Homegrown Gurus

Description

Today, a new stage in the development of Hinduism in America is taking shape. After a century of experimentation during which Americans welcomed Indian gurus who adjusted their teachings to accommodate the New World context, "American Hinduism" can now rightly be called its own tradition rather than an imported religion. Accordingly, this spiritual path is now headed by leaders born in North America. Homegrown Gurus explores this phenomenon in essays about these figures and their networks. A variety of teachers and movements are considered, including Ram Dass, Siddha Yoga, and Amrit Desai and Kripalu Yoga, among others. Two contradictory trends quickly become apparent: an increasing Westernization of Hindu practices and values alongside a renewed interest in traditional forms of Hinduism. These opposed sensibilities—innovation and preservation, radicalism and recovery—are characteristic of postmodernity and denote a new chapter in the American assimilation of Hinduism.
List of Figures
Editor’s Note

Introduction: From Wave to Soil
Ann Gleig and Lola Williamson

1. Ram Dass: The Vicissitudes of Devotion and Ferocity of Grace
F. X. Charet

2. Building Tantric Infrastructure in America: Rudi’s Western Kashmir Shaivism
Helen Crovetto

3. Amrit Desai and the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health
Ellen Goldberg

4. Swamis, Scholars, and Gurus: Siddha Yoga’s American Legacy
Lola Williamson

5. A Life in Progress: The Biographies of Sivaya Subramuniyaswami
Richard D. Mann

6. Guru Authority, Religious Innovation, and the Decline of New Vrindaban
E. Burke Rochford Jr. and Henry Doktorski

7. Neo-Advaita in America: Three Representative Teachers
Philip Charles Lucas

8. From Being to Becoming, Transcending to Transforming: Andrew Cohen and the Evolution of Enlightenment
Ann Gleig

Conclusion: On Reason, Religion, and the Real
Jeffrey J. Kripal

Contributors
Index

Sujets

• East Asian religions
• History of religions
• Hinduism

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 29 octobre 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438447933
• Langue: English

Extrait

HOMEGROWN
GURUS
HOMEGROWN
GURUS
From Hinduism in America to American Hinduism
Edited by
ANN GLEIG
and
LOLA WILLIAMSON
On cover from left to right: Gangaji (Photo courtesy of Gangaji Foundation); Sivaya Subramuniyaswami (Photo courtesy of Himalayan Academy); Ram Dass (Photo courtesy of Rameshwar Das); and Master Charles (Photo courtesy of Synchronicity Foundation)
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2013 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu
Production by Ryan Morris Marketing by Anne M. Valentine
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Homegrown gurus : from Hinduism in America to American Hinduism /
edited by Ann Gleig and Lola Williamson.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4384-4791-9 (alk. paper : hardcover)
1. Hinduism—United States. 2. Gurus—United States. I. Gleig, Ann, editor of compilation. II. Williamson, Lola, editor of compilation.
BL1168.U532H66 2013
294.50973—dc23
2012045699
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
We dedicate this volume, with loving memories, to our parents: Lola Williamson’s mother, Lola Washington, her father, Richard Scott Washington, and Ann Gleig’s father, Michael “Spike” Gleig, all of whom passed away during the preparation of this volume, as well as to Ann’s mother, Ann Gleig, who resides in Liverpool, England .
Contents
List of Figures
Editors’ Note
Introduction From Wave to Soil
Ann Gleig and Lola Williamson
Chapter 1 Ram Dass: The Vicissitudes of Devotion and Ferocity of Grace
F. X. Charet
Chapter Two Building Tantric Infrastructure in America: Rudi’s Western Kashmir Shaivism
Helen Crovetto
Chapter Three Amrit Desai and the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health
Ellen Goldberg
Chapter Four Swamis, Scholars, and Gurus: Siddha Yoga’s American Legacy
Lola Williamson
Chapter Five A Life in Progress: The Biographies of Sivaya Subramuniyaswami
Richard D. Mann
Chapter Six Guru Authority, Religious Innovation, and the Decline of New Vrindaban
E. Burke Rochford Jr. and Henry Doktorski
Chapter Seven Neo-Advaita in America: Three Representative Teachers
Philip Charles Lucas
Chapter Eight From Being to Becoming, Transcending to Transforming: Andrew Cohen and the Evolution of Enlightenment
Ann Gleig
Conclusion On Reason, Religion, and the Real
Jeffrey J. Kripal
Contributors
Index
Figures
Figure 1.1 Ram Dass playing the tamboura
Figure 1.2 Neem Karoli Baba with a copy of Be Here Now
Figure 2.1 Rudi in Varabhaya mudra, blessings and fearlessness
Figure 2.2 Rudi: Janusparsha mudra, touching the knees
Figure 3.1 Amrit Desai with his guru, Kripalu
Figure 3.2 Kripalu and students watch Amrit Desai perform meditation-in-motion
Figure 3.3 Amrit Desai, current photo
Figure 4.1 Master Charles leading satsang
Figure 4.2 Sandra Barnard leading satsang
Figure 4.3 Anursara retreat discussion panel, from left, Douglas Brooks, John Friend, Sally Kempton, and Eric Shaw
Figure 5.1 Sivaya Subramuniyaswami
Figure 6.1 Prabhupada’s Palace of God
Figure 6.2 Kirtanananda during interfaith period
Figure 7.1 Ramana Maharshi
Figure 7.2 Gangaji
Figure 7.3 Arunachala Ramana
Editors’ Note
Regarding the transliteration of Sanskrit and Hindi terms, in order to accommodate nonspecialist readers, we have chosen to avoid diacritical marks, and instead transliterate words in as readable a fashion as possible. Thus, for example, we render the Hindu deity “Śiva” as “Shiva” and the word ṛṣi (sage) as rishi . We also break words that may appear as one word in Sanskrit, as, for example, Bhagavad-Gita rather than Bhagavadgita . However, we do employ the spelling preferred by the guru or movement in question, which may entail previous knowledge of pronunciation from the reader. For example, in chapter 5 , rather than “Shaiva Siddhanta,” we use “Saiva Siddhanta,” and rather than “Subra-muniya-swami,” we use “Subramuniyaswami.”
Introduction
From Wave to Soil
Ann Gleig and Lola Williamson
Some would argue that the term “Hinduism” is woefully inadequate because it enforces a false uniformity on such a wide variety of practices, philosophies, and beliefs. Yet this English word identifying religious propensities of the Indian subcontinent, based on a much earlier Persian designation for the people who lived in the area of the Sindhu (Indus) River, has been in use since the late eighteenth century, and it is likely here to stay. Thus, we somewhat reluctantly continue to use the word “Hinduism.” In this book, however, we move to a new problem: how does one characterize this vast array of beliefs and practices we call Hinduism after it has been removed from its original Indian context and begun to mingle with Western worldviews and customs in America?
Thomas Forsthoefel and Cynthia Humes employ the metaphor of waves in Gurus in America to chart the phenomenon of Hinduism in America. 1 The first wave began with nineteenth-century teachers such as Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902), and the second wave is dated to those Indian gurus who came in the wake of the lifting of the Asian immigration act in 1965. 2 This book might be viewed as a continuation of Gurus in America . It examines the challenges and changes that have occurred in response to the earlier two waves of Hindu gurus, as well as the legacies that have been carried forward from them.
In one sense, then, the gurus appearing here consist of what might be thought of as a third wave of gurus. Many of these gurus, for example, are students and successors of second-wave gurus and so historically represent a third manifestation of Hinduism in America. We employ the concept of a third manifestation, however, primarily as an analytical rather than chronological category in order to signify American-born gurus in Hindu lineages. For example, Helen Crovetto discusses the innovations of American guru Swami Rudrananda, or Rudi, that occur partially in opposition to his own second-wave guru, Muktananda. The American Rudi and the Indian Muktananda were acting in the capacity of guru at the same time. Muktananda’s style, however, was decidedly Indian while Rudi’s style conveyed his American roots.
After more than a century of experimentation during which Hindu gurus adjusted their teachings to accommodate their American milieu, a new stage in the development of Hinduism in America appears to be taking shape. It can now rightly be called its own tradition—“American Hinduism”—rather than an imported religion. As American-born gurus are increasing in number and their innovative styles reflect a distinctively American cultural and religious ethos, the metaphor of waves washing over the surface breaks down. Given that these gurus, teachers, retreat centers, and organizations come not from across the far shore but are produced from the ground up in America, we prefer to think of them as homegrown.
What happens when we replace “wave” with “soil” or “ground” as our fundamental metaphor? One consequence is the tilting of the balance between Indian and American cultural matrixes. To understand these homegrown gurus, we need to fully comprehend the cultural soil in which they have grown as well as the foreign traditions that have sustained them. Numerous studies have discussed the influence of Western Enlightenment, Romantic, and liberal Protestant discourses on the shaping of Hinduism between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. 3 One Western lineage we want to draw particular attention to here is Western esotericism. 4 Elizabeth De Michelis’s groundbreaking study of modern yoga, A History of Modern Yoga: Patañjali and Western Esotericism , brought attention to the role of modern esotericism in the construction and promotion of Hinduism in the West. 5 As De Michelis correctly notes, the seminal role of Western esotericism has been consistently overlooked and neglected in the study of modern and contemporary Hinduism.
Similarly, Catherine Albanese has drawn attention to the determinative role that she terms “American metaphysical traditions” has played in the assimilation of Asian religions in America. 6 In a lineage stretching from colonial New England to the Californian New Age, and incorporating traditions as diverse as Transcendentalism and the Human Potential Movement, Albanese shows how American metaphysical traditions express a distinct American religious ethos that is strongly flavored by American cultural values such as individualism, pluralism, antiauthoritarianism, egalitarianism, democracy, and pragmatism.
Albanese examines how early American metaphysical traditions such as the Theosophical Society and New Thought produced and promoted what she calls “metaphysical Asia,” the refashioning of Asian religious and philosophical ideas thr