Hinduism abounds with every possible name and form for Truth or the Divine. This is because Hinduism requires that we see the same reality in all the diversity of creation - that we see the same Self in all beings. It is not because Hinduism is trapped in the diversity of name and form but because its sense of unity is inclusive, not exclusive.

As a formulation of Sanatana Dharma, Hinduism is not attached even to its own names and forms, however diverse. It can accommodate the names and forms of all religions into its comprehensive view. This universal view permeates the form of the teachings of Hinduism, which consists of many different approaches to the same One Reality. It allows the teaching of Hinduism to encompass all time and all religion, and affords it a characteristic tolerance and syncretic view of life.

However the Western mind - caught in an historically based religion or tied to modern scientific materialism, which both view time and humanity in a linear way - has tried to reduce religion to a particular name and form. It has tried to compartmentalize Hinduism as a religion the way Christianity and Islam appear to be, seeking to find in all religions a particularized belief system.

Looking for a code of beliefs such people have regarded the diversity and freedom of Hinduism as confusion, contradiction, or lack of consistency - as a sign that there is really no tradition of Hinduism as such but just a collection of cults. Yet this seeming chaos is the field of a universal tradition that cannot allow itself to be reduced to any stereotypal pattern.

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