When American religion, dualistic, came to a fork in the road.

In 1930, Dr. Wendell Marshall Thomas's influential and objective study Hinduism Invades America was published by Beacon Press.


He chose to close the book with the following, a statement of praise he reserves for A.K. Mozumdar:

"The most rapid movement of all, however, is found in the clean-cut work of A. K. Mozumdar, an independent Christian of Hindu race and tradition, who has preached here and there in America for about twenty years. While Mozumdar's teaching is popular, it has unusual historic significance, for it shows us what happens when a thinker immersed in Hindu lore completely accepts a world-affirming position. What happens is an identification of the Hindu conception of a divine universal Self with the Hebrew conception of a divine creative Power. To Mozumdar the ultimate God is not uncreative Bliss, as in the view of Sankara, but creative Power, as in the Hebrew tradition. Yet this creative Power, he declares, is the same as the universal Self. Here the universal Self, we should note, is not a finite Ideal, as in Greek philosophy, but the infinite Substance of the world.

"Mozumdar makes this synthesis on the basis of his faith in Jesus Christ. Whether Jesus was historically influenced by Hinduism, as many Hindus contend, we cannot at present determine, but what makes him more than an ordinary Hebrew prophet in his life and teaching is precisely the Hindu-like conviction, expressed as well as possible within the limits of Jewish conceptions, that God is the universal Self, or the personal Substance of man. Elaborating the same conviction, Spinoza declares that the God of creative Power is also the thinking Substance of man and the universe. While the synthesis of Jesus is implicit and popular, the synthesis of Spinoza is explicit and technical.

"Like Spinoza, Mozumdar worships Jesus as the supreme religious genius. Like Spinoza again, he feels both Hindu and Hebrew influence. And like Spinoza in the third place, he accepts the monistic philosophy of modern science instead of the dualistic philosophy of ancient Greece. Unlike Jesus, both Spinoza and Mozumdar are explicit in their Hebrew-Hindu synthesis, but like Jesus and unlike Spinoza, Mozumdar uses a popular instead of a technical method, for he preaches, teaches and performs faith-healing. While his lectures, classes, lessons and correspondence courses subordinate the Hebrew interest in social justice to the Hindu interest in meditation and concentration, his philosophical position – as revealed in his numerous pamphlets and books on "The Messianic World Message" – is definitely Christian and opposed to many. traditional Hindu conceptions, such as the equal value of all great religious geniuses, the illusory nature of the world, and the postponement of final salvation till the end of the cosmic process.

Says he:

Jesus's teaching is the greatest and simplest revelation of God, and is different from other teachings of Truth.... He came to teach us that the human expression is not an illusion... but... a vital reality.... Instead of following a specific path to realize God, you let God direct your life.... It need not take you millions of years to dispel millions of years' accumulated darkness. It will take but a flash of light from God to light your entire mental life. [From The Conquering Man (1929) p. 58, 84, 85, 22]

"Yet his Christian teaching is unusual because it rejects the traditional Greek dualism in favor of Hindu monism.

If man thinks and acts, is not the thinker... and actor... God?... If God is All-Life... then all lives are God... The Creative-power is the very nature of the Being of the Creator; hence the Creative-power is God.... Life is the Creator, and It will never be reduced to the level of Its own creation. The creature will forever be ensouled with the Creative-activity, and move and act according to the inner impulse of the Creator.... By thinking with the mind of the one Life, you become conscious of being the Thinker.... At the back of your every action you should find Yourself.... You are spirit and therefore spiritual.... The Permanent Substance is underneath all forms. The forms are made of the Everlasting Substance. This knowledge sets a man free.... [From The Life of Man, p. 1, 3, 7, 27, and The Conquering Man, p. 41]

"American religion, with its dualistic Greek notion of an ideal God up in heaven – and an actual man down on earth, has come to a fork in the road. To the left lies a path trod by atheists, secularists, humanists and others, who seek to exalt man by getting rid of this sort of God. To the right lies a path trod by Hindus, Theosophists, Christian Scientists and others, who seek to exalt man by supporting him with a belief in his divine nature. The modern age has little use for the traditional dualism between the natural and the supernatural, and is moving towards pluralism on the one hand and monism on the other, towards the path of less religion and the path of more religion. Hinduism comes to America to point out the path of more religion."

Hinduism invades America, Wendell Marshall Thomas (1930)

It is simply a study of the amazing adventure of an Eastern faith in a Western land. An account of the serious impact on American life of Hindu philosophy & culture especially in the form of organized religion.

"I do not know of any spiritual teacher that I consider so close to the spirit of Christ as Mr. Mozumdar," wrote the late Glenn Clark, famous author, lecturer and college professor. "He has that perfect transparency that is a combination of what they say are the outstanding qualities of Gandhi, humility and confidence – humility in the outer and perfect confidence in the inner. I feel that any one who perfectly comprehends his teachings and puts them into expression in his life will possess the secret of the ages."