SANATANA DHARMA AND THE MODERN WORLD

All of us at some time or another seek an answer the ultimate questions of life - Does God or any spiritual reality exist? How might we know it? How can we live in harmony with it? Is there some part of ourselves which is immortal and part of God?

Religion in the true sense is the seeking of such higher knowledge. It is a means of discovering that Divine reality within us, not a dogma defining what God is outside of ourselves. Such religion is not an organized belief system but a set of spiritual practices to be adapted on an individual basis.

These practices include the full range of human approaches to the Divine, the paths of knowledge (jnana yoga), devotion (bhakti yoga), service (karma yoga) and meditational techniques (raja yoga). While we should discard religion in the outer sense as organized dogma and social conditioning, we should embrace religion in the inner sense as yogic and meditational practices. Otherwise our lives will have no enduring meaning and we will take nothing with us at death but frustration and delusion.

[ David Frawley ] [ Up ] [ Next ]