Author: Ramesh N. Rao
Publication: ReligionAndSpirituality.com
Date: June 1, 2007
URL: http://religionandspirituality.com/hinduism/view.php?StoryID=20070601-101500-3152r
Muslim and Christian preachers and soldiers
have converted people around the world, either through threat and intimidation
or through seduction and lies. They also have increased their flock by buying
their way into the hearts of those hapless souls in poor and corrupted societies
where oppression and discrimination have beaten many into submission and slavery.
Whether Islam and Christianity have liberated these poor and the oppressed
is something difficult to measure, and the jury is still out regarding the
redemptory powers of the two most powerful religions in the world.
But before Christianity and Islam there was Buddhism, the world's fourth or
fifth largest and first proselytizing faith. The Buddha lived for about 45
years after he gained revelation, and he went around India talking about the
path to nirvana and enlightenment. Buddhism then traveled beyond India, its
birthplace, primarily to Southeast and East Asia, as well as to Sri Lanka
immediately south of India. In India itself the influence of Buddhism waned,
and Buddhism was finally overwhelmed by the onslaught of Muslim kings, who
were much more successful in wiping out Buddhism than they were in wiping
out Hinduism. Because Buddhism was more easily identifiable as a particular
way of life, it was more effectively targeted and decimated by the Muslim
kings. Hinduism is more protean in character, and Hindus therefore have managed
to withstand both the wiles and the viciousness of Muslim and Christian proselytizers.
Whenever the issue of proselytism arises in this country, there is a quick
chorus of voices that protest that Hindus proselytize too. "Just look
at all the Godmen from India who have Western followers and who have influenced
the rise of New Age religion," we are harangued. Nearby Farmville, where
I live, there is Yogaville, and the denizens of that place are mostly white
Westerners. Is Yogaville therefore not evidence of Hindu proselytism?
To compare the activities of Indian/Hindu spiritual leaders with Muslim and
Christian proselytizers would be a useful exercise in understanding real conversion
and honest transitions. Even when the pope travels around the world the call
given by the agents of Christianity is for the local people to embrace Jesus.
It is nothing more than a faith claim, whether orchestrated by the powerful
Vatican, whose minions organize gargantuan spectator events where the pope
blesses the people and seeks converts to Catholicism, or whether it is a sound
and light show organized by the business associates of televangelists who
manipulate crowds by fake "healing" sessions. "Accept Jesus
as savior" is, however, the message of both the pontiff and the con man.
That is proselytism.
Even those who say that they are not interested in proselytism but only in
conveying the message of Jesus or "sharing the good news" are in
fact seeking to change the other. What is the "good news" that they
are seeking to share? The "good news," as Christian critics like
Chris Hedges and Sam Harris have pointed out, is mostly "mixed news"
cherry-picked from the Bible that contains a vast array of contradictory claims
and assertions about how to live and what to worship. Thus even the attempt
to convey the "good news" is based on the fact that the conveyor
of the message thinks that they have a superior message to convey. "What
you have is not good enough" is the underlying message.
In terms of such a message, the closest Hindu equivalent is the message of
the Hare Krishnas (ISKCON), whose guru, Swami Prabhupada, took a leaf out
of the Christian handbook to praise the deeds and powers of Lord Krishna.
So, accepting Krishna into your life and jumping and dancing in joy became
the hallmark of the followers of the Hare Krishna movement, which then descended
soon into harassing people in airports by thrusting a copy of the Bhagavad
Gita or a flower into unwary passengers' hands. The people who did that harassing
were the locals - white young men and women, with shaven heads and saffron
robes - and not by any roving band of "Indians" imported by Swami
Prabhupada.
Christian proselytizers have now trained similar hordes of local proselytizers
who now harangue, intimidate, seduce and lie to poor Indian villagers or slum-dwellers
in the cities of Hyderabad, Bangalore or Calcutta/Kolkata, thrusting Bibles
into their hands and urging the desecration and destruction of the icons and
symbols depicting their local gods and goddesses. The Hare Krishnas, to their
credit, did not bad-mouth Jesus. They simply pushed Krishna your way.
In India the local Hindu storytellers, roving spiritual leaders and singers
also hold forth about their chosen god or goddess, and they tell the stories
from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. At the end of the session, organized
in the nearby temple, people bow down to the installed deity in the temple,
take the "prasad" (sacred offering) doled out by the priest, and
head home. They have not been converted into any new religion, and they have
not switched allegiance from one particular god of their choice to the storyteller's
choice of his. There is no conversion or proselytization, because no one "avatar"
(form) of the Supreme Being is better or more potent than the other. They
manifest different powers at different times for different reasons, and they
are all to be worshiped and prayed to. What a wonderful marketplace of spiritual
choice and solace!
Similarly, when Hindu Godmen/Gurus/spiritual leaders arrive in the United
States, Europe, Japan or Australia, they don't seek to deprive the local people
of their choice of God. They never say stop loving Jesus or Allah or Buddha,
and they never bad-mouth your religious practice. Instead, they offer anything
from a simple hug/embrace, like Amma (nee Sudhamani), to a complex set of
breathing exercises, like Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, or discourses on the Vedas
and yoga, by the likes of Swami Dayananda Saraswati to simple homilies by
the "sacred ash" producing Sathya Sai Baba. Not one of these spiritual
leaders, and the others lesser known, have tried to convert a Christian or
a Muslim to a Hindu. If a Christian (more often) or a Muslim (very rarely)
seeks the blessings of the guru and wishes to pursue a study of the Vedas
or yoga or meditation, they are welcome. They are welcome to keep their Christian
name or they can adopt a Hindu name. Many of the Hare Krishna followers, for
example, kept their Christian names along with their newly adopted Hindu name.
In a world seething with religious resentment, it is very important to understand
the nature of proselytism and its deleterious effects. But we also live in
a world full of pain, terror and loneliness. Thus, when Amma sits for hours
(as ABC News confirms!) and gives a brief hug and embrace to the many hundreds
and thousands of eager people waiting in line for that embrace, she is performing
a simple yet profound act of love. She is seeking to reduce that loneliness
and the pain of the seeker without robbing that person of his or cultural
identity. Thus, when Sri Sri Ravi Shankar teaches you the Sudarshan Kriya
(breathing exercises), he does not ask you about your religion or about whom
you worship. He provides you a technique to reduce stress and improve your
physical and mental health. Thus, when Swami Dayananda Saraswati offers discourses
on the Vedas, he does not ask you to ignore your Bible but instead unpacks
for you the many complex layers of hoary wisdom contained in the world's oldest
text.
Is this essay then not seeking to convert you by "sharing" the "Hindu
good news"? You decide!
Ramesh N. Rao is professor and chair of the Department of Communication Studies
and Theatre at Longwood University, Farmville, Va. The views expressed here
are his personal views and not those of the institution to which he belongs.
His email address is closepet@hotmail.com. © copyright 2007 by Ramesh
N. Rao.
