This afternoon we had a nice visit with a fine young man here at my āśrama in Sri Lanka. During the conversation, I encouraged him to stand strong for Hinduism. “When you stand strong for your religion, you are strong,” he was told. Today there are many Hindus from India and Sri Lanka in the United States and Europe who when asked, “Are you a Hindu?” reply, “No, I’m not really a Hindu. I’m nonsectarian, universal, a follower of all religions. I’m a little bit of everything, and a little bit of everybody. Please don’t classify me in any particular way.” Are these the words of a strong person? No. Too much of this kind of thinking makes the individual weak-minded. Religion, above all else, should bring personal strength and commitment to the individual. When a Hindu is totally noncommittal, releasing his loyalties as he goes along through life, disclaiming his religion for the sake of so-called unity with other people or for business or social reasons, he can easily be taken in, converted to other people’s beliefs. Even when it is just a way to get along with others, by seeming uncertain of his path, he opens himself to alien influences of all kinds. ¶In America the beautiful, the land of the money, anything is possible. It is possible to get money. But to get it at the expense of disclaiming one’s religion to the public is a very great expense. Young adults hear their parents disclaiming their religion by saying, “Oh, I am a Christian. I am a Muslim. I am a Buddhist. I am a follower of all religions. All religions are one.” All religions are not one. They are very, very different. They all worship and talk about God, yes, but they do not all lead their followers to the same spiritual goal. The Christians are not seeking God within themselves. They do not see God as all-pervasive. Nor do they see God in all things. Their religion does not value the methods of yoga which bring Hindus into God Realization. Their religion does not have the mysticism of worshiping God and the Gods in the temple. Jews, Christians and Muslims do not believe that there is more than one life or that there is such a thing as karma. They simply do not accept these beliefs. They are heresy to them. These are a few of the basic and foremost beliefs that make our religion and theirs very, very, different indeed. ¶Many Asian Hindus traveling to America, Europe or Africa for business reasons think that in order to fit in, to be accepted, they must deny their religion. The Jews, Christians and Muslims did not deny their faith when they found themselves in alien countries, yet their businesses flourish. But too many Hindus say, “I am a Muslim. I am a Jew. I am a Christian. I am a Hindu. I am a universalist.” These are very naive statements. The Muslims do not think these Hindus are Muslim. The Jews do not think that they are Jewish. The Christians know they are not Christians. And the Hindus know they were born Hindu and will die as Hindus, and that they are disclaiming their own sacred heritage for the sake of money and social or intellectual acceptance. How deceptive! How shallow! The message should go out loud and strong: Stand strong for Hinduism, and when you do you will be strong yourself. Yes! Stand strong for Hinduism. Stand strong for Hinduism. Religion is within your heart and mind. ¶If there were no humans with thinking minds on the planet, there would be no religion at all. Religion does not exist outside of a person’s mind and spirit. Religion lies within the human mind. If we want to preserve the world’s oldest religion, the Sanātana Dharma, which goes back in time as far as man himself, then we must preserve it within our minds, protect it in our hearts and then slowly, steadily spread its great wisdom out into the minds of others. The dignity of the Hindu people must be preserved, not surrendered on the altar of material gain. §
Every Hindu has but one great obligation, and that is to pass his religion on to the next generation of Hindus. That’s all he has to do, pass his religion on to the next generation. Then that generation passes it on to their next generation. If we lose a single generation in-between, the whole religion is lost in an area of the world. How many religions have existed on this planet? Thousands of them. What happened to the Zoroastrian religion? It barely exists now. What happened to the religion of the ancient Greeks? They must have missed several generations. The ancient Mayan, Hawaiian, Druid and Egyptian religions are all virtually forgotten but for the history books. ¶The great men and women in our history have withstood the most severe challenges to our religion and sacrificed their energies, even their lives, that it would not be lost to invaders who sought to destroy it. It is easy to be courageous when an enemy is on the attack, because the threat is so obvious. Today the threat is more subtle, but no less terrible. In fact, it is really a greater threat than Hinduism has ever had to face before, because an enemy is not destroying the religion. It is being surrendered by the Hindus themselves through neglect, through fear, through desire for land and gold, but mostly through ignorance of the religion itself. If Hindus really understood how deep into their soul their religion penetrates, if they knew how superior it is to any other spiritual path on the Earth today, they would not abandon it so easily but cherish and foster it into its great potential. They would not remain silent when asked about their religion, but speak out boldly its great truths. They would not hesitate to stand strong for Hinduism. ¶How can Hindus in the modern, mechanized world pass their religion to the next generation when they are not proud enough of it to announce it openly to business associates and all who ask? When the Muslim seeks employment, he is proud to say, “I worship Allah.” The Christian is proud to say, “I worship Jesus Christ.” But too often the Hindu is not proud to say, “I worship Lord Gaṇeśa.” In our great religion there is one Supreme God and many Gods. The average Hindu today is not proud of this. He feels others will reject him, will not employ him, will not like him. Of course, this might be true. It might be very true. Then he should seek out people who do respect Hinduism. These are the people to associate with. §
Tens of thousands of America’s and Europe’s younger generation have come to believe in the basic tenets of Hinduism. There are hundreds of thousands of the older generation who believe in reincarnation and the laws of karma. These two beliefs have pulled them away from the Abrahamic religions. But unless the Hindu organizations in every country who teach reincarnation and karma take these fine, dedicated half-Hindu people one step further and convert them fully into the Hindu religion, a disservice through neglect has been committed. ¶Yes, native-born Americans want to know more about karma and reincarnation and God’s all-pervasiveness. They have not been satisfied with the postulations taught by the Abrahamic faiths. They do not believe in a wrathful God who punishes souls in Hell for eternity. They do not believe that non-Christians will suffer forever for their “wrongful beliefs.” Many Americans are adopting the Hindu view of life. Even scientists are looking to Hinduism for deeper understanding as to the nature of the universe. Ironically, born Hindus are trying to be like Western people just when Westerners are appreciating the beauties of Hinduism. Yes, hundreds of thousands of sincere seekers in the United States, Europe, Canada, Australia and elsewhere are turning toward Hinduism, pulling away from their former religions and finding themselves in an in-between state, an abyss which offers them no further guidance from Indian swāmīs or community acceptance by Hindu groups. ¶It is postulated by some that Vedānta makes a Christian a better Christian. Because of that postulation Vedānta has been widely accepted throughout the world. “Study Vedānta,” seekers are told, “and it will make you a more enlightened Christian.” This is simply not true. When you study Vedānta, you learn about karma and reincarnation, you begin to understand that God is within you and within all things, and that the immortal soul of man is one with the Absolute God. These are not Christian beliefs. These beliefs are a strong threat to Catholic and Protestant Christian doctrine, so strong, in fact, that in 1870 the First Vatican Council condemned five beliefs as the single most sensitive area threatening the Catholic faith of the day, and even in recent times the Vatican has described their encroachment as a grave crisis. Among those condemned beliefs is the belief that God exists in the world, in all things. To believe that God is everywhere and that all things are His Sacred Being makes an individual an apostate to his religion, according to the mandates of the Catholics and most Christian churches. ¶Isn’t that interesting? Certainly the Catholics do not agree that studying Vedānta makes one a better Catholic. Certainly the Methodists, Baptists, Lutherans and evangelicals do not hold that the study of Vedānta makes one a better Christian. Quite the opposite, the study of Vedānta will make a Christian a heretic to his own religion. So successful were the Vedānta swāmīs in promulgating the notion that Vedānta can be studied by people of all religions, that they have become a threat to the existence of the Catholic and Protestant churches. That is how different Christianity is from traditional Hinduism. ¶Hinduism has come a long way in North America and Europe through the tireless efforts of the Vedānta swāmīs, the Sivananda swāmīs and others. They are to be commended for their efforts and insight, and for succeeding in putting the precepts of Hinduism on the map of the world’s consciousness. However, one step further must be taken. §
Only if we bring seekers into Hinduism properly through the nāmakaraṇa saṁskāra, our name-giving sacrament, will they truly become a part of this time-honored tradition and be able to raise their children as Hindus. If we do not, they will have nothing to offer their children but an empty, negative abyss to slowly fall into when they grow up. We owe it to the next generation, the next, the next and the next to take these sincere Hindu souls in Western bodies fully into our religion, train them and help them to become established in one sect or another. It should be insisted upon that their children do not grow up without a religion, for that would prove harmful both to the individual and to Hindu society as a whole. ¶Societies which do not foster religion foster crime by default. Crime is very expensive for an individual, for a community and for a nation. When we neglect religious training, we allow crime to gain a foothold on the youth, and we pay for that neglect dearly. Therefore, I say that this next step must be taken, and taken fully, by all the swāmīs throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and around the world. ¶We beseech all Hindu organizations worldwide to open their hearts and doors to these fine souls. This is a very serious situation. There are hundreds of thousands of people who have been dislodged from their parents’ religion through their belief in reincarnation, karma and the knowledge of God’s all pervasiveness, and yet they have not been fully taken into the Hindu religion or its community of devotees. Why? Because of color? Yes, that is partly true. Many Indian people say, “You have to be born a Hindu to be a Hindu. You cannot adopt the Hindu religion. You have to be born a Hindu to be a Hindu.” This, of course, is not true. Other Indian Hindus say, “You have to be born in India and in a caste to be a Hindu.” This also is not true. What about all of you who were born and live here in Sri Lanka? What about the Hindus in Bali, those in Malaysia or the Hindus born in Trinidad, Nepal, Europe, Guyana, Suriname and elsewhere? Are they not Hindus? ¶We did some research on this erroneous statement: “You cannot convert to Hinduism.” We studied dozens of books and noted down all of the quotes that we could find that said, “You have to be born a Hindu to be a Hindu” or “You have to be born in India to be a Hindu.” We found that these two quotes were only in the books authored by Christians. These statements, we concluded, were nothing more than Christian propaganda against the Hindu religion. Presumably, the Christians knew that if they could stop or at least slow down the growth of Hinduism through conversion, they would make more progress in their own conversions and in a few generations perhaps destroy Hinduism. We did not find these statements in a single book written by a Hindu author. ¶In fact, eminent Hindu authors have said that you can convert to Hinduism. Swami Vivekananda proclaimed, “Born aliens have been converted in the past by crowds, and the process is still going on.” Even if you only adopt Hindu practices, believe in reincarnation and karma and do a pūjā once a day, you are a Hindu and will be accepted by Hindu society. Unfortunately, a minority of Hindus of Indian origin, educated in Christian schools, and even a few Western-influenced swāmīs and pandits and one or two Śaṅkarāchāryas, echo this misinformation with conviction. We can now see how the Christian propaganda has negatively influenced the growth of Hinduism worldwide. Their propaganda has infiltrated, diluted and destroyed the Hindu’s faith in his own religion. §
This confusion about Hinduism, what it is and is not and who is a Hindu and who is not, occurs in San Francisco, New York, Chennai, Mumbai, New Delhi and in London. It is mainly in the larger cities in India, the United States and Europe that people are not upholding the Sanātana Dharma anymore and are surrendering it, the most precious thing in their life, to adopt an ecumenical philosophy. The sad thing is that no one is objecting. Yes, no one is objecting. It doesn’t seem to bother anybody at all. No one bothers when a Hindu denies his religious heritage in order to be accepted into a place of employment, or while working with fellow employees. No one bothers when that same Hindu returns home and performs pūjā in the closet shrine among the shoes. The shrine is in the closet so the door can be quickly closed in case non-Hindu visitors arrive. Isn’t this terrible? ¶But these same Hindus expect their sons and daughters to believe in the religion that they are publicly denouncing. They expect their sons and daughters to worship in the closet shrine they hide at home. The children today just will not accept this deception. Modern education teaches people to think for themselves. They will soon reject Hinduism and maybe their parents, too. Yes, youth do reject it, and they are rejecting it more and more each year that this deceptive attitude continues on the part of the elders. Having rejected their Hinduism, the young people are not adopting another religion. What then are they doing? They are living as nonreligious people. ¶When the pressures of mechanized industrial society get too difficult for them, when they need God and need the strength of their childhood faith, they will have no place to turn—not even to their parents. They may even seek escape in committing suicide, by hanging themselves, poisoning themselves. It’s happening now, happening more and more as the years go by. And now divorce is widespread among Hindus. The elders sit in judgment and proclaim, “Divorce is wrong. Therefore, you shouldn’t get a divorce. You are breaking the rules by getting a divorce.” Too many elders have already broken the rules by not standing strong for their religion, and they are not listened to. Our fellow Hindus should not be harshly judged and cast out when things go wrong in their life. The elders should offer gentle advice and help in as many ways as possible to make up for any wrong that has been done. When the younger generation fails, the elders must share their strength with them to make them succeed, drawing on the wisdom of Sanātana Dharma. ¶But it is never too late to stand strong for Hinduism. Hindu societies have to provide marriage counselors, people who go to the homes and counsel the couples before the relationship comes to the point of planning for divorce. Yes, we must provide professionally trained men and women to help a troubled couple before they go to the attorney, and others who can counsel our troubled youth, our elderly and our poor. Every Hindu who needs help must be able to find it somewhere within his own religion. Who can provide that help? The elders can and must.§
There are many professions that emerged in India during the Rāj: the profession of the attorney, the profession of the engineer, the profession of the modern businessman, the scientist and more. However, the most respected profession, that of religious minister, was not allowed to develop. Under the British rule the profession of the religious ministers was not made popular. Why? We can assume it would have made Hinduism strong and its people self-sufficient. It would have increased its self-respect. Slowly the Anglican Christian government drew devotees away from the temple and philosopher, and teachers away from the religion into the secular world. Slowly they drew the women out of the homes into jobs, and the priests out of the temples into better-paying professions. ¶A law student has no authority in the courts. He cannot approach the judge. He can sit in the courtroom and listen. But as soon as he passes his bar examination, he gains authority. He can then wield his authority in the courts. There is a parallel to this in religion. The average follower does not have religious authority, but the appointed or ordained minister has been given authority by all the members and other ministers. The Muslims have ministers with authority, the Buddhists have priests with great authority, and so do the Christians. They all have their churches, temples and houses of worship where the ministers and priests do their work. The modern church system is a social, economical, cultural and religious structure. A minister of a church or of a Muslim mosque, Buddhist temple or Jewish synagogue has a certain well-defined authority and can effectively help the members of his congregation, much more so than can the ordinary person. ¶The modern church system gives authority to well-educated people, to the most devout and committed people, to perform their ministry. Once Hindu men or women have this kind of authority, it is possible to approach the president of a country, the Pope in Rome or any other important person in government as representatives of the religion. They can freely communicate with other religious leaders: a Muslim imam, a Christian minister, a Buddhist priest on an equal basis. They can lecture around the world and do much more than they could before being ordained. This is because they have been given the authority by their congregation and other clergy persons. Hindus of all sects need their religious leaders in every country to serve the community, to teach and represent the religion at local and international venues, to stand strong for Hinduism on equal footing with all major religions of the world. Hindus need their religious leaders to perform the rites of passage, to manage the temples, to counsel and console, to uphold family values, to stop the suicides, to stop the divorces, to stop the murders, to stop the wife and child abuse, so that the community is strong and stable. §
There are hundreds of thousands of sannyāsins, Hindu monks, throughout North India. But where are the sannyāsins that have been produced by the Hindu community of northern Sri Lanka? Where are they? The community produces attorneys. The community produces businessmen. The community produces freedom fighters. Why not produce a swāmī also? Is that too much to ask? It’s not too much to ask. It is part of Hindu culture to dedicate a son to religious orders. This same community, however, has given many, many of their young men to the Catholic Church to become its priests. This is difficult to understand. It really is. ¶A young man before the age of twenty-five should be allowed to make a personal decision whether he wants to follow the path of the sannyāsin or the path of the householder. He should never be forced into employment to earn a big dowry in order to marry off his sisters. It is a sin if he is forced to work in the world if his calling is to find God and serve his people through Hinduism. It is a sin, when the calling of his soul is to realize God, to force him into a marriage. The best thing for the family, for the community and for all of humanity would be to let those rare souls seek out God, take their holy vows of sannyāsa and bring light and love back into a hurting world through their awakened being. ¶The Hindu community in Sri Lanka should produce spiritual leaders from among its young men. It has quite enough of all the other kinds of professions. It should again produce great swāmīs, as well as many gṛihastha missionaries and ministers. We asked this young man sitting here before me an hour ago, “How many people of your age go to the religious meetings and events?” He said, “Very few of us do.” The parents should bring their young men with them by the hundreds to listen to visiting swāmīs and participate in other functions. Hindus around the world have to stand up for Hinduism, support it by their efforts, their interest, their resources of time and money and talent. ¶Last week while in Chennai, Swami Chinmayananda, a friend of mine for over twenty years, and I were talking together. A young man came in during our conversation and told Swami that he was preparing to go to school and then asked Swami for his blessings. Swami inquired of him what he would do after finishing with schooling. He said, “Then I will be married.” Swami inquired, “Then what?” “Then I’ll raise the children.” Swami asked again, “Then what?” “I will go on with my profession.” Swami persisted, “Then what?” He went on like that until finally the young man said, “Well, then I will die.” Swami then said to him. “You should do some useful service and help me in my mission before you marry. There are enough children being born in India today—that can wait a little. Come to me after your schooling and we will do some useful work for God and our people together.” ¶The point is that all things in life must be centered around religion. Only the spiritual matters of life live on. Everything else in life is destined to perish. This body will perish. This personality will perish. But our religion will live on and grow inside of us as we evolve from life to life. It is the duty of each Hindu, young or old, to help the religion progress from generation to generation. We help Hinduism live on by serving and guiding others. For true and lasting happiness, religion must be the basis of everything in life, around which all other interests and desires revolve. So many people are against religion these days. It is up to religious people to make it popular again. ¶India and Sri Lanka are in between being agricultural countries and technological countries. We have to bring Hinduism into the technological age. It has to be reiterated, reedited and reexplained. We must teach how the worship of Lord Gaṇeśa can help people run their computer better, help them become a better typist, help them handle the stress and strain that come from dealing with traffic and coping with people of all kinds. Hinduism has to be retranslated, updated into this industrial and technological era. Who can do that? Only the intelligent older people like yourselves. Intelligent older people can take this on and help me in this reformation, and then we will together pass it to the next generation. Soon the Hindus of all sects will become strong and proud of their religion. ¶Let us now affirm: “Lord Śiva loves and cares for all of His devotees. He always has and He always will.” “Lord Śiva loves and care for all of His devotees. He always has and He always will.” Let’s work together, and let’s begin now.§
It is important that all of you here with me tonight band together and do what you can to make a difference. It is important that you immediately refrain from following the patterns taught to you or your parents by the British Christians. One such pattern is that if one person in the community comes up, cut him down, malign him, criticize him until all heads are leveled. In the modern, industrial society everyone tries to lift everyone else up. People are proud of an individual in the community who comes up, and they help the next one behind him to succeed as well. They are proud of their religious leaders, too. Not so here, because if anyone does want to help out spiritually they have to be quiet and conceal themselves, lest they be maligned. Nobody is standing up to defend the religion; nobody is allowing anybody else to stand up, either. This has to change, and change fast it will. ¶Yes, the tide has to change. It has to change, no matter how painful it might be to praise people rather than criticize them, and to support and to protect them. The tide has to change. It has to change no matter how painful it might be to admit that we worship many Gods as well as one supreme God. The time has come for Hindus to be openly proud of their religion—the oldest religion on the planet. The time has come for Hindus to proclaim their beliefs and to defend their beliefs. The time has come for Hindus to stand up for Hinduism, no matter what the cost. The results will be a younger generation which respects the older generation again. The results will be a younger generation proud to be called Hindu. The results will be a younger generation eager to pass the tenets of Hinduism on to the next generation in a proud and a dynamic and a wonderful way. The time is now—begin! ¶Western nations are becoming truly pluralistic. These are days of truth. They are days of correction of wrongdoing, days of Self Realization, which cannot be hidden under a cloak of deception. Believe me, no Christian or Muslim looks at the Vedic-Āgamic goal of ātmajñāna, Self Realization, in the same way Hindus do. The days are gone when it is necessary to observe Christmas in the āśrama and sing non-Hindu hymns at satsaṅga. There was a time to hide the Vedic Truth beneath a basket and behind a cross, but now is a time to shout Self Realization from the rooftops. Self Realization is, in fact, what all people on the planet have come here to experience. ¶The Self within all is the sustainer of all, yet it acts not in that sustaining and is itself unsustained. It sustains our thoughts, our emotions, our physical universe, yet it lies mysteriously beyond them all, perfectly obvious to the knower, perfectly invisible to most. It is and yet it is not. Hindus need nothing else to hide behind than this Paramātman. Certainly we no longer need to define ourselves in a Christian or a Muslim way, or any other way but our own. So, no need to send out Christmas cards this year or have a tree in the āśrama, right? ¶In looking back on all the wonderful aspects of Hinduism that have been spoken of tonight on the beautiful island of Sri Lanka, it is clear that Hinduism is the answer for the future generations on this planet. It is the answer for the New Age, for the dawning Sat Yuga. The gracious Sanātana Dharma, our great religion, has all the answers. It has always had all of the answers in every age, for there was never an age when it did not exist. The time has now passed for many and is quickly passing for everyone when they can deny their Hindu heritage, when they can be afraid to admit their belief in Hinduism or even the simple fact that they are a Hindu. The time has come for Hindus of all races, all nations, of all cultures, of all sects to stand up and let the peoples of the world know of the great religion of which they are one of the staunch adherents. Take courage, courage, courage into your own hands and proceed with confidence. Stand strong for Hinduism.§