Realize This: In America, Dharma Is Truly in Danger
By Akshat Agrawal
For a long time, Indians looked at America as the promised land — the place where talent is rewarded, truth is valued, and dreams are realized. But beneath the glitter of comfort and technology lies a deep moral vacuum that slowly consumes the very essence of Dharma — not just religion, but the principle of rightful living, truth, and balance.
🌍 The American Illusion
America’s system is built on efficiency, ambition, and competition — not on compassion or interconnectedness.
For Indians, especially those raised in the warmth of extended families and shared culture, this framework seems progressive at first but soon feels spiritually hollow.
It celebrates success but not sacrifice. It values the mind but forgets the soul.
When we move to America, we don’t just change our address — we change our rhythm. We trade temples for schedules, satsang for solitude, and community for individualism. Slowly, the Dharma that once guided our life becomes diluted — replaced by practicality, political correctness, and fear of being “too Indian.”
💔 The Emotional Erosion
America teaches you to “manage time,” not to “value presence.”
Our elders live in quiet isolation, our youth live in identity confusion, and our families live in emotional distance.
The culture of “privacy” has turned into the religion of loneliness.
The more successful we become, the more detached we feel — from our roots, from each other, and from ourselves.
A Stanford Longevity study (2022) found that South Asian elders in the U.S. face some of the highest loneliness rates among immigrant communities.
In short, we imported our skills but left behind our soul.
🔱 What Dharma Means — and Why It Is Fading
Dharma is not about temple rituals or festivals. It is about sustainability of truth — living in alignment with nature, conscience, and collective welfare.
America’s capitalist engine runs on the opposite fuel — growth through consumption, happiness through material excess.
It has no place for silence, surrender, or spirituality that doesn’t serve a market.
Even when Indian spiritual figures came — Swami Vivekananda, Yogananda, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Osho — America listened, admired, and then commercialized their message.
Yoga became an exercise, meditation became a subscription, and Dharma became content.
The very essence of India’s civilizational wisdom — that life is sacred and interconnected — is being dismantled by a culture that measures everything in profit and pleasure.
🧘♂️ Why This Matters for Indians in America
For Indians of our generation, now in our fifties and sixties, this realization comes late — often when children are grown up, and silence finally fills the house.
We came seeking freedom but ended up imprisoned in comfort.
Our community ties weakened, our spiritual ecosystem collapsed, and our sense of belonging disappeared.
Even our temples abroad have become social clubs rather than places of awakening.
And yet, this crisis holds a message: Dharma cannot survive on foreign soil without self-awareness and collective rebuilding.
Just as trees cannot grow without roots, spiritual continuity cannot exist without soil that nourishes memory.
🌿 The Way Forward
It is time to pause and reclaim what America cannot give — meaning.
Build small circles of reflection and care. Teach the next generation that Dharma is not outdated — it is the only antidote to chaos.
Let us stop trying to “fit in” and start living authentically.
America may be powerful, but it is spiritually exhausted.
Indians still hold the lamp of balance, and if that light fades, not just our community, but the moral compass of humanity will suffer.
Realize this — Dharma is not dying because of enemies.
It is dying because we stopped living it.
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