Swami Vivekananda S Legacy Of Service

Publisher Description

A collection of essays on Karma Yoga and other aspects of spiritual life.Previously published as Service and Spirituality.

In this 5 part lecture series Gwilym Beckerlegge discusses the life and legacy of Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902), the Hindu teacher who was arguably the first ‘global guru’. Vivekananda has been influential in shaping, among other things, Hindu notions of social activism, and what has come to be known as Modern Yoga, which is now practised beyond India. Gwilym covers the influence of Vivekananda’s own guru, the widely revered Sri Ramakrishna, Vivekananda’s fascinating journey from India to the United States and Europe at the turn of the 20th century, and the institutions Vivekananda started in Ramakrishna’s name. Vivekananda has been a highly influential but contentious figure in the history of recent Hindu tradition. These lectures will explore aspects of Vivekananda’s legacy with particular reference to the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, the movement Vivekananda founded in his guru’s name, and the Vivekananda Kendra, also inspired by Vivekananda, which came into existence in 1972. The Kendra, however, promotes in Vivekananda’s name an ideology strongly influenced by Hindu nationalism. Through an examination of these two movements, the lecture will illustrate the diffuse and durable nature of Vivekananda’s influence, and in the process explain why Vivekananda has been judged by some to have been a contradictory and controversial figure. Session 1 – Introducing Vivekananda and his guru Ramakrishna Session 2 – Vivekananda in the USA and London Session 3 – Establishing the Ramakrishna Math and Mission in India: Vivekananda and the spiritual discipline of service Session 4 – Continuity, discontinuity, and innovation in Vivekananda’s ideas Session 5 – Vivekananda and his Hindu nationalist admirers hindu philosophy hindu spiritual leaders daily life of a monk meditation practices vivekananda books complete works teacher life and philosophy of swami vivekananda in hindi 4 yogas hindusim life of yogi saint raja yoga

With historical-critical analysis and dialogical even-handedness, the essays of this book re-assess the life and legacy of Swami Vivekananda, forged at a time of colonial suppression, from the vantage point of socially-engaged religion at a time of global dislocations and international inequities. Due to the complexity of Vivekananda as a historical figure on the cusp of late modernity with its vast transformations, few works offer a contemporary, multi-vocal, nuanced, academic examination of his liberative vision and legacy in the way that this volume does. It brings together North American, European, British, and Indian scholars associated with a broad array of humanistic disciplines towards critical-constructive, contextually-sensitive reflections on one of the most important thinkers and theologians of the modern era.

The Hindu thinker Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) was and remains an important figure both within India, and in the West, where he was notable for preaching Vedanta. Scholarship surrounding Vivekananda is dominated by hagiography and his (mis)appropriation by the political Hindu Right. This work demonstrates that Vivekananda was no simplistic pluralist, as portrayed in hagiographical texts, nor narrow exclusivist, as portrayed by some modern Hindu nationalists, but a thoughtful, complex inclusivist. The book shows that Vivekananda formulated a hierarchical and inclusivistic framework of Hinduism, based upon his interpretations of a four-fold system of Yoga. It goes on to argue that Vivekananda understood his formulation of Vedanta to be universal, and applied it freely to non-Hindu traditions, and in so doing, demonstrates that Vivekananda was consistently critical of ‘low level’ spirituality, not only in non-Hindu traditions, but also within Hinduism. Demonstrating that Vivekananda is best understood within the context of ‘Advaitic primacy’, rather than ‘Hindu chauvinism’, this book will be of interest to scholars of Hinduism and South Asian religion and of South Asian diaspora communities and religious studies more generally.

This book examines the role of Hindu-inspired faith movements (HIFMs) in contemporary India as actors in social transformation. It further situates these movements in the context of the global political economy where such movements cross national boundaries to locate believers among the Hindu diaspora and others. In contemporary neoliberal India, HIFMs have become important actors, and they realize themselves by making public assertions through service. The four pillars of the contemporary presence of such movements are: gurus, sociality, hegemony and social transformation. Gurus, who spearhead these movements, create a matrix of possible meanings in their public discourses which their followers pick up to create messages of personal and social change. Sociality is a core strategy of proliferation across such movements and implies social service, which is qualified by memories of the guru and what they are believed to embody. Hegemony is reflected in the fact that social service in such movements often ominously imbibes right-wing or far-right Hinduism. They propose a model of Hindu-inspired social transformation, involving faith building into and transforming the civil society. The book discusses in a nuanced way several Hindu-inspired faith movements of various hues which have made national and international impact. This topical book is of interest to students and researchers in the fields of sociology, anthropology, social work, and social psychology, with a special interest in the study of religious movements.

From the Wolfson History Prize–winning author of The Man on Devil’s Island, the definitive biography of Vivekananda, the Indian monk who shaped the intellectual and spiritual history of both East and West. Few thinkers have had so enduring an impact on both Eastern and Western life as Swami Vivekananda, the Indian monk who inspired the likes of Freud, Gandhi, and Tagore. Blending science, religion, and politics, Vivekananda introduced Westerners to yoga and the universalist school of Hinduism called Vedanta. His teachings fostered a more tolerant form of mainstream spirituality in Europe and North America and forever changed the Western relationship to meditation and spirituality. Guru to the World traces Vivekananda’s transformation from son of a Calcutta-based attorney into saffron-robed ascetic. At the 1893 World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, he fascinated audiences with teachings from Hinduism, Western esoteric spirituality, physics, and the sciences of the mind, in the process advocating a more inclusive conception of religion and expounding the evils of colonialism. Vivekananda won many disciples, most prominently the Irish activist Margaret Noble, who disseminated his ideas in the face of much disdain for the wisdom of a “subject race.” At home, he challenged the notion that religion was antithetical to nationalist goals, arguing that Hinduism was intimately connected with Indian identity. Ruth Harris offers an arresting biography, showing how Vivekananda’s thought spawned a global anticolonial movement and became a touchstone of Hindu nationalist politics a century after his death. The iconic monk emerges as a counterargument to Orientalist critiques, which interpret East-West interactions as primarily instances of Western borrowing. As Vivekananda demonstrates, we must not underestimate Eastern agency in the global circulation of ideas.

Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar (1906-73) Was The Second Sarsanghachalak Or Supreme Guide Of The Hindu Nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (Rss), A Position He Held For Thirty-Three Years. Though He Was Not Its Founder, He Cast The Organization In His Own Image, And Remains To This Day The Most Influential Ideologue Not Only Of The Rss But Also Of All The Organizations Inspired By It Including The Bharatiya Janata Party (Bjp), Which Led The Country S Ruling Coalition From 1999 To 2004. This Unprecedented And Extremely Important Book Is Perhaps The First To Examine Golwalkar S Thought And His Legacy Closely And Critically. Focusing On The Arguments Delineated In The Writings And Speeches Of Golwalkar, Jyotirmaya Sharma Questions The Assumptions Upon Which The Ideologues And Champions Of Hindutva Seek To Establish A Hindu Nation In India. As It Highlights How Much These Arguments Derive From Eighteenth-And Nineteenth-Century Indologists, And How Closely They Parallel Fascist Ideology, The Book Unravels The Confusion, Intolerance And Intellectual Deficit That Has Gone Into Hindu Nationalist Thinking. It Comes To The Conclusion That The Politics Of Hindu Nationalism Feeds On A Dangerous Concept Of The Nation State And A Misunderstanding Of The Very Idea Of What Hinduism Is And Who Is A Hindu. In Doing So, The Book Also Provides An Opportunity To Engage With The Politics Of Hindutva And Its Various Manifestations In The Contemporary Political Scenario. Praise For Hindutva: Exploring The Idea Of Hindu Nationalism A Valuable, Well-Considered Contribution To The Discussion On The Antithesis Of Secularism Frontline An Excavation Of The Intellectual Genealogy Of Hindutva&[Jyotirmaya Sharma] Has A Gift For Communicating Complex Ideas In Lucid Prose The Telegraph Hindutva Is Short And Written For The Lay Person, Free Of The Academic Exhibitionism That Mars So Many Books On Philosophy, Yet A Product Of Deep Reading And Research. It Is An Important Book India Today Jyotirmaya Sharma S Book, Perhaps For The First Time, Presents A Detailed Descriptive And Historical Account Of Both The Idea Of Hindutva And Its Historical Development. It Fills An Enormous Gap Seminar