Vedanta for the West :
The Ramakrishna Movement in the United States
by Carl T. Jackson
185 pages
Published by Indiana Univ Pr
Publication date: May 1, 1994
ISBN: 025333098X
Synopsis:
The Ramakrishna movement was the very first and in many ways the most important
Asian religious group to appear in America. Founded on the teachings of
the nineteenth-century Bengali visionary Sri Ramakrishna, the movement was
brought to the United States in 1893 by Swami Vivekananda, a disciple of
Ramakrishna. Although its membership is small, the movement has exercised
a significant influence in the last hundred years, promoting Hindu reform
and revival in India and increasing public awareness of Hinduism through
its Vedanta societies in the United States and Europe. An important history
of the oldest form of Hinduism in America, this book sheds new light on
the progress and adaptation of Eastern spirituality in the West. Carl T.
Jackson begins his account with a brief examination of conditions in nineteenth-century
India and the United States that explain the sudden appearance of the Ramakrishna
movement in the West. He details the origins and teachings of the movement,
Swami Vivekananda's seminal role as founder and organizer of Western "work,"
and the subsequent history of the American mission. Jackson also discusses
the movement's American teachings and explains the attraction of Vedanta
for Americans. Although conservative in its presentation of Hinduism, the
Ramakrishna movement has freely embraced Western methods. As Jackson shows,
it is the "middle way" in American Hinduism, taking a path between
devotional forms such as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness
(Hare Krishna) and meditation ones such as the Self-Realization Fellowship
and Transcendental Meditation.
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