Perhaps a creed is best known by what it does when it holds political sway. - Ram Swarup

A fateful thing has been happening. The East is waking up from its slumber. The wisdom of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism is becoming available to the world. Already, it is having a transforming effect on the minds of the people, particularly in countries where there is freedom to seek and express. Dogmas are under a cloud; claims on behalf of Last Prophethood and Only Sonship, hitherto enforced through great intellectual conditioning, brow-beating, and the big stick, are becoming unacceptable. Religions of proxy are in retreat. More and more men and women now seek authentic experience. Borrowed creed will not do. Men and women are ceasing to be obedient believers and are becoming seekers. They no longer want to be anybody’s sheep, now that they know they can be their own shepherds. An external authority, even when it is called God in certain scriptures, threatening and promising alternately, is increasingly making less and less impression; people now realize that Godhead is their own true, secret status and they seek it in the depth of their own being. All this is in keeping with the wisdom of the East.

The Patanjala Yoga used the word klesa for the principle of impurity in the soul which keeps it in bondage.... Following Samkhya the Patanjala Yoga enumerates five klesas. IOn the descending order of subtlety and potency, they are avidya, asmita, raga, dvesha and abhinivesa... According to Samkhya philsophy, there are two principles: Purusha and Prakriti.... According to Samkhya even chitta (mind stuff) or buddhi (intelligence) is material and is Prakriti's first modification. It is also called mahat..... Chitta or buddhi thinks it is conscioiius or a seer, but it is only an instrument of seeing. This is called asmita klesa and gies rise to a false sense of personality.... How to conquer klesas is the cental problem of Yoga...(p. 76 ff.)

To early European writers, it did not occur to regard Sikhism as different from Hinduism, an observation which agreed with the Sikhs’ own self-perception. The fashion to regard them as distinct belonged to the future of a more defined imperialist purpose.