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"Here alone in New York I find more men interested in religion than in other city. . ."New York is a grand and good place,". . ."The New York people have a tenacity of purpose unknown in any other city." --- Swami Vivekananda |
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Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA Vivekananda arrived in America and pronounced in ringing tones, "I have a message to the West, as Buddha had a message to the East". In 1893, the Parliament of Religions at the World Colombian Exposition in Chicago set the stage for Vivekananda to give his message to the world and to set in motion the machinery for the creation of his 'Civitas Dei'--- the City of Mankind---as called by Rolland.[1] Remarkably, it was not in India but in America, in the city of New York, that the message first took roots in the modest form of a Vedanta Society---even earlier to the start of its world organization, the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, with headquarters first in Calcutta and then Belur Math---and in time, became a world mission. The events and traditions of the Vedanta Society of New York, being the first Vedanta Society in the West established by Swami Vivekananda himself, therefore remains a fascinating subject to the follower of Vivekananda's movement as it unfolds into the next century.
Vivekananda came to the Parliament of Religions as a part of the Hindu delegation but by the time he left, he was recognized as someone far beyond the boundaries of a particular religion or sect. Both during and after the Parliament, there followed a blazoning reception by all segments of the American press recognizing his stature among thinking men. Then, through a "cyclonic" series of packed public lectures across the length and breadth of the country, thousands of American public---common citizens, men of learning, scientists, and philosophers, men and women received a clear exposition of India's ancient religion and her eternal message. Finally, he came to the east coast to seek a more permanent platform to teach and work out his global mission. But as we will see, the focus for a permanent seat of Vedanta did not come easy.
The first we see him "knocking at the doors" of New York city is in the first week of April, 1894, where he had presumably been invited by a small group of friends[2]---a Mrs. Smith, a Dr. and Mrs. Egbert Guernsey, and a Miss Helen Gould. Arriving in New York from Detroit, 'On April 2', according to Burke[3], 'we find him living at the Guernsey's house at 528 Fifth Avenue'. During this time, he had also stayed for a few days as a house guest of Miss Helen Gould, the heiress of the millionaire Jay Gould, in her country estate of Lyndhurst at Irvington-on-Hudson. Dr. Guernsey, at the time close to seventy-one years of age, was a well regarded physician in the city. He was also quite well known in the city through his several social alliances, as founder of the famous Union League Club, the Brooklyn Daily Times, the founder and editor-in-chief of the New York Medical News Times. And just as the Hales in Chicago, the Bagleys in Detroit, the Guernseys took Vivekananda into their family. It was friendship such as this that would be instrumental in more ways than one in the blossoming of the Vedanta Society. Clearly, the Guernseys and their popularity in the city's social order would have provided to Vivekananda an early opportunity to make friends and discover for himself his field of work. It was from here that he got a glimpse of the "parlor lectures" which for him, seeking as he was a suitable mechanism for the dissemination of his ideas, had immense possibilities. "Parlor lectures", he writes, in a letter to Mrs. Hale dated April 2, "are a great feature in this city and more can be made from each such lecture than even platform talks in other cities"[4] Of the opportunities that the stay with such people as the Guernseys held for him, he writes in the same letter, ".... This Thursday they (the Guernseys) will invite a number of the brainy people of the Union League Club and other places of which the doctor is a member and see what comes out of it."
After a brief visit to Boston during the latter part of the second and third week of April, a visit that, according to his letters, was intended to fulfill previous commitments, he returned to New York and on the Tuesday of April 24 at the Waldorf Hotel, gave a lecture on "India and Hinduism" before Mrs. Arthur Smith's "Conversation Circle"[5]. As it turns out, this was a historic lecture, for as far as it is known, it was the first lecture he delivered in New York.[6] It was on May 2 at the home of Miss Mary Phillips, at 19 West 38th. Street that Swamiji gave his second lecture in New York. Miss Phillips, who had attended his lecture at the Waldorf Astoria, went on to become one of his "eager workers" and later when she offered him her hospitality and help, he accepted and her home became "a sort of headquarters for his work in New York".[7] Also among the people who attended Swamiji's first couple of lectures were Miss Emma Thursby, the well known singer who later was to become a member of the New York Vedanta Society, and Leon Landsberg, who was to become one of Vivekananda's first monastic disciples in the West.
On May 6,1894, Vivekananda left New York for Boston. He had sown the seeds in New York and now waited to see the response. Towards the end of July, after a brief visit to Swampscott, in the Massachusetts Bay area, invited by Mrs. Sarah Farmer whom he had met in New York, he came to the Greenacre Conference in Maine. It was here in Greenacre that he also met Dr. Lewis G. Janes, President of the Brooklyn Ethical Association, "who was to become one of his devoted and stalwart friends."[8]
Vivekananda left the Boston area in October and after a brief tour of Baltimore and Washington, he arrived back at New York around November 3 or 4th. It was this November, in 1894, that the history of the Vedanta Society made its debut. The seeds of his Master's message that he had scattered for so long had finally taken root. In a letter to his Indian disciple, Alasinga Perumal, dated November 30, 1894, Vivekananda writes, "I have started [an organization] already in New York and the Vice President will soon write to you. . ."[9]. When it first started, the Society was not much of an organization; its goals and purpose were vague, and the Society was informal and without any formal registration".[10] In the short term it served more as a means to take care of his concerns for managing his financial ends. Very soon though, as his efforts became more responsive to the growing interest of America for the religion of India, the Society "was undoubtedly concerned also with the religious and philosophical aspects of his work."[11] Following a visit to Boston during December of that year, Vivekananda returned to New York on December 28, 1894 as a guest of the Brooklyn Ethical Society. Here, at the Pouch Mansion in Brooklyn, invited by Dr. Lewis Janes and Mr. Higgins, on 30th. December he gave his first of many lectures and all through until April of 1895, he delivered what is now famous as the "Brooklyn Lectures". And "Here alone in New York I find more men interested in religion than in other city. . . writes Vivekananda in a letter to Mrs. Ole Bull dated December 28,1894. "New York is a grand and good place," he wrote, "The New York people have a tenacity of purpose unknown in any other city."[12]
"The great, sophisticated, polyglot metropolis was indeed a wellspring of new ideas; it was creative and enterprising; it was the Center of all the arts; it was rich, generous, and throbbing with vitality; everything was there", writes the author of New Discoveries".[13] His remarks on New York as "the head, hand, and purse of the country"[14] all point to Vivekananda choosing New York as the place where his mission to the West would mature to fulfillment. With the Brooklyn series of lectures well underway, Swamiji himself took upon the task of organizing. Assisted by Leon Landsberg, Vivekananda established his first headquarters in America in two rented rooms at 54 West Thirty-Third Street where he would hold his regular classes from Sunday, J anuary 27,1895. Here, living at 54 West Thirty-Third, Swami Vivekananda established a tradition that would become the hallmark of Vedanta Societies for the next century---living an unfettered simple and spiritually intense life of a Hindu monk and teaching Americans. It was also here that Landsberg became Swamiji's brahmachari disciple. Among Vivekananda's first few students were Miss Sarah Ellen Waldo who became one of his closest American disciples. It was here that Miss Josephine MacLeod and her sister Besse Sturges, met him for the first time to become one of his most devoted friends and helpers. Here too he met Mr. Francis H. Leggett, who later married Mrs. Sturges and remained a friend of both Swamiji and the Society. The first classes had very few students, three or four only, but quickly the word spread and the classes grew. For a large part of this phase of his activities, we are indebted to the notes and reminiscences of Miss Waldo. It was now that he gave his first discourses on Jnana Yoga. The classes at the Society were mostly free and, according to Miss Waldo: It was a fit beginning for a movement that has since grown to such grand proportions. In this unpretentious way did Swami Vivekananda inaugurate the work of teaching Vedanta philosophy in New York. The Swami gave his services free as air. The rent was paid by voluntary subscriptions and when these were found insufficient the Swami hired a hall and gave secular lectures on India and devoted the proceeds to the maintenance of the classes. He said that Hindu teachers of religion felt it to be their duty to support their classes and the students, too, if they were unable to care for themselves, and the teachers would willingly make any sacrifice they possibly could to assist a needy disciple.[15] "Now I have got a hold on New York, and I hope to get a permanent body of workers who will carry on the work when I leave the country. . .Of course financially it is a failure, but men are more valuable than all of the wealth of the world".[16] In fact, to this day, the history of the Vedanta Societies in America, in marked contrast to the more popular and populated "churchianized" movements of the West, remains largely a history of a handful of dedicated souls and their living out of a single ideal---"man making"!
Vivekananda was completely exhausted and in the first week of June 1895 he welcomed the invitation of a Miss Elizabeth Dutcher to take a vacation to her summer cottage at Thousand Island Park on the St. Lawrence River. After a brief visit to Camp Percy in New Hampshire invited by his devoted friend Mr. Leggett, he went to Thousand Island Park. He returned to New York on August 7,1895 and stayed for a while at the home of Miss Mary A. Phillips at 19 West 38th Street. From New York he left for France and then to England where he would now plant the seed of Vedanta in the capital of the mighty British Empire. While that is yet another story, Vivekananda returned to New York on December 6,1895.
He was greeted by his disciple Leon Landsberg, who had assumed the name Swami Kripananda after receiving monastic vows from Swamiji at Thousand Island Park. The Vedanta Society had engaged for him a lodging house at 228 West 39th Street where he now took up his residence. This was the same house where Landsberg had stayed for a few months earlier in this year. It was also in this house, where during Vivekananda's stay in England, Kripananda had held classes in November under the auspices of the fledgling Vedanta Society. In this, the second home of the Society, Vivekananda went back to his concentrated schedule of classes, "twice daily on four days of the week and a question-and-answer class on Sundays.[17] And on a fateful day this December, the "household" at the Society, in response to a short advertisement carried only once by the Herald and the World,[18] received Josiah J. Goodwin---"the young man whose work for Swamiji", as his stenographer and recorder for all posterity of practically all of Vivekananda's published teachings from that time on until he died in India in 1898, "was to be of incalculable importance to the Vedanta movement".[19] It was during this period that Vivekananda delivered his discourses on the four Yogas---Bhakti, Jnana, Karma, and Raja---which were later published by the Vedanta Society. From December 9,1895 through February 25 of 1896 he delivered seventy classes and ten public lectures. Vivekananda delivered his final lecture in New York on February 23, 1896, and, as per its newspaper announcement, he did so under the auspices of the Vedanta Society. Vivekananda, accompanied by Goodwin arrived in Detroit from New York on March 3, 1896 and after a visit to Boston and Chicago, he returned to New York on April 11 to leave America for his second visit to England on April 15, 1896. His last known address in New York was 6 West Forty -Third Street. Vivekananda's first visit to America had come to an end. Vivekananda-Vedanta had most definitely taken soil outside of India and the first Vedanta Society had come into its own.
During his visit to England the previous year, Vivekananda realized that he required a brother-monk to continue his work there on his return to America. He had asked for Sharat, whose monastic name was Swami Saradananda. Saradananda, after spending some time together with Vivekananda in England, with Goodwin as escort, came to America and continued the American work. He arrived at New York in the first week of July, 1896, and was brought by Goodwin directly to Boston as a guest of Mrs. Bull. In a large part, the continuity of the Vedanta movement in America now rested in the hands of Mrs. Ole Bull. It was on her suggestion that Swami Saradananda had come to America. It was summer, and the focus of activities had shifted from the city to Mrs. Bull's Greenacre Conference in Maine and this was where on July 7th, 1896, Swami Saradananda delivered his first lecture. If Vivekananda had some doubt on the impact of Saradananda, of whom he had once written--- ". . . always dreamy and gentle and sweet !", it was this same personality that did very well here in America. "His very presence tended to bring peace", writes Burke. As for his lecture, the subject on July 7 was "The Vedanta Philosophy" and, according to Burke "he passed his first test in America with flying colors".[20] After a successful Greenacre, Swami Saradananda continued to reside in Cambridge at the home of Mrs. Bull. Meanwhile the young Society in New York continued without a Swami until December of that year. It was also in October, 1896, that Swami Saradananda delivered his first lecture in New York before the Brooklyn Ethical Association, for which preparations were made by Dr. Lewis Janes. Swami Saradananda began his classes in New York in his room at 509 Fifth Avenue, above Forty-Second Street. When the room over-flowed, the landlord allowed the class to move to a ground floor hall---the New Century hall---where the Swami also held Sunday morning lectures. He was delivering six lectures a week! According to Burke, "for the remainder of the year he moved, unperturbed, between New York, Greenacre, and Cambridge."[21] The Vedanta Society of New York, like any new organization, was going through a phase of adjustment, and the Society now received one more brother-disciple of Vivekananda and Saradananda. As Saradananda prepared to leave, Swami Abhedananda had arrived in August 1897, and it was left upon him to continue the work of Vedanta in the West.
On his arrival in New York in the August of 1897, Swami Abhedananda began classes and to carry the work forward after an initial period of travel and touring. For him, this was a period to reestablish contacts with friends of both the Society and of Swami Vivekananda himself. It was also during this time that along with Saradananda, he visited and met with the inventor Edison in his laboratory. When Swami Saradananda arrived in New York on January 8, 1898 on the eve of his departure to India, the address of the yet temporary home of the Society was listed as 170 Lexington Avenue. (There is some doubt on the address 170; according to an alternative source this is probably 117)(22)
It was on February 21, 1898, in the premises of the Lexington Street address of the
Society, that the West witnessed the birth of a new tradition. The Society celebrated the first
birthday celebration of Sri Ramakrishna, the architect of the modem
Vedanta movement and spiritual master of Swami Vivekananda and his brother disciples. It was a
small and somber event, marked by an informal discussion on the life of Sri Ramakrishna by
Swami Abhedananda, after a morning of fasting and meditation. Between the period
September 29, 1897 to April 30, 1898, Abhedananda delivered eighty-six lectures.
Swami Abhedananda worked with a true missionary zeal, and made full use of the
opportunities that had been initiated by his dynamic leader, Vivekananda. His prolific speeches,
informal talks, public appearances that ranged from leading universities to religious institutions,
his scholarship, his personality and writings soon began to flower. Difficult as it is to muster the
attention of a public once enthralled by such a towering giant as Vivekananda, Abhedananda did
not miss a step. It was left to Abhedananda to manifest and concretize the many ideas seeded by
Swami Vivekananda into a shape that would provide a solid foundation of Vedanta in the New
World. He met the challenge head on.
To continue the work in America, Swami Abhedananda now found it necessary, for both
financial and legal reasons, to incorporate the New York Vedanta Society under the laws of the
State of New York. The Vedanta Society was formally established on October 28,1898. Yet, there
was no permanent house for his work in New York, and Swami Abhedananda had to live and
hold classes in rented houses and apartments, and for public lectures rented bigger halls in the
city.
Testimony to his organizational tact was the convincing of Mr. Francis Leggett to agree to
become the President of the Society on its formal registration".[23] With a man of the social stature
of Mr., Leggett as President, Abhedananda removed what was getting to be a serious problem to
him, renting of suitable halls and property in the name of the yet fledgling Society. Real estate
owners in New York were choosy and often denied renting of quality property to a new and
strange name as "Vedanta Society". With Mr. Leggett as President, Abhedananda
was able to rent the spacious Assembly Hall, at 109 East 22nd. Street. It was from here that he
delivered to an audience of 153 listeners, his first lecture "What is Vedanta", which is
historically the first official lecture under the auspices of the newly incorporated Society.
Meanwhile in India the "prophet" of Vedanta had established his Indian movement
through the Belur Math and Mission. However, the immense ordeal he
had undergone, in West and East, had taken its toll. His health was completely broken. On the
advice of his doctors and friends, Vivekananda returned to America via England on August 28, 1899,
with another of his brother-disciples, Swami Turiyananda. On arriving in New York,
he proceeded directly to Ridgely Manor, as the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Leggett, brother-in-law of
Vivekananda's life-long friend, Josephine MacLeod, Mr. Francis Leggett was also at the time the President
of the New York Vedanta Society.
At the time Swamiji arrived back in New York from Ridgely on November 7, 1899, the
Vedanta Society occupied, according to Burke ". . .'a spacious parlor floor' of a narrow,
four-story house at 146 East Fifty-Fifth Street (between Lexington and Third Avenues) and
constituted the first permanent Vedanta Headquarters in New York."[24] Formally opened on October
15, 1899, this Center had a library, weekday lectures, classes and private interviews were held
regularly, and had a regular meditation hour. For the Sunday lectures, however, where attendance
numbered around three hundred, Swami Abhedananda lectured in a rented public hall.
Vivekananda stayed in New York at this time for two weeks, mostly residing at the New York residence
of the Leggetts and his old friend Dr. Guernsey who was also his physician at the time. Describing his
stay during this period, the New Discoveries writes, "He often came to the Society's headquarters; he
held question-and-answer classes at the regular weekly meetings; he came also at other times to talk
informally to the enthralled students (among whom would have been the poetess Ella Wheeler Wilcox . . . )."
[25] However, two weeks later he decided suddenly to move to California. And with him, the American
movement extended to the West Coast.
Back in New York, the new Swami, Turiyananda, moved to New Jersey and staying at the Wheelers residence
at MontClair, continued the task of teaching and assisting Swami Abhedananda at New York, until he too
was called by Vivekananda to continue the work in California.
In New York, meanwhile, by April 1900, Swami Abhedananda had opened a membership roll for the New York
Society and for the first time the Society had regular members. We recall that since its beginning the
Vedanta Society had no membership, only office bearers. The opening of a membership roll had one immediate
effect, it raised its funds, and now for the first time, the Society was able to rent an entire house for
its headquarters. "In April or early May", writes the New Discoveries, "the Society had. . .moved from
its rooms at 146 East Fifty-Fifth Street to a modest four-story house at 102 East Fifty-Eighth Street,
just off Park Avenue."[26] And it was to this address that Swami Vivekananda arrived on June 7,1900, when
he returned to New York once more, on his way back to India after his trip to the West Coast.
It was a milepost in the history of the New York Vedanta Society. As described by Burke":
Indeed it was a joyous occasion. This was a momentous occasion in the lives of the few ardent workers and
friends of the Society that had worked with him through more than one trying circumstance from his first
lecture at the Waldorf Hotel in April, 1894. This was his last visit to the West. But the message he had
come to deliver to the West was given. The New York Vedanta Society was now thriving and he had established
a second Vedanta Society in Northern California. Vedanta was in the West to stay.
Of his life in this last phase of his stay in New York we see very little except for a few brief glimpses
of him mainly through the personal diary of Swami Abhedananda. It is known that accompanied by Swami
Abhedananda he had spent a whole day at the Bronx Zoo. We see a leisurely afternoon at Coney Island with
his brother-disciple, Swami Turiyananda.
One event of historical interest during this stay was the story of how, in an informal sitting at a breakfast
table he sketched in the back of an envelope, a design of an emblem that was to become the official seal of
the Ramakrishna Order. Writing of this event in later years, Sister Devamata---as we have seen, then Laura
Glenn---describes:[27]
Later, on his return to India, Swamiji explained the significance of the design to the artist Ranadaprasad
Das Gupta: "The wavy waters in the picture are symbolic of
Karma, the lotus, of
Bhakti; and the rising-sun, of
Jnana; The encircling serpent is indicative of
Yoga and the awakened
Kundalini
Shakti, while the swan in the picture stands for
the Paramatma (Supreme Self). Therefore, the
idea of the picture is that by the union of Karma, Jnana, Bhakti, and Yoga, the
vision of the Paramatman is obtained.[28]
On July 26,1900, he bade farewell and departed for India. In India, overcome by exhaustion and sickness he passed
away suddenly on July 4, 1902.
We have already noted the success of Swami Abhedananda in New York. "By 1901", writes Swami Gambhirananda,
"the lectures of Swami Abhedananda became so popular that the audience rose to six hundred at times. In addition
there were the classes on Raja Yoga and other subjects. From 1902 onward, he also
began to pay occasional visits to England and the Continent. Besides, he opened classes for children, in which
he was helped for a time by Swami Turiyananda.[29] In April, 1905, the Society began publication of its own
journal, the Vedanta Monthly Bulletin. At the time, the address of the Society was listed as 62 West 71st.
Street. By 1906 the increasing flow of books and pamphlets published by the New York Vedanta Society had
reached 50,000.[30]
The expanded scale of work at this time required further assistance and the authorities of Belur Math sent as
his assistant Swami Nirmalananda, who arrived in New York on November 25, 1903. A Vedanta
Center was opened in Brooklyn on January 30, 1905 under the new Swami and he lived there without gaining any
noteworthy success until called back to India in January, 1906. A second short-lived Center was opened in Washington, D.C. in early 1905
following a visit by Abhedananda. In April 1906, Swami Bodhananda, a direct disciple of Swami
Vivekananda, arrived as assistant to continue the work in New York as Swami Abhedananda left for a trip to India,
the first since he had left Indian soil in the September of 1896 when he came to England.
Swami Abhedananda returned to America in November, 1906, accompanied by another of Vivekananda's direct disciples
and a brother-disciple of Swami Bodhananda, Swami Paramananda. Shortly, on March 2, 1907 the
Vedanta Society of New York acquired with a loan that was to be gradually paid off, its first truly permanent home
at 135 West Eightieth Street.[31] Swami Abhedananda also purchased a 370 acres farm-house in Berkshire, amidst the
scenic beauty of Connecticut to serve as a long wished for retreat for Vedanta students. While in January of that
same year, with two assistants now available, a Center was established in Pittsburgh and Swami Bodhananda left New
York to take charge of the new Center.
The trials and tribulations of the past decade, the intense life and work of Abhedananda, and the commitment of a
band of faithful members finally bore fruit and created in the New York Vedanta Society a centare of global
dimensions. From here was broadcast the new message of modern Vedanta, not just to America, but also to Europe.
Swami Abhedananda carried the torch of Vedanta, that Vivekananda had lit, to the heart of the West. Washington,
London, and Paris, three capitals of the modern world, were connected by one common cord, the New York Vedanta
Society. The Center on the West Coast was more attuned to functioning as centers with a focus more to the needs
of the local regions. Here in New York, with leading scholars and renowned ecumenical leaders on its roll of
members and honorary members, it not only served as the inspirational headquarters for numerous groups of
Americans interested in Vedanta all over the United States, and as we have seen, generated the formation of even
branch honorary, but also as the headquarters of Swami Abhedananda's profuse publications. Almost, one may say,
New York became the Western world's most well known honourary of Vedanta.
And now, just about when it appeared that the Society had finally found a sure footing, there came a dramatic turn
of events. Abhedananda's apostolic intellectual approach conflicted directly with the needs for personal attention
of the members. In contrast to a "dry intellectual" approach, the new young Swami Paramananda offered a more
traditional "Master-Disciple" attitude and provided an opportunity for personal intimacy that Swami Abhedananda's
more missionary zeal did not permit. In 1909 Swami Paramananda left New York to take charge of a new honourary that
had now started in Boston.
Unfortunately other new problems also began to take shape. During a somewhat extended tour in Europe by Abhedananda,
the financial base of the Society began to decline, the principal cause being a fall in attendance following the
Swami's absence. Increasingly, Swami Abhedananda's quickly growing role as world teacher, following his success in
Europe and America, began to come in conflict with the more immediate and near term demands and issues of a Society
and its membership.
It was in May of 1910, that Swami Abhedananda decided to leave the New York Society permanently. The Vedanta Society
was in some difficulty. The initial membership had fallen, and it could not bear the financial strain of making
regular payments on the loan it had taken to acquire its home. The Society was forced to let out on rent most of the
rooms in the building.
It was under such strenuous circumstances that Swami Bodhananda closed down the Pittsburgh honourary in October of 1912
and returned to take full charge of the New York Society. For all of forty years, Swami Bodhananda, assisted
periodically by younger Swamis sent from India, struggled in a renewed pioneering effort to sustain the work of the
mission of Vedanta in the New World. He was also the first Indian monk of the second generation to take charge of the
Society.
The burden of supporting a world-wide or for that matter a nation-wide apostolic mission for Vedanta was too much
for the financial state of the Society at the time when Swami Bodhananda took charge. The young Swami was, as
mentioned previously, a direct disciple of Vivekananda. In meeting this task, he proved his mettle as a fitting
disciple of the renowned Swami. On the one hand, he faced the heavy odds of an almost floundering Society. On the
other, membership was at an all time low. At the turn of the century, the search for spirituality had been a popular
theme in the living of a successful American life. In twenty years however, the emergence of new technologies, cars,
planes, and factories on an unprecedented scale that preceded the American economy in the pre-First World War days
had led to a radically changed popular view of life.
The changing demography of America as a whole, an America that now equated good with quick results, was evolving
rapidly to earn its place in history as a "materialistic" Society and all its related value systems. In the course
of the last two decades, the mass-mind had reasoned out that for easy-come easy-go materialistic motives, Vedanta
offered no easy solution. It was a time when even traditional Christian missionaries struggled to keep afloat. The
challenge for the new Swami was thus immense.
Fiscal realities required the giving up of the former Eightieth Street home of the Society in the June of 1915.
The Society moved to a new location, 236 Central Park West.[32] From here, Swami Bodhananda slowly and relentlessly
battled his way against a bustling New York to live an intense life of spirituality, almost offering a lone challenge
to the opposing forces of a New York Society that would have crushed any weaker person. In stark contrast to Swami
Abhedananda, he traveled very little, and stood as a rock, focusing intently on re-building a small committed group
of devotees. His meditative, simple personality helped to a large degree in withstanding the trials of the times.
Swami Bodhananda knew the problem was more than one of mere membership rolls. Clearly, while members in large
numbers can be brought together by apostolic dynamism, "earnest" members are few and far between. The very survival
of the Society was at stake and the struggling Society desperately needed a "committed membership". Such commitment
usually requires a close relation with an exemplary life that can inspire and bring out the best in individuals. And
such a life was provided by Swami Bodhananda's sincere, simple, and pure monastic life.
Swami Bodhananda did not surely have the oratorical powers of his Guru, Swami Vivekananda or the apostolicism of
his predecessor, Swami Abhedananda. His was the introspective, spiritual life, a life that lived quietly, almost
unobtrusively, and yet one that did not fail to create an impact on those around him. Swami Bodhananda's simple
living, his intense spiritual personality, and unswerving efforts to teach the message of Vivekananda inspired the
American heart. The hard work soon bore fruit.
His love and his inspiration brought to the Society a small but dedicated group of workers who have devoted their
lives to the services of the honourary for almost for a full half-century. It was during his leadership, in 1921,[33]
through a gift from one of his students, Miss Mary Morton, daughter of Levi P. Morton, ex-Governor of New York and
who also had served as Vice President of the United States during the term of President Benjamin Harrison
(1888-1892), that the Vedanta Society finally purchased outright a spacious house half a block from Central Park.
With ample space for an auditorium and a new chapel, the Vedanta Society of New York now moved to its present
location at 34 West Seventy First Street. The first established Vedanta Society in the World finally had its own
permanent home. The magnitude of the implication of this gift is more clearly understood when viewed in the
background of a membership roll that had declined from 200 in 1906 to 50 in 1926. She told Bodhananda, "Your
teaching is too high to attract a large public."
The Vedanta Society now entered yet another new and important phase in the many roles it has played during the
last century. It has provided one of the first complete libraries of Hinduism and Vedanta Literature in America,
it has served as a major library and publication house of Vedanta literature in the West, it has been the
headquarters of Vedanta as a global movement, to both America and Europe. Now it began to serve as a training
ground for new Indian Swamis posted to serve as monastic leaders to the West. The New York Vedanta Society
received a train of young Swamis from India, who after an initial period of training through assisting Swami
Bodhananda, spread out to other parts of the country to establish and expand the mission of Vedanta.
Swami Raghavananda arrived in June, 1923 and assisted Bodhananda, while at the same time
developing Vedanta in Philadelphia. Ill health forced him however to return to India in 1927.
Swami Gnaneshwarananda, a disciple of Swami Brahmananda, came to New York in 1927. After
two years, he left for Chicago where he was to start a new Vedanta Center. Also in 1927, Swami Bodhananda, on
the request of Swami Paramananda, even while struggling with the task of guiding the Society through its difficult
days, found time to nurse and take care of the young Swami Akhilananda, whose health had
deteriorated while in Boston. In the meantime Swami Devatmananda who had arrived at New
York worked here until 1932 when he moved over to the West coast to finally work at the Portland Center.
In 1931 came Swami Nikhilananda, a direct disciple of the "Holy Mother" and one who had
received his monastic vows from Swami Saradananda. Swami Bodhananda had decided to hand over his charge to him
and retire. Young Swami Nikhilananda was a dynamic speaker and writer. The prevailing mood of the Center, some
fifteen years after the trials and tribulations of the early part of the century, was gradually changing again.
Once more the pressures of dynamic apostolicism and intellectual approaches came in direct conflict with the
established personal, introspective and close relationships that had helped the banding together in the tough
times of a few devoted members and had steered the Society out of veritable "disaster".
The enthusiasm of the new Swami, and his talent was however too much to restrain and, although he had actually
taken charge of the New York Society for about a year, Swami Bodhananda was forced to come out of retirement and
resume leadership. Swami Nikhilananda was motivated by a following of his own to form a second Center in New York.
He founded the Ramakrishna-Viveka Centre in 1933 at 200 West Fifty Seventh Street which later moved to its present
location just off of Fifth Avenue in 1939. Meanwhile the Vedanta movement started in California by Vivekananda
himself took a firm footing in San Francisco by the efforts of his brother disciples, Swamis Turiyananda and
Trigunatitananda. Other Centers had also begun to grow and expand in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle,
St. Louis, and Portland.
But here in New York, at the first Vedanta Society, the war years, and the great "American depression" was taking
its toll. However, despite many trials and tribulations, notwithstanding a declining health, Swami Bodhananda ,
working closely with a small and intimate group of devotees, among whom were the Genêt sisters---Jeanne and
Rolande from French-Canada---continued with a Herculean determination to discharge his duties. After a long, silent
yet steady and untiring effort for forty-four years since his arrival, broken only by a single visit to India in
1923, Swami Bodhananda passed away in New York on 18th. May, 1950. Perhaps it was also an end of an era. The Society
had come a long way from its first tentative existence to its present level of maturity.
Swami Pavitrananda arrived in New York in February, 1951, to assume charge of the Society.
Preceding his arrival, for a brief period the classes of the Society were maintained under the President Abraham
Reiger and Secretary Delia Stebbins. Swami Pavitrananda served as spiritual leader of the Vedanta Society of New
York for twenty-six years until he passed away following an extended illness at 81 years of age on November 18,1977.
The new Swami steadfastly continued all of the routines and traditions that had been followed for the past fifty
years since Vedanta had first come to America. There was a regular schedule of Sunday public lectures, Tuesday
night general classes with question-and-answer periods, and other evenings of library sessions, the latter
primarily for the members. Concurrent to his work at the Society, for a number of his latter years, Swami
Pavitrananda was also a member of the governing body of the Ramakrishna Mission---the Executive Board of the
organization. Indeed this was a highly productive period, and his life, as later recalled by a devotee, "it was
a remarkably creative outpouring of inspiration and guidance." Among his writings are the books "Common Sense
About Yoga" and "Modem Man in Search of Religion".
When Swami Pavitrananda began his work, membership at the Stabbing hovered around the sixty mark; and the annual
budget was in the vicinity of nine or ten thousand dollars, with occasional special appeals and fundraising drives
for special projects such as improvements to the building. It was during his charge that the original dark and
musty chapel in the Society's building was completely overhauled. Swami Pavitrananda made one visit to India and
regular summer visits to the west coast Centers.
Following the tradition of the Vedanta Center from its humble beginnings since the time of Swami Abhedananda, the
Society continued to celebrate the birth anniversaries of Shri Ramakrishna and Sri Sarada Devi, the Holy Mother.
In 1953, the society celebrated the Birth Centenary of the Holy Mother and the meeting was a great success. In the
meantime, the Society had also steadily grown in the general community and classes of Comparative Religion from
New York University visited Center by special arrangement to hear talks on Hinduism. The N.Y. Times and the Herald
Tribune published reports on the Vedanta Society and the Ramakrishna Order in India.
Swami Pavitrananda was most generous and seemingly tireless in accepting invitations to address groups even outside
of the Vedanta Center. Invitations came from area Colleges, Universities, Churches, and many other institutions
involved and interested in the study of Vedanta. In addition to himself accepting such invitations to speak to other
groups, he in turn frequently invited guest speakers at the society. They came from all walks of life, and included
such names as Norman Cousins, editor of the Saturday Review, Gertrude Emerson Sen, historian and journalist, well
known scientist, Professor Harlow Shapely, and Rabbi Asher Block.
In 1962, the Center started a new tradition, the celebration of the life and works of Swami Vivekananda on the Fourth
of July and since its inception has been held every year at Moss Hill Farms in upstate New York. Swamis from other
Vedanta CENTER in America have also attended the program as their time and opportunities permitted. In fact, visits
and guest talks from Swamis at other Centers both from America, overseas, and including India now became an
integral part of the Center. These visits culminated in long term friendships with many Swamis across the world and
America.
In 1971, through the Swami's initiative and the diligent efforts of Courtney Olden, a senior office-bearer of the
Vedanta Society, the Society property was successfully placed under legal "church status" as regards exemption from
taxes. Swami Pavitrananda was also able to muster a generous response from members of the Society for special
projects, such as renovations, rebuilding of the Library, repairs and furnishings of the Society's rooms, etc.,
all of which required expenses beyond the routine budget. Through such gifts and generous donations, the Society
enjoys today a completely remodeled living room, library, a chapel, and a floral fund.
On November 18,1977, Swami Pavitrananda passed away and his body was taken first to a nearby funeral home, and then
on the following day to a crematorium in New Jersey, where several Swamis chanted verses from the Upanishads.
Subsequently, a member conveyed the ashes to headquarters at Belur, India, where they were consigned to the Ganges
with due ceremony in the presence of senior Swamis of the Ramakrishna Order. A memorial service was held in the
Society chapel on December 1, a thirteen day span later. Nine Swamis from all over the United States, as well as a
minister and a rabbi attended. Looking back at his life, the December, 1977, issue of the
Prabuddha Bharata wrote: [34]
With his declining health, Swami Pavitrananda realized the need for an assistant and soon, Belur Math, the
Center in India established by Swami Vivekananda himself as the World headquarters of the Ramakrishna Mission,
sent to New York in 1977, Swami Tathagatananda.
Swami Tathagatananda, a disciple of Swami Virajananda---who was a direct disciple of Swami Vivekananda, the very
founder of the Society---began serving as assistant, and after the passing away of Swami Pavitrananda, now serves
as the present monastic leader of the Society. Swami Tathagatananda continues the rich tradition of the Society
in public work. The public work continued by him throughout the year for the past seventeen years is a tight
schedule of Sunday morning services at 11:00 and lectures and classes during the week, each Tuesday and Friday
evening for most of the year.
In keeping with the Society's historical role of publishing, a prolific writer, the Swami continues to publish
valuable contributions to Vedantic literature (please see booklist below). As the Center
celebrates its first century since its modest establishment in 1894, the primary focus of the New York Vedanta
Society still continues to be the development along Vedantic principles the lifestyle of its committed members.
Epilogue
An attempt has been made in the preceding pages to document the history of the founding and development of the
first Vedanta Mission in the world outside of India, the Vedanta Society of New York. There has been little attempt
to discuss the philosophical and ecumenical development of the movement, either in retrospect or with a view to
future needs and directions. Although to many these are an integral aspect of a history, it is intended that this
edition serve as a background to such studies rather than undertake the task in itself. The principal object of this
study is to document a century of important events, names, and places that have shaped the course of Vedanta in the
West, particularly those that have originated in New York, the focus of the early movement in America. The historical
study of the predominant forces in the movement, the analysis of the important conflicts and agreements, and
evaluation of the present and future directions of the movements forms yet another chapter for the future
researcher.
Books by Swami Tathagatananda:
You can order these books from The Vedanta Society of New York.
Other books on Vedanta can be purchased from any Vedanta Center.
Please check out our Lecture and Class Schedules.
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