The moral for the Hindu Samaj is to understand the trajectory of individuals such as Frank Morales and Rajiv Malhotra and approach their work with caution. Both are entitled to their world views but both should not set themselves up as the new acharyas of Hinduism. They have neither the training nor the adhikara for this supreme task. – Dr. Vijay Rajiva
Unfortunately, [setting oneself up as an authority on Hindu Dharma] seems to have become endemic in the Hindu diaspora with the recent U-turn taken by Dr. Frank Morales who has set himself up as an acharya (Morales is a Spanish-Italian American who has seemingly espoused Hinduism, calling himself Sri Dharma Pravartaka Acharya).
He did his undergraduate work in Christian theology at a Jesuit university and then trained at the University of Wisconsin’s Indian Studies Program and became an outstanding student of the subject. However, he does not seem to have stayed any great length of time in India, nor has he received diksha (initiation) from any known Hindu acharya before he set himself up in turn as an acharya and headed the Hindu temple in Nebraska (USA). He is also the founder president of the International Sanatana Dharma Society. His rise to fame was based primarily on his extraordinary article Philosophical Critique of Radical Universalism (2005) which endeared him to some Hindus in the diaspora and he was acclaimed as a defender of Hinduism. The people who acclaimed him were well-known, some even authentic exponents of Hinduism. And predictably Frank Morales has now become an exponent of Christian doctrine, using the clever ploy that he is talking about the perfect being of Jesus and that this fits in well with Sanatana Dharma. He frequently reads from the Gospels to his audiences. This has been the ancient dream of Jesuits and is seen more noticeably in the work of Raimundo Panikkar, the Spanish-Indian Jesuit scholar and priest, who claimed that the Vedas and Hindu scriptures in general, heralded the coming of the universal Christ, hidden in history up till an auspicious moment.
Can Frank Morales have perfected the art of inculturation? He seems to have moved away from the rejection of his early positions on the uniqueness of Hinduism and its refusal to accept that all religions are the same. He seems to be bringing in Jesus by the backdoor. Defenders could argue that he is inculturating Christianity, instead of the other way around!
Frank Morales’s performance in the video Jesus: The Dharma Master [now called The Vedic Jesus] should leave no ambiguity in the minds of Hindus that he is now all set on presenting Jesus as the ideal being (who is also God) to the bemused Hindus of the diaspora. He begins by saying that Jesus was a perfect man because he set himself the goal of accepting the will of God and make himself ethically pure. It is not clear why Morales chose Jesus as an example. The jury is out on the historicity of Jesus. Did such an individual exist? Or was he merely the concoction of Pauline Christianity, the Church and the bishops who met at the Nicene Council in 325 A.D.? And even if he did exist, was he the pure being that he was supposed to be? He is supposed to have damned to eternity all those who did not follow his teachings. Was he merely a political revolutionary who was feared both by the Romans and the Jewish Sanhedrin?
Questions abound for the non-believer. Clearly Morales is a believer, if not in some rabid fundamentalist sense, in a subtle and sophisticated manner.
How did this come about? Perhaps we should go back and read carefully his philosophical Radical Universalism which argues that all religions are NOT the same. Morales points out that Hinduism did not at any time say that all religions are the same. This line that all religions are the same is one adopted by those Hindu gurus travelling in the West in order to make entry into that society and gain some traction. In his brilliant essay Morales rejects this tendency and outlines why and how Hinduism did not, could not have maintained that all religions are the same. According to him Sanatana Dharma is unique and the sages and saints and traditional acharyas have maintained this unique identity.
In the case of Rajiv Malhotra there is a parallel situation here. From his book Breaking India (quite different in tone and content from the second book) to Being Different and now his public espousal of the cause of Hindu-Christian dialogue there has been a marked U-turn. The reader is referred to the article “Hindu Christian Dialogue and the Second Front against Dharma“. That article references the recent Huffington Post blog where Mr. Malhotra openly embraces Hindu-Christian dialogue. This has become part and parcel of his world view, the divine lila where all differences are really of no significance. Malhotra is entitled to his world view but he seems to be singularly unaware of Francis Xavier Clooney’s subtle entrapment.
He cites Clooney’s argument that he, Malhotra, is a contrast to other exponents of Hinduism who merely dismiss the differences with Christianity without understanding the deep structures (italics added by the present writer) of the differences! Need one comment on the implications of this statement from Clooney? In other words, while Malhotra is talking away for the valid existence of difference, all part and parcel of divine lila, Clooney is saying (in effect) that the deep structure of difference is what makes Christianity superior to Hinduism.
The Dartmouth video also shows the same subtlety and craftiness with which Dr. Clooney first flatters and then puts down the unsuspecting Malhotra and as well gains the upper hand in his overview of the difference between Christianity and Hinduism.
The present writer has analysed this in the article “How not to engage in Hindu Christian Dialogue” (see list below). The moral here for the Hindu Samaj is to understand the trajectory of individuals such as Frank Morales and Rajiv Malhotra and approach their work with caution. Both are entitled to their world views but both should not set themselves up as the new acharyas of Hinduism. They have neither the training nor the adhikara for this supreme task.
Notes
NB: The Nithyananda Defense Team was made up of Rajiv Malhotra, Aravindan Neelakandan, Swami Jyotirmayananda, V. Sundaram, S. Kalyanaraman & G. P. Srinivasan. These overly zealous advocates of the Sex Swami made vicious attacks on Radha Rajan, Sandhya Jain and Ishwar Sharan for criticising the self-styled guru’s indefensible conduct (note added by editor).
Articles by the same author
- Hindu-Christian Dialogue and the Second Front against Dharma
- The Second Front and Dharma
- Stopping the enemy at the gates
- Protecting the aam admi Hindu and the traditional acharyas
- Hindu-Christian dialogue is an attack on the aam admi Hindu and the traditional acharyas, gurus and maths
- Rajiv Malhotra: From critique of the West to Hindu-Christian dialogue
- How not to engage in Hindu-Christian dialogue
- If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
- Does Rajiv Malhotra need Purva Paksha for Hindu-Christian dialogue?
- Rajiv Malhotra and Hindu-Christian Dialogue
- Francis Xavier Clooney: Building the Trojan Horse
- Purva Paksha and the Siren Song of Hindu-Christian dialogue
- Rajiv Malhotra’s endorsement of Hindu-Christian dialogue
» Dr. Vijaya Rajiva is a political philosopher who taught for several years on the faculty of a Canadian university. She is now retired and lives in Canada with her husband who is also an academic. Since retirement her interests are in Indian history, culture and politics. She holds a B.A. Hons. & M. Litt. in Literature (University of Madras, India), an M.A. in Philosophy (University of Madras, India), an M.A. in Political Science (McGill University, Canada) and a Ph.D. in Humanities in Political Science, Philosophy, Political Economy & History (Concordia University, Canada).
Filed under: india | Tagged: francis xavier clooney, frank morales, inculturation, rajiv malhotra, universalism |
BHARATA BHARATI 
youre not a covert Christian, Frank; youre a pedantic, meglomaniac. Prahu, fold up the kurta dhotis, cut that wack ass Gene Simmons ‘do and squeeze your BabaBod back into that suit and tie and bring your Profound (-ly dry) Avataristic Utterances to the Undergrads at Le Moyne. HariOmTatSat
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An accurate portrayal of “the greatest Vedic guru alive”!
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What concerns myself the most is Frank Morales’s near obsession with potentially fraudulent gurus. From my own perspective, it seems that he wants to have control over who is considered a guru and who is not. Mr. Morales seems eager to be considered the “final say” in what is true and what is not. Such a disposition is not in any way a characteristic of an authentic enlightened guru; it’s more a symptom of megalomania than anything else.
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“Two Cents” makes some excellent observations and it is apparent to me that this individual has had personal experience with Dr. Morales. I, too, had noticed his “delusions of grandeur” as well as other disturbing issues and have taken special note that attendance at his talks are not at all what they could and should be. I know of many who completely pulled away from him (myself included) as a result of very deep concerns about how matters were being handled.
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Frank Morales is a scholar of the Vedic tradition, not an actual philosophic guru. He can recite to you every bit of trivia related to Vedicism, but he can’t come up with any original contributions.
One of Mr. Morales’s favorite past times is raising the subject of the Guru, and what constitutes an “authentic guru” as opposed to one who isn’t. In his diatribes Mr. Morales points out every quality that he believes indicates an authentic guru; what makes this truly humorous to readers such as myself is that the esteemed “Acharya” lists the exact qualities that he himself possesses – including “lifting weights and doing cardio”.
Basically, what Mr. Morales is trying to do with his treatises on the subject of Guru is to convince his readers that he is the ultimate guru and that all others are false.
Frank also hates anyone that makes him appear less enlightened by comparison. He literally ceases all communication with anyone whose intellectual or creative capacity shines brighter than his, and he will even go so far as to explain to those people why they’re not actually as intelligent as they think they are. — Frank tends to reach out online to a mostly teenage audience (between 16 and 19). Much can be speculated about why that is, but it seems as though it’s because he can impress younger and less informed people better than he can impress more educated men and women of experience.
Frank Morales also stated on his facebook account that he knows specifically of “six fully enlightened beings on earth”, and the reader can only imagine that he considers himself to be at the top of that list of six. Frank does seem to show some symptoms of delusions of grandeur, especially in his indirect claims of being “the most authentic guru” the Vedic community has to offer.
In closing, “Sri Dharma Pravartaka Acharya”, a.k.a. Frank Morales, is not as much a Vedic guru as he is a theological scholar. He knows a lot, and through his abundance of knowledge, tries to convince his audience that he is of the highest level of enlightened comprehension. After reading his books, watching his videos, and getting to know him in person long enough, Mr. Morales leaves one with the impression that the Vedic tradition is merely a means of employment, rather than a spiritual endeavor.
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@Ms. Unknown blogger is quite correct, though unknown.
Morales’s site is connected to Dr. Paul Gottfried’s work. Gottfried is connected to a site that is definitely connected to the work of Jesuits and to Zionists.
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Dr. Frank Morales may have started in the right direction but we shouldn’t forget the root of the problem being ISKCON which he is a product of even though he left it years ago but still holding the same worldview.Like already shown in the messages above Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada is the problem like many other Gurus who give a stamp of approval to this non existing Jesus.So many in the west who have rejected Jesus and Christianity end up coming back to it because of the influence of some hindu guru giving importance to Jesus so its not surprising Frank Morales is doing the same.Iskcon claims that jesus was good Vaishnava but advaitas are to be hated.They hate all other hindu gurus and paths.They have no respect for Swami Vivekanda and Ramakrishna and others.
And unfortunately Iskcon has the potential to become a Trojan horse within Hinduism if Hindus are not careful.The hare krishnas already have a lot of influence on naive and dumb hindus who fund it and promote it without knowing its monotheist mentality along with its agenda.I hope Dr. Vijaya Rajiva and other hindu intellectuals bring this issue up more because Iskcon needs to be cornered on its ideology and distortions of the Gita .
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Dear Hindus
Please don’t fight with each other like this,. I don’t thnk Frank Morale ji is christian spy or so. But i think he tried to get an opening to western people,. Though many may not believe in church, west still believes in a Christ different from Bible. I know many people who see him as a yogi learned from India during the missing age. BUT MANY NEW ACHARYAS COMMIT A GREAT BLUNDER, DUE TO WHICH, SUCH VIDEOS ARE BEING USED TO ‘SICKULARIZE’ HINDU YOUTH SAYING ALL ARE SAME, AND EVEN THE WESTERN LISTENERS MAY BE CONFUSED. Even modern day Ramakrishna Math in USA does SUCH ALL ARE SAME, EQUATING JEHOVA WITH BRAHMAN, AND FATHER-SON PATH TO BRAHMAN,- absolute nönsense.
A member of my vaishnava brahmin community, now stays away from our traditional Kashi math samsthan, and goes to Church, thanks to Ramakrishna- Vedanta society.
Though there have been a succession dispute HH swamiji of kashi math has been true to Sanyasa to this date. And 1000times better than sex maniac popes and pentacostal. Another contribution was, a friend, western initiated into hindu after staying away frm church for 10-15 year. And then they joind Ramakrishna math, again thanx to them, his wife-kids rejoined Protestant.;-(
Rajiv Malhotra as i know is also a staunch hindu, who Did mistake like this.
But lets correct and work together instead of fighting inside.
AGAIN I AM JUST A 20YEAR BOY, WITHOUT ANY AUTHORITY, Experience OR KNOWLEDGE TO Correct either of you.
Apologize for mistakes if any.
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I do agree that his response is vituperative. It does not behove a Hindu acharya to respond to criticism like this.
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Dr. Frank Morales’ U-turn – Dr. Vijaya Rajiva
In an astonishingly vituperative article titled ‘In Defence of Sanatana Dharma: Spotlighting an unknown bigot’ Dr. Frank Morales who is also President of the International Sanatana Dharma Society’ displays an unusual anger for someone who claims to be a sincere seeker in Sanatana Dharma. The occasion for this somewhat bizarre display were the articles by the present writer on what seemed to be his U-turn from his early article on Hinduism to his later video (in 2 parts) on Jesus the Dharma Master, where he glorifies Jesus. It may interest Dr. Morales that many Hindus were surprised by these two videos (see above).
Not all Hindus subscribe to the theory of Jesus being of divine origin or that indeed he is an exceptionally great individual or that he was even a historical figure. Dr. Morales cites the case of Mahatma Gandhi who he claims (inaccurately) did endorse Jesus in the entirety of the Church’s claims for him and therefore is with Morales in his glorification of Jesus. Gandhiji did say that the Sermon on the Mount went straight to his heart, but he did not agree that Jesus was the only son of God and he did not agree that he was even an avatar. Anyone who is familiar with Gandhij’s life and writings, knows that he vehemently rejected the Church’s attempts at conversion. In his own personal life he rejected firmly and politely many advances made by his Christian friends to shed his ‘paganism’. A well known early example is the episode in South Africa, where Gandhiji had gone in 1893, and where his Christian friend tried to pull the Tulasi beads off his neck saying that it was superstition. Gandhiji’s reply was: it may be superstition to you but they were placed around my neck by my mother before I left for England….”
Hence, apart from a general admiration for the figure of Jesus, none of the Hindu gurus enumerated by Dr. Morales ( Prabhupada, Ramakrishna et al) went out of their way to exalt Jesus in the way that Dr. Morales does in his videos. It would also be helpful for skeptical Hindus (skeptical of Morales’ mission) to know whether there has been a follow up study of the people of the proselytising faiths that attended his satsang during the talk he gave on Jesus the Dharma Master (captured in the videos) returned to their Christian fold and how many actually started on a different path altogether. Morales claims that these talks were undertaken to bring those people to Sanatana Dharma.
It is well known that the Churches are no longer as well attended as in early years and this gives great concern to the Church dignitaries of all denominations. They would be extremely happy if the Morales talks brought them back to the Christian fold. If any of the listeners to the talks took his glorification of Jesus seriously they should indeed return to their own churches and worship this glorious figure! The Church should thank Morales for this.
What appears to be Dr. Morales’s U-turn from his early committment to Sanatana Dharma to the new phase of Jesus worship illustrates one aspect of the globalisation of Hinduism. On the one hand, there is some satisfaction that the Vedic heritage is being talked about to larger audiences (as Morales does) but on the other hand there is the question of the rehabilitation of Christian figures into the Hindu consciousness, something that the missionary educational system along with colonial rule had already inculcated amongst Hindus.
Today, the contemporary Hindu prides himself / herself on being ‘secular’ and tolerant of other religions, precisely because of the myth that Hinduism says all religions are equal (something that Dr. Morales firmly rejected in his early article on Hinduism). To further reinforce that colonial / missionary trend by bringing Jesus in by the back door, does appear, with all due respect, to be a U-turn. Dr. Morales can get as agitated as he wants with criticism of his methods, but this happens to be the stark reality in the Indian subcontinent.
It is in doing this U-turn that Dr. Morales displays a remarkable lack of historical / political perspective. Whether this is owing to the excessive enthusiasm of a ‘convert’ to Hinduism or something else is difficult to ascertain. But at first glance, his Jesus videos strike many as being an aspect of the phenomenon of Inculturation, which started as early as the 17th century with Robert de Nobili and continues to this day in the work of prominent Catholics such as Dr. Francis Xavier Clooney of Harvard University. The present writer has written about this in other articles, in conjunction with what again appears to be a sudden U-turn towards Hindu Christian dialogue by author and writer Rajiv Malhotra, where much ground was conceded with very little returns.
It is gratifying to note that Frank Morales by his own statements is still very much a seeker in Sanatana Dharma. One can only hope that he acquires some more political savvy if he is truly to help the Hindu Samaj. In his international mission, such as it is, he has forgotten that the Hindu Samaj is under siege. His further possibly well meant efforts do not help if they bring Jesus in by the back door. He may wish to reconsider his strategy.
(The writer is a Political Philosopher who taught at a Canadian university. Her academic training is in Philosophy, Literature, Political Science, Political Economy & History).
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Yes, many Hindus separate Jesus from the Bible and from the Church. It is an artificial separation. Without the NT fable there is no Jesus. And the Jesus of the NT is not a very nice man.
Those of us who know Christian history know the Sermon on the Mount is an interpolation from a Neo-Platonic source. Anyway, it is hardly representative of the Jesus in the rest of the NT tale.
The Hindu gurus you name — Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Paramahamsa Yogananda, Mahatma Gandhi, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada — to support your perspective of Jesus are for the most part all Neo-Vedantans (except Prabhupada). You have rightly criticised these Neo-Vedantans in your brilliant essay on Radical Universalism, and rightly pointed out the great harm they have done to a true understanding of Hindu Dharma. So how can you call them in to support your sweetie-pie, convent-school perspective of Jesus now?
I have no doubt that you are a Sanatani Hindu. But your Jesus the Dharma Master videos have left many Hindus concerned and deeply disappointed.
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In Defense of Sanatana Dharma: Spotlighting an Unknown Bigot by Sri Dharma Pravartaka Acharya
The technological miracle of the Internet has served as a tremendous source of entertainment for untold hundreds of millions of cyber-surfers over the last almost two decades. One of the most astonishing features on the Internet has been the overnight democratization (and sadly, also the rapidly qualitatively degenerating nature) of the flow of information – both good, as well as fabricated. No longer do statements need to be reasonable. No longer do pronouncement need to be proven by fact, logic or anything remotely resembling evidence. No longer do words have consequences. …And the degenerative influence of the Kali Yuga continues its incremental descent – with Truth itself as its foremost victim.
On the upside, this radical lack of responsibility in the creation of written content has also led to some of the most side-splitting humor imaginable. One fantastic example of the type of reality-bending humor that has become very popular recently is the Onion (http://www.theonion.com). The Onion is especially known for taking normative reality and turning it completely upside down, reporting the most unimaginably insane stories as if they are real news items, thus leading to many surrealistically funny fake news stories. Some stories even tricking otherwise intelligent people for at least a little while, until they finally realize that they’re only having their leg sardonically pulled.
What happens, however, when someone approaches you with the most insane of statements, indeed the very opposite of reality, only for you to then slowly and frighteningly realize that the person isn’t actually joking with you at all, but is dead serious in what she is saying? “I believe that the Pope of the Catholic church is in actually a deep undercover Hindu spy who is trying to get all Catholics to begin worshiping Lord Krishna and to shave their heads! And I believe that Sri Swami Ramdev is actually a Christian missionary in disguise, only pretending to be a Hindu! After all, aren’t Christians anti-gay too; and didn’t Jesus have long hair like Swami Ramdev?! You see? He’s a Christian! And I know for a fact that Barack Obama, the current President of the United States, is actually a space alien in disguise here on a mission to conquer the earth for his fellow aliens!!!” At this point in the conversation, of course, any sane person would begin to slowly back away from the troubled individual making these insane statements and try to find safe shelter somewhere. Why? Because any intelligent person would quickly realize that the statements that are being made are not merely false, not merely baseless, not merely mistaken, but are in fact so much the opposite of any recognizable degree of reality that one would not even know where to begin in attempting to refute them. How, for example, would you personally even begin to disprove that Barack Obama is a space alien? How could you disprove that YOU are not a space alien?
Humorously, I have myself recently been the victim of just such a surreal scenario from some Internet jokester who no one in the Hindu community apparently has ever heard of before. About a week ago, I was having a phone conversation with one of the national leaders of the Hindu community in the U.K. We were discussing strategies for combating anti-Hindu discrimination when he finally asked me if I was aware that there was some unknown person blogging her opinion that I was not a true Hindu, but only a deep-undercover Christian missionary malevolently bent upon converting innocent Indian Hindu youth to Christianity. We both began laughing on the phone for what seemed to be a minute. When we both finally regained our composure, my Hindu friend in the U.K. said to me “Acharyaji, claiming that you are a Christian would be like claiming that Adi Shankara was a actually a hidden Baptist missionary!” But…such is the nature of a new claim on the rough and wild frontier adventure known as the Internet.
Again, where does one even begin in attempting to refute a lie so surreal as to defy reality? The following is my humble attempt to inject at least a modicum of reality into the realm of the surreal. I will begin my foray into the upside-down reality of this unknown blogger, whom neither I nor my Hindu friend in the U.K. had ever hear of, with the following personal statement.
Mera naam Dharma Pravartaka Acharya hai. Mein Bharatiya naheen huun. LEKIN MEIN HINDU HUUN! My religion is Sanatana Dharma, more commonly known as Hinduism. Sanatana Dharma is the only religion I have ever followed or been a member of in my 48 years of life on this earthly plane of Bhudevi. I accept the Vedic scriptures as being the perfect revealed truth, the most reliable guide to understanding the nature of the cosmos and our place within that cosmos, and as being apaurusheya – eternal and not created by the mind of man. I accept that any religious or philosophical path that does not accept the absolute authority of the Vedic scriptures is nastika, a necessarily flawed system of belief. I accept the reality of karma and reincarnation. I accept the reality of the devas and devis as real and existing personalities who govern and guide our cosmos in a dharmic manner. I have been a strict vegetarian for the last 36 years, do not drink alcohol, nor smoke, nor engage in illegal drugs (aspirin, I believe, is still legal), etc. I personally worship Sriman Narayana as the highest understanding of Brahman and the ultimate goal of Vedanta. On a daily basis, I conduct puja to the murtis of Sri Sri Radha Krishna, engage in mantra meditation upon the Vedic mantra Aum Namo Narayanaya, practice Yoga, etc. I was initiated into the Narayana mantra at the age of fourteen in a Hindu temple in New York City. I travelled to India in 1985 to receive direct initiation from my guru Bhakti Rakshaka Sridhara Swami Maharaja (as is clearly stated in my biographical information on my website, http://www.dharmacentral.com, but which the Unknown Blogger apparently failed to read), the elder god-brother of the world famous A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. I traveled to India again in 1986 to receive brahmana initiation and the sacred thread from my guru. Thus, I recite the gayatri mantra thrice daily, as instructed by my guru, and live a fully brahminical life. Thus, MEIN HINDU HUUN!
More, as if it even needs to be said at this point (though, apparently for this Unknown Blogger at least, it does!), MEIN ISSAI NAHEEN HUUN. I am not, and never have been, a Christian. My dad was of Italian heritage; my mom is Spanish. They were both nominal Catholics; i.e., they did not practice the religion. I was never baptized as a Christian – which is the criterion by which one is considered to be a formal member of the Catholic church. I believe my parents brought me to a church a total of two times as a child – once for a funeral, the other time for a wedding. I was never a Christian in any way, shape or form, either by theological concurrence, in practice, or in membership. When I began practicing Sanatana Dharma at the age of ten, this was the first and only religion that I had ever practiced. More, Ms. blogger whom no one in the Hindu community has ever even heard of, and whom I have never met in my life: I may not have been “born a Hindu” – but I will die a Hindu, with tilak on my forehead, with the name “Narayana” on my tongue, and with Bhagavan Sri Krishna in my heart. MEIN HINDU HUUN.
As we are about to see, our Unknown Blogger offers zero credible evidence that I have been lying to the world for the last 38 years, and am really a Christian secret agent in disguise. Apparently, the main quibble that the Unknown Blogger had with my work to share Sanatana Dharma with the world was one video of a satsang I had conducted in which I explain that, though we Hindus do not accept the religion of Christianity, we do indeed accept the saintliness and wisdom of Jesus as evidence that he was a great Dharma master. The Unknown Blogger even made the shrieking claim that I was attempting to convert innocent Hindu youth to Christianity with my talk! Well, the very opposite, of course, was the case. Of the approximately 100 people in attendance at my satsang that evening, approximately 85 were European-Americans of the Judeo-Christian persuasion. The other 15 attendees were European-American followers of Sanatana Dharma (and, thus, ex-Christians), whom I had personally introduced to Sanatana Dharma. Not one innocent Indian Hindu youth in sight. Indeed, my audiences these days are primarily composed of European-American adults. The last time I gave a talk to Hindu youth specifically was almost five years ago. And when I did give that talk five years ago, my message to this audience of Hindu youth was that they should all be swelling with pride to be followers of Sanatana Dharma – the most ancient, most relevant, most beautiful spiritual tradition the earth has ever known!
More, the Hindu perspective on the personality of Jesus that I communicated in my video – namely that we respect Jesus as a great guru, but we completely reject Christianity as a highly flawed theological and organizational system – has been the exact same message given by thousands of other respected Hindu gurus and Hindu leaders. The perspective on Jesus discussed in the video is not dissimilar to that taught by Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Paramahamsa Yogananda, Mahatma Gandhi, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, etc., etc., etc., etc. I can mention a thousand more names of other respected gurus who share my same message on this topic, but that would quadruple the length of this article unnecessarily! Thus, if I am guilty of being a hidden Christian missionary spy because I have conveyed the standard Hindu message on the acceptance of Jesus/rejection of Christianity, then so are all of these illustrious gurus, who all shared the same opinion as me. These great Hindu gurus must all be hidden Christian missionaries! I am very humbled to have been put into such glorious company by our Unknown Blogger.
The video “Jesus: The Dharma Master” was designed specifically for a Christian audience in order to introduce them to the path of Sanatana Dharma. It has served as a highly effective transitional bridge for thousands of Christians who wish to learn more about the beauty of Sanatana Dharma, and to possibly even choose to adopt Sanatana Dharma as their new spiritual path. This Hindu video will stay up in the service of Sanatana Dharma for as long as there is such a vehicle as the Internet in existence.
Another stunningly shocking piece of evidence that our Unknown Blogger deposited upon her readers for my secret Christian identity (I can imagine that the Unknown Blogger envisions that when my fellow Hindus aren’t watching, I quickly run into a phone booth to then, like Superman, emerge wearing a cape with a large blue cross emblazoned upon it!) is the fact that…wait for it…wait for it…”He went to a Christian university for his bachelor’s degree!!!” Such smoking gun evidence! Of course, what is left out (which, along with a thousand other details about my life, must be left out by necessity, since this blogger has never met me, has never spoken to me, and knows absolutely nothing about my life other than what she read – and conveniently forgot to read – on my own website) is precisely why I attended a Catholic university (Loyola University Chicago) for four years of my ten year college career. A) I was living in Chicago at the time, and Loyola was one of the best universities in the city, B) I was a philosophy major, and Loyola had one of the best philosophy departments in America at that time, C) having already been a practicing Hindu for 17 years before even beginning at Loyola, I very purposefully wanted to study the world-view of the opposition! Being a Hindu whose goal was to eventually teach Sanatana Dharma in the predominantly Judeo-Christian west, I felt it was imperative that I learn as much about the Christian world-view as possible. Which I did. And which even more Hindu gurus, scholars and leaders should also be doing in their spare time if they want the ability to defend Sanatana Dharma against all opposing world-views!
During my four year stay at Loyola University, I was very open and vocal about my religion of Sanatana Dharma. I organized a weekly Bhagavad Gita study group on campus – the very first such Hindu group in the history of this Catholic institution of higher learning! I engaged in open, frank and friendly debates with Catholic priests and philosophers defending the dignity of Sanatana Dharma, and more, demonstrating the pre-eminence of the philosophical world-view of Sanatana Dharma over and above anything available in the totality of Christian theology.
On an allied subject, this Unknown Blogger who has taken it upon herself to proclaim who among we mortal creatures is or is not a true Hindu states in her own little biographical blurb that she was “an instructor at a Canadian college” for a short time. That she purposefully does not mention the actual name of this “Canadian college” makes us doubt the veracity of this claim. More, if she were actually associated in any way with the academic world anywhere in North America, then Ms. Blogger would have been quite aware that there are usually many hundreds of Indian Hindu students attending any one Christian university in America. Indeed, at Loyola alone there were many hundreds of Indian Hindu students happily studying medicine, engineering, computer technology, and a wide variety of other fields of study. Are all of these hundreds of Hindu students who attended Loyola (and tens of thousands of Hindu students combined if we include all the other Christian universities in America that have large Hindu student populations) just like I did now going to have their adherence and loyalty to Hinduism arrogantly challenged by Ms. Blogger because they, too, “attended Christian universities”?
Indeed, as any Indian knows, many millions of good, loyal Hindus in India have attended schools with such names as “St. Joseph’s”, “St. Mary’s”, “St. John’s”. Indeed, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada attended a college by the name of “Scottish Churches College”, which was a college run by a Christian church! (Indeed, I suspect that if anyone actually knew who this blogger is and what her own personal history is, they would, not surprisingly, be able to dig up a few photos of our darling little Ms. Blogger as a young girl, dressed in a Catholic school uniform as she attended St. Bartholomew’s Christian Academy or some other such “Christian” school). Does Ms. Blogger now want to apply her “logic” (we’re being kind, I know) equally and across the board and now say that all of these millions of good Hindus who attended Christian run educational facilities are now no longer Hindus? With friends like Ms. Blogger so eager to convert so many millions of Hindu students to Christianity by vicious innuendo, and thus doing more harm to our Hindu culture than every Christian missionary in India combined, does the Hindu world even need any enemies!
And contemporary Sanatana Dharma does indeed have more than enough enemies actively seeking its thorough destruction! With Islamic Jihadists threatening to create a caliphate in India, aggressive Christian missionaries forcing Hindus to abandon their Vedic heritage for the promise of a bag of rice and a free pass out of their Biblical hell, demonic Marxist terrorists seeking to annihilate everything Hindu and replace it with a totalitarian atheist state, we have our hands more than full if our goal is to preserve our ancient Vedic heritage for future generations to celebrate and honor. What, then, has really motivated our Unknown Blogger to devote her energy, instead, to waging an unprovoked assault against an American Hindu who has practiced the Vedic religion for 38 years and devoted his every breath to its preservation? The painfully obvious answer to this question leads us ominously away from the humorous and toward the truly ugly and malevolent reality of the Unknown Blogger’s own personal inner demons.
The core theme of the Unknown Blogger’s vicious personal attack has not really been the camouflaged accusation that I am not a real Hindu, but rather the ugly insistence that, given my racial and ethnic background, I CANNOT be a real Hindu. In her poorly constructed screed, the Blogger takes great pains to point out to her small audience that my father is of Italian ethnic heritage and my mother is of Spanish ethnic heritage. Why was this fact about my racial makeup so importantly highlighted by the Blogger? What does the race of my parents, or the color of their skin, or the makeup of their DNA have to do with the fact that their son chose at an early age to devote his life to the religion and culture of Sanatana Dharma?
In order to forcefully reiterate my ethnic makeup in the minds of her innocent readers, the bigoted and racist Unknown Blogger gleefully and childishly insisted on referring to me, ad nauseum, by my pre-Hindu name “Frank Morales” repeatedly throughout her hate-filled, jumbled article. Apparently this “former instructor at a Canadian College”, and thus a purportedly, at least somewhat educated individual, actually believes that being a follower of Sanatana Dharma indicates one’s physical race! Apparently she believes that there exists somewhere in some abstract realm of ideation a “race” of Christians; a “race” of Muslims; a “race” of Buddhists; and most obviously she believes that there exists somewhere in her surreal fantasy world a “race” of Sanatana Dharmis. Is there a “race” of Communists; a “race” of left-handers; a “race” of unknown bloggers? According to the Unknown Blogger…apparently so! This sad bigot thus betrays her simple-minded inability to even distinguish between one’s genetic inheritance (over which one has no choice) and one’s chosen religious identity (which involves nothing but choice). Thus, within the darkly bigoted and racist mind of the Unknown Blogger, Dharma Pravartaka Acharya (or conversely: “Frank Morales”/”Frank Morales”/”Frank Morales”, to quote Bloggie) CANNOT be a Hindu – He’s the wrong color!
And, as the Unknown Racist Blogger would have it, he has the wrong parents…
For those Hindus who are a bit more informed about the philosophical foundations of Sanatana Dharma than the Unknown Bigot (which is apparently about 98% of today’s Hindus), of course, we know that Sanatana Dharma is not a race. It is not a skin color. It is not an indication of who your parents are. It is not a matter of what nation’s passport you happen to carry. Rather, Sanatana Dharma is the Eternal Natural Way. It is a spiritual path, a divine culture, a healthy and sane way of living and viewing reality that is open to all human beings, regardless of whether they are Indian, European, American, Japanese or of any other ethnicity. Sanatana Dharma is a gift from God. Sanatana Dharma is the future salvation of our entire planet.
Indeed, one of the most central and basic siddhantas, or philosophical conclusions, of Vedanta teaches us precisely that the very beginning of jnana (spiritual knowledge) is realizing that we are not merely our race, our color, our ethnicity, our parentage, our name, our gender, our education level, our age, our language, our species, our very body itself, or any other material or physical factor. According to the totality of all the scriptures of Sanatana Dharma, we are atman, each and every one of us. We are eternal, blissful units of consciousness. To have a grasp of so fundamental and basic a philosophical concept is merely the beginning of spiritual insight, of nobility (aryatva), and of what it means to be a follower of Sanatana Dharma. Apparently, the Unknown Bigot was asleep in kindergarten during this important, basic lesson.
Over the last 38 years, I have had the greatest privilege of working very closely with tens of thousands of members of the Indian Hindu community in America and abroad. In those 38 years, the Indian Hindu community has opened its arms to me in warm embrace, with so many inviting me to their homes, sharing their wisdom with me, welcoming me to their temples and satsangs, treating me as someone no different from a family member. I have experienced a degree of genuine love, concern and unhesitating generousness of heart from Indian Hindus so profound as to leave me in tears. I have seen quiet humility, deep bhakti, innocent piousness, and a pride in their Hindu religion on the part of many Hindus that has moved me to the core of my being. My gurus, teachers and mentors have been Hindus of Indian descent. My best friends, colleagues and closest confidents are Indians. Roughly half of my shishyas (students) are proud and courageous Indian Hindus who have dedicated their hearts and their very being to the healthy and positive growth of Sanatana Dharma as an ascendant global force for good. My trips to India have astonished, humbled and amazed me to the grandeur of a nation, a people, and a culture that have kept alive the spirit of the Vedas for over five-thousand years. My trips to India changed my life forever.
Sadly, while 98% of Indian Hindus understand quite well that Sanatana Dharma is a religion that is open to all sincere seekers of Truth, regardless of their race or ethnic background, there does remain the tiny, but (as we have seen with the Unknown Bigot), very vocal 2% of bigots who see Sanatana Dharma as the closed property of the few, racially-tested, elite. The Unknown Bigot has sadly chosen of her own free volition to be the blogger spokesperson for the latter, small and truly intellectually lethargic and morally corrupt cabal.
That an ultimately ignorant and prejudiced bigot should so attempt to ruin the reputation of the vast majority of the Indian Hindu community by pretending that her mean-spirited and ugly assault upon an American follower of Sanatana Dharma represents the totality of the Indian Hindu community breaks my heart. If you are an Indian who takes Hinduism seriously, and who loves your spiritual heritage, it should anger your heart. I call upon the entirety of the Hindu community, all Sanatana Dharmis globally, whether Indian, American, European, men and women, young and old, human and Deva, to renounce the Unknown Bigot in one loud, united and courageous voice. I call upon all leaders, scholars, gurus and activists in the Hindu community to bravely denounce the repulsive attacks of this person upon our entire community. We members of the Hindu community WILL defend the dignity of Sanatana Dharma from all asuras, from all unprovoked assaults, and from bigoted Unknown Bloggers everywhere. We WILL celebrate Sanatana Dharma as a divine, spiritual path open to all sincere seekers, regardless of their race, or the race of their parents. We WILL see the reconstruction of Vedic civilization in our very lifetimes. Evam bhavatu.
This will be my only statement on the embarrassingly sad case of the Unknown Bigot. With the exception of this:
Mera naam Dharma Pravartaka Acharya hai.
Mein Bharatiya naheen hun.
LEKIN MEIN HINDU HUN!
Sri Sri Radha Krishna ki jaya!
Sri Gurudeva ki jaya!
Sanatana Dharma ki jaya!
Addendum: My father was a truly kind and gentle soul. My mother and I lost him suddenly and painfully to a heart attack in 2004. He is missed by many. I dedicate this article to his memory.
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The New Testament. Revelation by John.
Rev. 2
[23] And I will kill her children with death;
[26] And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works
unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations:
[27] And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as
the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers…
[28] And I will give him the morning star.
[29] He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit(Chryste)
saith unto the churches.
Heesus Monkey Chryste, although a fictitious character, was
not manufactured by his literary creators to promote peace but
to promote conflicts, violence, wars, conquests and Armageddon
theology.
The hate and war speech above quoted from the New Testament sumps up the spirit and the history of Christianity to a tee.
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This is because of the mixing of path of affirmation and path of negation by neo converts thru silly translations of Sanskrit by the orientalists. John Dobson , rightly said, “there are no equivalents words in any language for Sanskrit words. JD rightly wrote in his masterpiece ” Advaita Vedanta and modern science” that these concepts does not exist in any language, so let the words in Sanskrit be as it is. The bk cited is an interesting read.
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Frank Morales has caused great consternation among Hindus with his Jesus the Dharma Master videos. Anybody who knows Christian history knows Jesus was not a Dharma Master. As Morales is presented as a Hindu Acharya who has written a brilliant essay on Hindu Universalism, why is he doing the very thing he exposed in the essay?
Nithyananda claimed to be a sannyasi. Sannyasis are expected to be strictly celibate. If he wanted to fool around with Tamil actors, he should have removed the gerua cloth and put on jeans and a t-shirt. That would have been more honest than deceiving his Hindu devotees who believed he was a chaste yogi.
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I believe Frank Moralies is dikshit from Srila Bhakti-Rakshak Sridhar Maharaja from the Gaudiya Math of West Bengal.
Regarding Nithyananda. Did he ever claim to be a celibate sanyasi? Sure, he’s a joker (did you see those “levitation” videos? LOL!), but isn’t it high time we stop expecting young, unmarried men and women in their 30s to be celibate just because they aren’t married, especially when they never claim to be in the first place?
It would have been good if he could have used his expose as a means of bringing cultural acceptance to sexual relationships between mutually consenting legal age adults rather than hide behind his outdated drivel of “I never tell my devottees they have to stay celibate. They can get married if they like”
Between the two extremes of complete celibacy or complete samsara (marriage and family life) there is a middle path. That is mutually agreeable relationships between consenting adults.
When Indian society accepts this middle path we will see less such “scandals”, and less eve-teasing as well.
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http://evilbible.com/
http://jesusneverexisted.com
http://jesusisbuddha.com
Heesus Monkey Chryste is a false prophet. His whole story is a mismash of plagiarized material from older books. The “New” in the New Testament is a rewrite of stolen passages from Hindu and Buddhist texts.
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