Choose religiousness rather than religion || Acharya Prashant (2014)
Question: Is Hinduism a religion that allows and accepts non-believers too?
Answer: If you are accepting non-believers, then you also have to accept that Muslims and Christians are also Hindus. So, this is obviously a non-question. If you are saying that Hinduism accepts both believers and non-believers, then believers and non-believers is the sum total of everybody. You are saying, ‘A and A compliment’, and that is the universal set. Then you are saying that everybody is a Hindu.
No religion can accept non-believers. So, you have to believe in something, yes you can have people who believe differently, that much can be accepted, but you cannot accept non-believers. A non-believer cannot belong to a religion. Do you know who is a non-believer? The one who lives in the aatman. The mind lives in beliefs, the non-believer lives somewhere else. For him, no Hinduism and no other -ism applies.
A spiritual man does not belong to a religion. And that is the reason why what you are calling as ‘Hinduism’ is actually very-very little of a religion, if you talk of the essence of Hinduism. The more you call Hinduism, a religion, the more you are destroying the real thing. So, Hinduism is great only as long as it is not a religion. The moment you say, ‘Hindu-ism is great’, it’s gone, finished.
What happened in India was not a religious activity, not in the sense that Christianity and Islam are religions. Hinduism is not at all a religion in the sense Christianity and Islam are religions. The Upanishads do not propagate a religion at all. Are you getting it? How can you follow a religion after reading Ribhu Gita? Gone, finished! There is no question of religion. Yes, if this religion-lessness can be called ‘Hinduism’, then it is alright. Then it is alright.
