WHAT IS HINDUISM?
To summarise: in this book I present the ‘Eternal
Truth’ (Sanatana Dharma) of Hindu religious philosophy as
a recognition that the question of God’s reality is not – as
both ‘believers’ and ‘non-believers’ would have us believe – a
question of the existence or non-existence of the sort of
supreme being worshipped in the Abrahamic faiths. In place
of the idea of God as a supreme being – one that merely
‘has’ or ‘possesses’ consciousness – the radical essence of
Hinduism lies instead in the recognition that God is
consciousness, not a supreme being but a supreme awareness.
To ‘be’ is to be aware of being. Awareness therefore -
though not itself a being – is nevertheless the pre-condition
for the existence or ‘beingness’ of all that is – all things and
all beings. As such its ultimate and divine reality cannot be
questioned. For all things and all beings – including both
human beings and divine beings or ‘gods’ – are in essence
but individualised shapes, patterns, portions or
personifications of that ultimate, universal and supreme
awareness which is the very essence of the divine.
Reality – truth – is therefore essentially subjective in
nature - neither the result of a Big Bang, the work of some
‘Big Being’ nor the product of some objective ‘energy’, ‘force’
or ‘quantum field’ of the sort deified by both the official
‘church’ of modern science and New Age spiritual pseudo-
science. That is why the ‘Eternal Truth’ of Hinduism needs
no objective ‘proof’ – for it is the recognition of the
subjective nature of both being (sat) and knowledge (vidya).