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This is rather sad but it does appear to be a fact in the modern age where everything
Western is looked upon as better, even things like spirituality that
the Western world has not given much importance to. Hindu friends in
India requested such a book for the sake of Western educated Hindus
for whom it is fashionable to denigrate their own tradition, without
having really examined it. Hindu friends in the United States
requested it for their children, particularly those in college, to
help them preserve their spiritual heritage in a materialistic
world.
Fortunately I have been
able to visit with people in India from all backgrounds, including
swamis, yogis, traditional Brahmin priests, Hindu social activists
and political leaders, Ayurvedic doctors, Vedic astrologers, Hindu
musicians, and modern Westernized Hindus of all types, including
writers and journalists. I have also made it a point to study the
Hindu tradition from its Vedic and Puranic roots including Vedanta,
Sankhya, Yoga, Buddhism, and Tantra, examining the original Sanskrit
texts when I have been able.
In this process I
discovered that a tremendous gap exists between what the Hindu
tradition is and how it is understood in the modern world. Hopefully
the work I have done in explaining the tradition in a more
appropriate light can be useful for others. I hope that it will
encourage similar studies. Naturally
much of this great tradition cannot be dealt with in a single book.
This book does not attempt to discuss the main teachings of
Hinduism, its teachers, scriptures and so on. This has been examined
in my book From The River Of Heaven : Hindu And Vedic Knowledge For The Modern Age.
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