Do You Know A Hindu?

A poll came out a week or two ago that people have been buzzing about. It says that Americans tend to have lukewarm feelings towards Hinduism, which is to say that they don’t like or dislike it, they are mostly indifferent to it.

This surprised me.

Particularly since you can’t drive three blocks in America without seeing a yoga studio! The other day I heard a Southern Baptist talk about karma! But those concepts and words have come so deeply into American culture that I think many don’t even know that they came from Hinduism.

At least we aren’t in the disliked part of the poll like Muslims and Atheists!

One of the theories going around about why the poll showed these lukewarm feelings is that the average American either doesn’t know any Hindus or doesn’t know that he knows a Hindu. Being not evangelical, we don’t tend to talk about our religious life with others.

Average Americans don’t even realize that they probably already know Hindus!

And that’s the thing that really changes perceptions. It’s getting to know the people. It’s easy to feel distrustful of Muslims, for example, when all you know about it is what you hear on the news and all the stereotypes. But then if you have some Muslim ladies in your book club and you hang out with them every month, then you start to realize that they are people too and they have mostly the same interests and concerns as you.

So the way to get people feeling more positive about Hinduism is to not be afraid to express our Hinduism as Hindu Americans (and I’m sure the same probably holds true in other areas outside India!) When the people in our lives know and like us and then know that we are Hindus, they’ll feel comfortable with Hinduism.

This is the advice that Philip Goldberg, author of American Veda, gives in his article Take A Hindu To Lunch.

For all you non-Hindu Americans, you never know who in your life might already be a Hindu!