Hinduism: A Short History (56 page)

Paramahamsa Yogananda (1893–1952), author
of Autobiography of a Yogi
and founder of the Yoga-fellowship of California,
¹⁹
is far better known in the United States than in India.

Swami Taposwami Maharaj, quite well known in India in his own right,
²⁰
became famous in the West through his world-touring disciple Swami Cinmayananda (1915–97), who gave well-advertised Gītā-lectures in big cities. He also founded Sandeepany Sādhanalaya, a training institution for Hindu missionaries in a Bombay suburb.
²¹

One of the most colorful of the contemporary saints is Śri Sathya Sāī Bābā (born 1926), who sports a bright-red silk robe and an Afro hairdo. As a boy of fourteen he declared that he had no more time for such things as going to school, declaring that he was Saī Bābā and that his devotees were calling for him. The present Sathya Sāī Bābā claims to be a reincarnation of the older Sāī Bābā of Sīrdī, who had died in 1918. He is even now supposed to appear to people and initiate them, in their dreams. The first miracle of the now living Sāī Bābā was to create sweets for his playmates and flowers for the villagers of Putharpartha in Andhra Pradesh. The “sacred ashes” which he now creates (following the lead of the “old” Sāī Bābā, on whose images a curious ash-like substance is forming) are said to have miraculous properties to effect cures in sickness and to accord mental relief. Modern as he is, he also creates photographs of his own holy person out of nowhere and distributes them, still damp, to his followers. His healing powers are said to be phenomenal and people come from far and wide so that he may help their bodies and their souls. He is said to be able to read thoughts and to have the gift of prophecy and multilocation. Thus he speaks: “Trust always in me and lay your burden upon me; I shall do the rest; It is my task to prepare you for the grace of Bhagvan, when you receive it, everything else will be simple.” He does not demand any special exercises, only trust: “Sal is mother and father. Come to him without fear, doubt or hesitation. I am in your heart.”
²²

A fascinating story is connected with a movement called
Ānandmārg
, Path of Bliss. Founded in 1955 by a former railway employee in Jamalpur (Bihar) the movement grew quickly. P. R. Sarkar or Anand Mūrti, considered the “great Preceptor, the harbinger of a New Civilization and the loving guru” by his devotees, was born in 1921 and believed himself to be the third incarnation of God after Śiva and Kṛṣṇa. Besides expressing opinions on almost everything of importance, be it democracy, morals or communism, the
guru
taught Tantric
yoga
. A political wing of the movement, which in a few years established 2000 centers in India and abroad, claimed five million followers; the Proutist Block of India aimed at “establishing the dictatorship of Baba.” It has a large number of special organizations for students, workers, welfare activities, etc., and entered elections in India under the symbol of the swastika. The movement is suspected by many people because of its secrecy and its activities, and its founder was arrested some years ago on a murder-charge. His wife had informed police about thirty-five murders committed at the instigation of Anand Mūrti and quite horrendous crimes in other areas as well.
²³

Mahesh Prasad Varma (born 1911?), the later Mahesh Yogi Maharishi, founded in 1957 in Rishikesh the “Spiritual Regeneration Movement.” Its Transcendental Meditation (T.M.) technique soon became popular in the West as a shortcut to enlightenment. When the Beatles began taking an interest in him in 1967 the movement mushroomed. Millions have since undergone T.M. training and the movement has established major centers in Europe and the United States. Transcendental Meditation members established a Maharishi International University, a Maharishi European Research University, and other academic institutions which have attracted a surprisingly large number of reputable scientists as well. Since 1976 the movement has been governed by “The World Government of the Age of Enlightenment” with ten ministries, each headed by a chief minister. The aims of the movement are lofty and comprehensive:

To develop the full potential of the individual.

To enhance governmental activities.

To realize the highest ideal of education.

To solve the problems of crime and all behavior that brings unhappiness to the family of man.

To maximize the intelligent use of the environment.

To bring fulfillment to the individual, family and society.

To fulfil the spiritual goals of mankind in this generation.

The members of the movement believe that their mere presence helps to promote peace and harmony, and eventually this will bring about the “Age of Enlightenment.”
TIME Magazine
not long ago carried a two-page advertisement of the Institute of World Leadership, Maharishi International University, Fairfield, Iowa, under the caption “Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field.”
²⁴

The founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), popularly called the “Hare Krishna Movement,” A.C. Bhaktivedānta Swami Prabhupāda (born Abhay Charan De) (1896–1977), became rather late (after marriage and life as a businessman) a disciple of Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswatī (1957). Swami Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswatī, the son of Bhaktivinoda Thakura (1838–1914), who had reawakened interest in Caitanyism in Bengal, commissioned his own disciples to preach Caitanya’s religion of Krishna bhakti not only in different parts of India but also in Western countries. Subsequently Caitanya
maṭhas
were built in Madras and London and one of its members, Swami Bon Maharaj, toured America and Europe before the Second World War. Its impact was modest – some Europeans joined the movement, but the movement did not attract much attention.

Virtually singlehandedly and without material support from his Indian colleagues Swami Bhaktivedanta began in the mid-sixties at an already advanced age to form his movement which blossomed into a world-wide organization with several thousand members and an incredible amount of activity.
²⁵

While it is the most genuinely Hindu of all the many Indian movements in the West – a transplant of an Indian religion with all its cultural trappings down to the last detail – it is the one which curiously does not wish to be called Hindu at all. In his published conversation with Dr. A. L. Basham, Subhanandadasa, an American Hare Krishna member, raised the following point.
²⁶
Hinduism, he contended, is a highly stereotyped term. “It tends to bring to mind such notions as non-devotional monism and pantheism, as well as polytheism and caste, notions which we are not eager to be identified with.” He continued, saying:

The reason why we tend to avoid applying the designation Hindu to ourselves is that the founder of the Hare Krishna movement, Srila Prabhupāda, felt that it has a distinctly sectarian implication. One is Hindu in contradistinction to being Christian, Jewish, Muslim, etc. Krishna consciousness, viewed from within as a universal, transcultural spiritual principle, just doesn’t fit neatly into the contrived historical cultural term “Hindu”. A more appropriate term for Krishna consciousness, from our point of view, would be

, eternal religion. If truth is indeed true it must be true everywhere and for everybody. It must transcend relative cultural orientations. But for the sake of placing Krishna consciousness on the map of the history of religions, the term “Vaiṣṇavism”, signifying the cultural and theological tradition based upon the worship of Viṣṇu or Krishna, is an accurate and descriptive term for the historical tradition of Krishna consciousness. We refer to ourselves as Vaiṣṇavas.

What became the biggest practical problem of the Western followers of the Hare Krishna movement in India, was a move by Swami Bhaktivedānta – himself a Vaiśya, not a Brahmin by caste – which was wholly out of tune with Indian orthodoxy: the conferring of brahmin caste status on each member. Throughout, Hindu orthodoxy has maintained that nobody who had not been born a brahmin, can become a brahmin. Moreover, one of the more attractive features of the Indian
bhakti
movements was their disregard for caste and their egalitarianism. Also – and that applies to all denominations of Hinduism – acceptance of
saṃnyāsa
was connected with the giving up of one’s caste-affiliation: the sacred thread was burned as part of the initiation ceremony, symbolizing the neophyte’s new existence outside caste-structured secular society.

After the founder’s death in 1977 the ISKCON administration was placed in the hands of eleven governors appointed by Swami Bhaktivedanta some time before. Its aim is “to spread Krishna Consciousness and through it bring the world back to God and to a state of harmony and peace.”

The coming of the Hindu religious movements to the West is in many ways an exact parallel to the Western Christian missionary movement in the East. The presence of Indian religions in the West is incomparably smaller than the presence of Western religions in India. The number of Westerners at present engaged in religious propaganda on behalf of Western religious institutions is much greater than the number of “Orientals” spreading their message in the West. Let us not overlook the fact that some of the more aggressive of the Indian movements in the West have been born out of the desire to counteract and neutralize aggressive Western missionary attacks on the religions of their country in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. No wonder that Eastern missions carry some of the features of their Western counterparts. The failure of Western religions to prevent the horrors of two world wars and of the atrocities of totalitarian governments, the moral collapse of Western civilization and the ensuing lack of guidance and orientation, has convinced many sincere representatives of Eastern religions that they could and should offer rescue by introducing their religions, their meditation-techniques, and their rituals. Many Indian Swamis, who often under considerable personal hardship began missions in the West, are as highly motivated as Christian missionaries.

If some people find the ways of a group like the Hare Krishna slightly eccentric or even comic, they should consider that these are doing nothing else but what Christian missionaries have done in Asia for several centuries: they expected their Asian converts to wear trousers and jackets instead of the traditional dress, they clothed their indigenous priests and nuns in the same outfit that was prescribed in medieval Europe, built Neo-Gothic churches and introduced a Hebrew and Greek scripture, a Latin theology, English, German and Italian hymns, etc.

Last but not least – when speaking about the Hindu religious movements in the West in present times – we should not overlook the impact which Hindu thought and religion exert on representatives of Western cultural and intellectual life, who may never consider joining a Hindu religious movement but who are eager to integrate Hindu elements into their own work.

Among the major writers, Hermann Hesse may be mentioned, whose
Siddharta
turned many of the young people of the sixties on to Hinduism. Somerset Maugham too made a quite serious effort to come to terms with Indian thought.
²⁸
The work of some specialists in Hindu studies like Heinrich Zimmer, Ananda Coomaraswamy, and Alan Daniélou appeal to a wide circle of educated people in the West. The great violinist Yehudi Menuhin showed an interest not only in Yoga but also in Indian music, and he undertook interesting experiments with Ravi Shankar to combine Indian and Western music. The composer Karl Heinz Stockhausen composed music with Hindu themes and with an intention to lead to a meditative religious experience in the Hindu tradition. George Harrison of Beatles fame had been very close to the Hare Krishna movement for years and his recordings as well as his good relations with the movement have certainly helped it become more acceptable to the broader public.

While the majority of the professional philosophers and theologians of our time, who might be expected to show an eager interest in Hindu thought, have not cared to take up the challenge, there are some prominent Western thinkers like K. Jaspers, Ch. Moore, C. G. Jung and others who exhibited keen professional interest in certain aspects of Hindu thought. So did some leading scientists, especially physicists. Erwin Schrödinger was personally convinced of the true insights of Advaita Vedānta. C. F. von Weizsäcker has paid tribute to, and has tried to suggest parallels between, nuclear physics and Advaita Vedānta.
²⁹
On a more popular level, F. Capra, another physicist, in his best-seller
The Tao of Physics
, has drawn wide-ranging connections between central concepts of contemporary physics and Eastern thought. Although he may not possess enough specialized Orientalist knowledge to avoid mis-interpretations and misrepresentations of Hindu thinking at some points, his enthusiastic acceptance of some of its major expressions has again brought many scientifically interested people into contact with Hindu thought. More carefully, David Bohm, another leading physicist of our age, followed clues provided by his spiritual mentor Jiddu Krishnamurti, to arrive at interesting physical theories in which consciousness figures as an essential part of physical reality. It is, frankly, quite surprising, how many quotes from Hindu religious writings one encounters in the works of contemporary scientists like K. Malville
(A Feather for Daedalus)
, R. Oppenheimer
(Science and the Common Understanding)
, V. Nalimov
(Realms of the Unconscious)
and others.

This is not the place to detail exhaustively the influence of Hindu thought and religion on the contemporary West. The examples referred to will be sufficient to give support to the opinion that the influence is broadening as well as deepening.

Even in the more specifically religious sphere a change is noticeable. A hundred years ago, when Max Müller, himself a deeply religious scholar, fascinated by the religions of India, suggested adding the Bible to his collection of
Sacred Books of the East
, the Churchmen did not give their permission. They did not wish to suggest that the Bible was on an equal footing with other sacred books. Meanwhile more or less successful attempts have been made not only to compare Hindu teachings with those of the Bible, but Christians – Western as well as Indian – have gone some way to existentially appropriate Hindu religiosity and Hindu religious thought as part and parcel of their own. Theologians like Abbé Monchanin, Swami Abhishiktananda, Bede Griffiths, Raimon Panikkar and others have made an impact, and they have cleared a path that leads from Hindu religious thought to the Christian Church.