I am a former convert to Hinduism, a non-Hindu who became Hindu, and then left. There are many problems in Hinduism I will not get into, but basically, I left over the majority opinion being that Hinduism is either monotheism or soft polytheism, and I am a hard polytheist. The Hindus were becoming very political about monotheism/soft polytheism and I find monotheism/soft polytheism dangerous and could no longer associate with them, the Hindus were moving ahead using monotheism as their selling point to the world. I know there are small pockets of hard polytheism in Hinduism, but they are too marginal to matter and so I lump all Hinduism into a problem basically. I was particularly angry with the fact that the Hindus were trying to be defined as Noahides (here), officially monotheistic and "non-idolatrous"; they also don't care about Noahide conversions going on in India (here). I've left Hinduism for many more reasons than this, and now I am looking to destroy it. But this blog is not about defending polytheism, it's about dissecting Hindu philosophy, and I use this by comparing it to Mary Baker Eddy's Christian Science.
The seeds for this project were planted almost twenty years ago, before I converted to Hinduism, when I was walking home from work one day in Manhattan. I came across a large impressive Christian Science Church along Central Park West. I had heard of Christian Science, the sect that does not use medicine and which allows their children to die of medical neglect. However, I knew nothing about Christian Science and decided to go in. I entered just as their meeting was starting, the church was almost totally empty, it was large with maybe 10 people there. I wish I could explain the lesson I learned that day... it was not very complicated because I picked up on it right away, it was basically a way of thinking about matter. I wish I could retell what I learned that day, because it would help this project so much, because as I walked home after the service something happened. I was pondering over what I had learned and for a moment allowed myself to believe it. All of a sudden a strange conscious sensation took over my mind, I felt odd, like a channel was changing. It was an altered state of consciousness that almost felt like drugs. I remember then, at that very moment, thinking I could walk through a wall at my side on the street. Something about the teachings I learned that day made me think that. But then I caught myself and snapped out of it and realized that that was some sort of temporary insanity induced by the way I was thinking. I wish I could recall what I learned that day, but it was short and powerful, it must have been the sum of Christian Science teachings, because it had an immediate effect, even though I was not a believer, for a second I fell for it in what felt like something that was totally out of my control. Years later I would read in a biography on Mary Baker Eddy (here) that I was not alone in thinking about walking through walls on Christian Science teaching, even if the church does not officially teach this doctrine, people naturally find that conclusion.
Later, after converting to Hinduism, things were not that simple... you really can't sit down for one lecture and really learn Hinduism, it is so vast and broad and deep and difficult that it takes a while to pick it up. Some of the hardest parts of Hinduism to understand are Vedanta and metaphysics of Yoga. These subjects were very complicated and I struggled to grasp them. But then I left Hinduism and turned against it. I started looking for anything I could use against my former faith to help topple it. I am very interested in cults of all kinds and research them deeply, and one of the cults I picked up researching again was Christian Science. I remember being on Facebook one day and someone posted about Christian Science and Vedanta. I immediately became interested and started researching. It was then that I came across two pamphlets, "Christian Science and Vedanta" by Swami Abhedananda and "Christian Science and Hindu Philosophy" by Swami Yogananda (both here). Christian Science teaches that matter is error and not real; Vedanta teaches matter is an illusion and is conditional. According to this Vedanta teacher and Yogi, Vedanta can lead to healing the sick, raising the dead, not eating for years, and materializing and dematerializing matter with your mind. I thought to myself that if this is what Vedanta teaches then there is something wrong here. Another Swami who said Vedanta leads to mystical powers was Adi Shankaracharya (here).
When I started exposing what the gurus had said about Vedanta leading to magic powers, I was immediately attacked by Hindus. They told me that Siddhis (magic powers in Hinduism) were only learned through Yoga and not Vedanta. I came to see that this was a trick Hindus were using to protect Vedanta because Yoga comes out of Vedanta (here, here, and here) and Siddhi powers are mentioned in the Upanishads (here). There is actually a term used by some yogis called Vedanta-Yoga, you cannot get to the metaphysical conclusions of Yoga and Siddhi powers without Vedanta.
There was also my fear of the perversion of science to meet both Christian Science and Hindu presuppositions. Both Christian Scientists and Hindus use quantum mechanics to try and prove their version of Vedanta. The relationship between Christian Science and quantum mechanics was easily debunked (here and here), but it took forever to find anyone who had tried to separate quantum mechanics from Vedanta, but I did eventually find it (here and here). There must be a pushback against Hinduism as an anti-science religion.
There was also a question as to how the logic of Vedanta-Yoga leads to the belief you can gain Siddhi (magic) powers. The question of the chain of thinking is important, because it was the chain of thinking of Christian Science which led me to believe it must be wrong, anything that leads to the belief in magic powers must be wrong. I finally found a paper called "The metaphysical logic of the siddhis" by Rutgers University Religion Professor Edwin Bryant (here) which showed just how you get from the metaphysical recipe of Vedanta-Yoga to the claim that you can gain Siddhi powers through its practice. This is important because people reject Christian Science for its logic and so they should reject Vedanta for the same. The point is that neither Christian Science nor Vedanta leads to miracles, even though they both claim miracles are the end product of their philosophy. The proof of the pudding is in the tasting, and both Christian Science and Hinduism have no pudding to taste.
Mathilde Ludendorff was a psychiatrist who believed that the Hindu belief that matter is an illusion was bad for people's mental health (here). I agree that both Christian Science and Hinduism are bad for your mental health and lead you to irrational conclusions about the world. The difference between Christian Science and Hinduism is that Christian Science encourages you to use your mental powers while Hinduism discourages it (here), likely to hide the fact that they don't exist. People reject Christian Science because it does not lead to the healing of the sick but instead leads to death through medical neglect. If Hindus would put their neck out on the line and ask followers to do magic feats, like levitating, they would look foolish too, but for now, they are too clever for that. But Vedanta-Yoga does not say that looking for these powers for their own sake won't get you them, indeed Hindu literature speaks of black magicians who gained these powers, so why hasn't anyone ever demonstrated any Siddhi powers from the beginning of history? Because they don't exist, even though under Vedanta-Yoga they are supposed to by its very logic. If we can get people to understand and reject Christian Science, maybe we can get them to reject Hinduism too.
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