Spotlights on Hinduism and Religious Values : 2.

 The catholicity of Hinduism, its breadth of outlook, is not equivalent to a featureless uniformity of approach like a common form of diet that may be prescribed to everyone in the world.

The catholicity implies that everyone is equally hungry and needs food, but it does not mean that everyone should be served the same kind of diet.

While there is a basic unity among fundamentals, there is an infinite variety in the methods of approach and the working out of the details.

The principles of dharma, artha, kama and moksha as the foundational pre-requisites for an integral approach to life as also the most scientific psychology that is behind what is known as varnashrama dharma are enough testimony to refute the fallacious argument that there is very little that is common in the form of a prescribed formula of religious observances, obligatory for all.

It is doubtful if any other religion has within its bosom such a power of absorption, such a strength of transmutation and such a large variety in the methodology of approach as Hinduism.


It is certainly possible to lay down an outline of certain basic minimum observances for all Hindus.

The practice of the five yamas – ahimsa, satya, asteya, brahmacharya and aparigraha – with a proper understanding of what these actually mean and how they are to be applied with the necessary permutations and combinations, under different circumstances or conditions of life, an organic approach of life as intended in the canon of the four purusharthas referred to above, as well as a scientific adherence to the psychological principles enshrined in the vehicle of the varnashrama system are instances on the point.

Swami Krishnananda
To be continued  .....