apr 2nd, 2012 CE
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: sri venkat
What Did J.D. Salinger, Leo Tolstoy, and Sarah Bernhardt Have in Common? The surprising—and continuing—influence of Swami Vivekananda, the pied
piper of the global yoga movement
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303404704577305581227233656.html?mod=googlenews_wsj By A. L. BARDACH By the late 1960s, the most famous writer in America had become a
recluse, having forsaken his dazzling career. Nevertheless, J.D.
Salinger often came to
Manhattan, staying at his parents' sprawling apartment on Park Avenue
and 91st Street. While he no longer visited with his editors at "The
New Yorker," he was keen to spend time with his spiritual teacher,
Swami Nikhilananda, the founder of the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center,
located, then as now, in a townhouse just three blocks away, at 17
East 94th Street. Though the iconic author of "The Catcher in the Rye" and "Franny and
Zooey" published his last story in 1965, he did not stop writing. From
the early 1950s onward, he maintained a lively correspondence with
several Vedanta monks and fellow devotees. After all, the central, guiding light of Salinger's spiritual quest
was the teachings of Vivekananda, the Calcutta-born monk who
popularized Vedanta and yoga in the West at the end of the 19th
century. These days yoga is offered up in classes and studios that have become
as ubiquitous as Starbucks. Vivekananda would have been
puzzled, if not somewhat alarmed. "As soon as I think of myself as a
little body," he warned, "I want to preserve it, protect it, to keep
it nice, at the expense of other bodies. Then you and I become
separate." For Vivekananda, who established the first ever Vedanta
Center, in Manhattan in 1896, yoga meant just one thing: "the
realization of God." After an initial dalliance in the late 1940s with Zen—a spiritual path
without a God—Salinger discovered Vedanta, which he found infinitely
more consoling. "Unlike Zen," Salinger's biographer, Kenneth
Slawenski, points out, "Vedanta offered a path to a personal
relationship with God…[and] a promise that he could obtain a cure for
his depression….and find God, and through God, peace." Finding peace would, however, be a lifelong battle. In 1975, Salinger
wrote to another monk at the New York City center about his own daily
struggle, citing a text of the eighth-century Indian mystic
Shankara as a cautionary tale: "In the forest-tract of sense
pleasures there prowls a huge tiger called the mind. Let good people
who have a longing for Liberation never go there." Salinger wrote, "I
suspect that nothing is truer than that," confessing despondently,
"and yet I allow myself to be mauled by that old tiger almost every
wakeful minute of my life." It was his daily mauling by the "huge tiger" and his dreaded
depressions that led Salinger to abandon his literary ambitions in
favor of spiritual ones. Salinger—who appears to have had a nervous
breakdown of sorts upon his return from the gruesome front lines of
World War II—subscribed to Vivekananda's view of the mind as a drunken
monkey who is stung by a scorpion and then consumed by a demon. At the
same time, Vivekananda promised hope and solace—writing that the "same
mind, when subdued and controlled, becomes a most trusted friend and
helper, guaranteeing peace and happiness." It
was precisely the consolation that Salinger so desperately sought.
And by 1965 he was ready to renounce his once gritty pursuit of
literary celebrity. Although all but forgotten by America's 20 million would-be yoginis,
clad in their finest Lululemon, Vivekananda was the Bengali monk who
introduced the word "yoga" into the national conversation. In 1893,
outfitted in a red, flowing turban and yellow robes belted by a
scarlet sash, he had delivered a show-stopping speech in Chicago. The
event was the tony Parliament of Religions, which had been convened as
a spiritual complement to the World's Fair, showcasing the industrial
and technological achievements of the age. On its opening day, September 11, Vivekananda, who appeared to be
meditating onstage, was summoned to speak and did so without notes.
"Sisters and Brothers of America," he began, in a sonorous voice
tinged with "a delightful slight Irish brogue," according to one
listener,
attributable to his Trinity College–educated professor in India. "It
fills my heart with joy unspeakable..." Then something unprecedented happened, presaging the phenomenon
decades later that greeted the Beatles (one of whom, George Harrison,
would become a lifelong Vivekananda devotee). The previously sedate
crowd of 4,000-plus attendees rose to their feet and wildly cheered
the visiting monk, who, having never before addressed a large
gathering, was as shocked as his audience. "I thank you in the name of
the most ancient order of monks in the world," he responded, flushed
with emotion. "I thank you in the name of the mother of religions, and
I thank you in the name of millions and millions of Hindu people of
all classes and sects."
From: sri venkat
What Did J.D. Salinger, Leo Tolstoy, and Sarah Bernhardt Have in Common? The surprising—and continuing—influence of Swami Vivekananda, the pied
piper of the global yoga movement
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303404704577305581227233656.html?mod=googlenews_wsj By A. L. BARDACH By the late 1960s, the most famous writer in America had become a
recluse, having forsaken his dazzling career. Nevertheless, J.D.
Salinger often came to
Manhattan, staying at his parents' sprawling apartment on Park Avenue
and 91st Street. While he no longer visited with his editors at "The
New Yorker," he was keen to spend time with his spiritual teacher,
Swami Nikhilananda, the founder of the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center,
located, then as now, in a townhouse just three blocks away, at 17
East 94th Street. Though the iconic author of "The Catcher in the Rye" and "Franny and
Zooey" published his last story in 1965, he did not stop writing. From
the early 1950s onward, he maintained a lively correspondence with
several Vedanta monks and fellow devotees. After all, the central, guiding light of Salinger's spiritual quest
was the teachings of Vivekananda, the Calcutta-born monk who
popularized Vedanta and yoga in the West at the end of the 19th
century. These days yoga is offered up in classes and studios that have become
as ubiquitous as Starbucks. Vivekananda would have been
puzzled, if not somewhat alarmed. "As soon as I think of myself as a
little body," he warned, "I want to preserve it, protect it, to keep
it nice, at the expense of other bodies. Then you and I become
separate." For Vivekananda, who established the first ever Vedanta
Center, in Manhattan in 1896, yoga meant just one thing: "the
realization of God." After an initial dalliance in the late 1940s with Zen—a spiritual path
without a God—Salinger discovered Vedanta, which he found infinitely
more consoling. "Unlike Zen," Salinger's biographer, Kenneth
Slawenski, points out, "Vedanta offered a path to a personal
relationship with God…[and] a promise that he could obtain a cure for
his depression….and find God, and through God, peace." Finding peace would, however, be a lifelong battle. In 1975, Salinger
wrote to another monk at the New York City center about his own daily
struggle, citing a text of the eighth-century Indian mystic
Shankara as a cautionary tale: "In the forest-tract of sense
pleasures there prowls a huge tiger called the mind. Let good people
who have a longing for Liberation never go there." Salinger wrote, "I
suspect that nothing is truer than that," confessing despondently,
"and yet I allow myself to be mauled by that old tiger almost every
wakeful minute of my life." It was his daily mauling by the "huge tiger" and his dreaded
depressions that led Salinger to abandon his literary ambitions in
favor of spiritual ones. Salinger—who appears to have had a nervous
breakdown of sorts upon his return from the gruesome front lines of
World War II—subscribed to Vivekananda's view of the mind as a drunken
monkey who is stung by a scorpion and then consumed by a demon. At the
same time, Vivekananda promised hope and solace—writing that the "same
mind, when subdued and controlled, becomes a most trusted friend and
helper, guaranteeing peace and happiness." It
was precisely the consolation that Salinger so desperately sought.
And by 1965 he was ready to renounce his once gritty pursuit of
literary celebrity. Although all but forgotten by America's 20 million would-be yoginis,
clad in their finest Lululemon, Vivekananda was the Bengali monk who
introduced the word "yoga" into the national conversation. In 1893,
outfitted in a red, flowing turban and yellow robes belted by a
scarlet sash, he had delivered a show-stopping speech in Chicago. The
event was the tony Parliament of Religions, which had been convened as
a spiritual complement to the World's Fair, showcasing the industrial
and technological achievements of the age. On its opening day, September 11, Vivekananda, who appeared to be
meditating onstage, was summoned to speak and did so without notes.
"Sisters and Brothers of America," he began, in a sonorous voice
tinged with "a delightful slight Irish brogue," according to one
listener,
attributable to his Trinity College–educated professor in India. "It
fills my heart with joy unspeakable..." Then something unprecedented happened, presaging the phenomenon
decades later that greeted the Beatles (one of whom, George Harrison,
would become a lifelong Vivekananda devotee). The previously sedate
crowd of 4,000-plus attendees rose to their feet and wildly cheered
the visiting monk, who, having never before addressed a large
gathering, was as shocked as his audience. "I thank you in the name of
the most ancient order of monks in the world," he responded, flushed
with emotion. "I thank you in the name of the mother of religions, and
I thank you in the name of millions and millions of Hindu people of
all classes and sects."
... deleted
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