And just to remind you, this all happened in the first five minutes I spent in the old city. Westerners from all over the world are drawn to the rich spiritual culture of India to rediscover what has been lost in the West. Attracted by the multifaceted Hinduism with its colourful and exuberant rituals, or the solemn Bhuddism of the Himalayas, even few try to follow the traces of Christian history. In the West, India has an irresistible image of a country packed with holy places and Guru s. This myth is true up unto a certain point, but is also partly based upon a misunderstanding of Indian and Hindu culture.
Westerners tend to perceive India from a western point of view.
In the west there is a long tradition of spiritual life and secular everyday life. The major religion in the west still is Christianity that had and has still a profound influence on every aspect of the culture. It formed its moral and shaped its constitutions and laws. In daily life however, westerners are not too often bothered by spiritual matters. In their minds as in their society spiritual matters are strictly separated from each other, the only influence of spiritual life still noticeable in everyday life is that the Christian moral has trickled down into western law and society.