Vedanta for the Western World
VEDANTA FOR THE WESTERN WORLD edited and with an introduction by novelist Christopher Isherwood was reviewed by Denver Lindley. Isherwood had a deep interest in Vedanta, the Hindu religious philosophy that taught that everything was part of a single immortal absolute and that our concept of material reality and a separate self were illusions that needed to be overcome. The Ramakrishna-Vivekananda order, which Isherwood followed, has a more pragmatic and universal approach. It teaches that the material world has a relative reality and that individuals have duties to fulfill within it, although one should resist too much emotional involvement in these activities. Despite its spiritual emphasis, many of its most famous adherents were quite worldly.
Vivekananda taught that all religions are a search for the ultimate truth and should be tolerant of each other. Devotees practice meditation as the ultimate path to enlightenment. While the core principal of Vedanta is the belief that God is a formless absolute that encompasses everything and everyone, Vivekananda's disciples teach that meditation on a God with personal attributes and form is an allowable first step that is easier for most people to comprehend and practice, a personal God being a metaphor rather than a literal reality.
Vedanta For the Western World was a collection of short essays by swamis of the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda order as well as English and American writers such as Aldous Huxley, the playwright John Van Druten and Isherwood. Lindley wrote that the “quality of the contributions varies widely” but felt that for “the Western reader interested in the universal aspects of Indian thought from its highest to its simplest expression, this is a lively and well-balanced introduction.” In Print.
In 1946, British-born Christopher Isherwood was living in Southern California. He became an American citizen that year. Known for his Berlin Stories, he had published the novel Prater Violet to critical acclaim at the end of 1945. Lindley was an editor at Henry Holt & Co, who had translated Erich Maria Remarque's Arch of Triumph, sitting that week at the top of the fiction best sellerlist, as well as works by Thomas Mann and others.