American Veda: from Emerson and the Beatles to yoga and meditation : how Indian spirituality changed the West

Traces the history and influence of Indian spirituality in the United States while explaining how Hinduism and Vedic tradition have shaped American practices, ranging from prayer and pop culture to relationships and meditation.

User reviews

LibraryThing member aulsmith

Goldberg says in the introduction that he's no academic (true) and that he's tried to approach the material as a good journalist. What he doesn't say is that he's a true believer who is going to interpret all the data he finds in the most positive light for it being related to the Indian Vedanta

tradition. In doing this he leaves out or ignores vasts amounts of information from Zoroastrianism to the foibles of Madame Blavatsky. If you want an unbiased account of the influence of Indian philosophy on the West, look elsewhere.

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LibraryThing member Mr.Durick

Some of the people who have thought most closely about relating to what is ultimate and important are the Hindus (although that may be a misnomer). Several of them have brought their findings to America, and the history of their reception can be interesting.

The history of their reception is the

subject of the book American Veda by Philip Goldberg. It touches only lightly on the thinking. I have heard a lot of names over the years even having sought and read The Autobiography of a Yogi in my young adult days when one had to chase it down. In the recent documentary about Paramahansa Yogananda Goldberg was cited a few times, so I chased down his book, an almost instantaneous chase with the internet.

To get two hundred years into fewer than 400 pages requires some thinning, but I still think that there is a solid survey here. The author does not grind any axes, and you can see in it how the problem the Transcendentalists faced about whether to restructure the interior or do justice in the exterior has impacted the reception of the Indian message in America. It starts with Emerson and runs through some of the less obvious diversions like Unity and Religious Science. But it concentrates on the people bringing the Vedas even as it recognizes the secularization of asanas and meditation.

I think I got quite a bit out of this book.

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LibraryThing member danoomistmatiste

After more than a 100 years of contact with Vedanta and Indian spiritualism, starting with Vivekananda's address in 1893 in Chicago, it seems that it has penetrated the very core of American thinking. Here is an excerpt,

In five to thirty minutes from my home in Los Angeles, I can be at any of the

following: The Self-Realization Fellowship's lake shrine; the Sivananda Yoga-Vedanta Center; the Hare Krishna temple; Ananda L.A.; the Siddha Yoga Meditation Center; the Sri Aurobindo Center; the Universal Shaiva Fellowship; the Transcendental Meditation center; Radha Govinda Dham; classes Loyola Marymount's Yoga Philosophy Program; regular satsangs or study groups with devotees of Satya Sai Baba, Mata Amritanandamayi, Ramana Maharishi, Neem Karoli Baba, Swami Rudrananda, Adi Da Samraj, Ma Jaya Sati Bhagvati, Eckhart Tolle and Krishnamurti.

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