We are paying a very high price for neglecting the age-old vision of leading a happy and peaceful life by following the eternal precepts of religious culture. "Religion (spiritual quest) was replaced by technology as Western man's paramount interest and pursuit'" says Toynbee. Bertrand Russell says:

The Machine as an object of adoration is the modern form of Satan, and its worship is the modern diabolism. . . .Whatever else may be mechanical, values are not, and this is something which no political philosopher must forget.
- Betrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society, p. 77

An early response to these troubling conditions came from Geraldine Coster, an English psychoanalyst who was captivated by the spiritual philosophy of India and early caught its spark. Yoga and Western Psychology, the insightful study of Indian Yoga, came out in 1934 and is the most popular book on the subject in the West since Swami Vivekananda’s Raja-Yoga appeared in 1899. Five impressions of her book were published between 1934 and 1949 and a new edition came out in 1999. Coster based her comparison of yoga and analytical psychology on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, tracing the superiority of India’s philosophical conceptions of yoga with great acumen. In her introduction she described her inspiration to show that Yoga contains the clue needed by the West if the analytical method and theory is to reach its fullest scope as a regenerating and re-creating factor in modern life:

The more thoughtful among mankind are gradually outgrowing the belief that they as individuals, or that human beings in general, are going to be "saved" by some external intervention, and the idea is gaining ground that salvation is essentially from within. It may be that the old psychological self-knowledge of the East will eventually give to some people an experimental proof of the reality of the world beyond the drop- curtain. I am convinced that the ideas on which yoga is based are universally true for mankind, and that we have in the yoga sutras a body of material which we could investigate and use with infinite advantage. Here is a method of mento-emotional training and development used in the east. It is said on good authority to produce very remarkable and very desirable results, to open to the person who practices its new fields of experience, to give him a poise, and insight, a capacity for enjoyment far beyond anything we have attained. On the other hand there are countless numbers of people in the West whose craving for some direct and real satisfying experience is intense, who feel that life must hold the possibility of something more than they have yet found, and that without this further possibility it is a hollow sham and not worthy living. My plea is then that yoga as followed in the East is a practical method of mind development far more practical and closely related to real life than the average university course. Furthermore, I am convinced that the yoga sutras of Patanjali do really contain the information that some of the most advanced psychotherapists of the present day are ardently seeking. That there is a crying need in the West for something parallel to this eastern yoga many today would admit. The difficulty is to adapt the method to current needs without cheapening the subtleties of real introspective experience on the one hand, or losing its practical value in the maze of pseudo-mysticism on the other. The key to the problem lies in a sympathetic appreciation of the eastern approach to the problems of the interior life. As I have said, this approach is neither atheistic nor superstitious; it is scientific and based upon actual experiment.
- Geraldine Coster, Yoga and Western Psychology: A Comparison [1934], p. 11

The new interest in the West is to study in-depth the human personality. Jung’s famous book Modern Man in Search of a Soul, published in 1933, is a product of deep insight gleaned from the wisdom of the East. Coster’s Yoga and Western Psychology was followed by K. T. Behanan’s Yoga: A Scientific Evaluation in 1938.

Jacob Needleman confirms this view and wrote, "A large and growing number of psychiatrists are now convinced that the Eastern religions offer an understanding of the mind far more complete than anything yet envisaged by Western science." He is one of many Western psychologists who attest to this preeminence of Indian thought in the philosophy of yoga and its practice. It is believed that more than 16 million people in the United States and Europe are involved in the Transcendental Meditation Movement popularized by Maharshi Mahesh Yogi. The Mahesh Yogi University of Iowa received a federal grant in the scientific study of meditation. The secular scholars of the West are gradually realizing the tremendous benefit of meditative life for having inner harmony, peace and stability as well as developing a healthy body and mind.

Demand for Meditation and Contemplation in the Modern World

Physicians, administrators and the general public have realized the deep impact of meditation in our healthy lives. Many universities have shown tremendous interest in verifying the role of meditation, which enables patients as well as the general public to maintain a balanced, happy life. Through their thorough examination, they found the relevance of meditative life for our well-being and happiness.

Since the coming of Vedanta, the idea of meditation and contemplation is being revived in the West. Professor Huston Smith says:

For the first time since the Renaissance and the Reformation, western society is hearing . . .the suggestion that perhaps the contemplative life is the equal of active life.
- Huston Smith, Secularization and the Sacred

We have seen some really earnest seekers here in America who are leading a spiritual life in all sincerity. It is the contemplatives who keep the world disinfected. They are the salt of the earth.

The popular American writer Robert Arnett came to India in 1988. In his book, India Unveiled, he writes:

Through Science of Yoga, India has given the West a far more valuable gift than all the material wealth or technology the West could give in return. Of all the nations in the world, India is the most spiritually blessed. More and more Americans are learning that materialism does not give lasting satisfaction and they are turning to India for spiritual guidance.
- from excerpts, Atman Press, Columbia, Georgia

Comments on this article can be sent to: VedantaSoc@aol.com

Books by Swami Tathagatananda (organized by the year of publication):

1. The Light from the Orient, 2005
2. The Journey of the Upanishads to the West, 2003
3. The Vedanta Society of New York -- A Brief History, 2000
4. Mahabharat--Katha (Bengali), 1998
5. Ramayan Anudhyan (Bengali), 1996
6. Healthy Values of Living, 1996
7. Meditation on Swami Vivekananda, 1994
8. Meditation on Shri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda, 1993
9. Albert Einstein and His Human Face, 1993
10. Glimpses of Great Lives, 1989
11. Shubha Chinta (Bengali), 1988
12. Smaran--Manan (Bengali), 1987

You can order these books from The Vedanta Society of New York.

Other books on Vedanta can be purchased from any Vedanta Center.

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