What Is Sanatan Dharma?

Questioner: What is Sanatan Dharma in the real sense?

Acharya Prashant: See, Sanatan, as many of us might already know, it means eternal. Broadly timeless, meaning Sanatan is something that does not pertain to any specific age, era, or period. It is something that must hold true irrespective of the point of time.

So what is it that does not change with time? The human being’s fundamental condition is something that has been found to remain the same irrespective of the era or period. So, the human being is born with ignorance and in bondage, and the mind does not like that. The mind does not like ignorance and bondage. So, the mind longs for understanding and liberation, liberation from bondage.

And the responsibility is on the human being herself to gain that understanding and that freedom from bondages. This responsibility is called Sanatan Dharma — Sanatan Dharma.

So, irrespective of whether you were born 5,000 years back, or you were born just 500 years back, or you are born today, or you would be born 500 years into the future, the fact remains that the inner human condition is of strife and ignorance and suffering.

And it's not just about the time, it's also invariable across space. So, it does not matter whether you are born in India or China or Africa or Europe, the inner condition remains the same. And whether you are old or young, or rich or poor, or man or woman, the inner ignorance is always there.

So, Sanatan Dharma is an overarching and a beautiful term to one’s own obligation towards oneself. Responsibility, Dharma, Law and order. Those words — law and order or religion do not exactly translate any of these into Dharma, but loosely. So, the mind is not at peace. The mind does not understand what's going on within itself. And the mind finds itself in various kinds of bondages.

For example: It is tempted towards unworthy stuff, it is afraid of things it need not be afraid of, it gets into entanglements and all kinds of needless engagements, relationships.

So, that's the state of the mind. And it keeps losing away time, which is the essence of life. So, the mind suffers, and the mind wants to know how to get rid of its state of suffering. And this responsibility, to know that and the entire process of gaining liberation from suffering. That is Sanatan Dharma.

Dharma that applies to all times, all peoples, and all places. That is Sanatan Dharma.

Questioner: What is your view about Udhayanidhi Stalin’s “Sanatan Dharma” remark?

Acharya Prashant: Yes, I have seen the remark made by him, and it's a classic case of a straw man fallacy. He's taking Sanatan Dharma as something which it is not, and then this distorted idea or image of Sanatan Dharma that he has; he is lambasting it, criticizing it.

To some extent, I understand where he is coming from, but the whole subject merits greater responsibility. You see, what is it that he's saying? He’s accusing Sanatan Dharma of a few things. One is that it divides and promotes inequality. He says it’s a divisive principle.

The fact is just the opposite.

The thing is that Sanatan Dharma is founded on the principle that all human beings ultimately have one core and common true identity. And that identity is called Atma.

If you go through the fundamental scriptures, which is the Upanishads and the Brahmasutra and the Bhagavad Gita — Vedanta, that is; they will clearly tell you that all the differences among all human beings are just superficial. Caste, color, creed, language, gender, economic status, age, persuasion, ideology, does not matter. Wherever you find differences, those differences are unreal.

In fact, Sanatan Dharma goes to the extent of saying that because the world is just differences manifested, all you see is diversity; therefore, the world itself is not strictly real. What is real is that which is not different from entity to entity. That invariable, constant, and common entity is called Atma.

So, Sanatan Dharma is actually a great unifier rather than something that divides, etc. We must understand what the fundamentals are. Now, how they are practiced today is a different matter altogether, and we can take that up separately. But if you're talking of Sanatan Dharma, then you are talking of the thing as it is meant to be. You cannot take the distorted practice of something and then use the distorted practice to allege that the thing itself is despicable or worthy of criticism.

For example, there is medicine, the entire scientific field of medicine. Now, there can be a quack who does not understand medicine, who fraudulently practices some kind of forgery and because of that, his patients suffer, and there might even be cases of death and all those things. Now, you cannot pick that example up to prove that the field of medicine itself is worth condemnation and should be dropped. And you want to eradicate medicine itself from the face of earth, as our friend has said that Sanatan Dharma should be wiped out.

So, it's barking up the wrong tree — straw man fallacy. One has to first understand what Sanatan Dharma is about. So, all differences are superficial. And the reality in you is exactly the same as the reality in me. There are no two truths. There are no two realities. Not only is the reality within you the same as the reality within me, the reality of the entire universe too is exactly the same as my internal reality.

So, the reality of the universe is called Brahm, and my internal reality is called Atma. And then, Sanatan Dharma, which is best expressed in Vedanta, goes on to say that Atma and Brahm are identical. So, that is the extent of unification. Where is the question of Sanatan Dharma being divisive or a promoter of inequality? So, that was the first allegation.

The second thing that he insinuated was related to caste. You see, caste is a social evil. And if you're talking of Sanatan Dharm, there are hundreds and thousands of books, and they would naturally exist. Because the whole thing developed over a period of a minimum of 3,500 years, and over a geography spanning from modern-day Afghanistan to Bengal in the east, or even Kamrup, and then from Kashmir in the north to deep south Tamil Nadu, where our friend comes from.

So, there was an entire long period and a vast mass of land where things were happening. And therefore, a lot of things were said, and that's why so many books exist. But not all of those books are to be taken as canonical. Not everything that they say has to be taken as exemetic. Only the very core qualifies to be called as the scripture of the Sanatan, and that core is the Upanishads.

If you want to understand what Sanatan Dharma is really about, and this goes out to all the ones who are watching this, listen to me right now — just read the Ashtavakra Gita. Ashtavakra Gita is one scripture that very correctly and neatly epitomizes the very spirit of Sanatan. And having read that one, please tell me, where is caste, where is division, where is inequality, where is oppression?

In fact, one complete Upanishad — the Vajrasuchi Upanishad, is devoted to denouncing caste. So, the student comes to the teacher, that's how that scripture that Upanishad, runs and asks, “Please tell me, what is caste?” And the teacher, the Rishi, smiles and says, “Okay, you tell me where the caste is? Is it the caste of the body?”

So, the student thinks and says, “No, the caste cannot be of the body because all bodies arise from the five basic elements — Panch Bhoota, and they are just the same. So they cannot be differentiated on the basis of caste.”

Then, the Rishi says, “Fine, does caste belong then to the true self — Atma?”

The student says, “No, even Atma cannot have caste because it’s the same. It's the one thing, one final unified reality. So, it cannot be differentiated on the basis of caste.”

So, the sage then says that the conclusion is obvious,

Caste then belongs neither to the body nor to the Truth, which is Atma. It belongs to the domain of the mind. It is an imagination of the mind. It is an imagination of the mind.

And specifically, if you go into Advait Vedant, It is repeatedly said there, in so many words, very literally, that caste is unreal and false. So, it is not Sanatan Dharma that promotes caste or brings in even the concept of caste. Caste is a social evil. There is the ego inside man, which Sanatan Dharma attempts to teach, to heal, to liberate — but then, the ego has its own ways. It’s called Maya.

The ego finds her way, and the social evils remain in spite of the attempts made by the thinkers, the philosophers, the seers. So, caste is one of those evils. It's almost like saying, there is a teacher and the teacher tries his best to teach the students. But the students as students are, they don’t take to the teaching. They have their own miscellaneous interests.

And then, there is the examination, and the students fail it. And having failed the examination, the students turn upon the teacher and the books. They say, “The teacher was not a proper teacher, that’s why we failed. And these books, they all need to be burnt. It is because of these books that we have failed the examination.”

My question is, sir, when did you read the books, first of all? And if you have been reading random, miscellaneous books, how is that the fault of the teacher? Are you reading the textbooks correctly? Now, there are, as I said, hundreds of books. Why are you reading those hundreds of miscellaneous, random books? They do not even qualify to be called as Shastra or scripture.

The definition of Shastra is very clear. Something that talks about society or this and that does not qualify to be a Shastra. Shastra is only that which talks strictly about the ego and its liberation. Who am I? I am an ego. What do I need? What do I want? I want to be liberated. A book that deals with this topic alone deserves to be called a scripture.

Now, if you pick up random storybooks and start calling them scriptures, and you quote from them and say, “Well, you know, you look at this book here, the caste principle is mentioned. And if you look at those stories, in those stories you can clearly see a lot of patriarchy and misogyny and a lot of those things, social divisions.” Well, you are right. But, as I said, you are barking up the wrong tree.

The book that you are reading is a storybook. It is not a fundamental scripture of the Sanatan Dharma. So, the problem is definitional. We do not know the right definition of Sanatan Dharma. So, we pick up something random and we take that as Sanatan Dharma, and then we start lambasting it.

No, that’s not fair. That’s not fair to Sanatan Dharma.

Sanatan Dharma arises from a very, very rigorous philosophy. It’s a philosophy. It’s not just something that somebody dreamt and propagated. It is not somebody's idea. It is a rigorous philosophy, and it's a philosophy that even the greatest philosophers take in high esteem.

So, we first of all need to acquaint ourselves with that philosophy before we attempt to criticize it. If we do not know the philosophy itself, what exactly are we criticizing? Then comes the thing regarding social evils. He says Sanatan Dharma is responsible for a lot of social evils. Sir, Sanatan Dharma aims to heal the social evils.

In fact, I would venture to say that all the social evils that you see around can all be taken care of, if we could live true to the spirit of Sanatan Dharma. Those social evils exist not because of Sanatan Dharma but because we do not know what Sanatan is. So, in the name of Sanatan Dharma, a lot of mischief is circulated, propagated, practised, so all that is happening.

Now, having said all this, you see, I understand where the speaker is coming from. You see, it is indeed true that caste, discrimination and misogyny have been the practised facts of Hinduism. So, he is looking at all those things, and then he is jumping to the conclusion that all the social evils that he has been witnessing or has read about are because of Sanatan Dharma. No, that is not true. They exist because of an imperfect understanding of Sanatan Dharma.

In fact, I’m being just too lenient, just too generous, when I say “imperfect understanding.” The fact is that 99.99% of those who call themselves Hindus or Sanatani have never ever read their core scriptures. What they dabble with are storybooks, and that does not take them anywhere. So, they do not know what their Dharma is about.

The tendency of the ego is to divide and exploit. So, be it India or be it any other place, the ego attempts to exploit. That’s why world wars are fought. That’s why there is caste, there is class, there is exploitation of all kinds. There is colonialism, and there is an arms race, and all kinds of mischief. That’s why there is the climate change catastrophe looking at us now. So, it’s the ego, it’s the basic animal nature of man that makes man exploit man. And the animal within, when it gains the support of man’s intellect, can act in very devious and cunning ways.

The animal provides the intention, and the brain provides the intellect. And when the animal's intention gets coupled with a sharp intellect, the result can be devastating.

One of the results can be that you can start masquerading your evil intentions behind the name of religion. The intention is to exploit, but you can start calling it religiosity. And that’s what we have done. That’s what has been happening in the Hindu fold.

All that you want to do is exploit your fellow human beings, or exploit women, or exploit this or that. But you cannot morally say that you just want to exploit. So what do you do? You justify your evil deeds in the name of religion.

You say, “You know, I am saying this because this has been mentioned in such and such book, and that book is a core book. Therefore, I am just being religious when I am oppressing you or exploiting you.” That's what has been happening, and that was witnessed in Tamil Nadu to a great extent. And we know how EVR Periyar fought against it, and Stalin has named Periyar in his comment. So we kind of know where he's coming from, and to that extent, one has to be sympathetic to his position because he's been receiving a lot of criticism.

And I even feel that he has been irresponsible in making his comments. But what also needs to be seen is that indeed there has been a lot of discrimination, exploitation, and all kinds of mischief, and very deadly deeds in the name of religion. But that does not mean that we throw the baby out along with the bathwater. If you have to remove social evils, remove social evils. Do not remove Dharma itself. You do not probably understand the consequences if a society loses its dharmic bedrock. You do not understand what man would be without Dharma.

We think religion is just a nuisance. We think we could be totally hunky-dory even without religion. No, that's not the case, sir. Man is not an animal. Animals do not need religion because animals are all right as they are. Man is a special being. We need religion because we have a perpetual longing for light and liberation. And if there is no religion, where is light? And where is liberation? And where is love?

And when I say we need religion, I do not really mean a set of beliefs or dogma. Religion typically is characterized by a founder, by a set of beliefs, and by certain compulsory rituals, etc. No, that's not what I mean by religion. When I'm saying religion, I loosely mean Dharma. Though religion, as we said, does not translate into Dharma, but loosely.

So man needs Dharma. Let's not try to create a society that has no dharmic moorings. The results will be very devastating. The mind will go insane if it cannot move towards liberation. Man is not born to live in bondages. Dharma is the movement from bondages towards liberation.

Though I fully appreciate that that is not how Dharma is practised in society. That is probably also not how Dharma has been practised ever in the society. But we cannot denigrate a concept just because it has not been understood. That's being very, very unfair to the concept. So let's please understand and respect the concept. So that's it.

On the point of whether he should apologize. I suppose, as mature people, as adults, we have to leave it to his good discretion, whether he apologizes or not. That's something that he has to say. We are nobody to enforce it on him. However, if I were in his place, I would definitely express regrets for not being responsible enough to first understand and then articulate.

If I want to speak on a topic, it is my responsibility to, first of all, do my homework and the right kind of academic research. Otherwise, it can lead to further misunderstandings in the society. And the kind of times we are living in, already the fault lines are very deep. As responsible public functionaries, we should be aiming to create bridges, not deepen the fault lines.

Questioner: Where does Sanatan Dharma stand between Hinduism and Hindutva?

Acharya Prashant: Now, when you say something stands between two things, you are assuming that all three are in the same plane, right? Otherwise, one thing cannot stand between two things. The thing is, these three do not belong to the same plane. They are dimensionally apart. Very, very different things. They are incomparable. They are not in the same dimension. Their very units are different.

So Sanatan Dharma, as we said, is a philosophy of the mind that gives a purpose to life. It looks at the human being. It looks at the mind of the human being. It tries to see why we suffer so much, and then it tries to find an end to the suffering, a way out, a solution. That is Sanatan Dharma. Sanatan Dharma is philosophical.

Then comes Hinduism. What is Hinduism? The Supreme Court has very aptly put it, it's just various streams of beliefs coming together. So beliefs, you can believe the way you want to believe. Somebody else can believe the way he wants to believe, and somebody else can say, “I do not believe in any kind of god or something,” and yet everybody qualifies to be a Hindu. So Hinduism is about beliefs. Sanatan Dharma is a relentless and ruthless discovery of the Truth. So these two are poles apart.

Being a Hindu, in that sense very interestingly, is not the same as being a Sanatani. Now, you are a Hindu if you live in a belief system. Whereas, you can be a Sanatani only if you discard all beliefs, because Truth and beliefs do not go together.

A Sanatani is someone who has to be free of all beliefs. Beliefs are bondages, and the Sanatan Marg is that which leads to liberation. So you cannot carry your bondages to your point of liberation, right?

So unfortunately, much of Hinduism that we see around us is just about this story or that story, this ritual or that ritual. And beliefs very quickly slip into becoming superstitions. So there are these beliefs, superstitions, assumptions, and a lot of pseudoscience as well.

So sadly, that's what most of Hinduism is about. But Sanatan Dharma, that's something dimensionally different. That's something of the skies. You look at yourself. You figure out what it is that ensnares you. You look at yourself. You ask: where are your beliefs coming from? Where are ideas coming from? Where are your desires, hopes, ambitions, relationships, where are all these things coming from?

And then you ask yourself, “Where am I in all this?” If all my desires are coming from external influences, if my targets, goals, ideologies, all are borrowed stuff. Where am I in all this? It's all just a collection of imprints that I have somehow started calling as “I.” So that's Sanatan Dharma.

Sanatan Dharma is beautiful, neat, very rigorous, and very unaccommodating in that sense. Hinduism, we have talked of. We see all around us what Hinduism is. One good thing, however, about Hinduism is that it is quite liberal. You can worship the deity of your choice, you can go your own way, and there is no central authority that would declare you a non-Hindu.

Then comes Hindutva. Now Hindutva, again, is something totally different. It is not related in a deep sense even to Hinduism. If you will go to the academic side and look at the definition of Hindutva, it’s a political ideology. It’s a political ideology that wants to uphold cultural nationalism. So these three are very different, and there is hardly anything that unifies these three.

However, in common belief and in common parlance, these three somehow have come to mean broadly the same thing, or at least these three terms point in the same direction in the common imagination. That is not right. There is not much in common between Hinduism and Hindutva, and there is not much in common between Sanatan Dharma and Hinduism.

Sanatan is a pursuit of Truth. Hinduism, belief system. And Hindutva, it's a political ideology. Political ideology dealing in culture. A particular kind of culture must rule, and culture and nation must be synonymous, right? So culture, nation, and political power, put these three together and what you get is Hindutva.

And what kind of culture? Popular culture. Not culture that is really flowing from, let's say, the Upanishads or Vedanta, but popular culture of the last 100-200 years. You assume that is the authentic Hindu culture, whatever that means. So you take that culture, and along with that, you take nationalism. And you take these two as synonymous. And then you say these two deserve to rule politically. That is Hindutva.

So Sanatan Dharma, Hinduism, Hindutva, all three very different animals.

Questioner: Has Sanatan Dharma been misunderstood by Indians?

Acharya Prashant: We are being far too generous than we need to be. Even to misunderstand something, you must first of all attempt to understand it. Here in India, who wants to attempt to understand religion?

Religion is not something that comes to a child by way of understanding. Religion is something that is handed over to us as a doctrine, as a dogma. You just take it. This is something that you must believe in. Otherwise, you'll be ostracized and ridiculed. Are you getting it?

So there is no understanding.

Understanding does not mean that you have to go by a story. Understanding means that you have to apply your mind, your intellect, your attention. You have to ask questions. There has to be genuine inquiry for understanding to occur. But somehow, inquiry is hardly encouraged in the field of Dharma. Whereas Dharma is all about inquiry.

You see, Sanatan Dharma is founded on self-inquiry — Atma-Jigyasa. That’s what results in Atma-gyan. Self-inquiry resulting in self-knowledge, and self-knowledge resulting in liberation from the self. That’s what Sanatan Dharma is supposed to be.

Instead, all that we have is dogma, beliefs, stories, and stuff that is handed over to us — legends, folklore. And that's what we somehow have come to brand as religion. Now that is not religion at all. In fact, Dharma is exactly the opposite of belief.

Now I'm saying that the third time in these 30 minutes, but that's something that cannot be reiterated too much. We need to constantly remember that Dharma is not a belief. Dharma is an inquiry. I want to understand. And I want to know. Dharma is an upliftment of consciousness, not the subduing of consciousness under the weight of age-old garbage. Right?

So it's high time that we go to our scriptures. It's high time we apply ourselves to life.

Because Dharma is not just about reading a book. It's about learning from life itself as well. These are the two wings of the Dharmic bird. You have to look at the highest words that your elders, your predecessors, have left for you. And you have to apply your own mind to your own life.

You have to go deep into your experiences. And I'm not talking about mystical experiences. You have to go deep into your everyday experiences, and from there, learn about life. And when these two things happen together, learning from a book and learning from life itself, then there is flight. The bird then soars into the sky. And that is liberation.

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