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Swami Vivekananda is extensively thought of the person who introduced yoga to America. Many pinpoint this precise second: his opening phrases of handle to the group on the Chicago World Honest in 1893.
The Chicago World’s Honest celebrated the four-hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival within the New World and demonstrated Chicago’s resurgence following the Nice Chicago Fireplace. Town showcased US artwork, tradition, business, and structure in an exposition overlaying virtually three sq. kilometers and 200 short-term buildings.
Between Could and October of 1893, 27 million folks attended the present, however one particular person was liable for bringing yoga from India to the folks of America.
Swami Vivekananda will need to have stood out in his turban and easy apparel, but it surely was his phrases that might be remembered for the following 130 years and the inclusiveness and tolerance of his speech, inspiring curiosity about him, Hinduism, and the follow of yoga.
Having mentioned that, many individuals and elements had been concerned in yoga’s epic journey from historic India to the modern-day Western world, and particularly, America. Many academics helped take yoga via numerous iterations to the place we at the moment are.
Key gamers with out whom the story can be incomplete embody Indra Devi, Yogendra, Swami Kuvalayananda, and BKS Iyengar.
There was additionally an attention-grabbing precedent of American intellectuals ruminating on Jap philosophies earlier than the looks of yoga. In plain phrases, Ralph Waldo Emerson and David Thoreau developed their concepts on transcendentalism by combining European philosophical custom with Hindu philosophy from the Upanishads.
Right this moment, nonetheless, we are going to concentrate on Swami Vivekananda’s function within the unfold of yoga to the West.
The Path of Swami Vivekananda
Early Life
Swami Vivekananda, born Narendra Nath Datta on January 12, 1863, was a part of an prosperous household because the son of a profitable legal professional. Sadly, the loss of life of his father left the family with out funds. His non secular chief Sri Ramakrishna handed away across the identical time, which ushered the younger man right into a monastic life. He let go of his delivery title to reside as an ascetic and assumed the title Swami Vivekananda.
Transformation By way of Yoga
Swami traveled extensively all through India, witnessing the acute poverty and neglect of the lots, which impressed him to assist them via training and spreading the teachings of his late grasp Ramakrishna.
To proceed Ramakrishna’s work, Vivekananda based the Ramakrishna Mission, which fulfilled the necessity for an entity to assist “carry the noblest concepts to the doorstep of even the poorest and the meanest.”
Inspired by his friends, Vivekananda visited the US from India in 1893 to assemble assist for his venture to empower and uplift the poor lots via training and non secular teachings.
Introducing Yoga to the US
What many take into account the delivery of contemporary yoga started with a number of lectures by Vivekananda on the Chicago World Parliament of Religions, an interfaith convention that was held throughout the Chicago World’s Honest in 1893.
His opening phrases had been: “Sisters and brothers of America,” for which he earned a standing ovation. His speech is famend for its name for spiritual tolerance. He went on to introduce the viewers to yoga as a non secular follow, far faraway from in the present day’s predominant picture of figure-hugging, gravity-defying yoga.
Vivekananda’s yoga was a yoga with out postures. He rejected asanas and hatha yoga, reportedly referring to the latter as “gymnastics” and “queer respiration workout routines.” As a substitute, he spoke about yoga when it comes to psychology, philosophy, and self-improvement.
Initially, yoga’s focus was on the physique, thoughts, emotion, and power. The ‘asana’ follow was a minor a part of yoga. Many Indian yoga academics even stored asanas in poor regard. Right this moment’s postural reputation is due partially to the simultaneous rise of the significance of bodily health in late twentieth century Europe and North America.
Whereas Vivenakananda didn’t intend to popularize asana follow, he was nonetheless a catalyst in disseminating curiosity in yoga throughout the US, constructing on the rising mental curiosity concerning Jap spirituality.
Vivekananda’s Raja Yoga
Three years later, in 1896, Swami printed Raja Yoga, his interpretation of Patanjali’s second-century CE Yoga Sutras for a Western viewers, through which he describes the aim of meditation as self-control, calming the thoughts and turning psychological and bodily power into non secular power. With out mantras or rituals, raja yoga is taken into account a sensible and scientific strategy to yoga and meditation.
Thus, Vivekananda continued to show pranayama, meditation, and the thought of constructive pondering. His strategy struck a chord with the American New Thought motion within the nineteenth century, which posits that sickness originates in and could be healed by the thoughts.
In any case, not solely did Vivekananda carry yoga to the West, however he additionally paved the way in which for different South Asian academics to come back.
Within the early days of Western yoga, the follow was typically thought of one thing mystical and even magical. Vivekenanda’s easy and scientific strategy contributed to the extra measured understanding of yoga, which contributed to its widespread adoption within the West in the present day.
Though fashionable yogis could also be overwhelmed by a concentrate on the bodily postures or asanas, Western yoga just isn’t completely divorced from the trail that may unify the physique, thoughts, neighborhood, and the pure world.
Whether or not you come to yoga for non secular, psychological, or bodily causes, it doesn’t imply that’s the way you keep in yoga. In different phrases, the elements inevitably seep into your follow and even your life off the mat. Vivekanda’s contribution has assured that regardless of the various iterations yoga has gone via, there are nonetheless many people, academics, and teams working to make sure its non secular thread just isn’t misplaced.
