Explaining Dharma to a Western Audience

This is a very provocative question. how we can tell Western people about Dharma. In my cross-cultural journey , a Watershed event was the day these differences finally crystallized in my mind. I was invited , some years ago , to give an informal talk on Hinduism to the senior officials of the state of New Jersey, none of whom had more than a cursory Knowledge of the subject. i started by asking the audience a set of questions that went as fellow: what wold happen to your religious lives if all history become inaccessible or falsified? what should you do if you had to live your lives without the knowledge passed down from God through historical events? by what authority would you be would you be able to live a religious life if at all? In the other words, could you discover the spiritual truth for yourself without dependent on historical sources, or would you be lost if these were unavailabe?

To my surprise, this erudite and accomplished group of Jews and Christians were thrown off-guard, ditrubed, and in some cases, completely stumped. Many said it would be impossible to be religious under such circumstances and stated that humankind lacks the ability to know God,s will without the historical prophets Other s asserted that only Jesus,s very specific personal sacrifice ( a unique historical event) had made it possible for humanity to be redeemed.some found the very discussion troubling. one man late suggested  that i did not have the authority to deny them their history in this way.

My questions seemed to pull the rug from under their religions. their anxious reactions reflected the profound importance Jews and Christians attach to history, though for sightly different reasons.For Jews, salvation is collective, not an individual matter and the redemption of israel via God,s intervention in history, is a profound sign of that salvation. without that redemption (a history occurrence), the will of God would be impossible to know, and the path toward salvation, inaccessible. the Exodus of Israelite from Egypt, as recounted in bible, is the key event. it is understood as fact and central to the Jews belief  in the collective salvation.

Christians say their salvation depends on the occurrence of three historical events : the incarnation, crucification and resurrection of Jesus.Christians and Jews can tolerate a good deal of criticism of the actual historical details as per their traditions, but certain historical events are absolutely necessary for salvation.For Jews, the event is usually  the Exodus (recollected as Passover, whereas for Christians it is Resurrection  (recollected Easter)

I proceeded to explain my audience that my Dharma would survive even without historical records.For example, spiritual advancement through yoga techniques and practices is independent of lie of history of patanjali, the auther of yoga sutra. the text teachings have no historical references whatsoever. if all my scriptures are lost,if all my Gods are not there eveen then my Dharma will survive. we have bhagti yoga which means devotion this will keep our Dharma all tradition alive. (by Rajivewww.bhrigupandit.com malhotra)