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The Eternal Teaching : Sanatana Dharma > Page1
Many of us in the West are bewildered by this religion we know of as "Hinduism". On one hand, we see the various great yogis and sages of India. They speak of the highest spiritual knowledge and appear to have attained states of consciousness far beyond what our western religions and philosophies have even imagined. They exhibit a state of consciousness which transcends time, place, person, culture, religion, race and all the biases of the human mind and ego.
They appear as cosmic beings who have gone beyond the limitations of human life. These great yogis of India were the first of the eastern teachers to come to the West and to teach meditation. They have also been the first and most prominent to declare the unity of all religions and to thereby move humanity in the direction of a global spiritual path. They have not sought converts but rather have offered ways in which we can enhance our spiritual practice whatever our religious belief may be or even if we do not have any at all.
Their freedom and openness in the spiritual realm we find unparalleled in our experience of our own tradition and rare in other traditions as well. On the other hand, we can also see the close-minded traditional ethnic Hindu, trapped in caste and culture and addicted to worship of what appear to us as idols. Their narrow attitudes appear opposite that of the great teachers. They appear hidebound in superstition. Through them we tend to see Hinduism as an ethnic religion barred to us and perhaps out of place in the modern world.
Author : David Frawley
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