How I Became a Hindu
 | |
| Author | Sita Ram Goel |
|---|---|
| Country | India |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Autobiography |
| Publisher | Voice of India |
Publication date | 1982 |
| ISBN | 81-85990-05-0 |
| OCLC | 222503032 |
How I Became a Hindu is an autobiography by Sita Ram Goel, which he published in 1982 and enlarged in 1993 under his Voice of India imprint.
Goel writes that he had strong Marxist leanings as a student. He read Karl Marx's The Communist Manifesto and almost joined the Communist Party of India. In these years, he "came to the conclusion that while Marx stood for a harmonised social system, Sri Aurobindo held the key to a harmonised human personality."
Conversion through Trauma
During Direct Action Day, on 16 August 1946, Goel "would have been killed by a Muslim mob" were it not for his command of Urdu and the Western clothes he wore averting any "suspicion" he was actually Hindu. Goel writes that on the evening of the 17th, he, his wife and son "had to vacate that house and scale a wall at the back to escape murderous Muslim mobs advancing with firearms."
One of the biggest influences on Goel was the author Ram Swarup. Goel became more and more interested in Hinduism: "Sanatana Dharma called upon its votary to explore his own self in the first instance and see for himself the truths expounded in sacred scriptures. Prophets and churches and scriptures could be aids but never the substitutes for self exploration, self purification, and self transcendence."
He therefore finally became a Hindu:
- I had come back at last, come back to my spiritual home from which I had wandered away in self forgetfulness. But this coming back was no atavistic act. On the contrary, it was a reawakening to my ancestral heritage which was waiting all along for me to lay my claim on its largesses. It was also the heritage of all mankind as proved by the seers, sages and mystics of many a time and clime. It spoke in different languages to different people. To me it spoke in the language of Hindu spirituality and Hindu culture at their highest. I could not resist its call. I became a Hindu.