HINDUISM AND OTHER RELIGIONS

Is Hinduism a Cult?

Cults are temporary religious movements wherein some charismatic leader uses religion for his or her own personal benefit. Cults are usually centered around one person and isolate people from ordinary functioning in society. They generally end, often in violence, after a short period of time.

A religion like Hinduism that has existed for thousands of years is not centered around any particular personality, and has produced many great people in all walks of life, is not a cult. There are Hindus who are successful in all fields both in the East and the West as scientists, doctors, lawyers, artists and so on. In fact Hindus in America have a much higher standard of education and income than the average American.

Unfortunately according to religious fundamentalists any different or foreign religious group is a cult. Such people are caught in religious prejudice, which they reflect in their condemnation of different religious approaches. They do not recognize any universal Truth or have any tradition of Yoga and meditation, which inner practices they also regard as cults.

From the Hindu point of view any religion which teaches that God is outside of ourselves, and that we must be dependent upon some savior, holy book or church, is a cult because it confuses the internal reality, which is consciousness, with something external. Actually whatever religion asserts a separate identity for itself apart from Universal Truth becomes thereby a cult. Whatever limits Truth, which is Infinite and Eternal, to a particular manifestation is a cult. Yet by this standard most of organized religion is a cult. However, this explains why organized religion has failed to bring us to any real spiritual knowledge or experience.

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