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Should Not Westerners Follow a Western Religion?
Some people in the Western world believe that Eastern religions, like Hinduism and Buddhism,
have no place in the West, which should follow Western religions
like Christianity and Islam. Such people do not understand that
Eastern dharmic traditions are not religious belief systems but
universal ways of spiritual knowledge. We note a curious cultural
prejudice. Those born in the West do not mind if Western religions
like Christianity and Islam are adopted by peoples in Eastern
countries. Westerners are not asking Christian missionaries to be
recalled from Asia because the Western Christian religion is not
appropriate for Eastern people.
Nor have Muslims limited the
spread of their Western religion only to only the Western part of
the world. Westerners do not think that it is wrong for Western
religious or for Western art and science to go to the East. Yet they
call their systems "Western" and want to maintain their
geographical purity when so-called "Eastern" teachings
gain recognition in regions where they have traditionally
predominated.
If Western religions are
going to be exported to the Eastern world, Eastern religions must be
imported to the West, just as the movement of trade must go in both
directions. What is important is to take the best in human culture
whatever its origin. We don't refuse a peach because it comes from
what was originally a Chinese tree. So too, we should not refuse
meditation teachings because other cultures have developed them
better than we have.
And why should it be a
problem for us if anyone finds spiritual benefit from a teaching
that arises outside of their given cultural context? After all
spiritual knowledge transcends limitations of time and space.
Western culture has not traditionally given emphasis to spiritual
knowledge such as has occurred in the East. That many Westerners
have found benefit from Eastern spiritual teachings is a fact which
should be honored. It would be cultural chauvinism to deny it.
True religion, whether it
predominates in the Eastern or Western parts of the world, is not a
matter of geography. All the religions of the world are followed in
areas far beyond the geographical locale of their origin. Religion
speaks of the ultimate issues of life and death and should orient us
to the Eternal and the Universal. In this respect Hinduism with its
universal view has greater relevance for all human beings than any
belief system which divides humanity into believers and
non-believers.
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