Are Americans becoming Hindus at their Core?

Last updated on: August 29, 2009 at 5:54 pm by Desh Kapoor

Are Americans becoming Hindus at their Core? 2009-08-29T17:54:24-05:00 Desh Kapoor

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एकम् सत्, विप्र बहुदा वदन्ति

Ekam Sat Vipra Bahudha Vadanti
Truth is One, but the sages speak of it by many names

Is US a Christian nation or slowly becoming a Hindu nation? Figures from recent polls suggest that whatever people may call themselves, the inherent belief system is turning Hindu!

As Lisa Miller mentions in Newsweek [1], that following trends suggest that:

According to 2008 Pew Forum survey, 65 percent of Americans believe that “many religions can lead to eternal life” (of which 37% were white evangelists).
According to 2009 Newsweek Poll, 30% of Americans call themselves “Spiritual, not religious”. (was 25% in 2005).
According to 2008 Harris Poll, 24% of the Americans now believe in reincarnation.
According to Cremation Association of North America, OVER 33% Americans are now choosing Cremation
According to Harris Poll 2008 with Yoga Journal, ~ 16 million Americans (7%) practice Yoga and 8% (18 million) of the non-practitioners are extremely interested in Yoga.

Of course, the point is not that Americans are converting or becoming Hindus.. but their belief system is becoming more like Hinduisms core beliefs.

Hinduism has over the centuries been called Sanatan Dharma – which means Eternal Law. As short sighted and parochial Saints and religiously inclined came, they created their own version of Hinduism and converted it into a “religion” instead of a Spiritual Melting Pot. Soon, Sanatan Dharma was ONE of the many strains of Hinduism. Ironically, the variety within, what was now called Sanatan Dharma also encapsulated all that the other offshoots who prefered to call themselves “different” professed.

If you look at Hinduism from the standpoint of “Sanatan Dharma” or Eternal Law, you would realize that it really refers to the Cosmic Law. That Cosmic Law exists and will be whether we believe in it or not, whether we “know” or realize it or not. It was there when we didn’t know of it, it is now that we know it exists, and it will be there when all humanity forgets about it.

Whenever mankind looks inside and dares to question and is sincere in its search for the Truth, its conclusions will be NO different from the core conclusions of Sanatan Dharma. These conclusions are not “Truths”… they are semantic articulation of the Truth. These articulations have been subjected to a lot of experimentation and exercise, and they are the best articulation of what is the Eternal Truth.

Reference Links:

1. Are we all Hindus now?
2. Yoga Journal Releases 2008 “Yoga in America” Market Study
3. Survey: More have dropped dogma for spirituality in U.S

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