Atma Jyoti Ashram: Wolf in sheep’s clothing - II

Organiser, 2009 Issues > July 12, 2009


Atma Jyoti Ashram: Wolf in sheep’s clothing - II
The diabolical game of evangelists in a Hindu Ashram
By Swami Devananda Saraswati

Hindu society has become secularised in the cities and teachers are faced with multicultural audiences from different countries and traditions. It is therefore incumbent on all Hindu gurus in India and abroad to put their philosophical teaching into its original religious context, so that it cannot be distorted and abused by Hinduism’s scholarly Marxist and Christian enemies.

This is how ancient Greece became a Christian country, and how modern India is fast becoming a Christianised Hindu country.

The new twist in the criminal impersonation of Hindu sadhus is that Christian priests in the US are adopting Hindu names and dress in order to deceive and entrap America seekers who have already rejected the false doctrines and superstitions of Christianity, in the hope of bringing them back to Jesus and the Church.

Missionary activity in India has peaked under the benevolent gaze of the Christian-Congress UPA regime of Sonia Gandhi. Andhra Pradesh is now said to be 30 per cent Christian and growing, with Tamil Nadu following closely behind. Both states will soon rival Kerala with their Christian populations.

The real problem is not missionaries flashing American dollars or dressing up as sadhus in order to deceive unsuspecting villagers. Christians in India are doing what Christians have always done throughout history: They are subverting and subsuming the non-Christian cultures and societies that they are not able to conquer by force.

The real problem is with Hindu leaders—political, social, cultural, and religious leaders. They are first of all in a state of denial, unwilling or unable to admit the Christian threat and the grave implications it has for Hindu civilization and society. Or, like the editors of the Ramana Ashram journal Mountain Path, they take the out-dated, irresponsible, and non-Vedic theosophical view that all religions are one and the same anyway, so what does it matter if a few million villagers become dollar Christians.

Or, and this is especially true of Hindu religious leaders, they recognise the Christian threat, but are not sufficiently equipped or knowledgeable to counter it. Unlike Christian priests who study Hindu scriptures and doctrines in depth for years, they have never read the Bible or studied the imperialist Christian ideologies formulated out of the Bible story. They are helpless, and they are made even more helpless by their own superficially understood and secularised doctrines of an abstract, impersonal, and all-pervasive Brahman godhead.

Every popular religious teacher in India today espouses some form of Advaitic philosophy. Even the popular Chennai Christian newspaper Deccan Chronicle carries a weekly “spiritual” column of secularised Neo-Vedantic commentary called “Vedanta Rocks!” This de-mythologised Vedanta with its abstract terminology and concept of Oneness is the great love of the modern Indian secular sophist or Jesuit-trained Christian casuist. They can turn these Hindu concepts and ideals any which way they like and use them for any amoral purpose when taken out of their original Hindu religious context.



Deconstructing Advaita Vedanta
Most modern Indian religious teachers do take Advaita Vedanta out of its original Vedic religious context, and in doing so give a potent weapon to the enemy with which to attack Hindu religion and undermine Hindu society and culture. Sita Ram Goel, in Catholic Ashrams, writes: “[T]he literature of Indigenisation provides ample proof that several Hindu philosophies are being actively considered by the mission strategists as conveyors of Christianity. The Advaita of Shankaracharya has been the hottest favourite so far. The Vishistadvaita of Ramanuja, the Bhakti of the Alvar saints and Vaishnava Acharyas, the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Vichara of Ramana Maharishi are not far behind.”

The medieval Acharyas and more recent teachers of Vedic spirituality like Ramana Maharishi were able to know without difficulty the religious identity and affiliations of their disciples. They did not have to search out and verify their students’ political and religious backgrounds. This is no longer true today. Hindu society has become secularised in the cities and teachers are faced with multicultural audiences from different countries and traditions. It is therefore incumbent on all Hindu gurus in India and abroad to put their philosophical teaching into its original religious context, so that it cannot be distorted and abused by Hinduism’s scholarly Marxist and Christian enemies.

Apostle Paul and the Early Church Fathers conquered ancient Greece by forcibly secularising Greek society. They divided the unity of Greek religion and mythology from Greek philosophy and philosophic terminology. They then secularised and appropriated Greek philosophic terminology and took the Greek religious concept of an Unknown God for themselves. The religious vacuum that followed in Greek society was filled in with the Jesus cult and other Christian superstitions. Indian bishops are perpetrating the same apostolic fraud today when they claim the Tamil saint Tiruvalluvar was a disciple of the legendary St. Thomas! They add to their cultural crime by claiming his “secular” ethical treatise Tirukkural as their own sectarian Christian book.

This is how ancient Greece became a Christian country, and how modern India is fast becoming a Christianised Hindu country. The difference is that in modern India, ill-informed Hindu spiritual teachers and ashram administrators are assisting Christian predators in the downfall and obliteration of Hindu religion and culture.

Perhaps we are mistaken; perhaps we have been misinformed about Atma Jyoti Ashram and its abbot Fr. George Burke. Perhaps he and his disciples have converted to Hinduism and gone through Vedic samskaras of purification and name change under the guidance of a Hindu priest.

If that is the case, let them produce their certificates of de-baptism and apostasy from the Christian religion. As they claim to be Smarta Dasnami sannyasins with Giri titles, let them produce their certificates of sannyasa from a recognised Dasnami mahamandaleshwar and math. They can post these important documents of religion on their website. We will then give them our blessing, for their good sense in religion and spiritual endeavour, and hold our peace.

Links and References

1] Atma Jyoti Ashram and their Jesus-in-India propaganda with Swami Devananda’s comments: http://vivekajyoti.blogspot.com unadulterated.html

2] Hinduism Today, “Catholic Ashrams: Adopting and Adapting Hindu Dharma”: http://www.hinduismtoday.com

3] Catholic Ashrams in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org

4] Catholic Ashrams: Sannyasins or Swindlers by Sita Ram Goel, Voice of India, New Delhi, 1994: http://www.indiaclub.com

5] Christian Aggression: “Catholic Ashrams: Sachidananda Ashram gets a woman Acharya” http://www.christianaggression.org

6] History of Hindu-Christian Encounters by Sita Ram Goel, Voice of India, New Delhi, 1996: http://voiceofdharma.org

7] Radical Universalism by Frank Morales: http://www.dharmacentral.com.

(Concluded)