SANATANA DHARMA AND THE MODERN WORLD

Is Hinduism of Value for Westerners?

Many Westerners are fed up with organized religions, churches and dogmas. What attracts them in Eastern religions is precisely that they aren't religions such as they have been accustomed to but offer spiritual practices outside of organized belief systems. Westerners may be happy to adapt aspects of Hinduism like systems of Yoga and meditation but may feel no need to become Hindus in the religious sense, which they may equate with various superstition and prejudice.

There is nothing wrong with this attitude, except that it fails to understand Hinduism and what it can offer. Hinduism is not a belief system seeking converts. It is not striving to narrow down our sense of who we are or what we can do. It is a set of spiritual resources, carefully gathered since the most ancient times, which is available, like a wonderful set of tools, to help us build our own inner life.

If we regard Hinduism as merely another religion, then it is not of much value, and we should discard it like the rest. But if we understand Hinduism as a universal tradition, which shows how spirituality can be integrated into the whole of life, then it can be of great value for reformulating a global spiritual culture today. Just as those born in the East have to recognize the validity of modern science for all humanity, so Westerners may have to recognize the validity or Yoga or spiritual science, which is the essence of Hinduism, for all the world.

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