This paper presents Sanātana Dharma as a long-running open-source civilizational laboratory for the study of consciousness, self-transformation, ethics, society, and human flourishing. Rather than treating it solely as a religious tradition, the paper proposes a scholarly framework in which Sanātana Dharma is understood as a continuous, self-correcting inquiry into the nature of existence, identity, and right living.

The paper draws on the laboratory metaphor to examine how successive generations of practitioners, philosophers, and social institutions within the Sanātana tradition have contributed experimental findings — in the form of texts, practices, and social models — that refine our collective understanding of consciousness, ethics, and the conditions for human flourishing.