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.