Dedication
Samarpaṇam
समर्पणम्
HOW TO BECOME A HINDU IS DEDICATED TO MY SATGURU AND ALL THOSE BEFORE HIM IN OUR LINEAGE, DATING BACK 2,200 YEARS. Satguru Śiva Yogaswāmī (1872–1964), paramaguru of over two million Sri Lankan Hindus, had the vision, the foresight, to fulfill my request to enter the Śaivite religion in 1949 and receive my nāmakaraṇa saṁskāra and the love and support to this day of the Tamil religious community for over fifty years. Today he and I work together, he in his world and I in mine, to stabilize, encourage and enlighten the Sri Lankan Hindus, who for a decade and a half have experienced an unexpected diaspora into all major and minor countries. We have established temples and dedicated shrines, published books in their language, and given solace to those suffering in leaving their homeland, so fraught with war. We have worked to keep them reminded of their ancient and historic culture of music, art drama and the dance, literature and so much more, to keep it all as it once was, without a break in continuity. This book is also dedicated to all swāmī who for decades have taught the ancient Sanātana Dharma in the West and thus effectively brought tens of thousands of devout souls half way into the Hindu religion, and now, through a more carefully defined ethical conversion, will complete the process. Swāmī Vivekānanda (1863–1902), one of the foremost progenitors of Hinduism in the Western world, noted: “Why, born aliens have been converted in the past by the thousands, and the process is still going on.”§