HOW I BECAME A HINDU - My Discovery of Vedic Dharma By David Frawley -5

HOW I BECAME A HINDU

My Discovery of Vedic Dharma

By

David Frawley

(Pandit Vamadeva Shastry)

ANCIENT INDIA: MYTH

OF THE ARYAN INVASION

The ancient world contained many spiritual

wonders, magnificent temples, great pyramids,

secret knowledge and enlightened sages. It was not

the primitive era that our history books proclaim

but reflected a profound culture connected to a

higher consciousness. Though the ancients may not

have achieved as much as modern culture in terms

of technology, they possessed a greater awareness

of the sacred nature of existence. Their cultures

were imbued with religion as a quest for meaning

and integration with all life.

My study of the Vedas in the original Sanskrit

revealed that Vedic culture was advanced and

sophisticated, as much as ancient Egypt or

Sumeria. It was a maritime culture that traveled,

traded and colonized by sea. It was an urban

culture with numerous towns and small kingdoms

like classical India. It had a sophistication of arts

and crafts, agriculture, science and language. It had

a great mythos, a profound ritual and timehonored

customs.

The Rig Veda was a synthetic text produced by a

number of different groups over a long period of

time and covering a large region of geography. It

was the record of a great civilization that found a

spiritual unity among the diverse cultures, ethnic

and linguistic groups of a vast subcontinent. This is

revealed by the many Vedic Gods and Goddesses

that each can represent the All as the Supreme

Deity as well as having its own unique

characteristics. I found the existent history book

account of the Aryan Invasion, which portrayed

the Vedic people as primitive nomads, to be quite

erroneous, if not absurd. It had little to do with the

Vedic texts and required ignoring or distorting

them to fit in with its preconceptions.

The term Aryan in the Vedas has nothing to do

with race, language or one group of human beings

attacking another. It is a term for good, noble or

refined as opposed to those who are evil, ignoble

or vulgar. The use of Aryan in a racial sense was an

invention of European thinkers steeped in the

colonial era and its racist policies.

Civilization all over the world is the product of a

commingling of different streams, which is the

main Vedic image of life. It comes about through

the free interchange of ideas, customs and

commodities. It is not the result of some imagine

racial or linguistic purity but occurs when people

of various backgrounds come together and share

their diversity. To try to explain civilization as the

product of one race or another is itself racism. To

try to explain the development of culture through

racial invasions and migrations ignores the creative

work of people in the place where they live.

The idea of an Aryan race invading and colonizing

India was the shadow of the European colonial

model on history that reflected nineteenth century

Eurocentric views. It is quite contrary to the Vedic

view of many Gods and Goddesses in a wonderful,

friendship, harmony and inner unity.

Scholars turned mythic wars between the powers

of light and darkness into racial wars in India,

though the same symbolism occurs throughout

ancient civilizations from Egypt to America

without such a corresponding human battle.

Such superficial views of ancient teachings,

looking at them according to an outer vision of

politics and economics has prevented modern

scholars from discovering the wealth of spiritual

knowledge hidden in such texts. Not only the

Vedas but also the Egyptian Book of the Dead and

Mayan teachings among others have been misread

in the same manner. As a sidelight to my spiritual

study of the Vedas, I began putting together an

historical view that reflected the spiritual depth

that the Vedas had revealed for me. This started as

a simple matter of compiling references to the

ocean in the Rig Veda to show that it could not be

the product of nomads from Central Asia who

never knew of the sea.

I was gradually compelled to write a book on

Vedic history to counter the existent distortions. I

did a first draft in 1980 and gradually developed it

further over time. I expanded and finished the

work in 1990 and it was published the following

year in the United States under the title of Gods,

Sages and Kings: Vedic Secrets of Ancient

Civilization. The book was one of the first titles to

raise such issues as the Sarasvati River, Vedic

astronomical references and the need for a more

consistent rendition of Vedic literature. Little did I

know that a great archeological revolution was

beginning in India that would verify these views

within the next decade.

Subhash Kak

One of the most notable American Hindus and

Vedic scholars that I have known is Subhash Kak.

We first began to correspond in 1990 relative to our

common interest in ancient India. We met shortly

thereafter. Soon we created a close friendship and

alliance that has continued throughout the years.

Kak made several brilliant contributions to science

in the Vedas, showing the sophistication of

mathematics and astronomy that existed at an

early era, particularly in the Satapatha Brahmana.

Perhaps most notable is his work unlocking the

numerical code behind the organization of the Rig

Veda. He has also made important breakthroughs

in deciphering the Indus script. In addition he

connected Vedic and Vedantic ideas with the latest

insights of modern physics and neuroscience.

Along with the noted yoga scholar, Georg

Feuerstein, we did a book on ancient India called

In Search of the Cradle of Civilization that

highlighted the new findings on ancient India.

Subhash always emphasized the pursuit of truth,

not simply defending a particular religion or

culture, however noble it may be. If we are to find

value in the Vedas, it is their truth that matters. But

the Vedic idea of truth is not just of an objective

material order but of cosmic law (ritam) that

imparts harmony to all existence. We must develop

that dharmic way of truth and insight, not merely

repeat old phrases or uncritically preserve old

traditions. The Vedas must be a way to truth or

they have no meaning.

N.S. Rajaram

N.S. Rajaram first wrote me in 1993 in the context

of ancient India, an issue that he was beginning to

take up. He shortly returned to India from

Houston, where he had worked at NASA (National

Aeronautics Space Industry). We exchanged many

letters and came to common views and a common

plan of action.

Rajaram and I collaborated on several projects,

particularly the book Vedic Aryans and the Origins

of Civilization, which first came out in the

Canadian edition in late 1994, with a later India

edition through Voice of India. He highlighted my

correlation of Vedic literature and Harappan

civilization, which is otherwise a literature without

a civilization and a civilization without a literature!

Later he helped promote the decipherment of the

Indus script by Natwar Jha that may unravel the

remaining riddles of the ancient

Harappan/Saraswati culture. Rajaram is a very

cogent thinker on modern issues as well as on

ancient India. Like myself he was drawn into

journalistic role by circumstances, finding how

little articulation of a Hindu point of view existed

even in India. Having lived in American for twenty

years he was not intimidated by the West but had

mastered its thinking and its objectivity as well as

maintaining his connection to the spiritual culture

of India.

Rajaram brought out the information on the Dead

Sea Scrolls and modern Biblical scholarship that

questioned the historicity and accuracy of the New

Testament. While such books are commonly

available in the West, they are almost unknown in

India, where the average Hindu believes that the

Bible is an accurate historical document that has

never been tampered with! He also brought to

attention in India important critiques about the

Vatican well known in the West that reveal the

underlying political nature and global aggression

of that institution.

The Birla Science Conference

An important conference on ancient India occurred

at the Birla Science Center in Hyderabad in 1994. It

featured many leading archaeologists from India

including S.R. Rao, S.P. Gupta, Bhagwan Singh,

and B.G. Siddharth. All of them emphasized the

same theme – that the old Aryan Invasion theory

was wrong and went against all existing evidence.

A new historical model for ancient India was

necessary that showed a greater antiquity and

centrality for Vedic culture.

It was encouraging to attend a conference with

such eminent archaeologists and scholars and to

learn that my work was not just a personal

idiosyncrasy but part of a new movement that

already had many adherents. The forum was quite

heartwarming after the many years of isolated

work that I had done. It was clear from the

conference that the theory of Aryan invasion of

India was being rejected on all fronts. I was not the

only one, nor was my angle of criticism unique. I

had merely articulated what many Indians were

thinking now and what a number had thought in

the past.

World Association for Vedic Scholars (WAVES)

An alliance of scholars arose in America seeking to

promote the new view of ancient India. It gave rise

to the World Association of Vedic Studies

(WAVES), which held its first conference in Atlanta

in Oct. 1996.

James Schaffer of Case Western University, one of

the first major Western archaeologists to reject the

Aryan Invasion theory, came and spoke. B.B. Lal,

one of India’s leading archaeologists was there as

well, along with many of the important speakers

and authorities in the field.

A second conference was held in 1998 summer in

Los Angeles that continued these activities, which

B.B. Lal also attended. There I had an opportunity

to get to know Lal better. The leftists had recently

targeted Lal as a scholar with a Hindu bias, whose

work should therefore be rejected on principle. Lal,

however, was a true scholar and archaeologist,

relying on objective evidence and years of

experience. He was a warm and friendly person

with genuine spiritual interests as well as academic

objectivity. He was another case of people

maligned simply because they were in the way of

leftist political interests. However, the leftists were

not able to really challenge him on an historical

and archaeological basis because his work was

solid and rational in its approach.

JNU

The Aryan invasion issue was a topic that I would

lecture on many times in various forums both in

India and the United States. It culminated in a

lecture that I gave at JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru

University) in Delhi in February 1999. JNU has

long been the main center of Marxist thinking in

India with many of its prominent professors, like

the historian Romila Thapar, being staunch

communists and outspoken defenders of leftist

causes. The hall for my lecture was filled with

several hundred students, some sitting in the

aisles. We had raised the Vedic banner at this

prime bastion of Marxism in India for all to see.

Along with me were S.P. Gupta, Bhagwan Singh

and Devendra Swarup, all notable authorities on

ancient India.

The leftist teachers did not challenge our

presentation. But a student who was obviously

leftist in his views raised a curious question. First

he said to my surprise that he accepted our

presentation that historical evidence disproved the

Aryan Invasion theory. But, he emphasized,

because the demise of the theory would benefit

Hindu fundamentalists and their oppressive

political agendas, we should continue to uphold

this wrong theory anyway in order to prevent a

political abuse of history. This reveals the nature of

communist thinking. If the evidence agrees with

them they flaunt it. If the evidence goes against

them they throw it out. Only politics matters for

them in the end.

Gaining the Ire of Academia

Several academicians, particularly in the West,

have criticized my Vedic work, not so much

because of the points that I raise but because of my

lack of academic qualifications. Since I don’t have a

degree in Indology from a western university they

hold that anything I say cannot have value and can

be rejected without examination. That I have spent

many years studying the Vedas and discussing

them with traditional teachers doesn’t count for

them. Few of these scholars have studied the Vedas

in the original Sanskrit. Relying on secondhand

and outdated sources they often make the most

elementary errors in interpretation. The same

people reject the views of great yogis like Sri

Aurobindo on the Vedas. But they will give

credibility to a communist scholar on the Vedas if

he has the appropriate university credentials!

Most academicians refuse to address the issues like

the Sarasvati River and the many sites discovered

along it. They use the charge of Hindu politics to

dismiss any criticism of the Aryan Invasion theory,

though colonial, missionary and Marxist groups

have long used the theory for their own political

gain.

Fortunately, a few archaeologists are now rejecting

the Invasion theory and other academicians can’t

so easily ignore them. James Schaffer recently

notes:

"As data accumulate to support cultural continuity

in south Asian prehistoric and historic periods, a

considerable restructuring of existing interpretive

paradigms must take place. We reject most

strongly the simplistic historical interpretations,

which date back to the eighteenth century, that

continue to be imposed on South Asian culture

history. Surely, as South Asian studies approaches

the twenty-first century, it is time to describe

emerging data objectively rather than perpetuate

interpretations without regard to the data

archaeologists have worked so hard to reveal."

Migration, Philology and South Asian Archaeology

in Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia I learned

that the academic realm is not so much a place of

objective study as a forum for various vested

interests. Academic generally have little respect for

spiritual traditions. They assume authority for

spiritual subjects beyond their intellectual capacity.

They use their positions to further their own

political and cultural agendas, often unaware of

what they themselves are doing! In American

schools, religions like Hinduism, if they are

examined at all, are dissected from a social,

political or economic angle as mere cultural

phenomena. There is little direct study, much less

experience of the yogic and Vedantic teachings

behind the tradition. Such is our modern

preoccupation with the outer aspect of life that it

reduces spirituality to a purely external affair. No

wonder we don't give much credit to a spiritual

culture like India.

The Vedic Yoga

I could easily discern the Vedic roots of the Yoga

tradition, its way of mantra and meditation and its

understanding of the subtle body and the energies

of consciousness. Aurobindo’s insights in this

direction were a great help. I was only following a

path that he had already opened out. However, I

was astounded that few scholars had noticed it,

even from India. For example, Radhakrishnan

missed the boat on the Vedas, even though he

knew Aurobindo directly. He preferred the views

of Max Muller!

That the Rig Vedic deities are symbols of internal

processes was self-evident to me. The Vedic fire on

an inner level is the fire of consciousness,

Chidagni. The Vedic Soma is the Ananda or Bliss.

Indra is the Supreme Purusha or pure being and

truth, sat or satya. Vedic mantras reflect the

unfoldment of these principles on different planes

and levels of the universe, outwardly and

inwardly.

For example, Agni or fire on a physical level is the

digestive fire. On the vital level it is the fire of

prana or breath. On the mental level it is the fire of

perception. In the buddhi or higher mind it is the

flame of discrimination (viveka). On the spiritual

plane it is the flame of awareness.

The Vedas don’t project these teachings in an

evident but in a cryptic language. They repeatedly

say "paroksha priya hi devah, pratyaksha dvisah,

meaning "the gods or sages prefer what is indirect

and dislike the obvious." The Rishis speak in

paradoxes no in evident logic. Such has been the

way of many mystics throughout history to take us

beyond the outer mind and its limitations.

The Rig Veda sets forth a path of mantra yoga,

using sound and the Divine word to awaken our

soul. The Yajur Veda sets forth a path of prana

yoga, using breath and intention to motivate us

inwardly. The Sama Veda sets forth a path of

meditation (dhyana yoga), using a heightened state

of feeling and awareness to liberate the mind and

heart. These three Vedas relate to the three parts of

our nature as speech (vak), prana and mind

(manas) and the three states of consciousness as

waking, dream and deep sleep. Outwardly they

are the three worlds of earth, atmosphere and

heaven.

This Vedic path involves both bhakti or devotion

to the deities as well as jnana or knowledge,

understanding the nature of the deities which are

all powers of the Self. It set forth the prototype for

the entire Hindu tradition and its many sides and

approaches. My earlier Vedic work, particularly

my translations from the Rig Veda as in Wisdom of

the Ancient Seers, approaches the Vedas but in a

deeper philosophical and poetic manner. Today I

would explicate these Vedic mantras in a more

precise and almost scientific manner, as blueprints

of cosmic and psychic forces. This I intend to do in

the coming years.

The Vedic Samaj Subhash Kak and I developed the

idea for a new Vedic association called the Vedic

Samaj in 1998. We felt that what is necessary today

is not a new religion or even a new guru but a new

way of spiritual knowledge and, most importantly,

a new type of community to embody it. The Vedic

Samaj (Sanatana Vedic Sangha) proposes such a

community to celebrate and advance Vedic

Dharma in all of its aspects. Such Vedic schools

and associations are crucial for a new age of

consciousness.

Purpose of the Vedic Samaj

1. To promote the different systems of Vedic

knowledge.

2. To seek the integration of the systems of Vedic

knowledge with all valid systems of knowledge,

both scientific and spiritual.

3. To provide a way of self-actualization,

compassion, and self-fulfillment.

4. To promote harmonious relationships among

people and with nature.

5. To develop insight and wisdom for guidance in

the unfolding age of information and knowledge.

Principles of the Vedic Samaj

1. There exists an all-pervasive Supreme Being

(Brahman) who is both immanent and

transcendent.

2. Only through knowing Brahman can we reach

the goal of life

3. Spiritually awakened knowledge is essential to

know Brahman.

4. Knowledge is possible because of the

equivalences (bandhu) between the outer and the

inner. These bandhus are described in the Vedas

and the Agamas.

5. Yoga, meditation, service, ritual and science are

ways to discover knowledge.

6. A Samaj or association is necessary to promote

this knowledge and its discovery among people.

7. The Samaj has as its primary principle the

seeking of this supreme knowledge, along with the

practices and disciplines necessary to bring it

about.

8. Membership in the Samaj is based upon personal

dedication to the knowledge, its realization and its

propagation.

9. The members of the Samaj should meet regularly

for worship, meditation and discussion.

HINDU GROUPS IN THE WEST

Parallel to my work in India I began working with

Hindu groups in the United States. Though very

few Hindus were living in America when I first

began to study Yoga in the late sixties, by the early

nineties during which my Vedic work blossomed,

they had already become a significant community,

highly educated and affluent. In time I visited

major Hindu temples and associations throughout

the country, particularly in Boston, Houston, and

Atlanta. Most important in this regard was the

VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) of America, but I

worked with many other groups as well.

Like their Indian counterpart, the American VHP

created a forum for teaching Hinduism,

information for defending Hinduism, and

communication between various Hindu groups

and teachers. I got to know the VHP leaders as

well, who have a similar dynamism, intelligence

and dedication. Such is the power of propaganda

deriving from the need to convert or conquer the

world.

I saw many westernized or American Hindus

struggling to rediscover their heritage and make it

meaningful for their children.

Most were doctors, scientists or in the computer

field. Few felt any contradiction between Hindu

Dharma and modern science or between being a

good Hindu and a good American citizen. In fact I

found that Non-resident Indians (NRIs) were more

supportive of their Hindu tradition than Hindus in

India, particularly those living in big cities or

working in the media.

The experience of western culture had not caused

them to abandon their spiritual culture but in the

long run brought them back to it. While they

appreciate the freedom and affluence of the West

they see its spiritual poverty. They also see that

Hinduism, particularly through Vedanta, is a much

more logical, scientific and futuristic system than

western religions, which even in America have

many groups that still espouse the Biblical view of

creation with the world starting only 6000 years

ago!

The main problem for American Hindus is getting

their children, who were born and raised in the

West, to understand and respect their tradition.

Western pop culture is insidious for getting into

the minds of children and turning them toward a

lifetime of consumerism, blotting out their finer

sensitivities. Still I think if there is any religion that

is diverse and rich enough in culture to overcome

modern American consumerism, it is the Hindu

religion!

Hindu Students Council Perhaps the most dynamic

group that I met with HSC or Hindu Students

Council. HSC is an organization composed of

students and ex-students that promotes Hindu

culture, values and ideas on college campuses. It is

the largest such organization in the United States,

with many branches and hundreds of members. I

attended a number of their functions, including

those at universities and their summer camps, and

got to know many of their leaders.

HSC members have set up the Hindu Universe

(www.hindunet.org) which is the largest Hindu

internet site. It is an important treasure house of

information on all aspects of Hindu religion,

thought, culture, history, temples, deities, bhajans

et all. They put some of my books and articles on

line, as well as those of various Hindu thinkers.

HSC members combine Hindu values, both

spiritual and political, with success in the Western

business and the academic worlds. They realize

that their Hindu background of strong family

values, spiritual principles, and dedicated study,

affords them an advantage in America. Hinduism

is not a liability but an asset to success in the

modern world, particularly for the planetary age in

which we must go beyond cultural and religious

exclusivity. HSC has many brilliant and dynamic

young men and women. They will make great

contributions to Hinduism in the future and make

it more acceptable in the modern world. HSC has a

loose association with VHP of America.

Global Vision 2000

Global Vision 2000 was one of the most important

Hindu events ever to occur in the United States. It

occurred in 1993 as part of the Vivekananda

Centenary celebrations. Many Hindu groups came

under the auspices of the VHP. Probably over ten

thousand people attended a conference that

covered all aspects of Hinduism, India and

interreligious dialogue, with programs for the

youth as well as adults. I spoke in several sessions

and was able to meet many important people. At

this gathering one had the sense of a real Hindu

community and Hindu voice emerging in the West.

Not surprisingly the media, both Western and

Indian, greeted the conference with contempt.

They highlight a handful of protestors on the

outside and didn’t examine the wealth of

presentations on the inside, which included Sufi

and Native American activities. I have often

wondered why other groups are so afraid of

Hindus, who are generally tolerant and pacifistic,

organizing themselves. I think it is because

Hinduism has such a strong culture and teaching

that on a level playing field they couldn’t compete

against it!

The Swami Narayan Order The Swami Narayan

order is probably the best organized Hindu sect, as

well as the most modern in its technology and

media resources. At the same time it is probably

the best disciplined and the most ascetic of modern

Hindu monastic orders.

I was first invited by the Swami Narayan order to

their Cultural Festival of India in New Jersey in

1991, to speak before the youth, a role that I would

come to take in many different forums. One of the

young monks had read my Arise Arjuna article

and on the pretext invited me. There I had the

darshan of Pramukh Swami, their current head

and a great Sadhu. Later I visited their temple in

India at Akshar Dham in Gujarat where I spoke at

a conference on the Role of the Guru. I also visited

their beautiful marble temple in London (Neasdon)

during a trip to UK.

Most important was my visit to their Cultural

Festival of India in 1997 in Mumbai, which marked

Pramukh Swami’s seventy-fifth birthday, on which

occasion I gave a short talk. The Swami Narayan

Order had taken a piece of land in the slums of

Mumbai and turned it into a modern temple and

garden complex showing a futuristic Hinduism

with the power to solve all the world’s problems.

Such is the power of real devotion.

Tour of UK

In late1996 I did a three week tour of England,

speaking at various temples and universities from

Newcastle in the North to London in the south and

Cardiff in the west. The tour was arranged by the

VHP of UK and by the NHSF (National Student’s

Hindu Forum). They had asked me to release their

new book Explaining Hindu Dharma, a Guide to

Teachers, which had been accepted as a textbook in

the British schools.

Like members of HSC, the Hindu students in

England were quite enthusiastic and asked many

questions on a variety of topics. Hindus in England

were a larger portion of the populace and not so

spread out as in America. Like their counterparts

in America they were affluent and well-educated.

However, they were more under siege from

Islamic extremism, which served to give them a

greater cohesion.

Most UK Hindus wanted to be called Hindus,

unlike most American Hindus who would rather

be called Indians or South Asians. As many UK

Hindus first came refugees from British Africa, so

that they couldn’t be called Indians anyway. The

problem was that the appellation South Asian

lumped Hindus and Muslims of the subcontinent

together, when their culture, educational

achievements and role in the UK community are

very different. Hindus were high achievers in

education, while the Muslims were more inclined

to get involved in youth gangs. Hindus did not

want to be lumped as South Asians, which would

give their merit to the Muslims and ascribe Islamic

violence to them.

It was interesting to see India having a reciprocal

influence on Great Britain, its former colonial

rulers. The British have turned to Indian food. The

Hindu religion may gradually come into their lives

as well. Certainly the British are much more aware

of it than are Americans who often don’t know the

difference between Hindu and Buddhist, or even

Hindu and Muslim.

Trinidad

One small country in the Americas that does have

a large Hindu population is Trinidad. I visited the

Island in 1996 and saw its Hindu culture, including

its several wonderful temples. It is much like being

in India. Even Hindu Gods like Shiva and

Hanuman have taken their abode there.

Later I came in contact with the Trinidad

Mahasabha that has produced several good writers

on Hinduism that write regular articles on topical

matters. They asked me never to forget the

overseas Hindus in the Caribbean, so I must

mention them here as well. There is another large

Hindu pocket in Guyana. The Caribbean Hindus

show how Hinduism can be adopted to another

continent and its landscape. Certainly Hindus have

not been properly considerate of their overseas

members, which makes them prey to conversion

efforts.

The Diaspora of Hindus globally is now quite

large, extending to over ten million, and growing

rapidly. Often in a foreign context one appreciates

one’s background better. Hindus are generally

more aware of their Hinduness outside of India.

That they are targeted by missionaries makes them

more conscious of it.

I noted that Hindus do better outside of India,

excelling in education and in business. Their very

Hindu values of family and learning help them. So

it is not Hinduism that makes India poor and

inefficient, but the bureaucracy, whose origin is in

the British system and in Nehru’s adoption of a

Soviet style economy. As India comes more under

Hindu political and economic values its economic

and education levels will rise dramatically.

ADDITIONAL STUDIES

OF CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM

There should be no effort to force any religion

upon anyone. The first commandment of God

should be, respect the Divine Self in all. Secondly

there should be no preaching. We should teach

what we know and let others discover for

themselves whether or not it is true. We should let

them be influenced by our behavior and our

personality and not resort to propaganda, threats

or promises.

We should not speak in God’s name in order to

entice or to condemn others. No religion should

make it a right or a duty to convert the world. We

should welcome a diversity of spiritual approaches

and not take any as the last word.

Hindus are not exclusive in their religious,

spiritual or cultural views. They believe in the

existence of many paths both inside their tradition

and outside of it. They are ready at any time to

embrace their Christian and Islamic brothers,

without insisting that everyone becomes a Hindu.

But one cannot embrace someone who says, "We

do not accept your religion, we condemn your

gods and sages, we reject your holy books and

practices, salvation is ours and not yours, and we

will not cease striving to convert you to our way!"

This has been the main message of Christians and

Muslims to Hindus for centuries, etched in blood,

and it remains so today, with a few notable

exceptions and modified according to the political

exigencies of a secular world order.

My main criticism of Christianity and Islam is not

about their beliefs, though I may not agree with

these. Let people be free to follow whatever

appeals to them in their hearts. My criticism is

against the intolerance and missionary efforts of

these two kindred faiths that overshadows the

good that they may be otherwise attempting to do.

More liberal Christians may themselves reject such

missionary efforts as not representing real

Christianity.

However, they do little to stop them or even to

criticize them. Nor are they aware of how much

this missionary aggression still continues. Unless

this missionary assault is challenged it is bound to

wreak much more havoc in the world, particularly

as large Asian countries like China and India

become more accessible targets.

Similarly, many Hindus discriminate between

churchianity that they reject and Christ whom they

honor as a holy man or even avatar. Unfortunately,

churchianity still dominates mainstream

Christianity and most of Christianity in India as

well.The openhearted Hindu acceptance of Christ

has even been used by missionaries to soften up

Hindus for their conversion efforts, not by

reciprocating with any comparable honoring of

Krishna or Buddha.

If Christians and Muslims want to show their

tolerance let them first throw off their exclusivism

and accept other paths, including the pagan and

Hindu as valid. Let them close down their

conversion activities and openly dialogue with

other religions to jointly discover what is true. Let

them apologize for their history of denigrating

other faiths and seeking to convert them with force

and propaganda. Otherwise those of other beliefs

cannot trust their claims of tolerance Many good

people and even great mystics have lived among

Christians and Muslims throughout history. I

would certainly not deny this.

All human beings have access to the Divine and

Christians and Muslims are not barred from it. The

problem is that their exclusive beliefs and their

missionary efforts removes them from the Divine

in others and causes them to lose the Divine within

themselves as well. It makes them try to denigrate

and destroy other traditions that are quite valid in

their own right.

All human beings possess a natural faith and

intuition in a higher truth and consciousness. The

problem is that religions, instead facilitating this,

try to manipulate it into a faith in their own

dogmas and institutions instead – and an

intolerance of other forms that this inner yearning

may take among different people and cultures. In

this way true religious seeking, which is valid

whatever form it takes, becomes distorted and

even harmful. It misses its real goal of uniting

humanity and becomes a factor of social division

and distrust. It suppresses the pursuit of spiritual

and even scientific knowledge that it cannot

control.

Islam and the Sufis

As I traveled in India I noticed the Islamic

community and how it operates. Islamic women

still wear the veil and dark clothing. Muslims stay

apart from Hindus in their own communities,

which are often ghettos. Clearly there was a major

cultural difference between Hindus and Muslims.

I wondered why the Sufis, who follow a mysticism

like Ibn El Arabi that has much in common with

Vedantic monism, did not project a more positive

model of Hinduism for orthodox Muslims to

emulate. I researched the Sufis further. I

discovered that the Sufis were a diverse group

representing various intellectual and mystical

trends in the Islamic world, both orthodox and

unorthodox. Some Sufis were indeed free spirited

individualists with a direct communion with the

Divine at a high level. The medieval Persian poet

Rumi is perhaps the best example of this type of

Sufi. Such Sufis were often oppressed, if not killed

by the Muslim orthodoxy, like Al Hallaj in the

ninth century, who was dismembered for making

the rather Vedantic proclamation of "I am God."

Other Sufis were simply the Islamic equivalent of

the Jesuits and could be militant, if not fanatic.

Such Sufis encouraged and guided Muslim attacks

against Hindu India. This was particularly true of

organized Sufi orders like the Naqshbandis, which

have long aimed at the conversion of India to

Islam. These Sufi orders are spiritual soldiers for

Islam and, like Christian missionaries, have little

respect for other traditions, particularly those of

India, which they still denigrate as pagan, heathen

and kafir. Most Sufi activity in the world today is

under their control.

The other question was whether Mohammed, the

founder of Islam, who had many mystical

experiences, was a tolerant figure whose teachings

were distorted by militant Islam, or an intolerant

figure that militant Islam followed faithfully.

Other Sufis were simply the Islamic equivalent of

the Jesuits and could be militant, if not fanatic.

Such Sufis encouraged and guided Muslim attacks

against Hindu India. This was particularly true of

organized Sufi orders like the Naqshbandis, which

have long aimed at the conversion of India to

Islam. These Sufi orders are spiritual soldiers for

Islam and, like Christian missionaries, have little

respect for other traditions, particularly those of

India, which they still denigrate as pagan, heathen

and kafir. Most Sufi activity in the world today is

under their control.

The other question was whether Mohammed, the

founder of Islam, who had many mystical

experiences, was a tolerant figure whose teachings

were distorted by militant Islam, or an intolerant

figure that militant Islam followed faithfully. In the

beginning assumed that Mohammed was probably

a great yogi whose teaching was misinterpreted,

following a common Hindu idea that all major

religions must reflect the highest truth at their

origin. However, over time after studying the

Koran and the life of Mohammed, I was forced to

conclude that Islamic intolerance began with

Mohammed himself. I came to agree with Swami

Vivekananda that Mohammed was an eccentric

mystic who mixed various superstitions with an

experience of super consciousness that was

incomplete. The result was a dangerous

combination of religious insight and religious

fanaticism.

I discovered that the majority of Sufis have long

been actively engaged in promoting Islamic

expansionism and aggression, and this remains

part of their agenda today. Prominent Sufis were

involved with major Islamic rulers in India,

including tyrants like Aurangzeb, Mahmud

Ghauri, Mahmud Ghaznavi and Alauddin Khilji,

who killed thousands of Hindus and destroyed

hundreds of temples. Mahmud of Ghaznavi, for

example, was a great hero in the Sufi poetry of

Attar and Sanai, for his ruthless destruction of the

Somnath Shiva temple, which they saw as a den of

infidels.

Perhaps because Islam is generally intolerant, the

Sufis gain much by way of contrast. While one can

sympathize with the Sufis and more easily

dialogue with them than with the orthodox, to

think that Sufis don’t represent the vested interests

of Islam is quite naïve. I remember a meeting with

an American Sufi who followed a traditional

Middle Eastern Sufi order. He admitted that non-

Muslims could gain access to Allah but insisted

that it required a special effort on their part. I

mentioned the example of Ramana Maharshi. He

noted that the Maharshi’s achievement was great

for a Hindu but ordinary Muslims could reach the

same level without effort by faith alone. He said

that through Islam one connects to a lineage that

goes all the way back to Adam or the original man

and connects one directly with God, while all other

religions deviate from that and cannot be trusted!

In my dialogues with various Sufis I found that

they didn’t accept karma and rebirth. In spite of

their portrayal in India as monists, they were

generally dualists, seeing some ultimate difference

between God and the soul. Though they firmly

believe that God is One they feel that the human

soul can never completely merge into Allah but can

only go to one of the nine heavens or paradises.

While many accept a unity of religions, if you

question them they usually place that unity only in

Islam, not in any real religious pluralism.

Anwar Shaikh

During my UK trip I met with Anwar Shaikh, an

important scholarly critic of Islam. Originally a

Pakistani, an Islamic Mullah and a Sufi Sheikh, he

returned to the Vedic fold by his own thought and

experience. Shaikh was a warm and friendly

character with a great sense of humor and

hospitality. He was not physically well at the time

but was still working hard on various books and

articles.

Shaikh has an evolutionary concept of the

Godhead, that the Divine was a collective

formation of cosmic evolution, not an aloof God

outside of the cosmos. This corresponds to the

Hiranyagarbha or collective subtle body of

Vedantic thought. We are all creating God as God

is living through us. Buddhist and Jain ideas of

liberation as something that we develop on an

individual level rather than as something that

comes from a deity beyond reflect a similar trend

in Indian thought.

Shaikh regards Islam as a political movement

under a religious guise, a ploy for Arab

nationalism. For him Mohammed was a masterful

general, politician and diplomat who skillfully

used religion to further his worldly aims. Allah is

an alter ego for Mohammed and the Koran is more

the thought and life of Mohammed than a real

communion with God.

Shaikh has a mastery of Arabic, the Koran and its

traditional commentaries and uses them to prove

his point of view. Another important work in this

regard is Why I Am Not A Muslim by Ibn Warraq,

who also opens the veil of scrutiny on Islam that

has been so carefully kept in tact by Islamic rulers

today.

Islamic mullahs like the Ayatollah Khomeni

remind one of fundamentalist Christian preachers

in America who repeatedly assert that "God said"

or "Jesus said" when they really are just voicing

their own opinions and assertions. They use the

name of God to promote their social agendas of

controlling or expanding their flocks. God certainly

has his own voice that can be heard in the heart

and has nothing to do with any preaching. We all

belong to the community of God. The real sin is to

divide humanity into the true believers and the

heretics, which leads to hatred and war. And if

God demands such exclusive loyalty, such a God is

a creation of human need and arrogance, not the

universal truth or love. He should not be

worshipped but cast aside.

The whole idea of a messenger between God and

Man – that the individual cannot directly

understand God but requires a prophet or savior

like Mohammed or Jesus – is foreign to Hindu

thought that emphasizes the Atman or higher Self.

One could argue that the setting up of such a

messenger is the real idolatry or worship of a false

god.

It places an intermediary between the soul and

God, which is then used by various vested interests

to direct our faith not to God, but to their own

dogmas and need to control the world. Similarly

the Hindu view, while honoring the books of the

sages, never puts any holy book as the last word

that we must uncritically accept. Our own direct

perception of truth is made the highest authority.

Clearly the world needs a more critical

examination of Islam, both historically and

ideologically. The Islamic world stands where

Christianity was in the Middle Ages, preventing

anyone from questioning its beliefs in a manner on

par with the Inquisition, yet with the economic

power of billions of petrodollars. Religion should

be objectively examined not only from the light of

reason, but also according to a dharmic or yogic

view.

Such intellectual critiques were made of

Christianity several centuries ago. But Islamic

society is not yet open to such self-examination.

Though a fatwa and death threat has been issued

against him for his views, Anwar Shaikh has

invited Muslim scholars to debate freely with him

whenever they like. So far no one has taken up his

challenge. Even if one does not agree with such

critics as Shaikh, there is no reason that their lives

should be threatened because they question Islam.

Visit to Israel

I visited Israel in February of 1995 as part of an

international Yoga conference where I was

teaching. The trip helped me better understand

Western religions. I found Israel to be a fascinating

country with a deep and ancient spirit that

reflected the formlessness and austerity of the

surrounding desert. In some ways it reminded me

of South India. Strangely perhaps, given my

Catholic background, the religion that most

interested me while in Israel was Judaism, which I

felt most acutely while visiting the Wailing Wall. I

had long admired the Jewish people for their

intellectual achievements and viewed their religion

in a different light than Christianity or Islam.

Unlike its offshoots, the Jewish religion never set

itself up as the one true faith that needed to

conquer the world. It accepted that different

peoples had other religious traditions, which might

not be the same as theirs. It also had great

traditions of learning, mysticism and the use of a

spiritual language that were almost Brahmanical in

nature. Some Jewish groups also accept rebirth or

reincarnation.

The Bible is mainly the cultural record of the

Jewish people, coming from various Jewish leaders

over many centuries compiled to deal with the

issues of their community, not only spiritual but

also mundane.

That the Bible is the word of God is cultural

hyperbole; it represents the Jewish people’s main

experience and interpretation of the Divine, not

God’s last word for all humanity or for all time.

I could see how the Jews would think that

Christians and Muslims had expropriated and

distorted their teaching. The Christians

transformed the Bible into a teaching that was even

used to attack the Jews. The Koran is the Bible

rewritten according to the religious urges of the

Arabic community, and reflects their social and

political expansion as well. The whole idea of a

book as the Word of God moved from cultural

pride to global aggression. At first I couldn’t

understand why the Jews were opposed to image

worship, which most divides their tradition from

the Hindu. Images are part of our artistic

expression and are helpful tools for devotion.

Image worship may not appeal to everyone, but

there is no need to exclude it. And it is quite

unenlightened to reject all images as unholy or

those who worship them as unspiritual.

However, I discovered an historical reason for the

Jewish rejection of image worship. The Jews were a

small people that occupied an important trade and

military route between two continents, which was

a natural battleground for nearby empires. With

the larger, more elaborate and imagistic Egyptian

and Mesopotamian cultures on either side, the

Jews could have been easily assimilated. Their

aniconic religion aided in their survival by making

them a distinct people and helping them stand

apart from their often more materialistic neighbors.

Unfortunately this social need got translated into a

religious rule that became the basis of religious

intolerance, particularly under Christian and

Islamic dogma.

Their aniconic religion aided in their survival by

making them a distinct people and helping them

stand apart from their often more materialistic

neighbors. Unfortunately this social need got

translated into a religious rule that became the

basis of religious intolerance, particularly under

Christian and Islamic dogma.

I also admired the Greek Orthodox churches in

Jerusalem, which were quite beautiful and ornate,

much like Hindu temples with their images,

incense and candles. I learned that the Greek

Orthodox tradition is the older form of

Christianity. All the old churches in Jerusalem are

Greek Orthodox, which was the religion of the

Eastern Roman and Byzantine Empire. The Roman

Catholics didn’t get to Jerusalem until the time of

the Crusades and don’t represent either original

Christianity or its forms near its homeland in

Israel, which were more mystical in nature.

However, Christianity in all its forms appeared to

be permeated with a sense of sorrow, the crucified

savior, and a burden of original sin. I think there is

a deeper meaning for this. Christianity reflects a

mystical vision that was crushed before it could

really develop. From a Jewish religious sect

opposing the Romans it eventually assumed the

power of the Roman State and came to embody the

very tyranny that it first opposed. A study of the

Dead Sea Scrolls reveals that the early Christians

were one of many related Jewish movements of the

times opposed to the Romans. Most of the

teachings attributed to Jesus were part of older

Jewish teachings, including many of his parables.

These portray a similar symbolism of a Messiah

and looking to the end of the world, which really

meant the end of Roman rule and the

reestablishment of a Jewish state. The Messiah was

a purely Jewish concept, not the harbinger of a new

faith.

Jesus, if anything, was a good Jew and should be

interpreted in light of Jewish traditions. Though he

may have opposed certain Jewish sects, which

were many, he was clearly in the line of the Old

Testament. Christianity was a misinterpretation of

Judaism that occurred after the Romans destroyed

the Jewish State and killed its leaders, including

the early Christians and their leaders like James,

called the brother of Jesus. It took several centuries

for Jewish Christianity to evolve into Roman

Christianity and we can document this historically

with the aid of various historical records. Paul was

pivotal in turning this Jewish sect into a Roman

religion. He was the real founder of the Christian

religion not Jesus or his disciples who remained

faithful Jews.

Roman Christianity was the invention of a later age

when the Jewish Christians, defeated and scattered

by the Romans, reorganized and intermingled with

the general Roman public. In order to gain support

in Roman society they downplayed and then

denied their Jewish background.

This Roman Christianity that became the official

Roman religion in the fourth century was the

Greek Orthodox tradition and brought in some of

the mysticism and image worship of the Greeks

and related Gnostic traditions.

The Roman Catholic religion only became

prominent through Charlemagne and the Holy

Roman Empire in the ninth century. Roman

Catholic Christianity with its popes was a sidelight

to Greek Orthodox Christianity that only came to

dominate over the Greek tradition after the

Crusades that sacked the Greek capital of

Byzantium in the thirteenth century. In Jerusalem I

could see a decline in spirituality from the Greek

Orthodox to the Roman Catholic Churches and

Protestant Churches. The Greek Orthodox

churches had much mysticism in them. The Roman

Catholic had some mysticism but a sense of

regimentation. The recently built Protestant

Churches had no spirituality at all and were little

better than tombs for the soul!

Scholars are now discovering a similar historical

development in the Koran. Versions of the Koran

from Yemen have been found dating from the

eighth century that differ from the Koran as we

know it today. Scholars are now proposing that the

Koran was a document that developed over time to

fulfill not only religious needs but also the social

needs of a new and rapidly growing empire. The

new Arab rulers needed a religious teaching to

sanctify their position and maintain their hold over

the older and more complex cultures that they had

just come to rule. Their religion was rigid and

intolerant in order to sustain their supremacy over

older civilizations that could easily assimilate their

much simpler culture.

No doubt many mystical traditions existed in the

ancient Near East before the two orthodox

religions of the book eliminated them. This

included Greek, Celtic, Egyptian, Persian and

Babylonian traditions with probable links to India

and to Vedanta. Probably there were many great

mystics in these traditions that we have forgotten

who were as great as any produced by Christianity

and Islam.

Vedic Pluralism and Biblical Monotheism

Biblical traditions reflect a one God who is an

authoritarian figure, having his chosen people,

demanding allegiance, exhibiting jealousy, and

lording over his creation like a king, if not a tyrant.

While some may argue that this is a

misinterpretation or a simplification of a deeper

view, and it may be, it has been the dominant

impulse behind missionary efforts all over the

world. In the Christian view God has his heaven

and hell to reward his followers and punish his

enemies. Islam follows the same model. Such a

God is looked upon with fear and trembling. His

believers follow him as a role model and easily

become intolerant and authoritarian themselves,

asserting dogma rather than seeking truth, trying

to make everyone follow the dictates of their

imperious deity.

 

Om Tat Sat
                                                        
(Continued...) 

(My humble Thankfulness to Brahmasree David Frawley (Pandit Vamadeva Shastry)  for the collection)