Why do ISKCON devotees sometimes say that they are Hindus and sometimes deny it?

Are they not sure of their position? Or are they just self-servingly changing their position based on what is convenient?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Why do ISKCON devotees sometimes say that they are not Hindus? Are they not sure themselves of their position or are they just being self-serving, shifting to the position depending on whatever frequency is the best? Answer, not at all. Actually, the problem is not with ISKCON’s position, the problem is with Hinduism’s connotations. To understand what I mean, we have to look at how the term Hinduism is evolved and what all it implies.
Firstly, the term Hindu doesn’t come anywhere in the Vedic scriptures. That’s why it’s not a Vedic term in and of itself and it doesn’t accurately describe anything that is precisely defined within the context of the Vedic scriptures. Secondly, it has originated primarily as a geographical marker that has later on been accepted as a religious identifier.
So, Alexander, when he came to India in 1st century BC, when he crossed the Sindhu river, he called the, as per his Greek tongue, the word Sir became, it was easier to pronounce. In this, he sort of renamed the name Sindhu as Hindu and the land subsequently on this side of the Indus river came to be known as India. So, of course, the word India sounds much more modern than say the word Hindustan and India has largely become a clear geographical marker.
So, India means the land which has now today specific boundaries, where people from various religions stayed. So, it was originally developed as a geographical marker. Although the geographical boundaries connoting India have changed over the centuries, Pakistan, Bangladesh, all these are no longer a part of India, but still it has remained a geographical marker.
However, subsequently, when Europeans came to India, at that time, the, not Europeans, I’m sorry, when the Muslims came to India, at that time, they used the word Hindu in another geographic, so in the Farsi, their language is Farsi and in that, Sir became Bhur and that’s how the name Hindus came about. So, over a period of time, the Muslim invaders came and started ruling India, settled in India, then they started using, and Hindus also started using as a self-reference to differentiate themselves from Muslims. The term Hindu put themselves as a religious reference, as a reference for a religious identifier.
However, over the centuries, as the Indian culture suffered the onslaughts of waves and waves of Muslim invaders and it also suffered internal corruption because of the pernicious effects of the age of Kali. So, what remained was not just the vibrant original Vedic culture, but also many of its contaminations and perversions. So, today what we have as Hinduism is far removed from the teachings of the Vedic scriptures in many of its contemporary expressions.
So, that means the scriptures teach something and today, there are so many other teachings that are present, which all go under the name of Hindu and they often are contrary to the spirit as well as the letter of the Vedic scriptures. So, I’ll just give you two examples over here to illustrate this point. Firstly, most people think that Hindus are impersonalists, whereas actually impersonalism is only one level of thought within the Vedic program.
The highest is personalism. Similarly, many people think that Hindus are polytheistic. They worship many gods.
However, again polytheism, if you read the Bhagavad Gita, is an intermediate level in one’s spiritual evolution towards pure devotion to one Supreme Lord. So, Hinduism is often thought of as impersonalism or polytheist and this is not what Krishna Consciousness is. So, Krishna Consciousness is monotheistic and it is, of course, polytheistic aspects and impersonal aspects are included within Krishna Consciousness as intermediate progressive levels, completely transcended as one continues one’s spiritual evolution.
So, as I started to answer by saying that the problem is not with this transposition, but it is Hinduism’s connotations. So, now, these are the philosophical connotations of impersonalism and polytheism. But along with that, there is also a cultural connotation that the Krishna Conscious teachings are sectarian, just as Hinduism is one of the religions in the world.
However, if you look at the core principles of Krishna Consciousness, they are not at all sectarian. We are not the body, we are the soul. All of us have to grow old, get diseased and die.
These are universal truths. Somebody may say, I do not believe in the soul. That is okay.
People are free to have their beliefs. But that doesn’t change the fact that our consciousness doesn’t have a reasonable bit of explanation. And if we are bodies, then we are bodies.
If we are souls, we are souls. But the point is, this is not just a sectarian conception. Whatever is the reality, there is one reality.
It is not that Hindus are souls. Hindus are souls and non-Hindus are not souls. But if you look at what the teachings of the Krishna Consciousness are, because of this identification of the teachings of Krishna Consciousness with various connotations of Hinduism, that are not true for Krishna Consciousness.
Some devotees sometimes distance themselves from Hinduism. But at the same time, this is not meant to deny that there is nomenclature. If Krishna Consciousness has to be placed anywhere, it will be placed in Hindu religion.
When somebody asks us which religion we belong to, and we have to give the names of one of the current religions that are there. Sometimes Prabhupada would say Krishna. Something like that Prabhupada would say at times.
But in general, this is from the transcendental perspective. Prabhupada was asked to give his father, he gave his spiritual master’s name. So now, on specific occasions, these may be suitable.
But on other occasions, where we have to identify ourselves within the cultural nomenclature of today, then naturally we can’t call ourselves as…we are not Muslims or Christians or Parsis or Jews or Buddhists. So, there are many cultural similarities between Hinduism and Krishna Consciousness. And overall, Vrindavan is not in the Netherlands religion.
The road of the Lord is actually in the Hindu religion. But if we have to place it in the map of the world, then we place it in India. In North India.
But at the same time, we also remember that it is transcendental. So, that transcendence is perceived by one who understands and realises the nature of the Guru. Similarly, with respect to Krishna Consciousness, at one level it is universal and transcendental.
But if you want to place it within the cultural map of the world, then you would place it in Hinduism. So, if one wants to understand how Krishna Consciousness actually transcends Hinduism, then one will have to still understand and realise what actually its teachings are. So, depending on what the connotations of the use of Hinduism are in a particular context, devotees will sometimes say that we are Hindus and sometimes say that we are not Hindus.
This is definitely not some oscillation. It is actually a clarifying, necessary clarifying variation that tries to explain the complex relation between Krishna Consciousness and Hinduism at work.