136 Are All Religions The Same? Interview with Sri Dharma Acharya (Neo-Hinduism, universalism)

I had the great honor of talking with Sri Dharma Pravartaka Acharya, founder of International Sanatana Dharma Society, prolific author, religious scholar, one of the most profound spiritual gurus alive today, and my religious mentor. We discussed his book "Radical Universalism: Are All Religions The Same?" @DharmaNation

0:00 – Intro to discussion of Acharyaji's book "Radical Universalism: Are All Religions The Same?" | political correctness & feelies vs against religious growth | religious universalism as a philosophical dead-end
6:36 – Reading excerpt on history of India | creation of Neo-Hinduism as a "trojan horse" to destroy Sanatana Dharma
11:21 – Westerners encountering Hindu/Sanatana Dharma scriptures vs fraudulent gurus promoting religious universalism
20:44 – Origins of concept of religious universalism rooted in 1800's Neo-Hinduism
24:20 – Traditional foundational ideas of Sanatana Dharma
27:51 – British Colonialism in India with goal of globalist empire | Freemason influence
32:53 – British Colonialism created Neo-Hinduism as a way to replace Hinduism with Christianity | Ram Mohan Roy & Hindu reformers who hated Hinduism
37:29 – Getting to the top of the religious mountain | intolerance of universalism & spiritual vagueness
46:35 – Krishna said all roads lead to him & promote all religions are the same
49:49 – Lack of evidence in Vedas on universalism
51:36 – Sriman Narayana (at International Sanatana Dharma Society temple) | god & goddess form of god
53:58 – Evidence in Upanishads of Narayana as highest name of god vs lack of scriptural evidence of religious universalism as Hindu belief
56:17 – Reading excerpt on how universalism defeats uniqueness of Sanatana Dharma
57:28 – All religions are the same destroys itself philosophically
1:01:21 – Viewing religion logically
1:04:12 – Religion is not an enemy of rationality | experience now trumps rationality in modern society to find emotional relief
1:09:44 – Stop playing religious games
1:12:10 – Rationality of ancient sage Adi Shankara vs shallowness of modern gurus
1:13:19 – Legitimate gurus have authentic Sanatana Dharma lineage
1:16:20 – Legitimate gurus comment on scriptures
1:18:37 – Traits of a legitimate guru
1:24:12 – Seeking truth | closing thoughts

Live 10/25/2024, pre-recorded 10/23/2024.

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Regular live show on religion & society, plus scriptures and more. Be yourself! Combating conversion! Sanatana Dharma not Neo-Hinduism!

I am Aaron Joy (Premanand Das Bhagat), in Maine USA.

I am your spiritual cheerleader, wanting to help you grow spiritually, discover your life's purpose, know god, and avoid the dark places.

📚 I'm a Mystic, Certified Spiritual Life Coach, Certified Ayurveda Specialist, and currently studying Integrel Vedic Counseling under Dr. David Frawley (Pandit Vamadeva Shastri). Spiritual name bestowed by Dr. Chaturbhai Babaria (of Swaminaryan Gurukul USA, Ramanuja lineage). Student of Dr. Frawley & Sri Dharma Pravartaka Acharya.

#religion #sanatanadharma #spirituality #hinduism #hindu #ancientwisdom #india #krishnaconsciousness #godconsciousness #historyofindia

[noahdanielg]

So wonderful you were able to get Āchāryaji Mahārāja on! 🙏🏻

[rosedewittbukater]

Aaron, this was such a wonderful interview! Thank you for conducting this and for all that you do to help your audience lead a more dharmic life!

[leornendeealdenglisc]

Thank you for having our spiritual master on your platform. 🙏

Jaya Sriman Narayana!

[Chatur-uy]

Sharam pravrtak Acharya is bonafide Acharya of Ramanujacharya decent.
Dr Chaturbhai J Babaria, MD

[JuliaMaria-jumaka]

Thank you for this wonderful interview. Jaya Sriman Narayana 🙂🙏🏻

[Sunny-ltyo]

You can check also swami revatikaanta from bhakti Marga🙏

[ThePropStation]

I really liked what Acharya said about the purpose of religion and spirituality is about using your intellect to realize the self and then God. Very solid point! That's aligned with everything I've learn't from the ramakrishna/vivekananda teachings as well as other Vishishtadvaita/Advaita teachings.

One thing that gets me is that Acharya seems to do alot of self praise, he said in this interview he is probably the only person on the PLANET who is practicing authentic sanatana dharma, in another video he also said he is probably the only guru in the WORLD who can honestly say they practice sanatana dharma. That just doesn't sit right with me, to me it seems he has a vassana for knowledge. There seems to be a hint of ego inflation, attachment to and priority of intellectual accomplishments over spiritual growth, humility. No doubt he is an absolute beast, a war machine when it comes to vedic literature and scripture I definitely put him number 1 as that's his expertise. 50+ years is incredible and I admire that lifelong dedication to truth and God.

Some of my thoughts from the interview:
We get that radical universalism is bad and causes one to oversimplify and ignore unique spiritual traditions/religions. However Is universalism a bad thing? If you look at Ken Wilbers Spiral Dynamics it seems to directly align with 2 things Acharya spoke about.
Number 1 is that the new age and modern day people want to use spirituality for conventional purposes mainly to feel good and have good relationships, this is that all is love and all acceptence and all that hippie burningman attitude that just completely throws law and order, rationality out the window.
However the second point is that at the highest evolution of human psychology according to wilbers model is holistic, non duality, collective consciousness, universal principles which is why I think Radical Universalism has came about the last 60 years as Acharya stated.
Personally it seems like that leap of evolutionary psychology where we desire to have a universal set of truths, laws and principles all of humanity can agree on. It also seems that the people using religion/spirituality for those conventional reasons to just feel good just pretend that they've hit that holistic, universal paradigm of human psychology, so they use vague terms and whatnot for their emotional satisfaction and in turn damage the idea of universalism making it come across as this new agey, scam concept. A sort of weaponization of truth so one feels good. Which is sad because if you look at vishishtadvaita and Advaita it aligns with the highest expressions of consciousness you find in spiral dynamics, maslows pyramid of needs, map of consciousness by David Hawkins. Amazing since vedanta means the highest knowledge, truths from vedas.

My thoughts on Sanatana Dharma is that it isn't a religion. It's the eternal truths, principles, metaphysical nature of reality that transcend any culture, ethnicity, species, race, holy books, religion and the entire physical universe itself. I think that the Vedas is a concept/abstraction of that penultimate Truth, that which the many holy books, language, prophets point to. I've come to learn the the vedas and other vedic texts were channeled from highest states of consciousness through great rishis and sages in great mystical feats and ved vyasa, in a way they are extraterrestrial and multidimensional tools encoded with profound, unfathomable truths. When I learn't about vedic cosmology it was a multidimensional perspective of the structure of the universe but the way it was written was the perspective of a higher being/pov looking down and passing down the knowledge like a guru and student, higher dimensional knowledge passed down into the material world/plane. The way I see it, even if the vedas didn't exist, even if all of humanity were wiped out these truths would still exist.

I also think that sanatana dharma as a religion, spiritual tradition is like a river through which the truths were channeled. Those truths don't belong to the culture and geography, it was channeled by the sages/rishis like the water is channeled from the ocean into a river. It's meant and applies to all of mankind regardless of an individuals beliefs, the truth is not just a belief where you say I don't believe that, it's divine law it applies to every"body" every living form from an ant to a planet, sun, entire universe operates under the laws, it is undeniable, irrefutable how crazy to think we as one infinitely tiny speck think that it revolves around our beliefs and preferences. I understand it to be One Divine Intelligence, One Being(Symbolised as Narayana) and that all the different principles and aspects of this Divine Intelligence responsible for the perfect harmony, functioning of reality are represented by the symbolism as the endless gods such as Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva representing creation, sustenance, destruction. Do I believe that these divine functions, aspects of the divine intelligence have their own personalities? I'd have to say I Do, scriptures tell us that yes the ocean, trees, animals even earth(planets), suns have their own personalities. These planets and suns exist for billions of years, so its dumb to think that the eternal invisible forces & principles that govern the universe doesn't have their own personalities as well. In scriptures we find God's/goddesses representing and responsible for every aspect of reality, fulfilling every function, even the names would represent the function and like the story Krishna and indra where he told him all the ants were once indra the king of heaven. Do I believe that those are the actual names? No, I see it through a philosophical or conceptual lense I guess.

Final point about the interview is that I think Universalism will always bring about confusion as the very nature of the topic is paradoxical because religions are EXTREMELY similar in their rituals, stories, themes, interconnected histories. Yes each mountain is different but it's all mountains, yes every human being is inherently different even twins even when you can't make a distinction they're still different but we all human whether black, white, trans, gay, nazi, zionists, Christian, Muslim, hindu. Isn't that the point of non duality with distinction? If you say all religions are not the same okay that is clear distinction but where is the non duality or else it's just duality.

Good interview though, thank you for the upload and especially the message at the end that was the best part. 🕉️