Introducing "The Making of a Devotee", a book by Swami Vidyatmananda (John Yale).

Описание: Swami Vidyatmananda, aka John Yale, (1913 - 2000) has created a literate, inspiring, and invaluable in-person historical document recording the emergence of the Ramakrishna-Vedanta movement in the West.

He begins by describing the inner life of “a bemused observer and entranced witness” to the early days of Vedanta in the West, having joined the movement a mere 50 years after Swami Vivekananda introduced Vedanta in America. He lays out his early life with expressive freedom and frankness, literary pursuits evolving into spiritual ambitions, the “remolding, or the commencement of a drastic remodeling, of my psyche” and moves on to fly-on-the-wall observations of the fascinating characters who pioneered the Movement.

He was a disciple of Swami Prabhavananda, becoming a monk in the 1950s. His duties included (beside dishwashing) his literary work: editing the magazine Vedanta and the West, establishing the Hollywood Center’s publishing, bookshop, and mail order businesses, and writing the book A Yankee and the Swamis: A Westerner's View of the Ramakrishna Order about his experiences in India. He took final vows of sannyas in 1964. He was stationed at the Vedanta Center in Gretz, France and served as the center’s manager under Swami Ritajananda and continued in that role after the Swami’s death.

His memoir includes fascinating anecdotes of spiritual luminaries, both Swamis and lay associates of Swami Vivekananda and other direct disciples of Sri Ramakrishna; the unique rank and file members at the Centers; and literary celebrities including his very good friend Christopher Isherwood, as well as Aldous Huxley, Alan Watts, and Amiya Corbin Montagu, the Countess of Sandwich. In effect, The Making of a Devotee is an invaluable slice of Vedanta history and is also a rich source for scholars now studying and writing about the history of Vedanta in the West.

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