The Politics of Progressive Hinduism
					By Gadadhar Das
		All consumed are their imperfections, doubts are dispelled, their senses mastered, their every action is wed to the welfare of fellow-creatures, such are seers who enter Brahman and enter Nivana. (Bhagavad-Gita 5, Isherwood)
	I've been tricked!  No, not purposely.  I had been told that the only truly spiritual person is the one who leaves the world and runs to a cave somewhere and lives in deep meditation for the rest of his life.  Having been told that there are different yogas as paths to God, I felt a need to choose one over another.  I felt a constant divide between my bhakti self, my jnana, and karma yoga self.  I was told that politics have no place in the spiritual life.  A guru advised me that charity need not be given if one does not feel like it-for these things have nothing to do with spirituality.      So how do I know that social justice is part of the spiritual path?  The finger pointing at the moon-the scriptures.  When I examine the Bhagavad-Gita, I see all the yogas (bhakti-devotion, jnana-intellect, karma-works, raja-meditation) extolled and suggested as a way to know God.  I read that God is in all things and people.  I also see that to know and love God, I must perceive God in all things.  So how can I look on the poor without offering them help, as my offering to God?  How can I not stand up for the outcasts and voiceless if I claim to love and serve God?  After all, Chapter 6 of the Gita points out that the devotee, "knows his own Atman in every creature, and all creation within that Atman."  Can I neglect the environment, my gay brothers and sisters, people of other races, colors, castes and economic systems if they are suffering, and still call myself a devotee?      One of the most challenging things for me is to stop dividing my spirituality into the things I think, meditate and talk about and do something about it.  I often act selfishly with a selfish religious practice that is only concerned about myself instead of the greater Self in all things, failing to "worship God in all beings."  I pray that I may realize God in all things in the beautiful and in the distressing disguise of the poor, in the distressed cry of the environment and those calling for social justice.  Again Chapter 6 of the Gita has Krishna/God challenging the reader to be the holy one "who burns with the bliss and suffers the sorrow of every creature within his own heart, making his own each bliss and each sorrow: him I hold highest of all yogis."  This is what being a progressive Hindu is all about.  It is about riding the Shakti of God into a new movement of Hindus changing the world into a place of love, a place where the offerings of love and social justice become the Prasadam of the Mother.   Jai Ma!