for a higher awareness, and give credence to that. True unity is Self-existent at the core of who we really are. It cannot be fabricated by emphasizing differences that exist at the surface. The oneness of the ocean exists at its depths, not at the level of the waves, which must remain ever changing. A universal tradition does not rely upon existing dogmas but on the aspiration of the individual, which transcends the forms that society has developed to either help or to control that aspiration.

Other thinkers today, aim to create a universal tradition by discarding the existent religions of the world, recognizing that these have become limiting identities. This approach has the advantage of avoiding the baggage that religions have accumulated historically. Yet it is like trying to create a new science by discarding all that science has previously discovered. Instead, we should embrace what is universal in the religious and spiritual teachings of the world, neither validating them superficially, nor discarding what they may have to offer in an effort to create a clean slate.

Hinduism and its Universal Connections

This seeking of a universal truth has not always been an isolated phenomenon, or something of the modern age only. There is at least one major world religion that has always formulated itself as a many-sided universal tradition, encompassing all the ways of knowledge and leading all individuals to Self-realization and union with the Supreme—embracing all that we know of as religion and spirituality without seeking to reduce it to a particular name, form, personality or institution as final.

This is the religion that the modern world knows of, albeit imperfectly, as Hinduism, whose correct name is Sanatana Dharma—‘the universal or eternal tradition’. Hinduism does not rest upon any single formation or particular belief system but remains open to all approaches to the higher truth through a variety of gurus and practices going back to the beginning of history.

On an inner level, Hinduism defines itself through Self-knowledge, not through a personality, book, institution or heavenly goal. This is the basis of the philosophy of Vedanta, the summit (anta) of spiritual knowledge or wisdom (Veda), which explains comprehensively our true nature beyond birth and death. As the higher aspect of the Vedic teaching, Vedanta remains relevant to everyone, including those who may find the representational forms of Hinduism difficult to understand. Vedanta is the basis of both a perennial philosophy and a path of Self-realization that answers all the questions of life and shows us a way beyond all sorrow.

Hinduism has always reflected a universal tradition of inner knowing. However, the outer aspects of Hinduism are important and quite extraordinary in their own right. They add to Vedanta a culture, way of life and most importantly, sacred arts and sciences that can bring this inner vision of unity into all that we do. These outer aspects of Sanatana Dharma need not be discarded as irrelevant, though they may need to be reformulated and updated according to our world today.

This is not to say that Hinduism or even Vedanta is the sole representative of any universal tradition. A universal tradition cannot be owned by anyone or reduced to any region of the globe. The beauty of Hinduism is that it is a religion that allows a universal perspective to flow through it. Hinduism is a tradition of spiritual search without barriers that accepts all true aspiration regardless of name or form. It places experiential spirituality above outer beliefs, dogmas or creeds.

Such a universal view of Hindu Dharma does not mean that everything occurring in Hinduism today is universal. Any formulation of a universal teaching, being bound by time and place, must contain elements that are particular or limited. It must have specific teachings relative to specific peoples, places and cultures, which may or may not be relevant to others. Though truth is universal, there is always a necessary local aspect in its expression, much like the ecological principle to think globally and act locally.

In addition, Hinduism unfortunately still contains unnecessary accretions and distortions that require purification so that its universal essence can be made more evident. Yet in spite of outer limitations, the universal foundation in Hinduism remains intact at its core. This universal aspect of Hindu Dharma is experiencing some sort of resurgence throughout the world. Hinduism is in the process of reclaiming its global relevance as the many modern gurus from India continue to demonstrate. It is important, therefore, for all spiritual seekers to take a deeper look at humanity’s oldest religion and most comprehensive way of Self-realization and understanding universal consciousness.

The Conscious Being alone is all this, what has been and what will be.

Rigveda X.90.2

All this universe is Brahman. The Self of all beings is Brahman.

Mandukya Upanishad I.2

He who sees the Self in all beings and all beings in the Self, henceforth has no more remorse.

Isha Upanishad

Hatred never ends by hatred but only by love, that is the eternal law (Sanatana Dharma).

Buddha, Dhammapada I.5

Sanatana Dharma: The Eternal Tradition

The Himalayan Connection

The Himalayas are the world’s highest mountains, extending fifteen hundred miles across the north of India with thousands of massive snow peaks towering over twenty thousand feet. These lofty peaks are the source of the largest set of rivers in the world: the vast river systems of the Ganga, Brahmaputra, Indus, Amu Darya, Yangtze and Mekong, which nourish and enliven Asia, the world’s largest continent. Looking at the Himalayas from the standpoint of sacred geography—which conceives the entire planet as a single being—we could say that these mountains at the roof of the world represent the crown chakra or head centre of the planet. We would, therefore, expect powerful spiritual energies to consistently emanate from them.

Not surprisingly, from these towering summits has come the oldest and most comprehensive spiritual tradition in the world—the teachings of the great yogis, rishis and sages who have lived in the region since time immemorial. From the Himalayas, this yogic teaching has spread to many lands and communities throughout the world and taken root there, particularly in India, which, lodged beneath the Himalayas to the tropical South, receives the largest portion of the mountain waters through its sacred rivers.

This Himalayan tradition, perhaps because of its very depth, richness and diversity, has seldom been understood as a whole. The largest part of the tradition—what has been called Hinduism by the proximity of the Himalayas to India—remains the most enigmatic and misunderstood of the world’s major religions, largely because it is not a religion in the Western sense of the term as a belief system, but a spiritual path wedded to the whole of life and nature.

Because of the misconceptions associated with the term Hindu—which suggests an ethnic religion rather than a universal teaching—the teachings of this Himalayan spiritual tradition has been propagated in the modern world mainly under the name of ‘Yoga’. Yoga, which means union, is the main practice of the Himalayan tradition, which aims at guiding us to our own Self-realization, an inner unity with the Divine and universal, not simply subordinating us to an outer religious identity.

‘Vedanta’ is another term for the Himalayan tradition because Vedanta teaches the oneness of the individual soul with the universal being, the inner unity that Yoga is aiming at. The original teachers who brought Yoga to the West like Vivekananda, Yogananda and the many disciples of Swami Shivananda of Rishikesh, spoke of Yoga-Vedanta for this reason.

The term ‘Vedic knowledge’ can also be used for this vast tradition. Veda, which means spiritual knowledge, indicates the full range of spiritual and sacred sciences, as originally set forth in the profound mantras of ancient Vedic texts more than five thousand years ago.

Such spiritual terms as Yoga, Veda and Vedanta probably better communicate the essence of this nameless tradition to the modern mind than does the limited designation Hindu. However, they can also give the misimpression that Hindu culture and spirituality is something different or not relevant, when it is a broader expression of the same tradition and its great gurus.

Sanatana Dharma and Yoga

The original name for the Hindu tradition, Sanatana Dharma, the eternal or universal truth, provides the background for Yoga and its related teachings. Sanatana Dharma is a tradition conceived of as inherent in the cosmic mind, arising with the dawn of creation itself. It is a set of teachings that comprehends all of life, including religion, yoga, mysticism, philosophy, science, medicine, art and culture as part of a single reality in its diverse expression like a great Banyan tree.

The term dharma has been introduced worldwide, not only relative to Hindu teachings but in regard to Buddhism, whose original name is Buddha Dharma. An understanding of dharma, which more specifically means ‘natural law’, is crucial to all dharmic traditions. Hinduism is sometimes called ‘Hindu Dharma’ in order to discriminate it from a religion in the Western sense of