Week 278: The Challenges of Hindu Canadians, Refuting Eternal Complacency, Aesthetic!
04/12/2025 - Modern Hindu Content
Welcome to Eternal Path! This week we feature: The challenges of Hindu Canadians, Refuting Eternal Complacency, and an aesthetic!
Communities Highlight: The Challenges of Hindu Canadians
Praxis Highlight: Refuting Eternal Complacency
One thing you hear in boomer Hinduism, especially the Hinduism of WhatsApp forwards is that because the Sanskrit name for Hinduism, Sanatana Dharma (the eternal law/path/duty), means eternal, that Hinduism will never die. To continue that train of thought, boomers will often pooh-pooh the idea of Hindu advocacy, of promoting the teaching of Hinduism in temples, of the need to protect Hindus, etc by citing that “Hinduism is eternal and it will never die.” Advocating complacency by citing the eternal nature of Hinduism as justification deserves a name; so we’ll call it “Eternal Complacency”.
Is the idea Hinduism will never die right? Sure. The eternal knowledge of the Vedas will not die, but it is an utterly cretinous argument. This sort of extreme fatalism is better suited for heretical nastika religions such as ajivika and not for the astika sects of Hinduism. If you have not heard of ajivika, there’s a good reason. Its a historical Indic religion relegated to textbooks that had a bigger fall in the subcontinent than Jainism and Buddhism.
Below we see some tactical responses to the “eternal complacency” argument. Two of the responses center on the contraction of the Hindu presence and Hindu world. One centers on the fact that Zoroastrianism, an inverted sister-religion to Hinduism, lasted for an extremely long time before it was wiped out in very little time.
However the refutation of eternal complacency need not only come on tactical grounds. As a lay Hindu, your goal is moksha. You also know that you have your dharma to fulfill. Regardless of your background, profession, and sect, your dharma is certainly not the advocacy of eternal complacency. On the contrary, it is action. It includes: engaging in bhakti, in developing your moral character, and in helping others in their path to reaching moksha.
In the diaspora especially (we write largely for the diaspora reader), preserving Hinduism involves work in the political, economic, and social dimensions of life that may be foreign to a Hindu in India/Nepal. It involves community building, community advocacy, the actual formal pedagogy of Hindu concepts, and the creation of institutions.
This newsletter is a testament to the fight against eternal complacency and we hope readers are inspired to fight this rotten idea on their own terms and contribute to the building of a stronger Hindu community.
Aesthetic: Meghalaya Kali Temple
