Vedanta Comes To America

“Truth is One. Sages call it by various names."

-Rig Veda

Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) demonstrated the moral and spiritual excellence of India's religious culture as a representative at the Parliament of the World's Religions, held in Chicago in September of 1893. His opening invocation to "Sisters and brothers of America" brought thousands to their feet with vibrant applause. He later wrote to a brother disciple:

Without shakti Power there is no regeneration for the world. Mother has been born to revive that wonderful Shakti in India; and making Her the nucleus, once more will Gargis and Maitreyis be born into the world...

(Letters of Swami Vivekananda. Advaita Ashrama, Mayavati. 1993. page 181.)

Pilgrimage to America

During his two visits to the United States from 1893 until 1896 and from 1899 until 1900, Swami Vivekananda traveled the length and breadth of this land giving talks, lectures, and classes everywhere. On one occasion, he declared,

“I do not come to convert you to a new belief; I want to make the Methodist a better Methodist; the Presbyterian a better Presbyterian; the Unitarian a better Unitarian. I want to teach you to live the truth, to reveal the light within your own soul.”

The travels of Swami Vivekananda in America and Europe have been recorded in the "Chronology of Swami Vivekananda in the West" compiled by Terrance D Hohner and Corlyn B. Kenny, published by Vedanta Society of New York, 2014.

Swami Vivekananda later declared “I have a message for the West as Buddha had a message for the East.”

Lasting Impact on the West

One hundred years after the first Parliament, several Vedanta women, including current members of the Sri Sarada Mahila Samiti, attended the second Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago in 1993. They were inspired by the talks of the three representatives of Sri Sarada Math including: Revered Pravrajika Amalaprana, the then-current General Secretary; Revered Pravrajika Vivekaprana, the current head of the Retreat Center of the Ramakrishna Sarada Mission at Pangot, India and author of The Understanding Vedanta series; and Pravrajika Prabuddhaprana of Sri Sarada Math headquarters in Kolkata, and author of numerous books including the disciples of Swami Vivekananda.

Pravrajika Vivekaprana wrote: 

It is Swami Vivekananda who gave women the encouragement or the impetus to break this final barrier of being controlled by external nature. He had tremendous faith not only in the women of India but in women all over the world and he believed that the next revolution has to come through women, because this half or more of humanity has never exercised the right to set the problems of this world in order.... He further believed that in India particularly, if society had to rise out of this condition of degradation, it is the women who have to realize their power. He paid special respect to the mother because she is the first educator. She is the only one who can give to humanity its lost pride. Swamiji entertained a dream that the women of India would rise to this great height and educate society. Keeping this in mind, he lectured in this land [America] with the aim of gathering funds to build a spiritual organization for women.
(Pravrajika Vivekaprana. "Vivekananda on Women". Samvit. September 1994. pages 19, 20)