Recorded at the Vedanta Society of Western Washington on October 5, 2014.

In this talk, Swami Bhaskarananda addresses the question “Can an atheist be religious?” by examining what it truly means to be religious and how belief, disbelief, and knowledge relate to spiritual understanding. He begins by tracing the Greek roots of the term “atheist” and noting that belief and disbelief alike can be blind. Turning to definitions, he observes that many dictionaries equate religion with belief in a creator God, yet several great traditions — notably Buddhism, Jainism, and the Sāṅkhya philosophy — reject a creator deity while remaining deeply ethical and spiritual. Using philosophical reasoning, he shows how Indian systems of thought question the need for a creator and how the quest for truth can transcend both theistic and atheistic positions.

Through analysis of Buddhist and Vedāntic ideas, the Swami explains that divinity, or Brahman, is beyond all change, time, and space — the unconditioned reality underlying existence. Even those who deny God’s existence, he argues, can begin inquiry from the undeniable fact of their own existence and gradually discover that the “I” behind the ego is not the body or mind but the infinite consciousness itself. Thus, belief in God is not essential to genuine religion; what matters is the sincere search for truth and self-knowledge. In the nondual understanding of Advaita Vedānta, all beings and all realities are expressions of the same infinite divinity.