Is diversity the DNA of Hinduism?

In an interview in the Times of India, a prominent Hindu spiritual leader that ISKCON propagates cultural Hinduism and by restricting Hinduism a particular culture, we harm its universality.

What is your response to this?

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question, is diversity the DNA of Hinduism? Now, in an interview in the Times of India, a prominent spiritual leader of, prominent Hindu spiritual leader said that we should not try to reduce Hinduism to any particular culture, because there is so much diversity and that diversity makes Hinduism universal. And ISKCON by presenting cultural Hinduism is restricting Hinduism. So, what is your response to this? Answer, the DNA is simply a program and a program has a purpose.
So, yes, it is definitely true that there is a huge amount of variety of diversity within the Vedic literature itself, which form the bedrock of what we today call Hinduism. So, diversity is a fact of nature and that is acknowledged within the scripture. So, we have, there are Sarthik Puranas, there are Rajasic Puranas, there are Tamasic Puranas and these acknowledge that there are people with different mentalities, different orientations and accordingly they need different kinds of religious practices, they need different kinds of cultures, attitudes and activities and that is accommodated.
So, that diversity is an integral fact of the Vedic culture and subsequently of Hinduism is an undeniable fact, it is ingrained in scripture itself. At the same time, as I said DNA is in and of itself not of much use, DNA has to fulfill a particular purpose, not to execute a program. So, like that the whole purpose of having a diversity of cultures within Hinduism, within the ambit of the Vedic traditions is to help people rise, to rise to a higher level of consciousness.
So, we should be open-minded, but we should not be so open-minded that our brains fall out. No, diversity is not, should not be made into a license for chaos. There is a purpose, just like DNA has a purpose to execute a particular, to execute a particular set of instructions by which say protein coding happens or whatever else happens.
I’ll not get into the biological technicalities here, but DNA is basically a set of programs and the programs have a purpose. So, like that the diversity has a purpose and that purpose is to progressively elevate people upwards. So, now what is that ultimate purpose? Now, we don’t even have to stick to any particular tradition.
You know, the Krishna consciousness movement comes in the Vaishnava tradition, but even if we go beyond Vaishnavism to impersonalism and to the greatest Acharya of impersonalism that is Shankaracharya, he is also talking about unification. Now, he, in one of his famous verses in the Gita Mahatma, eko devo devaki putreva, ekam shastram devaki putragitam. So, he says, let there be one God, that is Devaki’s son Krishna, let there be one scripture, that is Bhagavad Gita and then karmapi ekam tasya devasya seva.
He says that let there be one activity, that is his devotional service. Let there be one mantra, that is the chanting of his names. So, even Shankaracharya acknowledges that, he himself talked about Panchopasana, he acknowledged that there is diversity and he tried to bring some structure to the diversity by talking about five different kinds of worship, the five prominent Devatas, but then he said in culmination, let there be this worship of Krishna.
So, now, first of all, to say that there should not be any specificity in Hinduism is also a truth claim and sometimes it sounds very tolerant. Oh, there is so much diversity and all diversity can be accommodated within Hinduism. This sounds tolerance, but there can be the intolerance of tolerance.
That means, in the name of saying that everything is right, then nothing becomes wrong and anybody who says something is right, that person is proven to be wrong, that person is automatically assumed to be wrong. So, what I am saying here is that excessive tolerance can also be a form of intolerance because in the name of excessive tolerance, we become intolerant to those who do not agree with our excessive tolerance. So, that means, we place ourselves at a superior level because we are so tolerant, but what is the result of that tolerance? This excessive tolerance, as I said, excessive open-mindedness can lead to empty-mindedness, the brain falls out.
So, like that excessive tolerance leads to impotence because if we are to raise our consciousness, we have to follow some process. Spiritual life is essentially a life of transformation and transformation doesn’t happen by one’s imagination. It happens by purification and purification requires a process to be followed.
So, it requires a process to be followed, just like there can be different varieties of medicines, medical therapy, there can be Ayurveda, there can be allopathy, there can be naturopathy, there can be homeopathy, but then there is diversity of processes, but then there is uniformity of purpose and if we do not acknowledge that uniformity of purpose, we do not acknowledge the common goal, a common goal that is recovery of health, then anybody can call anything as a medicine and nobody will be cured. So, religion definitely has diversity, Hinduism has diversity, but there has to be overarching over the diversity, a commonality of purpose, a harmony of purpose and Shankaracharya, although he is an impersonalist and this particular spiritual teacher also is an impersonalist, but Shankaracharya recognized that people cannot just give up all forms, give up all structures, give up all cultures, even if they assume that the ultimate goal is impersonal, even if they assume that ultimately we just have to merge into a formless light, now that is an assumption, that is not a scripture conclusion, but even if we assume that still people need specific things, specific forms to worship, specific culture to follow, specific processes to do and what to speak of, now within the Vedic tradition, there can be some scriptures which talk about impersonalism, but there are many scriptures which are eminently personalist, most of the Puranas which are the literature on which most of Hindus in today’s days, they are eminently personalist. So, now when there is a transcendental reality which is personal, which is specific, which has a specific culture associated with it, then the whole question becomes opened up much more and the practice of following a particular culture here is not arbitrarily imposing one culture and rejecting all other cultures, but it is intelligently following a process that enables us to attain the highest level of reality.
So, there is an eternal spiritual culture and there is a the Bhagavad Gita talks about God in the highest level as a person, यो मामेव असमूधो जानाति पुरुषोत्तमस सर्वविद् भजति माम सर्वभावेन भारत यो मामेव असमूधो जानाति पुरुषोत्तमस सर्वभावेन भजति माम सर्वभावेन भजति माम सर्वभावेन भजति माम सर्वभावेन भजति माम सर्वभावेन भजति माम सर्वभावेन भजति माम सर्वभावेन भजति माम सर्वभावेन भजति माम सर्वभावेन � सर्वभावेन भजति माम सर्वभावेन भजति माम सर्वभावेन भजति माम सर्वभावेन भजति माम सर्वभावेन भजति माम सर्वभावेन भजति माम सर्वभावेन भजति माम सर्वभावेन भजति माम सर्वभावेन भजति माम सर्वभावेन भजति माम सर्वभावे There is a eternal spiritual reality and that is specific. Krishna is a specific person, he lives in a specific abode, there is a specific culture associated with that and by replicating that culture or by here in the material world, we can remember Krishna more and we can advance towards Krishna rapidly. So what the Krishna consciousness movement offers is not just a specific cultural brand and calling that to be the absolute but offering a replication of that which is the eternal spiritual culture.
Now it is not that wearing a particular dress or eating a particular kind of food makes one a devotee, that is true. But there are externals which are conducive to internals and there are externals which are obstructive for internals. So just as if I want to cultivate a humble disposition, if I lie back with my legs rising on a table and with my hands behind my neck and stretching backwards, that is a posture of wossiness.
It is difficult to cultivate humility at that time. So just as many simple contemplations can help us understand that externals do shape the internals. So those external attributes that help one to cultivate an internal attitude of devotion, those can and should be adopted for bringing about the spiritual transformation.
So it is yes, it agreed that just adopting a particular culture doesn’t make one spiritual, that is true. At the same time that doesn’t mean that we don’t have to bring about any external transformation at all to bring about an internal transformation. So there has to be adoption of a particular process for purification by which one can advance.
Now it may be possible that certain cultural aspects may seem alien to people and they may hesitate to adopt it. Actually, Prabhupada, the founder Acharya of ISKCON was quite accommodating. He, when he met the famous beat poet Allen Ginsberg, during the conversation Prabhupada said that, Allen Ginsberg asked Krishna consciousness movement will not spread very much because your dress, your food, the names that you chant, they all sound alien to people.
They sound from India, they don’t sound familiar to Americans. So Prabhupada said it’s not that you have to wear a particular dress. You can wear any dress and still you can be a devotee.
It’s not that you have to eat particular food. You can eat any food, offer it to Krishna and the principle of devotion as long as it is included is fine. And similarly, he went to the extreme that he said, you can chant any names of God.
So even within Vaishnavism, there is not necessity that there has to be a particular culture that is to be imposed. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu propagated what is today called as Bengali Vaishnavism or Chaitanya Vaishnavism. But then over a period of time, as it spread, it spread from Bengal to Northeast, it went to Manipur.
And the Manipuri Gaudiya Vaishnavas, they did not adopt Bengali culture. It was not that they started wearing dhoti kurta. They had their particular apparel and they continued to wear that dress.
So they worship Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, they worship the Lord, they practice bhakti in their own way. So it’s not that the culture in and of itself makes one spiritual, but the culture is a valuable aid in becoming spiritual and not adopting a culture does not necessarily stop one from becoming spiritual. But one has to follow a process.
So one has to, as Prabhupada said, we have to chant the names of God, we have to take food that is sanctified, we have to follow a process. Now there are principles which are universal, there are practices which are specific. So practices can vary, but the principles need to remain universal and the principles have to be understood and to be adopted.
So the Bhagavad Gita gives us such universal principles and by understanding those principles, we can actually fulfill the purpose of life itself, the purpose of spiritual practice, the purpose of Vedanta, the purpose of Hinduism that can be fulfilled when we understand those principles which are given in scripture. So we are not talking, so yes, diversity is to be accommodated. Yes, if you want unity, if you don’t want conflicts in this world, we shouldn’t impose one particular thing on everyone.
That is agreed, but that does not mean that we reject in and of itself the necessity of understanding universal principles and customizing practices accordingly. Universal principles have to be understood and those principles talk not just about diversity as a chaos, but diversity as a means for facilitating progress and that progress is what is to be ultimately celebrated. Not the perpetuation of diversity, that is not what is to be celebrated.
We accept diversity and we accommodate diversity and there are people at different levels who will require diversity, but at the same time the purpose of existence is not to perpetuate diversity. The purpose of existence is to elevate our consciousness and that requires understanding universal principles and adopting customized cultural practices for actualizing, for implementing those principles and realizing the universal spiritual truth. Thank you.
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