Building on Swami Vivekananda’s legacy, Paramahansa Yogananda was instrumental in popularising yoga in the West. So relevant are his teachings today that yoga studios are now as common as coffee shops in America
Rudyard Kipling wrote The Ballad of East and West more than a 125 years ago, whose opening lines, “East is East and West is West/And never the twain shall meet” have become legendary.
looking at the scientifically advanced lifestyle of the West that is routinely aided by machine and material, one might ask: What is it that the East could have contributed to the West anywayIJ But the way in which yoga — the pristine science of India — has gradually become a part of American life, suggests that there lies something deeper.
As spiritual counsellor and meditation teacher Philip Goldberg rightly says in American Veda, Vedanta yoga has been the biggest contribution of the East to the West in terms of flow of ideas. This is not to say that the Vedas and Vedanta have become popular as scriptures, but just that the essence of ekam sat, viprah bahudha vadanti (Truth is one, the wise know it by many names) that originates in the Rig Veda has, in the words of Mr Goldberg, “seeped into the collective awareness of the West” also.
Is it a mere coincidence that two recent films, having a common theme, released in two different countries are following trajectoriesIJ The Hindi film PK is making waves in India and has already invited protests from Right-wing Hindu outfits. Known for playing the religious minority card, the ruling Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh was quick to declare the film tax-free and the Janta Dal (United) in Bihar, followed suit.
Meanwhile, the other film, Awake: The life of Yogananda, has been released in the United States and is pure bliss. Both films weave around the themes of religion and spirituality. Call it a sheer misfortune or fate of karma, Awake is currently not being shown in India.
What is mysticismIJ The dictionary defines it as the belief that can direct knowledge of God, spiritual truth, or ultimate reality can be attained through subjective experience (as intuition or insight). The esoteric manifestation of divinity cuts across human populations and cultures: They say a seeker can realise the ultimate truth through spirituality. But there are things that constitute exoteric manifestations of divinity. Various forms of religions, cults and practices including rituals and doctrines come under this.
Chinmoy Kumar Ghose, better known as Sri Chinmoy, rightly said, “Mysticism, poor mysticism! When it is under estimated and over simplified, it comes down from its original sphere and stands beside religion”. This adage sums up the way we are responding to the two movies that are running in two countries: India and the US.
last month, I had the opportunity to watch the premier show of Awake: The life of Yogananda in Chicago. Based upon the biography of Paramahansa Yogananda, the movie, directed by Paola di Florio and lisa leeman, narrates his life and teachings.
Paramahansa Yogananda is credited with taking yoga to the West. At the age of 27, he landed in the US on a spiritual mission (at the instructions of his guru Shri Yukteshwar). Paramahansa Yogananda used the body and mind techniques of yoga to teach divinity and spirituality to Americans. He aptly said: “We are not the body. We are the ocean of consciousness.” He further said, “By the definite science of meditation known for millenniums to theyogis and sages of India, and to Jesus, any seeker of god can enlarge the caliber of his consciousness to omniscience to receive within himself the universal intelligence of god.”
Today, words like ‘meditation’, ‘yoga’, ‘karma’, ‘guru’ and even ‘moksha’, have become parts of the American lexicon. Swami Vivekananda must be given the credit of initiating a Hindu-inspired meditation movement in the US, says Ms lola Williamson, author of Transcendent in America: Hindu-Inspired Meditation Movements as New Religion.
She argues her case through three significant movements in the US, which she terms as a new religion: Paramahansa Yogananda’s self realisation foundation, Maharishi Mahesh Yogis’s transcendental meditation, and Swami Muktananda’ssiddha yoga. With Swami Vivekananda having sensitised the West to Sanatan Dharma, time was ripe for Paramahansa Yogananda to build upon that legacy. After he first touched American shores in 1920, Paramahansa Yogananda spent the next 30 years in the US, better introducing Eastern philosophy to Westerners.
Paramahansa Yogananda rejuvenated and popularisedkriya yoga in the world and particularly to the West. The brown mystic from India used yoga, as a tool to teach the science of soul and spirit to the West. After all, even modern science concurs that even though yoga is done through the body, it is more about the mind. Today, a yoga centre in the US is as easy to find as a coffee shop.
Paramahansa Yogananda’s teachings are relevant even today. Despite the comforts brought to us by science, the world continues to witness disparity, violence and conflict, thus, stressing the need for spiritual healing.
(The writer is a US-based socio-political commentator)