Acharya Prashant explains that Hinduism, in its true essence, is not a religion in the same way that Christianity or Islam are. He argues that no religion can truly accept non-believers because the mind typically lives in beliefs, whereas a spiritual person lives in the essence of the self, beyond all 'isms'. He suggests that the more Hinduism is treated as a formal religion, the more its real essence is destroyed. The Upanishads and texts like the Ribhu Gita do not propagate a religion but rather a state of religion-less-ness. To be a real Hindu is to go beyond all religions and enter the dimension of Sanatana Dharma, which he defines as eternal religiousness or timelessness. He further describes Sanatana Dharma as awakened intelligence or 'swa-dharma', which is the action of intelligence rather than a set of frozen thought patterns. He illustrates this with an anecdote about tribal people who could not be converted to Christianity because they lacked a rigid religious structure; they simply added Jesus to their existing spiritual essence. He emphasizes that figures like the Buddha and Mahavira did not provide religions but offered liberation from religion, which he calls true religiousness. Finally, he asserts that 'India' is not a geographical location but a state of mind. Anyone who considers matter as the ultimate reality is 'Western' in their mindset, regardless of where they live, whereas an 'Indian' mind is one that looks beyond the material.
