Date: January 1, 2026
Venue: Matriniketan, Pondicherry
As part of the residential programme organized by Uditam: Institute for Integral Healing, Sri Aurobindo Society, Dr. Beloo Mehra, Director, BhāratShakti, was invited to facilitate a group discussion session on Thursday, January 1, 2026. For her session, Dr. Mehra focused on the topic – Sanatana Dharma, The Foundation of Indian Culture.
Dr. Mehra highlighted that when we speak of Sanatana Dharma, we are truly speaking of the soul of Indian Culture, the soul of Bharat, because this is the highest that the collective aspiration of the “consciousness of life” that has blossomed and flourished here for several millennia. Everything that we today know as Indian culture emerged from what was there in Sanatana Dharma or what is there in Sanatana Dharma, or rather what will be part of this, because there is also an evolving aspect to Dharma.
Dr. Mehra explained this point using out a few relevant examples. She highlighted that Dharma is eternal and yet it is evolving. So this is one of the important characteristic of Sanatana Dharma: it speaks of a universal, eternal truth, and also of truths that are also evolving and self-enlarging, self-expanding.
Through various examples, Dr. Mehra pointed out that Sanatana Dharma is self-enlarging system of spiritual culture, which is vast, many-sided and unifying. It is always progressive in its essence, always looking to the future and emphasises a wide, all-inclusive synthesis of all forms of spiritual worship and experience.
Dr. Mehra added that this self-enlarging system of spiritual culture of Bharat chose not to give itself any name, even though the different traditions within its fold can be identified with their own unique name. The only name the larger culture came to be known as was Sanatana Dharma which suggests its universal, eternal and infinitely progressive aspect. This point led to some interesting discussion among the participants. The group discussed that Hinduism is not the original name and how it came to be used to refer to people in this land called Bharat.
Dr. Mehra also added that Sri Aurobindo describes Sanatana Dharma as an immense, many-sided, many-staged, open framework for spiritual self-building and self-finding. These are the two goals that Sanatana Dharma puts in front of us: self-building and self-finding—who we are or what we are, and how do we build our lower self to eventually arrive at the highest possible self.
There was some discussion of the point that Dharma is actually literally not religion. The literal translation of Dharma is that which holds, which gives away. So it’s an eternal path, eternal way, eternal something that holds the cosmic order together. Dharma is a derivative from the word which means the right cosmic order, that which maintains the right cosmic order in an eternal way.
Dr. Mehra highlighted three fundamentals that Sri Aurobindo speaks of. The first is about one existence, many names, and many forms — a fundamental that has been professed from the Veda itself. She emphasised the point that while Indian mind understood that there can be many names and forms given to that One Absolute of the illusionists, or One Permanent of the Buddhists, or One existence of the Veda, or the One without a Second of the Upanishads, at the same time it never felt the need to eliminate the many forms. One existence, many names does not mean that many is less than one. Each of those many is just as true as One because One is represented in each of the many.
The second is that if there is one eternal, one absolute, one without a second, there is no one way to attain that one. There are as many ways as the number of people on this planet. So there is a many-fold approach to that one eternal, one infinite—whether it is through science, through art, through dance, through music, through cooking, through whatever way one wants to attain that One, one has the freedom to do it as long as one is able to do it in a certain way, with a certain attitude and with a certain goal in mind, which is self-finding and self-building of the individual.
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Fundamentals of Sanatana Dharma
There was some discussion among the participants on the psychological truth which is the basis of this particular fundamental, namely, each individual is different temperamentally, and depending on one’s stage of inner evolution, that freedom has to be given. The idea of gradual evolution of consciousness through life experiences was also discussed.
Dr. Mehra then brought up the third fundamental which is that the same One, that same One existence with many names and forms, is not only accessible through the outer work, but that One Presence can also be found within me. Sri Aurobindo speaks of this third fundamental as the most dynamic truth of spiritual Dharma because it is as individualized as each one of us.
Rest of the session was devoted to discussing several implications that emerged from the group’s shared understanding of these fundamental aspects. Many interesting questions about Indian spiritual history were raised. It was also pointed out that so much distortion and mis-understanding and misinterpretation prevails among average Indians about what is Sanatana Dharma or about terms such as Arya, Veda, Vedanta etc. The group appreciated the session and participated actively in the discussions.
To read more of our sessions conducted for Uditam, see HERE.