ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Neo-Vedanta

Neo-Vedanta is a big word that means a new way of understanding the ancient spiritual teachings of Hinduism, called Vedanta. Imagine you have a bunch of Legos that you want to build into a cool spaceship. Vedanta is like those Legos, it's a bunch of spiritual teachings that you can put together in different ways to learn about God, the universe, and yourself.

Now, some people in India in the 1800s and 1900s started to think that Vedanta needed to be explained in a new way that would make more sense to people in modern times. It's like if your parents gave you a really old toy, but you didn't understand how to play with it until they showed you a new way to use it.

These people who wanted to explain Vedanta in a new way were called neo-Vedantists. They said that instead of just learning about God and the universe through ancient texts, we need to understand that God is inside of us and everything around us. It's like if you're trying to learn how to make a cake, you can just read the recipe or you can also try to understand how each ingredient works and why it's important.

So, neo-Vedantists made Vedanta more accessible to people of different backgrounds and beliefs. It became less about following strict rules and rituals and more about exploring your own spirituality in your own way. It's like if you want to build a Lego spaceship, you can follow the instructions or you can also use your imagination and create something unique.

Overall, neo-Vedanta is a way of looking at ancient spiritual teachings through a modern lens so that we can understand them better and apply them to our lives today.