Walden

another way of approaching life: yes, I was being carried by great flowing
waters, but I could steer my boat down that river!

Like every other time in history, we live in a pivotal moment. Things can
get better, stay the same or get worse and we are each responsible for where
we are and what occurs. This is why education, understanding of history and
stories are so important: without them, we might not recognize that we are
going down the same road to a bad place someone else had traveled to a long
time ago.

Vivekananda taught “Practical Vedanta,” Vedanta set free from exclusive
association with Hinduism or any other religion or culture. On the eighth day
of the Parliament he presented his “Paper on Hinduism.” In it he offered a
taste of the mingled waters of Vedanta and Christianity:

“A Vedic sage stood up before the world and in trumpet voice
proclaimed the glad tidings: ‘Hear, ye children of immortal bliss!
Even ye that reside in higher spheres! I have found the Ancient One
who is beyond all darkness, all delusion: knowing Him alone you
shall be saved from death over again.’ ‘Children of immortal bliss’ –
what a sweet, what a hopeful name! Allow me to call you, brethren,
by that sweet name – heirs of immortal bliss – yea, the Hindu
refuses to call you sinners. Ye are the Children of God, the sharers
of immortal bliss, holy and perfect beings. Ye divinities on earth –
sinners? It is a sin to call a man so; it is a standing libel on human
nature. Come up, O lions, and shake off the delusion that you are
sheep; you are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal; ye are
not matter, ye are not bodies; matter is your servant, not you the
servant of matter.

Thus it is that the Vedas proclaim not a dreadful combination of
unforgiving laws, not an unforgiving prison of cause and effect, but
that at the head of all these laws, in and through every particle of
matter and force, stands One, “by whose command the wind blows,

100

the fires burn, the clouds rain and death stalks upon the earth.” And
what is His nature? He is everywhere, the Pure and Formless One,
the Almighty and the All-merciful . . . Knowing Him alone you shall
be saved from death over again and attain immortality.”

Known for his inspirational words, so that knowledge could become
wisdom and his ideas step into reality, Vivekananda taught the Yoga of God-
Realization. Yoga was the means to achieve the state that he described so
eloquently. He proposed spiritual practices following one of the several
classical systems of God-Realizing Yoga. He wrote: “Vedanta suggests four
yogas (a) karma yoga – the path of unselfish action, (b) jnana yoga – the path
of knowledge, (c) raja yoga – the path of meditation, and (d) bhakti yoga – the
path of devotion. The word “yoga,” which is common to all these paths,
signifies the union of the individual soul with the universal truth.” To
understand what is meant by this takes us back to water.

When Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well he said to her, “If you
knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’
you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

The “gift of God” is the knowledge Vivekananda sought ever since he was
a young man. He always asked his elders, “Sir, have you seen God?” but it was
not until he met Ramakrishna that he finally discovered someone who
experienced God. In Ramakrishna, Vivekananda found what is called a Sat
Guru, a teacher who embodies the “gift of God” and transmits it to others.
Attending to his guru, Vivekananda renounced everything, devoting his whole
life to Living water, which was gifted to him by Ramakrishna. It is very rare that
someone ever seeks this water and it is even rarer that a person is qualified to
receive it, and rarest of all is to find someone who can give it to others. For
Vivekananda, the Yoga he taught is the knowledge and practice and that
prepares one to receive this greatest of gifts.

If we trace America’s river of Yoga to its source, we must begin 120 years
ago in Chicago and witness Vivekananda delivering his famous talks at the

101

World Parliament of Religions in 1893. Then, going back further in time, we
cross to the other side of the world, to India, and find Ramakrishna
undergoing his sadhana in Dakshineswar on the banks of the Ganges and
observe the joining of the two great religious-philosophical rivers of Advaita
and Bhakti with the arrival of the great Totapuri. Then, traveling back even
further, through thousands of years, wandering across the length and breadth
of India, we will notice the springs of different saints and sages that become
tributaries which nourish the river of Yoga we are following. Eventually, our
way leads up into the high Himalayas where we encounter the original seers,
the Rishis, and find the primeval mouth of the river of Yoga in Realization,
the center of the world, the source of the waters, the eternal Kailash of God
. . . this is the Yoga that Vivekananda brought to America. He said:

“The end of all religions is the realizing of God in the soul. That is
the one universal religion. If there is one universal truth in all
religions, I place it here – in realizing God. Ideals and methods may
differ, but God-realization is the central point. There may be a
thousand radii but they all converge to the one center, and that is the
realization of God.”

In America today Yoga has come to mean physical exercises or asanas,
with little or no spiritual context outside of health and well-being. While there
is certainly nothing wrong with this, it is not the Yoga of God-Realization that
Vivekananda taught.

“What good is history if no one tells it?” This is the question asked at the
beginning of this book and the reason I have told this story. It is important to
establish what is true so we can measure what is false against it. It is necessary
to identify the path so we can tell if we have strayed from it. I have tried to
clarify the Yoga Vivekananda brought to America so we can understand what
we have made of it.

Thoreau and Vivekananda drank from the same well, their buckets still
grate together nearly one hundred and fifty years later.

102

Lying in that pool are the waters of Yoga, called the Sanatana Dharma in
ancient India and the Living Water of life in the Bible. We have followed these
waters and from reflections on their surface this tale has been woven. This is a
story of the Living God.

Peter Malakoff
September 11, 2013
Old Manali, Himachal Pradesh, Northern India

103

Bibliography

The Life of Swami Vivekananda, by His Eastern and Western disciples
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, by Mahendranath Gupta
The Life of Swami Vivekananda, by Romain Rolland
Walden, by Henry David Thoreau
The Wonder that was India, by AL Basham
The Gnosticon, by Adi Da Samraj
The Three Christs of Ypsilanti, by Milton Rokeach
The Complete Works of Vivekananda
The Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell
Critical Path, by Buckminster Fuller
Memories Dreams and Reflections, by Carl Jung

Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, by Buckminster Fuller
The Oriental Christ, by Pratap Chandra Mazumdar

The Frozen Water Trade: A True Story, by Gavin Weightman
Householder Yogi- The Life of Shri Yogendra, by Santana Rodrigues

Vivekananda a Biography, by Swami Nikhilananda
The Early History of the Ramakrishna Movement, by Swami Prabhananda
Sri Ramakrishna: The Face of Silence, by Swami Nikhilananda & Dhan Gopal
The Bhagavad Gita Chapters 1-6, translated by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

The Power of the Presence, by David Godman
Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice, by Mark Singleton

104

Other Books, my Blog and Contact:

Peter Malakoff Books

A site for books I have previously published as well as future book projects:
www.petermalakoffbooks.weebly.com

My personal Website: Peter Malakoff

I have written stories, poems, articles, recorded audio tales and made small
movies for nearly forty years. You can find them here:
website: www.petermalakoff.com

My Blog: India my Walden Pond

Essays and stories on miscellaneous topics, composed since I came to India:
India my Walden Pond

Contact me:

I would be happy to hear from you:
email: [email protected]

105

A.L. Basham

Arthur Llewellyn Basham (24 May 1914 – 2
January 1986) was a noted historian, indol
gist and author of a number of books . . .

Basham was one of the first western historian
to critically gauge the impact of Swam
Vivekananda from a global perspective. Hi
well-known comment about Vivekananda: "i
centuries to come, he will be remembered a
one of the main molders of the moder
world," is quoted frequently in appreciation
and tributes of Vivekananda. Basham was a
pointed Swami Vivekananda Professor in Oriental Studies at the Asiatic Societ
of Calcutta in September 1985. He died in Calcutta in India in 1986.

His most popular book is The Wonder That was India (Sidgwick & Jackson
London, 1954) - published seven years after the 1947 Independence of India.

– Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Related Glossary Terms
Drag related terms here

Index Find Term

Chapter 1 - How Thoreau's Walden Pond Mixed with the Ganges and Yoga Came to A

Abishekam
“Abhisheka, also called Abhishekam, is conducted by priests, by pouring liba-
tions on the image of the deity being worshipped, amidst the chanting of man-
tras. Usually, offerings such as milk, yogurt, ghee, honey, Panchaamrutam (the
five substances of bliss), sesame oil, rosewater, sandalwood paste may be poured
among other offerings depending on the type of abhishekam being performed.
This ritual is routinely performed in some Hindu and Jain temples. "Ru-
draabhisheka" (Abhisheka of Rudra-Shiva) is performed on Shivlingams.”

– Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Related Glossary Terms
Drag related terms here

Adi Da Samraj

 “Adi Da Samraj (1939-2008) devoted His life to the realization and communica-
tion of Truth—what He called the “Bright,” Prior Unity, or the Indivisible Real-
ity in which we all appear. He communicated that Truth through many means—
literary, artistic, and spiritual. His numerous books of spiritual, philosophical, so-
cial, and practical wisdom are widely acknowledged as among the most insight-
ful spiritual teachings of the modern world.”

– Adidam.org

  Adi Da Samraj was born Franklin Albert Jones in Queens, New York. He
was a spiritual teacher, writer and artist, and the founder of a new religious
movement known as Adidam.

– Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Related Glossary Terms
Advaita

Index Find Term

Acknowledgements - Acknowledgements
Chapter 2 - The Kashi Yatra, the Spiritual Master and!the Living Water of Life

Chapter 2 - The Kashi Yatra, the Spiritual Master and!the Living Water of Life