HOW I BECAME A HINDU - My Discovery of Vedic Dharma By David Frawley -6

HOW I BECAME A HINDU

My Discovery of Vedic Dharma

By

David Frawley

(Pandit Vamadeva Shastry)

The Vedic view, on the contrary, is of many Gods

and Goddesses, each with its appropriate and

unique place in the cosmic order. Behind them is

not some domineering personal Creator but a

Great Spirit or Parabrahma, which is our higher

Self beyond all outer limitations. The Vedic Gods

form a vast and friendly brotherhood and work

together to manifest the Great Spirit. While some

like Rudra are figures of some fear or dread,

representing difficult aspects of life such as death

and suffering, even these can be propitiated and

turned into benefic forces of light and love.

Perhaps the Old Testament God was originally

such a Rudra-Shiva like figure that got scaled

down into a more limited or exclusive model over

time. Rudra is also called Yahva in the Rig Veda,

perhaps cognate with the Biblical Yahweh.

In the Biblical tradition human beings are fallen

creatures, existing in sin and exiled from God, who

stands with a threatening gaze in his heaven

beyond. In the Vedas, human beings form a

brotherhood with the Gods and have a common

origin, nature and kinship with them. Human

beings can become Gods and gain immorality

along with them. There is no overriding or ultimate

sin but simply ignorance and impurity that must

be removed to allow our true nature, which is pure

awareness, to manifest without obstruction.

Biblical monotheism tends towards exclusivism – if

you are not with us, you are against us. The Vedic

view reflects unity-in-multiplicity – those who

sincerely think differently than us are also with us,

because there is no one way for all. The Vedic view

is of a pluralistic world order that accommodates

many variant views in a vast harmony. It is aware

of the Absolute Unity of Truth but also recognizes

its many creative forms in manifestation.

The main Biblical view is that "I, the Lord thy God,

am a jealous God and thou shall not worship other

Gods." The Vedic view is "That which is the One

Truth the Seers declare in manifold ways (Rig

Veda I.164.46)", and "May noble aspirations come

to us from every side (Rig Veda I.89.1)." The Rig

Vedic original man or Manu states, "None of you

Gods are small or inferior. All of you are great. All

the Gods that dwell here, who are universal to all

beings, may you give your protection to us and to

our horses and cattle (Rig Veda VIII.30.1,4)."

The Biblical view is of a One God who is at war

with other gods. The Vedic view is of One Truth

that has many forms, expressions and paths of

approach. Whether it is Indra, Agni, Soma and

Surya of the Vedas or Shiva, Vishnu, Devi or

Ganesha of later Hinduism, each is the Supreme

Self in form, aspect or approach and includes the

other Gods in a greater harmony.

Vedic pluralism gives rise to a free and open

spiritual path, the many ways of yoga. It is not

limited to monotheism, though it includes theism

as an important approach at a devotional level.

Vedic pluralism does not give rise to any need to

convert the world but rather to the nurturing of

ever new insights and local applications of truth.

Nor is it a form of polytheism, reflecting a belief in

many separate gods. It is a free approach to

monism on an individual level, recognizing both

the universal and the unique in human beings.

Such a view is necessary today to link all the varied

religious aspirations of humanity and the many

sages, teachings and forms of worship that are our

heritage as a species.

The Hindu way is a universal pluralism that

combines the one and the many, the unique and

the all. It is not a pluralism of anything goes, a

mere promiscuity, but a truth that is vast, many

sided and adaptable, like the great forces of nature.

It is the pluralism that arises from the One, but the

One that is infinite and unlimited. Such an

inclusive view is necessary to integrate human

culture throughout the world today, which is and

should remain diverse. The exclusivist model

belongs to the Middle Ages and reflects the urge of

one group to triumph over the rest, which leads to

conflict and destruction.

Hinduism does not claim to hold the big or the

final truth, or to dispense it to a doubting

humanity from on high. It holds that a Supreme

Truth, a unity of consciousness, does exist but that

it is beyond human manipulation and outside of

human history. This spiritual truth has nothing to

do with proselytizing and is not bound by any

belief, identity or leader. Discovering it is

ultimately a matter of individual search and

aspiration. Hinduism provides tools for this self

discovery, but leaves the individual free to find out

directly what it is. As a religion it makes itself

dispensable and does not make itself into the last

word. Once we know ourselves we go beyond all

the limitations of humanity. But at the same time

we become connected to all the great seers and

yogis of all time.

Religion and Superstition

Religion is inherently an attempt to connect with

the transcendent. Such a connection not only

enlarges human consciousness but, if done without

the right purity of body and mind, can expand the

human ego instead. It can not only connect us with

the Absolute but can lend the illusion of absolute

truth to our own prejudices.

The Hindu tradition emphasizes yogic sadhana to

purify the body and mind so that we have the

proper vessel to experience superconsciousness.

But religious teachings that emphasize faith and

belief do not require such sadhana. Faith-based

religions encourage belief in the irrational like the

virgin birth or redemption on the cross as

necessary for salvation, not changing one's own

consciousness. This placing of faith beyond

scrutiny tends to imbalance the minds of people

and makes them prone to wishful thinking and

emotional excesses.

Mysticism can exist within the confines of religious

dogma but inevitably gets distorted by it. Even

when people have genuine experiences of higher

states of consciousness in belief-based traditions,

like many Christian mystics, the dogmas and

superstitions of their religions cast a shadow over

these. Some such mystics may get caught in

delusions, thinking that they are another Jesus or

that they are at war with the devil and have to save

the world. The mystification of salvation through

belief in a savior or prophet leads to much

confusion and is incapable of really changing

human nature. This is because the impure mind

mixes its own desires with any experience of the

Divine that it may be able to achieve.

The Vedic tradition, on the other hand, emphasizes

the impersonal and the eternal. It is not rooted in

an historical revelation but in an ever-evolving

quest for truth. It recognizes both many ancient

and many modern sages and the individual’s need

for direct perception.

Religions rooted in the personal and historical tend

to confuse the merely human with the Divine.

They invest an infallibility to certain prophets,

books or institutions, which existing in time must

be fallible. They remain trapped in the needs of a

particular community and frozen at one stage of

history. Books like the Bible and the Koran are

human inventions and contain much that untrue or

out of date. They may represent how certain

people tried to connect with the divine, but they do

not represent the Divine itself. They are not ofs

universal or eternal relevance but have a niche in

time and space that can be quite limiting. Even the

Vedas are not literally the word of God, which is

beyond all form, but the spiritual records of the

Rishis and the various ways that they sought the

Divine. We should never worship a mere book. A

book can only be an aid for our own inner inquiry,

just as a guidebook can never substitute for our

own travel to a new country. That is why we are

told that the Vedas are endless. Truth is beyond

limitation. The unspoken word or unstruck sound

is greater than what anyone may ever say.

Religion in the world today still promotes many

superstitions, not merely about the world, but also

about the nature of consciousness. I am not

speaking only of tribal beliefs but also of

mainstream faiths. If we look at all the claims of

salvation in religion, they remain naïve, if not

absurd. The necessity for Jesus as our personal

savior, or Mohammed as the last prophet, are

contrary to both reason and to spiritual wisdom.

Knowledge alone brings liberation and it comes

not through belief but through meditation.

We need not accept all these religious superstitions

in order to be liberal in our religious views but

should cut through them with the light of

discrimination. Truth arises through self-discovery,

which requires going beyond all prophets and

intermediaries. In this regard truth is more

important than God. Our real search should be for

truth. That will lead us to the real divinity. But if

we seek God according to the idea of a certain

faith, we are likely to lose the truth along the way.

RETURN OF THE PAGANS

Once human beings communed freely with the

forces of nature. They felt a spirit in every hill or

vale. They saw a Divine face in the Sun and the

Moon. They felt a consciousness in the mountains,

trees and clouds. They recited poetry, performed

rituals, and had profound meditations on the

sacred world order, which they discovered allied

with their own inner Self. Those who possessed

such insight were the sages, seers, druids or rishis

that guided the culture.

The advent of the One God and his one book

banished the nature spirits from the Earth,

disconnected us from our ancestors, and removed

us from the grace of the great Gods and Goddesses.

Our human god like a superego came to rule over

our psyche and alienate us from life. Pagan

learning that included natural healing, astrology,

the occult and yoga was dismissed as dangerous, if

not demonic.

This One God was not a universal formation

(though one may argue that he originally might

have been). He represented not a unity of truth, but

a single God opposed to all others. He demands,

like a jealous husband, an exclusive loyalty. He

brought his people not to the Oneness but to a

duality of the true believer and the infidel that

ushered in a reign of mistrust, hatred and

eventually terror upon the world in the name of

religion.

But the One God could only rule over a dark age of

the oppression. He had to banish the light of

reason and freedom of inquiry, maintaining his

rule with force and propaganda. His rule, though

lasting for some centuries, had to be transient.

With the return of reason, observation and open

communication in the modern world, his

domination must come to an end. The great Gods

and Goddesses are again returning as our natural

interest in higher consciousness reawakens. May

their beautiful and friendly grace come forth once

more!

Hinduism and Native Traditions

Hinduism reflects the religion of nature and the

earth. It is present externally in the clouds and the

stars, the hills and the rivers. We can see Hinduism

in all native traditions and in all ancient religions,

particularly where the Sun, the symbol of the

Atman or higher Self, is worshipped. Hindu

Dharma is the very religion of life and of the

individual expressing himself or herself in many

different forms.

Encountering Hinduism is particularly difficult

because it means facing our pagan roots. Were the

pagans really that bad? Were they merely

bloodthirsty savages as we generally portray them

to be? Did only Christianity bring civilization and

compassion to the world? Were the pagans, even if

great, doomed to hell or at least to inadequacy

because of not accepting Jesus, though most of

them never heard of him?

I cannot believe that our ancient ancestors were so

inferior or that we are so much more advanced. I

don’t think that merely embracing a religious belief

really changes people or makes them better. Our

pagan ancestors were human beings with a

profound sense of the sacred. Could they not also

feel the full range of emotions up to communion

with God? Our words God and Divine, after all,

are pagan in origin. Certainly the pagans knew of a

higher power and had methods to connect with it.

They had deep spiritual traditions abounding with

holy places, myths, philosophy, magic and insight.

Christianity reduced these practices, not by

understanding them but by summarily rejecting

them, because they were too diverse for its

monotonous creed.

Have those of you who came from Christian or

Islamic religious backgrounds ever asked what the

religion of your ancestors was before they

converted? Was their religion mere idolatry,

superstition, and eroticism as paganism is

portrayed to be? Or did it have its own nobility

and spirituality, its own sense of the Divine and a

great history and ancestry? We can better

understand these older beliefs because their

counterpart exists in native traditions throughout

the world, above all in India.

Native religions are not credal beliefs based upon a

church, scripture or prophet. They are rooted in the

land and in the sky, not in a book or in an

institution. They are part of a people, culture and

way of life. While some of their beliefs may appear

primitive or crude to our casual glance, we can find

great meaning in them if we would but look upon

them with sensitivity and openness.

They herded the natives like cattle, split up their

families, tore them off the land that was their soul,

and placed them in reservations that were little

better than prisons. And, most strangely, they

thought in this cruel process that they were

actually civilizing the natives and giving them the

chance to become good Christians!

The pre-Christian Greeks gave us Plato and

Aristotle or Western philosophy, on which

mooring later Christian theology, without much

appreciation, built its foundations. They gave us a

great mythology full of deep and complex

meanings with their great Gods and Goddesses

from Zeus to Apollo, from Aphrodite to Hera.

Great ancient European mystics like Plotinus or

Apollonius of Tyana were not Christians and

didn’t require a church or a book to mediate

between themselves and the Infinite. And they

looked to India for inspiration not to the Bible.

The Celts had their bards and seers; the famous

Druids that even the inimical Romans looked to as

wise and noble. The Druids had an oral tradition of

poetry, along with rituals or yajnas much like the

Vedas. They knew the land and its spirits, the mists

and the hills. They had their medicine, astrology

and philosophy. The Egyptians gave us great

pyramids and a monumental artwork that reflects

cosmic consciousness and a profound knowledge

of the occult. Even today we are in awe of their

accomplishments and cannot reduplicate them.

It is the very nature of credal religions to denigrate,

if not demonize different beliefs. For example, the

Muslims of the Middle Ages prided themselves in

destroying the idols of the evil pagans. Their word

for idol was Bud for Buddha. The people they

vilified as the terrible and hedonistic pagans were

often merely pacifistic Buddhist monks!

Christian Oppression of Pagans

In my studies of history I learned that the pagan

oppression of the Christians was minor compared

to the Christian oppression of pagans. Pagan Rome

was generally tolerant about religion and accepted

the existence of many cults and sects. Its clash with

Christianity was because the Christians refused to

afford homage to the Roman State. No doubt the

Romans, who were harsh rulers of a vast empire,

did oppress the early Christians. But the many

religions in the Roman Empire had great depths

and cannot be rejected for this political action.

In the early centuries of Christian rule numerous

pagan temples were destroyed or replaced by

churches. Their beautiful statues were broken and

trampled upon as unholy idols. Their wonderful

rituals and philosophies were rejected as

superstition. The great university and library of

Alexandria was only one of the many centers of

learning in the ancient world that was destroyed.

Eventually the Platonic Academy in Athens was

closed down as well. Early Christianity was against

learning and burned books and schools, a model

that early Islam also followed.

Some pagan beliefs were taken over by the church

like Christmas, which was originally a Mithraic

winter solstice festival, or the Christmas tree,

which was a pagan German custom. The Madonna

was adopted from the old pagan Goddesses. Some

of the most charming and mystical aspects of

Christianity were originally pagan!

Note how negative in connotation the term pagan

is today, even though so much was taken from

them. This reflects deep-seated religious

prejudices. The name negative meanings are given

to the term Hinduism as well, which connotes the

worst of paganism to the modern mind.

This authoritarianism of credal beliefs caused them

to suppress their own mystics as well. The church

oppressed Christian mystics and orthodox Mullahs

oppressed Islamic Sufis. A Christian mystic like St.

Francis of Assisi is at least half a pagan. His

Brother Sun and Sister Moon is but an echo of the

pagan Father Sun and Mother Moon or Divine

Father and Divine Mother! His song needs to be

finished.

Clearly native beliefs are not unspiritual. There is

more of real mysticism in them than in the credal

beliefs that have so long been seeking to displace

them. Mainstream Christianity and Islam are afraid

of mysticism and against the occult. They don’t like

gurus and are wary of anyone who thinks that he

can have a direct experience of God apart from

their one savior or final prophet.

What the Christians did in the Americas continued

a policy of oppression that began centuries before

in Europe. It was not being Western or European

that created this religious intolerance but the kind

of exclusive belief system that mainstream

Christianity and Islam followed. Pre-Christian

Europeans like the Celts had more in common with

the Native Americans than with the Europeans

colonists who conquered them. The Celts

themselves were earlier victims of the same

aggression that the Native Americans had to face.

Hindu Dharma never sought to displace native

traditions but has honored them and tried to

harmonise with them. It is a natural friend of

pagan and native traditions everywhere. One does

not have to give up one’s ancestry or deny one’s

native culture in order to embrace Hindu dharma.

One simply has to be willing to honor all spiritual

approaches, along with freedom and diversity in

the spiritual realm.

The Hindu tradition honors the Goddess, who is

important in all pagan traditions and was generally

rejected by the Biblical traditions. It has preserved

all the forms of the Great Goddess from the Earth

Mother to the Sky Goddess, from the Great Mother

to the woman warrior. All those seeking to restore

the Goddess religion will find much of value in

Hinduism, which has preserved the full range of

human spiritual aspiration.

Becoming a Pagan

This pursuit of finding one’s own dharma drew me

to examine the pre-Christian traditions of Europe,

notably the Celtic traditions from which my Irish

ancestors derived. I don’t see any contradiction

between their traditions and Hinduism.

Fortunately, the core of their traditions has

survived the many centuries of oppression and is

flowering anew. With time and help from other

native traditions, they may yet reclaim their full

glory and splendor.

Starting in 1996 I came into a contact with Celtic

groups and began to discuss issues of history and

religion with them. Most of them honor Hinduism

and feel a kinship with it. They are looking to

Hindu India as a new model of resurgent

paganism in the world. They are discovering in the

Hindu tradition for what has been lost in their own

traditions.

In contact with my Celtic friends and by their

advice this year (1999) I reclaimed my Irish family

line for the Celtic religion and its Vedic

connections. While I am not specifically doing

Celtic practices, I have added a Celtic slant on my

Hindu practices. One can see Lord Shiva in the

Celtic God Cernunos, who is also the Lord of the

Animals. The Celtic Green Man shows the Purusha

or Divine Spirit in nature, which in plants is the

Vedic God Soma. In time I hope to incorporate a

greater understanding the Celtic ways into my

work and into my communion with nature.

This revival of native religions is gaining ground

worldwide and is bound to become much more

significant in the future. Major conferences of

pagan, native or ethnic religions are occurring to

coordinate this interest. The Catholic Church in

Europe now sees neo-paganism as a real threat to

its survival. It has tried for two thousand years to

eliminate paganism and has not succeeded. This is

because the pagan traditions reflect integral aspects

of our eternal spirituality that can never be

eliminated, any more than we can live without

breathing.

Such neo-pagan movements exist throughout

Europe and America. They are complemented by a

revived interest in Native American, Native

African, Hawaiian, and Australian traditions. All

these groups are discovering an affinity with

Hinduism. Hinduism as the best surviving of the

pagan or native traditions gives a sense of their

great depth and power. Hindu Dharma can be an

excellent friend and ally in reclaiming and

reuniting all native traditions, which still suffer

much oppression and are remain under siege by

missionary influences.

May the pagans return, along with their many

Gods and Goddesses, free to reintegrate the Earth

once more with the Divine, without any church or

dogma to prevent them!

DEBATE WITH THE ARCHBISHOP OF

HYDERABAD

On the Conversions Issue

In late 1998 a Hindu backlash occurred against the

Christian conversion effort in India. This happened

mainly in tribal communities that had long been

targeted by the missionaries. Note that Christian

missionaries don’t come to dialogue with Hindu

religious leaders, whom they cannot possibly

convert, but to target the poor and uneducated.

What does this say about their motives?

Rather than looking to the real cause of the

problem, which was missionary interference in

tribal life, the western influenced media tried to

blame Hindu fundamentalism as the danger. They

portrayed Hindus as intolerant and exaggerated

the violence against Christians while ignoring

Christian violence against Hindus. They failed to

remember the bloody history and intolerant

attitudes of the missionaries.

Though only one missionary was killed during the

entire period, they tried to portray it as a bloodbath

or massacre of Christians in India. In response the

Prime Minister of India, Atal Behari Vajpayee,

asked for a national debate on the conversion issue.

Prajna Bharati of Hyderabad, an important Hindu

organization, asked me to participate in this

national issue by debating with Archbishop

Arulappa of Hyderabad, who at the age of seventysix

was the senior most Catholic monk in India.

This was quite a challenge! I had to be a

spokesperson for Hindu Dharma in a major public

forum, with one of India’s foremost Christian

leaders, educated at Oxford, who had much

international experience as a teacher and speaker.

The Archbishop read off a prepared statement,

highlighting the need for religious tolerance and

peace in the world, such as no one could object to,

while emphasizing India’s history of pluralism and

tolerance in religious matters. However, he failed

to address the conversion issue directly or the

dangers caused by proselytizing both historically

and today. I also had prepared a speech to read but

set it aside and spoke extemporaneously.

In the question and answer period the Archbishop

surprisingly made a strong statement about the

dangers of proselytizing, which was shocking to

other Christians in India.

Unfortunately, no other Christian leaders in India,

much in the rest of the world echoed such

statements, which are not part of church policy.

Some of his relevant statements in this regard are

quoted below:

"Conversion has no meaning! Proselytisation has

no meaning if you do not convert yourself to God

and see what God has to tell you. Follow his will,

his plan and that is real religion. So therefore, I

personally do not believe at all in proselytisation.

The last point I would like to say is that,

Christianity has made terrible blunders in the past!

Terrible, not horrible! One of them was to mix faith

with culture. If you go to India, you take Indian

culture, if you go to Africa, take African culture, if

you go to Japan, take Japan culture.

We have made a lot of mistakes, a lot of blunders.

That there is no salvation outside of Christ is not

fully true. It is one way of looking at it if we have

faith. But what I said was, salvation is from God,

not from religion. If you understand that fully, the

full answer is there."

I have included the relevant portions of my speech.

For those wanting the full text and the

Archbishop’s statements, please contact Prajna

Bharati.

Speech at Prajna Bharati

Delivered at a public discussion organised by

Prajna Bharati A.P., on "The Ethics of Religious

Conversions" on February 9, 1999 at Bharatiya

Vidya Bhavan, Hyderabad.

I was raised as a Catholic and went to Catholic

school. My uncle was, and still is, a missionary. We

were told that he was going to South America to

save the souls of the Native Americans, people we

were told were non-Christian and without

conversion would suffer eternal damnation. This is

the background that I came from.

Today, throughout the world, and in the United

States, with very little exception, there is no

"Sarvadharma Samabhava" taught in religion. It is

something I never encountered in my Christian

education in the West.

We were taught that Hinduism was a religion of

idolatry; it was a religion of polytheism and

superstition and that there was no place for

Hindus in heaven. Even a great Hindu like

Mahatma Gandhi might be revered on a certain

level, but he was not given the type of religious

credit that he would have been given had he been a

Christian.

These attitudes still exist throughout the world and

India does not exist in isolation. And Hindus in

India are, and India as a whole is, still being

targeted for conversion. Why is this so? If all the

religions teach the same thing, why is it that certain

religions are seeking to convert the members of

other religions to their beliefs?

These attitudes still exist throughout the world and

India does not exist in isolation. And Hindus in

India are, and India as a whole is, still being

targeted for conversion. Why is this so? If all the

religions teach the same thing, why is it that certain

religions are seeking to convert the members of

other religions to their beliefs?

Hinduism is a pluralistic tradition. It teaches that

there are many paths, many scriptures, many

sages, many ways to come to the Divine to gain

self-realization and it should be free for the

individual to find and follow whatever way he or

she thinks or feels works best.

But not all religions are pluralistic. In fact, most

religions are exclusive in their mentality and in

their beliefs. The two largest religions in the world,

with a few notable exceptions, teach that theirs is

the only true faith. The average Christian

throughout the world has been taught to believe

that only Christians gain salvation. The idea has

been projected as an eternal heaven for the

Christians and an eternal hell for the non-

Christians, particularly for idol-worshipping

Hindus. And so far, we do not have major

Christian leaders in the world contradicting that

statement.

To date, there is no major Christian leader, or

Moslem leader, in the world, who is saying that

Hinduism is as good as Christianity or Islam. I do

not know of any Christian leaders in the West who

would say that a Rama or a Krishna is equal to a

Jesus. I do not know of any of them who would

honor a Ramana Maharshi, a Sri Aurobindo or a

Mahatma Gandhi as a God-realized or self-realized

sage. I realize there may be some exceptions to this,

in the Indian context. But this is not the case with,

and it is also not the official policy of the Vatican. It

is not the policy of the Pope at all!

I want to read a statement, from "The Coming of

the Third Millennium", which was issued very

recently by the Pope, in relation to the situation in

Asia:

"The Asia Synod will deal with the challenge for

evangelization posed by the encounter with

ancient religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism.

While expressing esteem for the elements of truth

in these religions, the Church must make it clear

that Christ is the one mediator between God and

man and the sole Redeemer of humanity."

This is a direct quote. Now, what is it saying about

religious tolerance? Christ is the only way. The

pope is saying that we accept what is true in these

religions, but we do not accept them if they do not

follow Jesus as the only way. We still have to

convert them. That is the message. This is not a

message of tolerance and live and let live. It is not a

message of let Hindus have their way and we have

our and both are good. It is not a statement that

Buddha or Krishna is equal to Jesus.

It is a statement of exclusivism and my contention

is that such exclusivism must breed intolerance. If I

think that mine is the only way, how can I be really

tolerant and accepting of you, if you follow another

way? And such intolerance is going to end up

causing conflict, division, disharmony and poor

communication.

It is going to divide communities and cause

problems. So, please bear in mind that, in the

Indian context, as Hindus, you have to deal with

these religions as the majority of the people in the

world are practicing and believing in them, and

this conversion process is continuing.

I also think that we should have a free, open,

friendly dialogue and discussion on all religious

matters, both in terms of social interaction and

relative to doctrinal matters. There should be

complete freedom of discussion, freedom of

criticism and freedom of debate just as we have in

science.

What generally happens in the field of conversion

is that certain groups are targeted for conversion

activity. I would like to discriminate between two

different things. One is the change of religion,

which people may opt for, based upon open and

friendly discussion, debate, dialogue and studies.

Nothing is wrong with that. But I would

discriminate that from what I would call the

"global missionary business".

The global missionary business is one of the

largest, perhaps even the largest business in the

world. Not only the Catholic Church, but also

various Protestant organizations have set aside

billions of dollars to convert non-Christians to

Christianity. They have trained thousands of

workers, have formed various plans of

evangelization and conversion and have targeted

certain communities for that particular purpose.

This multi-national conversion business is like any

multi-national economic business. It is not

something that is simply fair and open. It is not

simply a dialogue or a discussion.

So what we see with this missionary business is a

definite strategy for one religion to convert the

members of other religions. This conversion

business is not about religious freedom. It is about

one religion triumphing over all the other

religions. It is about making all the members of

humanity follow one religion, giving up and,

generally, denigrating the religion they had

previously been following.

Why is this conversion business so big in India?

Because India is the largest non-Christian country

in the world where missionaries have the freedom

to act and to propagate. Islamic countries -

Pakistan, Bangladesh - do not allow this

missionary activity at all. In Saudi Arabia, you

cannot even bring a Bible or a picture of Jesus into

the country. China, also, does not allow such widescale

missionary conversion activities.

So India, because of its very openness to and

tolerance of these missionaries, has become the

target. You know from recent newspapers that one

missionary was killed in India, which is

unfortunate. But in that same week, fifty Christians

were massacred in Indonesia by the Moslems

there. The religious violence is going on all over

the world and Christians are not always the

victims.

In India, for centuries, Hindus have been routinely

killed for their religion. Even recently in Kashmir, a

number of Hindus were massacred, but you will

notice that, in the Western media, the death of

Hindus for their religion will never count and will

never constitute a story. However, if one

missionary -one white man - is killed in India, then

these Western countries will retaliate with

sanctions, criticize, and take some moral high

ground.

Missionary activity has a bloody history of

genocide on every continent of the world. I am not

going to go into all the details here. The Inquisition

was in operation in Goa in India. The British used

their influence, though less overtly, to force

conversions, and certainly the missionaries had an

advantage under colonial rule all over the world.

In a number of countries, colonial interests used

force and persuasion to bring about conversion.

We are told today that we should forget all about

that, even though it has only been a generation or

two since the colonial era. I say that we cannot

forget so easily because the very religious groups

that performed these atrocious acts have not yet

apologized. If they recognize that this missionary

aggression and violence that was done before 1947;

that was done in the 19th century; that was done in

Goa; that was done in the Americas was wrong,

then why don't we get an apology for it?

You will notice that the Christians in America have

made some apologies for what they did to the

Native Americans. We have yet to see any apology

relative to Hindus. If the missionaries want us to

believe that they have changed their ways and are

now purely non-violent and charitable, then why

do they not at least apologize for what they did in

the past?

And why should there be conversions at all? What

is the motivation behind most seeking of

conversions that is coming out of the Christian

background? It is their belief that Christianity is the

only true religion, Christ is the only saviour of

humanity, Christians gain salvation or heaven and

non-Christians gain damnation or hell. That is not

a policy of harmony and tolerance but a blueprint

for disharmony and conflict.

What ultimately happens when someone who has

that attitude comes into a community and converts

people? People are taught to reject their ancestors

and their traditions. Families are broken up.

Division and conflict almost inevitably occur

wherever this missionary business goes on. There

are actually many forms of Christianity and several

different kinds of Christian missionary activity

going on.

And there are Christian groups that are not

missionary at all, for example, the old Greek

Orthodox and the Syrian Christians, but which

represent old and tolerant traditions. Then there is

the Catholic tradition which is promoting its

missionary activity all over the world but which is

doing it in a more subtle way today. They are no

longer using the force that they once used in the

colonial era, but they are still aiming at global

conversion. There are also the old Protestants, the

Anglicans and the Lutherans, who are still

promoting various types of missionary activity.

That has gotten reduced to some degree as well.

However, there is a new evangelical force in the

world today, particularly that coming out of the

United States. What are the fundamentalist

Christian groups of America? The World Vision,

the Christian coalition, groups like Jehovah's

Witnesses, Mormons, Baptists and so on.

They are very actively asking for donations in

America in order to convert Hindus in India. We

see this routinely in the various television channels

that they have. Pat Robertson, one of their main

leaders, has said that Hinduism is a demonic

religion.

They show Hindu gods with animal heads and say,

"Oh! Look at how primitive these people are." They

look at the political and social problems of India

and say; "These are all owing to Hinduism. Please

donate money to our cause so we can go to India

and convert these people from this horrible

religion that they have."

These same evangelical missionaries are going all

over the world and also targeting Catholics.

Recently, in Brazil, the Pope called these

evangelical missionaries "wolves" because of what

they were doing to, what he termed, "his flock of

Christians", which was converting them to their

form of Christianity.

So this missionary threat continues and some

missionaries are going back to the old hell-fire,

damnation, condemnation of Hinduism such as the

Catholics used to do in the Middle Ages and in the

colonial era. So do not believe that there is religious

harmony all over the world and that the other

religions respect Hinduism and are willing to live

together quietly with Hindus.

In fact, in textbooks in America, it is taught that

Hinduism is not a religion because Hinduism does

not have only one God, one book and is not a

missionary religion seeking to convert or conquer

the world. So it is this missionary business which

needs to be questioned and not simply conversion.

And do not be naive about it!

There is a consistent use of social upliftment and

charity to promote conversion. While social

upliftment and charity are very good things, they

should be separated from religious conversion. If

you want to raise up a country and help them

economically, please do so, but do not bring

religion into it. When you put the picture of Jesus

everywhere obviously religion and conversion are

part of your motivation.

You will note that no country in the world has

been raised up economically by religious

conversion. What has made Japan a great country

economically and what made the United States a

great country economically are economic means,

not a change of religion. Christian countries

include some of the poorest countries in the world.

The Philippines is the most Catholic and the oldest

Christian country in Asia. It remains one of the

poorest countries in Asia and has one of the

greatest gaps between the rich and the poor.

The most devout Catholics in the world are in

Central and South America. They are certainly not

found in North America and in Europe, where

Christians are more nominal than strong believers.

Central and South America also have tremendous

social inequality and a tremendous gap between

the rich and the poor. But the Catholics there are

not telling the poor people that they should

convert to another religion in order to raise

themselves economically.

So this whole attack on Hindu society by stating

that we will raise the poor on religious grounds is

based upon the motivation of conversion. Then

there is the whole issue of hospitals, orphanages

and schools. It is all very wonderful to selflessly

help other people. But why do you have to put a

religious form there? As long as the picture of Jesus

is there, particularly when you have a two

thousand year history of aggressive conversion

activities, how can you expect people to believe

that there is no seeking of conversion? That it is

purely selfless service and love of God?

If we love God, if we love our fellow human

beings, we will love them regardless of what their

religious belief is. We will love their religion as

well. We will honor and respect their religion

whether they are aboriginal people, Hindus,

Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Moslems or Christians.

We will not see any need to convert them. In fact,

we should not even be conscious of their religion at

all. True love of God does not seek converts. It is

not based upon names, forms or identity. It is

based upon recognizing the Divine presence in all.

One of the great swamis of India, Swami Rama

Tirtha, when he came to America, was asked about

religion. He said, "You do not belong to any

religion. All religions belong to you." The human

being is not a property of any Church. You are not

some thing which is owned by anyone or anything.

The soul does not need to be saved. It is the eternal

and immortal part of our nature. We need only

understand the Divine within us.

You cannot change the nature of any human being.

Hinduism is based upon respecting each

individual and the Swadharma of each individual.

We should have many paths and many religions.

The idea of only one religious faith for all

humanity is like having only one set of clothing for

all humanity. It is like people having to eat only

one type of food, or people having only one type of

job. There should be diversity, abundance and

freedom in the religious realm as well.

Unfortunately, all religions do not have the same

goal. Religions have various goals. Religions are

various paths. We should note that all religions are

not theistic. There are non-theistic religions like

Buddhism and Jainism where there is no creator

God. There are religions with a multiplicity of

deities. Monotheism is not the only form of religion

in the world and it is not the best form either.

All forms of religious worship have their validity

and Hinduism recognizes them whether they are,

polytheism, monotheism or monism. Even atheists

have their place in Hinduism. People should have

complete freedom to reject religion if that is what

they want to do. Hindu tradition is a sadhana

tradition that aims at spiritual practice for selfrealization.

Most Christian traditions, for example

the Protestant tradition, claim that faith alone is

enough to save you.

This means that a person may be a mass murderer,

but if on his deathbed he converts to Christianity,

he will go to heaven. Another person may live the

life of a saint, but if he does not convert to

Christianity, there will be no heaven for him.

Recently, in the United States, a woman who had

been convicted of murder was converted to

Christianity on death-row and the Christian

leaders - particularly the fundamentalist Christians

- asked for the death sentence to be removed

because since that woman had converted to

Christianity therefore the sin no longer counted.

The same people would not have made the

statement had the woman converted to Hinduism

or any other non-Christian faith. We do need

religious harmony and dialogue throughout the

world. One of the most unfortunate things is that

there is so much misinformation and even

disinformation about Hinduism in the world. For

example, in the New York Times, only last year,

there was a story about the Amarnath pilgrimage

in India. And what did the New York Times call it?

"Hindus going to worship the sex organs of Shiva,

the God of Destruction." What kind of tolerance is

that? What kind of point of view is being projected

by it? But I have to tell you that the fault for this is

not really all with these western people. The fault

lies with Hindus themselves. They have been very

poor at expressing what their religion is and in

countering disinformation and propaganda against

them. They do not study their religion properly

and so, they cannot explain what it is. They are

also misinformed about other religions and think

that other religions are just Hinduism in another

form.

But you will not find these rich traditions of yoga,

meditation, Vedas and Vedanta, in other traditions.

Particularly in the Protestant tradition in the West

they are rejected almost altogether and, to these

Evangelical Christians, they are considered to be

the work of the devil. Some people say that all

religions teach the same thing. Well, Hinduism

teaches the Law of Karma and Rebirth.

Christianity and Islam do not accept that. Some

people say all religions teach the same things and

they only differ in inessentials. Is the Law of

Karma and the process of Rebirth something

inessential?

Now, certainly there should be a respect for

universal, ethical values such as truthfulness, nonviolence,

peace and harmony. These should be

accepted for all human beings regardless of their

religion. In fact, they should be projected for all of

nature. One of the problems that I see in

Christianity, as most Christians believe it, is that

animals are considered to be devoid of a soul and

only human beings can gain salvation.

One of the reasons that we are exploiting and

destroying this planet is because we do not see the

presence of a soul and consciousness in nature, the

animals and the rest of the Universe. We must

move beyond all our narrow, human-centric

creeds. True religion is not a matter of name, form

or identity. It is a matter of that which is eternal,

that which is universal, that which no one owns

and is a matter of consciousness, awareness and

Truth.

The highest goal of the Hindu religion is selfrealisation,

not simply knowing God, but

understanding who we are and the Divine

presence within us. One of the main problems of

humanity is that we do not understand ourselves

and our motivations. Instead, based upon some

dogma or belief, we are trying to get others to

think and act like we do before we understand

ourselves and understand them.

So let there be a dialogue. Let there be open,

friendly and also critical communication in religion

just as in science. But please let us expose and put

an end to this missionary business and let us not

think that the missionary business is tolerant. The

missionary business is not about freedom of

religion. It is about the triumph of one religion. It is

not about secularism. The missionary business

accepts that only one religion is true. It is a

religious war aimed at religious control.

The way to challenge this is not through violence

or through intolerance, but through being properly

informed. It is through being open, friendly,

dialoguing and talking to people, so they

understand what the Hindu point of view is, so

that any distortions about Hinduism are removed.

We are all the same Divine being. We all share the

same human nature and we must recognise that in

all human beings for harmony to exist.

At the same time, we should not be naive about the

forces of the world and the forces that are trying to

disintegrate this society and this culture. I think it

would be a tremendous loss if India gave up

Hinduism and became another Christian or Islamic

country. We have enough of these already. India

has a wealth of its own spiritual traditions that the

rest of the world needs. Why do Westerners come

here? They come here for this wealth of spiritual

knowledge. In fact, you should be exporting your

religion. That is one thing you have enough of.

There are other more important things that you

need to import.

Om Tat Sat
                                                        
(Continued...) 

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