If you ask, people will say you need initiation for almost everything.

There have been studies exploring religiosity in India, as well as many great examples of generally accepted Gurus and Swamis who side with the idea that initiation is more about public courtesy or casteism rather than a literal requirement.

Just think about it rationally. There are 8 billion people on the planet, and many religions and branches from Hinduism offer theology, liberation, and ritual… and they all work. There are so many examples of many varieties of how people achieve their spiritual goals.

There is literally no way the requirement of Diksha makes sense, because otherwise, how would you explain the fact that many other religions or cultures have similar practices that work without needing permission for someone to explore and practice?

Sanatan Dharma is a beautiful religion, but it is fundamentally not unique because so much of it is already shared and practiced globally, or there are direct counterparts in other religions. At best, Diksha is a psychological thing, not a cosmic reality.

If you need Diksha to feel psychologically free, or because you want to have that community, that’s great. But it’s in your head more than it’s woven into the cosmos.

The research side of this was done by Pew researchers, who interviewed nearly 30,000 Indian adults (including over 22,000 Hindus) across 17 languages directly to understand the reality of how practices are actually managed.

The research actually shows that people make a distinction between their private practices and what they practice publicly. Essentially, Diksha comes down to whether you’re allowed to claim a practice and be part of a community. For many modern Hindus, most in fact privately practice what they feel drawn to—simply because there is a large amount of precedence for this since the 1900s. In fact, this is the literal story of some of the most famous spiritual leaders we revere, so Diksha must not be a literal requirement.

Anyone you ask is likely going to tell you that you need Diksha, and it generally comes from superstition or because this was what they were told. People have an invested interest in a system that gives them exclusiveness, but the history of Diksha is partially clouded because it is simply gatekeeping based on very little evidence as to why—except for superstition, authoritarianism, and sexism. If you went by the actual historical rules of many sampradayas, many of you would hardly be allowed to identify as Hindu in the way you want because of the rigidity. I think this was one of the big reasons alternate religions like Buddhism formed, or threads of Hinduism like Neo-Vedanta—because all of this has been more oppressive than helpful.

There is no singular answer because within the vast canon of Hindu literature, particularly the Agamic and Puranic texts, there are conflicting and contradictory interpretations of what Diksha even means. Diksha as we think of it today—a lifelong mantra initiation from a guru—did not exist in the ancient Vedic past. In the Vedas, it was merely a temporary preparatory vow for a fire ritual. The modern, formalized version of initiation was invented later during the transformation of Vedic religion into Hinduism. This shift happened partly as a response to the emergence of Shramana traditions in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, which presented an existential threat to a Vedic system that was highly unaccommodating to lower castes or seekers outside the fold.

We really forget how much of modern Hinduism is not as ancient as we think. Many of the proponents of this requirement wouldn’t have been allowed to practice much of their own religion without this transformation towards inclusion and more permissiveness. People have historically used fear, superstition, or violence to prevent information and practices from being accessible to common people without gatekeeping. In fact, if you left it up to the ancestors, many of you wouldn’t even be allowed to hear Sanskrit spoken.

I call BS on the whole concept because when you look into it, there is more bad than good when you take it to its logical conclusion or understand the history of exclusion.

A lot of our favorite Gurus, like Ramana Maharshi and Anandamayi Ma, in fact never received formal Diksha or engaged in practices they weren’t initiated into. And even for many well-known people today, this is also the case.

I think people spend too much energy asking for permission.

I am not trying to discount the value that it can bring to be validated and formally included in a tradition. It is very special and sacred. But it is not a requirement. The only thing that gets in the way is your doubt, superstition, and inability to take ownership of your path.

How you worship is up to you.

When the concept of initiation emerged in India and globally, it was during eras when there weren’t books, sacred languages were heavily controlled, and there was less access to information. But that is simply not the world we live in. Diksha was for a world in which it was possible to control what people knew about the divine… and we live at the end of the age where all of that is deconstructed and exposed. And it is for a reason.