Monday 23 October 2017

Western Hindus

Back in the 1970s when I first became interested in spiritual matters some of the most popular spiritual movements of the day were Hindu and though this was nothing new, going back at least a hundred years, there was a resurgence of interest amongst the young in the 1960s and '70s, fuelled, I have no doubt, by psychedelic drugs and the experiences many people had had through them. The main attractions then were Transcendental Meditation, Hare Krishna and the schoolboy Guru Maharaja Ji and none of them inspired me with any enthusiasm because, to put it bluntly, they seemed trite and superficial. But many people signed up to them, such was the spiritual wasteland of the time. The lure of the exotic was presumably a factor too. Most of those who flocked to these groups were in search of something more than was on offer from the materialistic world view of the late 20th century but they were often naive and many of those I met were motivated largely by self-interest and the desire for some kind of enlightenment. I don't mean this unkindly but it is true. Very few had a real and sincere love of God. Their quest was for themselves and this is why they were so easily lead astray by movements that were, if not totally fake, then not very authentic either.

As time went by people became more discriminating. Most fell away and went back into normal life but some pursued their interests at a deeper level and sought out more profound teachings from the subcontinent and teachers that were not so publicity driven. I myself went to India first for a visit in 1979 and then in 1980 for a stay of five years. My motive was not to find a teacher but had more to do with the fact that I felt a strong affinity for India itself and wanted to lead a spiritual life in an environment that didn't treat that as self-indulgent. I loved the country and still do though I haven't been back for more than 15 years now. But as I say I wasn't looking for a guru myself though I met a few of them and also more than a few Westerners, principally English, American, German and Australian, who had come out to India looking for spiritual truths. Most of those I met were made of sterner stuff than the people I had known earlier in the groups that had come to the West. They were often serious seekers who were quite aware of the pitfalls of Indian spirituality but who still sought for a genuine guru among the charlatans and frauds. There were certainly others who were just as naive as the English Hare Krishna devotees who chanted to a strange blue god in Piccadilly Circus, and those attracted to the recently deceased miracle man Sai Baba were among these, but the ashrams of Ramana Maharishi at Tiruvannamalai  and Sri Aurobindo at Pondicherry contained many people who were both sincere and serious.


And yet in few of them did I see a real spirituality by which I mean that the search for enlightenment was almost always the underlying motive. What's wrong with that, you might say? What is wrong is that their concern was invariably with God Immanent rather than God Transcendent so it basically amounted to a quest for the spirituality of experience rather than one of self-sacrifice in love. There is a difference and it is important for it concerns inner integrity. Of course, some sort of God was often acknowledged but not in the sense that he was actually real and the true goal of their spiritual search. Not in the sense that he was the Creator and the Father and their purpose was to reach a proper relationship of love with him. Sometimes he was even something to be gone beyond by the real mystic who was expected to leave him behind in the relative world when he penetrated to the non-dualistic reality behind all things. So their conception of God had changed from the Christian idea that he was the whole reason for the spiritual search, and its only proper aim and purpose, to putting him in a more peripheral place where, even if he existed, he was no longer the prime focus. That was now deep within themselves. God was within them as their truest self but there was not the perception that this true self within them actually had its origin outside them, Lip service might be paid to that notion but it was not felt.

Westerners who take to Hinduism usually do so because of the metaphysics but you can't really separate the religion and the metaphysics. It's like body and soul, and each needs the other to be complete. And Westerners with their education and their backgrounds simply cannot take Hindu religion, in most cases with mythologies thousands of years old, seriously, however hard they try. They can pretend to do so but it will not be real. It will always, and I mean always, be assumed not innate and therefore rather ridiculous.

Then there is the problem of temperament. This is certainly not as different as used to be thought, active Westerners versus passive Easterners went the cliché, but the difference is not non-existent either. Consequently Hindu practices and traditions just are not suitable for Westerners, however interesting they may find them.  I am among those who do find them not only interesting but profound too and yet I have never been drawn to follow an Eastern religion because it just would not 'sit right'. There would always be something artificial about it. That doesn't mean that some Eastern practices may not benefit Westerners but most of those that would do that already exist in the Western tradition, even if they are not widely known and used.

So what am I saying here? For as long as Europeans have known of India it has had a magnetic allure for them. Its sensuous beauties and exotic mysteries have been very captivating, and many are drawn to these in the search for something more than the grey reality they perceive in their homelands. There is undoubtedly something to be gained from this contact and yet, when all is said and done, the Westerner will always be on the outside looking in when it comes to Eastern religion. He is searching for something where he thinks the grass is greener but he would do better, and be truer to his destiny, if he explored his own spiritual heritage more deeply. For the Western mission is not to sit in contemplative meditation but to actively engage with the whole of life, though from a completely spiritual perspective, as Christ, its divine exemplar, did.

I am aware that I have been generalising in this piece and it is not my intention to put anyone off the great richness to be found in Eastern religion which can certainly supplement a traditional Western spirituality. But Western Hindus will always be a little bit like actors in costume and, while Indians may be flattered by them, I don't think they take them entirely seriously either.






21 comments:

Bruce Charlton said...

@William - This is fascinating! Your perspective on these matters, with experience on both sides, and then long reflection, is extremely rare.

I really don't get Hinduism; and my attempts to discover more have seemed, if anything, counter-productive; so I just leave it aside.

(By comparison, about 30 years ago I explored - for myself, mostly from reading and doing - Japanese Zen Buddhism with some seriousness; and came to feel an appreciation of its strengths and limitations.)

It isn't well known, but CS Lewis regarded Hinduism as the highest and greatest form of paganism; and the one really serious rival to Christianity - the decision of which religion, for a theist, boiled down to this choice.

The matter you tackle of an inability of Westerners really to 'fit' into alien traditions is a neglected reality. It is not so much whether adherents of alien religiuons convince other people, but whether they convince themselves - and other people can often observe that they don't behave as one convinced.

The afflicts Western Hindus, Buddhists and those who practice New Age spiritualities for example shamanism, or Native American spirituality (in real life, most religious Native Americans are Christians).

I personally am existietly sensitive to this matter of alienness, even within Christianity - and have found that I cannot really fit with Eastern Orthodoxy; nor even with Roman Catholicism - despite that these were linked to England by historical lineage. Roman Catholicism nowadays in England just seems too Italian (plus Irish) for an Englishman to feel at home, natural and unpretentious, unless (presumably) brought-up in it!

For the same reason, as a child (and still, intermittently) I found Christianity itself alien, when the link to the Holy Land was stressed - the 'real' Christianity ignored this historical time and place, and (for example) The Nativity 'really' took place in something like a medieval English Inn.

(With shepherds wearing a cozy, checked dressing gown, and Mum's tea towel held by big sister's hairband, and carrying a toy lamb, of course...).

I have never visited the Holy Land, and in a sense don't want to - because it would push-away the spiritual reality make things more exotic and alien, rather than closer to the heart.

(This is why I remain (essentially) unaffiliated to any church, since the natural historical English churches are un-spiritual - even when they are really Christian (of course, most are not really Christian, but merely Left wing political charities). I support a conservative evangelical Anglican church - grateful for the 'rescue' work they do - especially among youth. But evangelicalism is only half of the Christian story - salvation but not theosis: avoiding the negative of self-damnation, but without a positive purpose for Christian life.)

William Wildblood said...

Yes, if you are searching for truth you have to first of all be true to yourself. This doesn’t mean not stretching or challenging or even denying yourself but you can’t be false to yourself. Basically you can’t be spiritual unless you are first of all completely natural.

Faculty X said...

You could as much say Western Europeans can't really be Christian, which if you go to the churches of today and talk to most Christians and then compare to the Bible you would find to be very obviously true!

One thing that stands out is both you and Bruce seem to gravitate towards Christianity yet Christianity is not native to Europeans either. It's another middle Eastern religion created by Jews, then transported into Europe, often by force.

If I use Bruce's standard of what seems to fit I can safely say Christianity in its current form looks totally unnatural to Europeans. It's the main religion advocating we die off, after all, and doing a great deal to make it happen.

Based on how quickly Europeans (by Europeans I mean the Diaspora too in the Americas, NZ, OZ, Canada) have left Christianity it is not a natural home. Leaving God has been very costly for Europeans, obviously so by looking around at the current dying off of European culture and people, but it is what it is. For now.

I'm supportive of genuine Christians, it is the Bhakti path, but I don't think W.E.'s can go back.

As for Hinduism's mythology, one can skip aspects of the mythology. The mythology of the Bible no more resonates for me than the gods of Hinduism.

Yogic claims about God as a Creator of Karma and therefore Samsara are not a mild claim. If God is active in the World in this way then Yogis are right and detachment through Self-realization may be the best way out of the eternal recurrence.

Hinduism is Indo-Aryan and, along with Hellenism and its Nordic variants, are the truly indigenous religions of ethnic Europeans.

Faculty X said...

O/T. You wrote somewhere about how the New Age in the 80s went down psychic instead of spiritual paths. I just found your post on clarifying terms but I still want to know more about your observations about that distinction.

My view is that psychic is fine because it leads to God, or spiritual paths. Almost all psychics are theists of some kind. It's a starting point.

What do you see the New Age as having ideally done?

William Wildblood said...

Western Europe was largely formed by Christianity so I can't agree with you about that. It's certainly the background to our culture, morality and way of being. The Hindu way is alien to the great majority of Westerners, and while we are all Indo-Aryans Hindu mythology has a very large element from pre Aryan sources. But, that aside, even Hindus would say that you have to be born into the religion to be truly Hindu. I'm not saying that a Westerner can't adopt Hindu practices but I've never known it to be really authentic or to ring true.

What I mean by psychic is phenomena based and therefore still involving the ego and the mind. Proper spirituality has nothing to do with that being more about love of God and renunciation of self-centredness. Psychics may perceive the inner side of creation (or the lower levels of that if we're honest) but spirituality has to do with the Creator.

The New Age had potential to begin with but soon fizzled out into preoccupation with superficialities and far too much spiritual narcissicism .

ajb said...

@Faculty X,

"how quickly Europeans (by Europeans I mean the Diaspora too in the Americas, NZ, OZ, Canada) have left Christianity it is not a natural home"

So quickly, as in ... 1,000-2,000 years.

"Leaving God has been very costly for Europeans, obviously so by looking around at the current dying off of European culture and people"

I think this is right (active, and in particular more traditionalist, Christians tend to have more kids), but decreasing fertility rates apply around the globe. Japan, China, and S. Korea have some of the lowest fertility rates in the world. Iran's is below replacement. So is Thailand's. Many other (almost all) non-European countries have steeply declining fertility rates.

"Yogic claims about God as a Creator of Karma and therefore Samsara are not a mild claim."

Jesus makes claims about cosmic justice that in important aspects are similar to the concept of karma. In this sense, the point is that the Christ breaks karma. The basic point is in the Our Father - 'forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors', but now apply that spiritually, which is the intended sense, and consider 'debt' as 'karmic debt'. Hence, good news.

Chiu ChunLing said...

The great difficulty is that all true religion must begin with the confrontation with existential despair, the realization of one's own innate unworthiness to live at all.

Hinduism, like any religion, only makes sense as a resolution between the felt unworthiness to live and the desperate unwillingness to die. Post-Christian westerners approach Hinduism and other Eastern religions to escape the demands of Christianity that they admit their unworthiness to access the Atoning power of Christ. They are running away from religion itself, not any particular religion.

And of course the devoted Christian who acknowledges their need of Christ's atoning power will find nothing superior or even equivalent in Hinduism, though they can come to appreciate it far more deeply than anyone that is just trying to escape the first step in a religious journey.

To the person that is truly worthy of life, there is no need for religion. That person has power over death itself, not the power of death but the love and life to rebuke it. For all others, the only hope of life is to receive it as an undeserved gift which can ultimately only be retained by grateful submission to the giver.

Religion is the search for the giver of life so as to yield. It cannot be undertaken in denial of personal unworthiness and incompetence to live.

Faculty X said...

@ ajb -

Western Europeans left Christianity in about 50 years (from 1965 to now).

For a religion supposedly natural to the West for 1-2000 years this must be one of the fastest departures from a religion in all of history!

Japan is not destroying itself through mass immigration, nor are the other Asian nations you mention which are non-Christian.

By contrast the West is actively doing so, pushed by Christian churches promotion of immigration.

Churches today are full of old white people promoting the Great Replacement of their own children! This is even pushed by Roman Catholics and Mormons, supposed Traditionalist Christians...

This is not a religion that is protecting Europeans.

Faculty X said...

@ William

Thanks for the clarification on psychic and spiritual.

Would you have seen the best outcome as the New Age simply doing widespread conversion? Or something like it?

I don't know why exactly that movement was thwarted at that time beyond the obvious that anything good and interesting and of a spiritual nature will be attacked if it has enough genuine qualities to it.

But it's plausible it was due to going down psychic paths. It seems the same with all such movements. Also Colin Wilson's work and the man himself went through the same fate.

The most basic observation is the Powers ruling here hate psychic perception.

My view is this is because psi leads to direct perception of what some call the War in Heaven.


William Wildblood said...

Interesting comments all of them. Thanks. I do see Westerners approaching Hinduism as trying to gain something whereas the basis of Christianity is that you give something , namely yourself. This is rather what CCL is saying I think.

The West's abandonment of Christianity began at least in the 19th century, in fact probably the 18th and there are even grounds for dating it to the Reformation so it's not that quick. It has certainly escalated over the last 50 years but that's because a variety of factors brought things to a tipping point.

And I would say Christianity is certainly a natural home because it is true. At least Christ is.

Faculty X, I think that if the New Age had seen itself in the light of Christ it could have done good work, for example by making people more aware of immanence, seeing the reality of the psychic world and injecting a bit of imagination into religion. But because it either ignored Christ or demoted him to just another God realised soul or even actively rejected him it was ultimately not very effective. At best it could serve as a stepping stone to something more serious.

William Wildblood said...

The churches that promote mass immigration are not doing so because they are Christian but because they have absorbed the secular values of anti-Christian liberalism which is concerned with social justice rather than salvation.

Anonymous said...

"The churches that promote mass immigration are not doing so because they are Christian but because they have absorbed the secular values of anti-Christian liberalism which is concerned with social justice rather than salvation."

Yes, and this means that Islam is being welcomed into Europe by its politicians. It is likely that Islam will become the main religion in the West, which I find very worrying because it is antagonistic to Christianity, and will not tolerate Christianity or Christians once it gets the upper hand.

ajb said...

@Faculty X,

In the 20th century the Chinese largely abandoned Confucianism - does that mean Confucianism isn't a natural home for the Chinese?

People of Jewish ancestry have abandoned Judaism en masse in the same time period you are discussing - does that mean Judaism is alien to them in some intrinsic way?

ajb said...

@WW,

Yes, the roots of the West's rejection of Christianity go back quite a while. I was recently reading one of William James' lectures, given around 1900, where it sounds like he is trying to convince a roomful of atheists. The transformation in the West was to a significant degree top-down, and had already happened to a large degree by the end of the 19th C. Having said that, I think the 1950's was actually a high-tide of Christian religious participation among the rank-and-file in places like the U.S., which makes the fall afterward feel even more precipitous. Our views of how many people were voluntarily religiously active in the past is a bit distorted.

Chris said...

This is a little off topic, but what I find extremely interesting is how, in the context of contemporary politics, the far right and the far left are both hostile to Christianity. The far right sees Christianity as an alien import that glorifies victimization and is the root of the West's current demise. The far left, on the other hand, sees Christianity/religion as the root of the evil right- fascism/racism/sexism and all forms of exploitative inequality.

I'm not exactly sure what this observation signifies.

William Wildblood said...

It signifies neither of them are based in goodness or truth or even simple common sense reality but in destructive ideology. And that neither has any sense of the love of God. Maybe they both exist as tests in that they search people's hearts and bring out their true motivations.

It's probably not that simple but that's part of it I would say.

Faculty X said...

@ajb

Confucianism and Judaism are cultural products created by their own people. Christianity isn't. It's another Jewish created religion. Europeans have adopted it, not created it.

You're not comparing equivalently... or I am missing your point, sorry.



Faculty X said...

William,

Thank you for your insights and clarifications.

As I am the superconscious evolution/Yoga/New Age type I tend to see pathways and solutions differently. I don't know if the New Age in the light of Christ is the answer, but it has been interesting to consider.

William Wildblood said...

A few of my beliefs would sit awkwardly in mainstream Christianity so I am not unsympathetic to New Age ideas, some of which can supplement a conventional Christianity as mentioned above. The book behind this blog was based on what would normally be included under the channeling umbrella. But Christ stands above everything and everything must be seen in his light as the European pagans and druids recognised which is why they converted.

ajb said...

@Faculty X,

Your argument was that we have conclusive evidence that Christianity isn't a 'natural fit' for Europeans because they rejected it so quickly (after thousands of years of accepting it).

Yet, there are comparable cases of rejection where, as you put it, cultural products were rejected by the (descendants of the) same people who made them (again, after thousands of years of accepting them).

Therefore, rejecting a religion quickly (after thousands of years of accepting it) isn't conclusive evidence that it is a poor natural fit.

Faculty X said...

@ajb,

I get your point now, thanks. Very logical, I suppose, though it seems you're narrowing in on one point instead of the broader picture I outlined.

In the Jewish and Chinese cases I don't think either have ever set out to destroy Jewish or Chinese identity even in the midst of the departures you mention.

Christianity today is in stark contrast to that, it is a powerful advocate for European ethnic and cultural replacement. I cannot unsee.