(Transcript based on Swami Tattvavidanandaji’s TV interview in San Francisco, California with Mr. Vijay Kapoor in Jan, 2003, Swamiji acknowledges thankfully the editorial assistance of Sri Mohan Bhujle and Sri Puppala. B.)

Q: Swamiji, you are a Hindu monk, I would like to begin by asking you what is Hinduism?

Swamiji: Hinduism is not a religion in the strict sense of the term. It is more a way of life, what we call Dharma rather than a religion. It is a very ancient culture that encompasses in its fold many modes of worship. It amounts to saying that Hinduism includes many religions within its fold. Hinduism is an all-embracing culture with a wonderful catholicity in its approach and outlook. Therefore, I would like t describe Hinduism as a Dharma, a way of life and a culture rather than a mere religion.

Q: Swamiji, if it is not a religion, then when did it start? Most of the religions of the world have been started by a personality. Isn't that the case with Hinduism too?

Swamiji: We say that Hinduism is Sanatana Dharma. By that we mean it is a way of life since time immemorial, since the hoary past. In the case of a religion that is started by a person, such a religion has a date of birth, because it is started by a person. For example, Buddhism was started by Lord Buddha. Hinduism has no date of birth or it has no beginning as such. All the great saints or incarnations that are worshipped in Hinduism were actually born into this Dharma. They were not the initiators of this Dharma. Therefore, we describe Hinduism as Sanatana Dharma, and we cannot really fix a particular date for its beginning.

Q: Swamiji, is there some basic text, such as the Bible in Christianity, that defines the Hindu religion?

Swamiji: In Hinduism, we have a galaxy of saints, prophets and incarnations of God. We have also inherited a large collection of religious and philosophical texts. And thus if I have to name a book which represents the essence of Hinduism, it becomes a daunting task. Despite this difficulty, if I am pressed to point out one and only one book, then I would have to say that the book of Bhagavad Gita represents the essence of Hinduism.

Q: One of the questions that people have, or a common impression that people have, about Hinduism is that the Hindus worship multiple Gods. In fact, they say that Hindus worship idols. Is there any truth in that?

Swamiji: To say that in Hinduism many Gods are worshipped is a misconception. Such a statement originates from a wrong understanding of Hindu Dharma. I would not eve use the word monotheism – worshipping one God – to describe Hinduism. It is something much more than that. In Hindu Dharma, there are not multiple Gods. One may argue that there is not even one God. The true essence of Hinduism is that there is only the God. Our understanding based on the Vedanta Philosophy of Hindu Dharma is that this entire universe is not a special creation of an external God. Furthermore, we do not look at God as someone residing somewhere in heaven, and having created this universe, He is now controlling it from that vantage point as a Power or Authority external to the universe. We do not look at it that way at all. The concept of having many Gods, in my opinion, is rather ridiculous. It is not possible to have many Gods. So, there is only one God. To put it even more precisely, there is only the God. This entire universe happens to be not a special creation of the God as I mentioned before, but it is a manifestation of the God Himself. Therefore, I prefer to use the word Godhead rather than God. The connotation Implicit in the word God is not acceptable to the followers of Hindu Dharma. Therefore, the words godhead or Para Bhrahman is used to describe the non-dual Existence-Absolute which also happens to be the Limitless Awareness. The Godhead has manifested in the time-space framework as the plurality of this entire universe. And therefore, every particle of this universe happens to be the manifestation of that Lord or that Godhead. Once one understands Hinduism in this fashion, one can clearly see the fallacy in the argument that the Hindus worship many gods.

Q: And the idols therefore represent succinctly a symbol of the assimilated truth……

Swamiji: Yes, you’re right. Many people say that Hindus worship idols. I would like to differ with that kind of a description. We do not worship idols; we worship Ishwara, which is the Godhead. Indeed, we worship the Godhead called Ishwara in our Dharma. The Godhead, Ishwara, has essentially no form. Ishwara is formless, and hence not limited in time and space. Ishwara can manifest in the framework of time-space in any form and in every form. But the human mind being what it is, it functions within the framework of space and time only. It can therefore relate to forms and names alone. And hence at least in the beginning when one takes to religion or spirituality, he needs a form to relate to Ishwara. And he can choose any form because there is no superiority of one form over another. Since every form is the manifestation of the formless Lord, the choice is left to the devotee. The devotee can choose any one of the myriad forms available. He can then worship or relate to Ishwara; he can propitiate the Godhead through that form. When the devotee offers a flower to an idol, it appears to an outsider that he is offering a flower to a piece of stone. But the devotee has a clear understanding that he is offering a flower to Ishwara. And the idol helps him to gain the Bhagavad Aakara or the particular mind modification in which the mind is filled with bhavana or devotion to Ishwara. Therefore, the form serves a very limited purpose of fixing Ishwara in the mind. Afterwards, it is the mind which relates to Ishwara as it understands Him. Therefore the idol is simply an intermediary step even while one offers flowers to the idol. In reality, nobody worships idols; nobody offers flowers to a piece of stone. The devotee;s offering is to Ishwara fixed in his mind as he relates to this particular form presented before him by the idol. To put in a nutshell. Idol is nothing but a symbol of Ishwara. If you allow me to give you an example, a young man in love keeps a passport size photograph of his beloved in his wallet. He smiles when he takes out and looks at the photograph with love and affection. When he relates to that photograph, it is clear that he is not relating to a paper, but he is relating to his beloved who is presented to his mind by this photograph. An idol serves a similar purpose for the devotee.

Q: Swamiji, you mentioned that the whole universe is the manifestation of Lord. What about the creation of the universe itself? When did it begin and what is the Hindu view of the creation?

Swamiji: We have an elaborate timescale for the creation of the universe. In fact, we can provide a specific age for the universe as it is calculated in our almanac. I am glad to say that the age of the universe as described in Hindu almanac or as recited in the Hindu worships coincides well with the age of the universe arrived at by geophysical considerations or by cosmological studies. The cosmologists study the expansion of the universe, because it is an expanding universe. By backward integration, they arrive at a particular figure for the age of the universe. The Hindu philosophy or the Hindu Dharma looks at this universe and also arrives at its age. This age coincides with the cosmological age and also the geophysical age. In fact, we have the concept of Kalpa. The Kalpa is one cycle of creation and consists of thousand mahayugas and each mahayuga consists of 4.32 million years. Thus, Kalpa is 4.32 billion years, while the age of the universe calculated by scientific methods is 4.5 billion years.

Q: so this universe is as old as Kalpa, but before the Kalpa, what was there? What is the view-point of the Hindu in this regard?

Swamiji: Yes see, before the creation, it was the Being-Absolute, which is non-dual and there were no time and space. As this Being-Absolute, which is the Godhead, starts manifesting in a time-space framework, there arises this universe of plurality. So before the creation it was the Godhead unmanifest and after the creation it is the same Godhead manifest. That’s all. So it is all one non-dual Godhead either before the creation or after the creation. And the creation is not some special creation in the sense that a non-existing thing comes into existence. The creation is nothing but the manifestation and hence, our views of cosmology and cosmic creation coincide with the views of modem physics.


Q: Swamji, we have been discussing the macrocosm and the larger picture of the universe and how it relates to the creator. I would now like to shift our attention to the human being and his perspective on life. Let me begin by asking you, from the perspective of a human being, what is the goal of life?

Swamiji: In the Hindu Dharma we clearly understand that every soul and every life form is essentially divine. If you restrict the discussion to a human being, then you can say that every human being is ‘potentially divine’. A human being, however, takes himself to be merely a person or a limited being, because he identifies himself with a given personality. But we say that this personality is not the true nature of the human being. It is actually an imposter and the true nature of the human being is Divinity itself. If that is the case, then the goal of a human life becomes obvious. The goal of the human life is to ‘manifest that Divinity within’. A human being, who is an animal-man to start with, has to grow first into a normal man, and then into a spiritual man or a spiritual person, and finally the person, man or women, should grow into the Divinity itself. And that happens to be the ultimate goal of the human endeavor. We call it the Moksha Purushartha.

Q: Swamiji, in that sense, what does one have to do in one’s life to achieve this progress from an animal-human to a human-human and eventually to the Divine-human?

Swamiji: For starters, the person has to live a life of duty-consciousness. Human mind is always driven by intense likes and dislikes. These intense likes and dislikes are the only obstacles in manifesting the true Divinity which is one’s own nature. And therefore, the best way to neutralize these likes and dislikes is to start living a life of what we call Karma Yoga. It’s a life where the entire emphasis is on one’s duties rather than on one’s rights. In fact the Hindu philosophy and the Vedic Dharma advocate duty-based life. So a student or a family person has to continue to live his normal life without any major shifts in his goal or profession. He need not do anything dramatic. He can continue to live a clean life wherever he is, in whichever profession he is, by carefully disciplining his life and fitting it into a duty-based culture and then relate to the Godhead with devotion. I am sure, eventually, the human being will be able to neutralize his likes and dislikes and rise to the Divinity, which of course happens to be his true nature.

Q: Swamiji, what is the future of a human being after the death of the body? What is the Hindu view of life after death and what is the Hindu view of the Heaven?

Swamiji: One important feature of t Hindu Dharma is the theory of reincarnation. We do not agree with the view that a human being starts his life only after he comes into this world and there was nothing before birth. Infact, we say that though it appears that life started from the date of birth, there is history behind this individual. We find wide variations in the environment in which different individuals take birth. Some individuals are born the a silver spoon in their mouth, some individuals are much less privileged. All such variations are accounted for by invoking the history of each individual. So it is really a ‘pilgrim’s progress’. The birth is not the beginning and death is not the end of the individual. The person is making a journey and this life happens to be just one leg in that journey. If he leads a virtuous life, he goes to higher levels of existence called Heaven after death. But in Hindu philosophy, there is no eternal Heaven. A person acquires Heaven by leading virtuous life and having acquired it, he will stay there for a while enjoying a few things only to return again to assume human form or even a lower form depending upon the residual virtue. As there is no eternal Heaven, and no infinite virtue in any jiva (individual), this journey continues till he realizes his own essential divinity and becomes there by one with the Godhead. Till then, this journey continues. Thus if a person leads a virtues life, he goes to the heaven and returns after exhausting the virtue. He has to account for all his actions. There is no way of putting an end to every thing just by going to heaven.

Q So would it be correct to say that human being should realize their divinity why they are in this body, by knowing their SVARUPA, their inherent nature?

Swamiji: Yes. We talk of heaven and we also say that a human being can reach the heaven and enjoy a few things there by virtuous actions. However, our emphasis is not at all on reaching the heaven for enjoyment. To encourage a person to lead a virtuous life, we talk of heaven because heaven happens to be an important content of a religious mind. In any case, we emphasis that the heaven is not eternal, even by gaining heaven you are not going to gain anything everlasting, you have to come back and start afresh again. And if you have done some wrong actions in this life or in earlier lives, you have to account for all those actions. Therefore, despite our description of heaven and its glory, our ultimate aim is to emphasis that an individual should exert himself to recognize or manifest his own divinity which is his essential nature. He is not the person which he takes himself to be. He happens to be the divinity and he should make an effort to manifest that divinity. The entire emphasis is on manifesting that divinity and reaching that exalted state of being one with the Godhead, the origin of this universe.

Q Swamiji, I would like to turn to a common human experience of unhappiness and also deep sorrow. One asks the question why it is so and what can one do to alleviate suffering in one’s life?

Swamiji: let me tell you that in Hindu philosophy, we look at this issue of human suffering in a unique and fundamental way. We maintain that a person suffers not because of external situations or a circumstances, and not because of something other people have done or not done to him, but because of his own wrong understanding of himself and the world. To put it in a nutshell, sorrow is directly caused by ignorance. Ignorance is the cause of the sorrow. If this premise is accepted, a process of growth for the individual begins to take place from that acceptance and from that understanding. The individual begins to examine and enquire into his ideas of himself, the world and also the Godhead. A seeker, who clearly understands that his suffering has its origin in ignorance, makes an enquiry into his long-held ideas and then starts revising his ideas. After all, a man is what his ideas are. It is our false understanding that makes us suffer and the right understanding liberates us from suffering. Therefore, we put a lot of emphasis on the fact that a proper understanding will put an end to all the suffering in one’s life.

Q Swamiji, we just have a few minutes left in our program and I would like you to give some advise to the viewers. Is there any one thing that they could do to follow some of the leadings of the Hindu thought, and what would be that?

Swamiji: If I have to give only one piece of advice, I will say as follows. In Hindu dharma, we have a text called Bhagavad Gita. It is a relatively small text having some 700 verses. And if we subtract the contextual verses which amount to 50 or 60, you are left with some 650 verses which talk of the human nature, the human goals and various disciplines that one may pursue to manifest inner nature. Thus the entire philosophy of human life is presented in these 650 verses. If anybody thinks that the Bhagavad Gita is a religious text, I submit that it is not so. It is not even a text that is limited to Hindu Dharma. It transcends all the limitations of time or geography or history. I sincerely believe that it is the greatest psychological treatise that is ever written in human history. It can help anybody irrespective of his creed, caste, religion or nationality. So every human being should benefit by studying the Bhagavad-Gita. In fact, many western scholars have studied the Gita. In America, Emerson, known as the sage of Concord, studied the Gita and benefited from it. In Britain, Thomas Carlyle was a great scholar who studed the Gita and appreciated it. I sincerely feel that every human being, every intelligent person should study the Gita and benefit from it.

It is very good that it is not a religious text. It’s like a book of physics. This happens to be the physics of the self. Thank you, Swamiji.

Thank you