America's First Guru

[announcer] Major funding for "America's First Guru is provided in part by the Dharma Endowment Foundation, and by Sumir Chadha.

Additional funding is provided by these funders: More than 100 years ago, America welcomed a son of India, Swami Vivekananda, and he helped bring Hinduism and Yoga to our country.

And he came to my hometown of Chicago.

And there, at a great gathering of religious leaders, he spoke of his faith and the divinity in every soul, and the purity of love.

And he began his speech with a simple greeting: Sisters and brothers of America... ...sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth.

But their time is come.

And I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honor of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen.

[narrator] In 1893, America celebrated its Golden Age.

The World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago was designed to celebrate America's new status as a global superpower.

The exhibition was also host to the world's first Parliament of Religions.

At the same time, a young, unknown monk in India was getting ready.

Ready to initiate a revolution that would transform America.

A revolution for the American Soul.

[Vivekananda] I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world.

I thank you in the name of the mother of all religions.

I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance.

We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true.

[Phil Goldberg] They got a surprise.

They did not count on him stealing the show.

I always call him the Jackie Robinson of the penetration of Indian spirituality into America.

[Ruth Harris] And he comes in his orange turban and his scarlet suit, and he says, "We are not servile.

"We have a religion that is equal, "if not better, to yours because we are tolerant, we are open minded, we are diverse."

Not just East and the West, the past and the future met at that point.

A modern world was born.

History culminated to bring that point about, and from that point, again, it radiates out into the future.

My ideal, indeed, can be put into a few words, and that is to preach unto mankind their divinity, and how to make it manifest in every movement of life.

How does a guy show up in the West and becomes an absolute rock star?

You know, dazzles the likes of JD Rockefeller, William James, Nikola Tesla, Emma Calve the superstar opera singer, Sarah Bernhardt the greatest actress of her time, to becoming almost forgotten.

This is the man who introduced the concepts of Yoga and meditation to the West.

[Jeffery Long] He establishes the first Vedanta Society in New York in 1894.

And the Vedanta Society attracts, in addition to ordinary folks, some really incredibly talented artists, and intellectuals and thinkers.

People like Christopher Isherwood, Aldous Huxley, and then in succeeding generations, Huston Smith, JD Salinger and Joseph Campbell.

Just think about it, more than 100 years ago he was talking about the harmony of religions, when it was not at all in fashion to talk about that.

I think that the future of spirituality is what might be called Spiritual Cosmopolitanism.

Be open and receptive to all the different spiritual traditions in the world.

Try to learn from different spiritual traditions.

[narrator] No one had ever heard such ideas on a public stage in America.

Swami Vivekananda taught Americans that everyone had a spark of divinity.

He taught them that all religions were true, because they all led to the same ultimate truth.

He showed us that there was a divine spark within each of us and it was a reflection of that very consciousness from which the whole universe arose.

He changed the way Americans saw themselves, and the way the world saw India forever.

This is the story of America's First Guru.

[native singing] [narrator] Swami Vivekananda was born on the 12th of January 1863 in Calcutta, the capital of British India.

He was named Narendranath Datta to become a ruler of men.

His father Vishwanath was a lawyer in the Calcutta High Court.

To my father, I owe my intellect and my compassion.

And when I asked him, "Father, what are you going to leave me?"

he happily replied, "Go, stand before your mirror, and you will see what I leave you."

[narrator] His mother was deeply religious and gave her three children unconditional love and devotion.

[Swami Vivekananda] The mother is the God in our family.

The idea is that the only real love that we see in the world, the most unselfish love, is in the mother.

[narrator] While America was celebrating 100 years of independence, India was being crushed by British rule.

It was the Jewel in the Crown.

After the failed War of Independence of 1857, Calcutta had become the Capital, and by the 1860s Indians were being educated in English to serve their new masters.

This was the brainchild of Lord Macaulay.

[Macaulay] We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern.

A class of persons, Indian in blood and color but English in taste, in opinion, in morals and in intellect.

[narrator] An educated Indian elite emerged dreaming secretly of rights, liberty and independence.

Religion was evolving too.

Raja Ram Mohan Roy founded the Brahmo Samaj to foster a new kind of Hinduism in India, one grounded in ancient Vedic ideals but embracing the unitarian values of the West.

Raja Ram Mohan Roy was a wonderful example of unselfish work.

He devoted his whole life to helping India.

He cared nothing for fame or for results to himself.

[narrator] Everyone called him Naren, and despite being groomed to become a proper British Gentleman, he demonstrated a strong mystical bent.

[Vivekananda] Every night when I went to bed, two ideals of life appeared before me.

One of them was to be a man of great wealth, surrounded by servants and dependents and enjoying high rank and immense power.

But then, the very next moment, I would picture myself as having renounced everything in the world.

I was wearing nothing but a loincloth, eating without anxiety whatever food came my way, sleeping under a tree, and living in complete reliance on God's will.

[narrator] Naren spoke fluent English, was athletic, artistic, musically gifted, an orator, and had a photographic memory.

He loved swimming and wrestling.

At 17, he joined the prestigious Scottish Church College and his mentor was the Principal, William Hastie.

[William Hastie] Narendra is really a genius.

I have traveled far and wide, but I have never come across a lad of his talents and possibilities.

[narrator] He was being groomed to become a lawyer like his father and he became a Freemason to pursue those ideals further.

He came to believe that India needed to shape better, stronger and more idealistic men.

Swami Vivekananda very much had that devotion to truth and to rationality.

And of course, rationality was a big part of the Western discourse at that time.

[narrator] He joined the Brahmo Samaj under the leadership of the charismatic Keshab Chandra Sen whose vision was to cultivate a synthesis between Hinduism, Christianity and all religions.

One night I was meditating, when from the southern wall of that room a luminous figure stepped out and stood in front of me.

There was a wonderful radiance on its face, yet there seemed to be no play of emotion on it.

It was the figure of a Sannyasin, absolutely calm, shaven-headed, and staff and bowl in hand.

He gazed at me for some time and seemed as if he would address me.

I too gazed at him in speechless wonder.

[narrator] Once while teaching Wordsworth, William Hastie referred to a state of trance that can occur when contemplating the beauty of nature.

He said he had only ever seen one person who had experienced that blessed state of mind, Ramakrishna of Dakshineswar.

This ignited a spark in young Naren.

[Emmerson] I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad Geeta.

It was the first of books.

It was as if an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us.

[narrator] In the summer of 1845, Ralph Waldo Emmerson and his dear friend Henry David Thoreau discovered Indian Wisdom.

It strengthened their critique of rationalism and materialism and laid the foundations of what came to be known as Transcendentalism.

Following the brutal civil war, a renewed interest in spirituality gave rise to the Theosophical Society and the charismatic Madame Blavatsky who encouraged the study of India and its wisdom.

By the time the committee formed to organize the Parliament of Religions, America was ready to welcome Indian wisdom.

It just needed a wise and charismatic teacher.

[gong plays] [narrator] Ramakrishna was an illiterate Temple priest at Dakshineswar in the suburbs of Calcutta.

He was famous for his devotion to the Goddess Kali.

People came from all over India to see this holy man for it was said he could speak to his Goddess and enter into trance states called Samadhi.

On a November evening in 1881, Ramakrishna came to a musical evening in Calcutta and saw Naren for the first time.

Ramakrishna went into ecstatic bliss on hearing him sing and his adoration embarrassed the young man.

A few weeks later, curiosity propelled the young man to his future Guru.

He was just 17.

He asked Ramakrishna if he had seen God.

[Ramakrishna] I see Him as I see you here, only more clearly.

God can be seen.

One can talk to Him.

But who cares for God?

People shed torrents of tears for their wives, children, wealth, and property, but who weeps for the vision of God?

If one cries sincerely for God, one can surely see Him.

[narrator] Naren was drawn to this unusual mystic and kept coming to see him.

One day in the spring of 1882, he arrived unannounced.

I found him sitting, deep in meditation.

There was no one with him.

He was in an ecstatic mood.

He muttered something to himself that I couldn't understand, looked hard at me, and then arose and approached me.

I thought we were about to have another crazy scene.

Scarcely had that thought passed through my mind when he placed his right foot on my body.

Immediately I had a wondrous experience.

My eyes were wide open, and I saw that everything in the room, including the walls themselves, was rapidly whirling around me and receding.

At the same time, it seemed to me that my consciousness of self, together with the entire universe, was about to vanish into a vast, all-devouring void.

I cried out loudly, "What are you doing to me?

Don't you know I have parents at home?"

When the Master heard this, he gave a loud laugh.

Then he touched my chest with his hand and said, "All right, let it stop now.

"It needn't be done all at once.

It will happen in its own good time."

To my amazement, the extraordinary vision vanished as suddenly as it had come.

[narrator] Amused by all his questions, Ramakrishna offered the young man many mystical powers.

Naren refused.

[Vivekananda] Let me realize God first, and then I shall perhaps know whether or not I want supernatural powers.

If I accept them now, I may forget God, make selfish use of them, and thus come to grief.

[Jeffrey Long] He was the perfect messenger for someone like Sri Ramakrishna because Sri Ramakrishna in the West would have appeared utterly bizarre to most Westerners.

They would not have known how to approach such a figure.

[narrator] This experience changed everything.

He began to shed his old life and immersed himself completely on the mystical path.

Years later when he reflected upon this time he said... After all, I am only the boy who used to listen with rapt wonderment to the wonderful words of Sri Ramakrishna under the banyan at Dakshineswar.

[narrator] In 1884, his father suddenly died leaving the family destitute and almost homeless.

He tried to manage the legal battles to save their estate but things fell apart and the community had to care for them.

This was the tipping point.

The call to give up the material world and immerse himself in the mystical quest became irresistible.

By now, Ramakrishna had gathered a motley crew of devoted young men around him led by Naren.

But his health was failing with throat cancer.

He initiated the them into monastic life.

The Path of the Sanyasin.

They received a special saffron cloth to signify the color of purification and death, pledging to leave the material and sensory world behind.

They shaved their heads, and one by one they took initiation with a mantra from the Master.

This was the birth of the Ramakrishna Order of Monks that today are such a major part of Indian life.

On the evening of the 26th of August 1886, Ramakrishna left his body surrounded by his young monks.

We underwent a lot of religious practice at the Baranagar Math.

We used to get up at 3 am and become absorbed in japa and meditation.

What a strong spirit of detachment we had in those days!

We had no thought even as to whether the world existed or not.

[narrator] Naren decided that he would become a wandering monk and discover the true spirit of India.

He took the name Swami Satchitananda, or the one who always follows the path of truth, consciousness and bliss.

In 1890 he left Calcutta by train.

I shall not return until I acquire such realization that my very touch will transform a man.

This is the ancient land where wisdom made its home before it went into any other country.

Here first arose the doctrines of the immortality of the soul, the existence of a supervising God, an immanent God in nature and in man, and here the highest ideals of religion and philosophy have attained their culminating points... and we are the children of such a country.

[narrator] With his sharp intellect, command of English and his Masonic credentials, the young Swami was able to mingle with everyone from illiterate holy men to Maharajas and the educated elite.

While travelling in Rajasthan, he met the Maharaja Ajit Singh of Khetri and this would become the longest lasting and dearest friendship of his life.

The Maharaja was a young, erudite, and magnanimous ruler and was one of the key driving forces in his later journey to America and the first true supporter of his mission in India.

They spent many nights discussing philosophy and engaged in idealistic and mystical thinking.

Ironically, when he first arrived at Mount Abu, Khetri's home, he stayed with a Muslim family and the Maharaja's secretary was shocked and said, "You are a Hindu monk.

"How is it that you are living with a Muslim?

Your food may be now and then touched by him."

This angered the Swami.

I said to him, "Sir, what do you mean?

"I am a Sanyasin.

"I am above all social conventions.

"I see Brahman everywhere, "manifested even in the meanest creature.

For me, there is nothing high or low."

[narrator] This universalism shaped his message of tolerance and understanding.

As he continued on his quest, it dawned on him that India was a slave nation.

Extreme poverty was everywhere.

Colonial exploitation had brought droughts, famines and imbalance to a once beautiful land.

He saw a nation crushed and humiliated.

He knew he had to do something.

When so many people are illiterate and hungry, where do I have the time to think of my own liberation?

May I be born again and again and suffer a thousand miseries, if only I may worship the only God in whom I believe, the sum total of all souls, and above all, my God the wicked, my God the afflicted, my God the poor of all races.

[narrator] In the winter of 1892, he arrived in Madras in Southern India and met his first real disciple, Alasingha Perumal, a young teacher and journalist.

The young men of Madras had heard about the Parliament of Religions in Chicago and organized a committee to find someone to represent the highest ideals of Hinduism.

When they met the Swami, they immediately knew that this was the man they had been searching for.

The Swami was excited at the prospect of travelling to America, but uncertain if this was his Path.

He needed a sign.

He travelled to the southern-most tip of India to a sleepy town called Kanyakumari and there walking on the beach, he saw a deserted Island out in the ocean that seemed to call out his name.

He swam out to it and meditated there for the answer, and while in deep meditation a vision came to him.

He saw Ramakrishna point to the seas and he knew.

He had to go to America.

The young men of Madras tried to raise the money.

Much was promised, little materialized.

He wrote to his dear friend the Maharaja Ajit Singh and he, as a friend would, came to the rescue.

In May of 1893, he arrived in Khetri and the Maharaja completely recreated him.

First, he changed his name to Swami Vivekananda, the Blissful seeker of Wisdom.

Then he gave him the now famous look of the wine-red jacket, the saffron turban and sash, and the brogues to match.

He looked quite the Maharaja.

Of the spiritual realm.

He sent his personal secretary with him to Bombay to organize everything.

He bought him a First-Class ticket from Bombay to Vancouver and Chicago.

Got him all his travel permits, arranged letters of introduction to people in America, gave him 300 pounds in spending money, bought him a wrist watch and a fountain pen.

And to keep the Swami focused, he promised to look after his mother in Calcutta for as long as he was alive.

On the 31st of May 1893, Swami Vivekananda boarded the P&O Steamer Peninsular and set sail for America.

He was just 30 years old.

[narrator] On the evening of the 25th of July, he arrived in Vancouver.

It was cold and the ship's captain gave him a coat and allowed him to stay on board.

The next morning, he boarded a train for Chicago where he met a most remarkable woman, Katherine Abbot Sanborn.

His first Angel in America.

Kate was a poet, teacher, lecturer, farmer and above all, a humanist.

Without her, there would be no Vivekananda in America.

[Kate Sanborn] A magnificent specimen of manhood with a lordly, imposing stride, as if he ruled the universe, and soft, dark eyes that could flash fire if roused, or dance with merriment if the conversation amused him.

He spoke better English than I did.

He was an education, an illumination, a revelation!

I told him, as we separated, I should be most pleased to present him to some men and women of learning and general culture, if by any chance he should come to Boston.

[narrator] Swami Vivekananda arrived in Chicago on the evening of the 30th and stayed at a hotel.

In the morning, he went straight to visit the Columbian Exhibition.

What a sight it must have been.

This was a big year for Chicago, and for America.

The city had rebuilt itself after the great fire and The Columbian Exhibition was going to show off American ingenuity, technology, and power to the whole world.

A splendid white city rose out of the ashes.

And the Parliament of Religions would do the same for the Religions of the World.

[Vivekananda] I remained about twelve days in Chicago.

And almost every day, I used to go to the Fair.

It is a tremendous affair.

One must take at least ten days to go through it.

The expense I am bound to run into here is awful.

On an average, it costs me one pound every day.

The Americans are so rich that they spend money like water.

I must stick to my guns, life or death.

[narrator] To his dismay the Parliament of Religions was still three months away and worse still, he did not have the credentials to attend.

He knew that if he stayed in Chicago, he would run out of money soon.

He remembered Kates's invitation and decided to go to Boston.

[Kate Sanborn] I received a telegram announcing that my reverend friend on the train was at the Quincy House, Boston, and awaiting my orders.

I was aghast, but telegraphed bravely, Yours received.

Come today.

4.20 train [Vivekananda] She invited me to come over and live with her.

I have an advantage of living with her, in saving my expenditure of one pound per day, and she has the advantage of inviting her friends over here and showing them a curio from India!

[narrator] Kate kept her promise and he met many leading intellectuals and socialites.

She arranged talks and lectures.

He spoke about India and her religions, manners and traditions.

John Henry Wright, a professor of Classical Greek at Harvard University, and his wife Mary were very impressed by the Swami.

Wright said,"To ask you, Swami, for your credentials is like asking the sun about its right to shine."

He then wrote a letter of introduction to the President of the Parliament suggesting he accept Vivekananda as a speaker.

He wrote, "Here is a man who is more learned than all our learned professors put together."

With Wright's help, he was designated an independent member of the Oriental Delegation.

In gratitude, he always called him Adhyapakji, the respected wise teacher.

[narrator] Swami Vivekananda arrived back in Chicago on the evening of the 8th, only to discover that he had lost the address for the oriental delegates.

He spent the night in a boxcar at the station.

The next morning, he stepped out quite disheveled.

No one would talk to this strangely dressed, ruffled, colored man.

He walked around to no avail and finally gave up and sat down on a curb on North Dearborn Street.

Mrs. George W. Hale saw him sitting outside her home and asked, "Sir, are you a delegate to the Parliament of religions?"

He explained his predicament and she immediately invited him in to clean up, have breakfast, and then she took him personally to the offices of the Parliament.

He was introduced to Barrows who was impressed by the young man and was given accommodation with the other Indian delegates.

She became his second Angel in America.

[Vivekananda] I have never seen women elsewhere as cultured and educated as they are here.

I have seen thousands of women here whose hearts are as pure and stainless as snow.

Oh, how free they are!

It is they who control social and civic duties.

Schools and colleges are full of women, and in our country, women cannot be safely allowed to walk in the streets!

Their kindness is immeasurable to me.

[bell tolls] [Barrows] We affectionately invite the representatives of all faiths, to aid us in presenting to the world, at the Exposition of 1893, the religious harmonies and unities of humanity.

We are met together today as men, children of one God.

We are not here as Baptists and Buddhists, Catholics and Confucians, Parsees and Presbyterians, Methodists and Moslems, we are here as members of a Parliament of Religions, over which flies no sectarian flag.

They're trying to say that America is not just about technology and money and capitalism and manufacturers.

It's also about the New Jerusalem.

[narrator] When Vivekananda took his seat on the stage, his ochre red robe, yellow turban, bronze complexion, and fine features stood out prominently and drew everyone's attention, particularly the women.

He had never addressed such a large assembly and when he was asked to give his speech, he was seized with terror, and requested the chairman call on him a little later.

By 5 o'clock, the giant audience of over 4,000 was tired of all the monotonous speeches, and Vivekananda realized that this was his moment.

Sisters and Brothers of America.

[applause] [Ruth Harris] He is electrifying.

He's electrifying in a strange way because he isn't expecting to be electrifying.

He addresses people as equals.

He calls them brothers and sisters of America.

It's a legend, but it's a legend that has a lot of truth.

It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us.

I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world, I thank you in the name of the mother of all religions, and I thank you in the name of the millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects.

Before him was the power and dynamism of the Modern West at that time.

The East and the West met at that point.

Not just East and the West, the past and the future met at that point.

I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance.

We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true.

I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations on the earth.

It is extraordinary because he himself doesn't realize that he's going to be electrifying.

And he says, "We are not servile.

"We have a religion that is equal, "if not better, to yours because we are tolerant, we are open minded, we are diverse."

Sectarianism, bigotry, and its' horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth.

But their time is come, and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honor of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.

Vivekananda captured the hearts and soul of America.

And it was almost like a rockstar.

In fact, we have firsthand accounts of his speech at the Parliament of Religions, where somebody documents, "women rushing the stage."

Sort of like, if you look at footage of the Beatles in 1964, girls are rushing the stage.

[Newspaper Voice] He is undoubtedly the greatest figure in the Parliament of Religions.

After hearing him, we feel how foolish it is to send missionaries to this learned nation.

He is a great favorite at the Parliament from the grandeur of his sentiments and his appearance as well.

If he merely crosses the platform he is applauded, and this marked approval of thousands he accepts in a childlike spirit of gratification without a trace of conceit.

[narrator] Every day for the next few weeks he was in high demand.

He spoke on Hinduism, Buddhism, Science, Religion, and The Need of the Day.

Every evening he would be invited to the most sophisticated dinners and salons.

He was the belle of the ball and everyone wanted to hear him speak.

He called his audiences "heirs of immortal bliss" and they loved it.

The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian.

But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth.

If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything to the world it is this: it has proved to the world that holiness, purity, and charity are not the exclusive possessions of any church in the world and that every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character.

Just think about it, more than 100 years ago he was talking about the harmony of religions, when it was not at all in fashion to talk about that.

He's talking about bringing science and religion together, which people were beginning to talk about at that time.

And he's talking about the most liberal and open ideas about the role of women for example, about equality of races, about the independence of India.

[narrator] In the midst of all this adulation, Vivekananda's heart continued to bleed for India.

The mansions of some of the wealthiest of Chicago were now open to him, and as he retired the first night at one such invitation, and lay upon a luxurious bed, the terrible contrast between poverty-stricken India and opulent America crushed him.

[Vivekananda] What do I care for name and fame when my motherland remains sunkin utmost poverty!

To what a sad pass have we poor Indians come when millions of us die for want of a handful of rice, and here they spend millions upon their personal comfort!

Who will raise the masses in India!

Who will give them bread?

Show me, O Mother, how I can help them!

[narrator] Vivekananda set up his home and headquarters with the Hale family, the very lady who had guided him to the parliament.

He became their son and a brother to their daughters.

They got busy preparing him for public life.

He called her Mother Hale and her Husband Father Pope.

That winter, he enjoyed an American Christmas, eating traditional fare and singing carols with the family.

[Vivekananda] Nowhere in the world are women like those of this country.

How pure, independent, self-reliant and kind-hearted.

All learning and culture are centered in them.

I have been welcomed by them to their houses.

They are providing me with food, arranging for my lectures, taking me to market, and doing everything for my comfort and convenience.

I shall never be able to repay in the least the deep debt of gratitude I owe to them.

[narrator] The Hale home was near Lincoln Park, where he spent many afternoons sitting in the sun.

His innocence and radiance attracted young families and the children who met him remembered him vividly throughout their lives.

Many became students of Vedanta and Yoga.

The people of Chicago began coming to hear him speak in large numbers.

The Reverend WH Thomas, a renowned author, heard him at the Parliament and wrote to his friend, the founder of the Slayton Lyceum Speakers Bureau in Chicago.

Henry Lake Slayton was a shrewd businessman and he knew he was on to a winner.

The Bureau signed the naive young monk to a three-year contract.

Then it all began.

On the 26th of November 1893, the first announcement appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Swami Vivekananda will lecture Monday evening, December 4th, at Central Music Hall on "The Divinity of Man."

The eagerness with which his eloquence and words of truth were sought during the parliament of religions will undoubtedly insure him a crowded house at this, his first public lecture in Chicago.

[narrator] The event was an immediate success.

Hundreds filled the pews to hear him speak.

He was a public speaker!

In the next few months, he went on a whirlwind tour across the Mid-West: Minneapolis, Des Moines, Memphis, Detroit, Ada, and back to Chicago.

He spoke about India, her religions and traditions.

Most places welcomed him, but in some he was chased and even shot at because of his exotic outfit and the color of his skin.

[Jeffrey Long] It's amazing that Swami Vivekananda could speak to a packed hall of adoring admirers and then not find a place that would allow him to stay for the night because of his skin color.

What is shocking to me is that more than 100 years later, we're not that different.

[narrator] In Chicago, the intelligentsia were very kind to the Swami.

Doors opened and he met the good and the great.

A story goes that a very arrogant and willful JD Rockefeller barged in on the Swami demanding to meet the Hindu monk he had heard so much about.

An hour later, a quieter, transformed and inspired man emerged.

He would say later: [JD Rockefeller] Recognizing with humility our mistakes of extravagance, selfishness, and indifference, let us with faith in God, in ourselves and in humanity, go forward courageously resolve to play our part worthily in building a better world.

[narrator] A mission was brewing in the young Swami's mind.

[Swami Sarvapriyananda] He knew he had to do something here.

He thought his mission was to raise money here in the West by teaching Vedanta and Yoga, and then use that money for launching schemes for humanitarian uplift, social uplift, economic uplift, educational work in India.

Over the next few years, he was beginning to see his primary mission was to be an Awakener of souls, both here in the West and in the East.

[narrator] He continued to speak outside the bureau to private groups and more philosophical and open-minded audiences.

But, by March, his relationship with Slayton had soured.

He was exhausted, exploited and being ripped off.

In Detroit, everything came to a head and his host, the Senator Palmer, interceded on his behalf and freed him of his contract.

He was free.

Finally, the Swami found the right audience for his teachings: Women, Unitarians, Transcendentalists, Universalists, Christian Scientists and Theosophists.

He travelled to New York, Boston, and then back to Chicago.

In New York, he met Leon Landsberg, a journalist and Theosophist, who eventually would become his right-hand man and the first American to become a Swami.

For me, the important places are Green Acre.

Very important because of his capacity to absorb and witness what they were interested in, and then to transform it into something that was Vedanta.

Green Acre is run by a woman named Sarah Farmer.

She was of a Unitarian background.

She was famous as somebody who was perceived as deeply spiritual.

And everyone comes every year, all these genteel, Yankee, spiritual seekers.

They come for everything.

They come for dew drop walks in the morning.

They come for music.

There's a lot of music, and he meets some of the great musical heroines.

People like Emma Thursby who is a great singer.

And of course, Sara Bull, who he meets there.

[Swami Medhananda] On the other hand, there were these new spiritualist thought currents that were coming up, new thought movement, lots of different things.

A lot of it was goofy.

But, still, Christian Science, Seances, weird stuff.

But still, what happened was, the American mind was open to new spiritual thought currents.

And so, it was an amazing convergence of the ripeness of the soil and this spiritual genius in the form of Vivekananda.

Everything just kind of worked out perfectly.

He sees all the different mind healing, mind control.

He makes fun of them.

He says, "Oh, they're going to cure blindness today," in one of his letters.

He sees all of it and he begins to teach Yoga under the Swami's Pine.

He tries to explain to them what Yoga is about, what meditation is about, about the connection within to the greater whole.

Little by little, they come and listen very carefully, and it becomes the basis of "Raja Yoga."

[narrator] All would gather under what came to be known as the Swami Pine to hear him speak.

[Vivekananda] The other night the camp people all went to sleep under a pine tree under which I sit every morning a la India and talk to them.

I cannot describe to you that night's glories, after the year of brutal life that I have led, to sleep on the ground, to mediate under the tree in the forest!

I teach them all Shivoham, Shivoham, "I am Shiva, I am Shiva."

And they all repeat it, innocent and pure as they are, and brave beyond all bounds, and I am so happy and glorified.

[narrator] At Green Acre he was adopted by Sara Chapman Bull, a great philanthropist who took him home with her to Cambridge.

She became his third Angel in America.

[Ruth] For me, the second most important phase is when he's in Boston.

And he doesn't care about American academics but he engages with all these Harvard professors.

And these are people like James and Royce.

James, of course, the famous pragmatist.

Royce is a famous idealist-philosopher.

He is in a milieu where he can have exchanges that are of a very, very high order.

Similar conversations were taking place between the greatest psychologist of that era and maybe even today, like the father of modern American psychology, the father of modern psychology, William James.

He and Vivekananda hit it off very well.

He absorbed a lot of what Vivekananda had to say without completely subscribing to Vivekananda.

Vivekananda was a monist, a monist par excellence, that one reality ultimately.

As far as we know, William James until the end of his life remained a pluralist, that there are multiple realities.

But they had a very fruitful conversation, and it influenced two things.

One, the development of psychology and two, the understanding of religious psychology, the understanding of what is religious or spiritual experience, as expressed in the varieties of religious experiences by William James.

[narrator] After Green Acre and Cambridge, he realized that what he really needed was an institution.

And a book.

[Vivekananda] Do you know what my idea is?

By preaching the profound secrets of the Vedanta religion in the Western world, we shall attract thy sympathy and regard of the mighty nations, mainlining forever the position of their teacher in spiritual matters, and they will remain our teachers in all material concerns.

[narrator] At the end of 1894, he spent a month in New York, planning his new society, with Leon Landsberg and many others who had met him at Green Acre.

The Vision was to teach Vedanta and Yoga in America, publish his talks and books, and raise money for the poor in India.

He called it the Vedanta Society of New York.

On the 29th of December 1894, he stood up at the Brooklyn Ethical Association and declared, "I have a message to the West as Buddha had a message to the East."

[Swami Sarvapriyananda] The message is, spirituality is real.

There is really such a thing as an Ultimate Reality, call it God, Brahman, Allah, Jehovah, whatever you want to call it.

Religion was right when they talked about this ultimate reality.

That there is a spiritual purpose to life.

And you can reach fulfillment, the Buddha's promise that there is a way out of suffering.

It is true, there is a way out of suffering and one can reach fulfillment.

But in this day and age, it has to be said with a new paradigm, with a new inspiration, with a new voice.

[narrator] A Society was born.

And there was only one place to make it all happen.

New York City.

[gramophone music plays] [narrator] In January of 1895, Leon Landsberg and the Swami moved into a small apartment at 54 West 33rd Street.

In those days Herald Square was down market, but convenient as it allowed a Black man to live there.

The Swami loved that he would be with ordinary people and not those living in the palaces of the gilded age.

His speaking would raise money from the rich but he would live and teach amongst ordinary New Yorkers.

He was after all, one of them.

[Al Bardach] When he came to New York City, he got an apartment.

His roommate, who he lived with and broke bread with was a Jewish guy named Landsberg.

A brilliant guy, but he was Jewish.

So, not only was he not Indian, not only was he not Brahmin, he was a totally other heathen faith.

And they cooked together, ate together.

They shared a small apartment.

[Ruth Harris] In New York, he becomes part of a world where you move from Yankee Founding Fathers, family dynasties to a much more cosmopolitan sphere.

And I think that although he was very happy to create the Vedanta Society, you know, he's ambivalent about organization.

But there's another side of Vivekananda that always remained free spirited.

[narrator] When they started running classes, they worried that women would not want to come to the neighborhood.

But they were proved wrong.

[Josephine Mcleod] I went with my sister to 54 West 33rd Street, New York, and heard Swami Vivekananda in his sitting room where there were assembled 15 or 20 ladies and two or three gentlemen.

The room was crowded.

All the arm-chairs were taken, so, I sat on the floor in the front row.

Swami stood in the corner.

He said something, the particular words of which I do not remember, but instantly to me that was truth, and the second sentence he spoke was truth, and the third sentence was truth.

[narrator] Every morning at 11 he would start teaching.

Elizabeth Hamlen gave tickets at the door and was Secretary.

Leon ushered everyone in and handled seating and collections.

Sarah Ellen Waldo, a relative of Emerson's, managed everything including all the cooking, cleaning and other details.

[Vivekananda] My ideal, indeed, can be put into a few words, and that is to preach unto mankind their divinity, and how to make it manifest in every movement of life.

Each soul is potentially divine.

The goal is to manifest this divinity by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy, by one, or more, or all of these, and be free.

This is the whole of religion.

[narrator] Finally, he began to teach the philosophy that he had learned from Ramakrishna.

Vedanta and the Yoga of how to achieve universal states of consciousness while living blissfully and fearlessly in the world.

[Vivekananda] The essence of Vedanta is that there is but one Being and that every soul is that Being in full, not a part of that Being.

Perfect liberty and yet discipline.

Vivekananda.

You find this in Vivekananda.

He gave us not one set of tools, but a whole array of tools.

In fact, the entire spiritual heritage of India and the wider world, he opened it up for all of humanity.

Vedanta is impersonal, and has scope for endless personalities.

So, you want an ideal?

Very good, you must have an ideal.

You want technique?

Yes.

So, he puts Jnana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Karma Yoga and Raja Yoga.

In fact, the first book he worked on, which was published here at the Vedanta Society of New York, was "Raja Yoga."

How to meditate?

He goes down to the nitty gritties.

If you see his Yoga classes, how to sit, how to breathe, how to turn inwards and withdraw.

There are beautiful, sublime descriptions of Vivekananda meditating here in New York.

[Vivekananda] Yoga is controlling the senses, will and mind.

The benefit of its study is that we learn to control instead of being controlled.

[thunder clap] All the powers in the universe are already ours.

It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.

The moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him, that moment I am free from bondage.

Everything that binds, vanishes, and I am free.

[narrator] By April, he was exhausted and had fallen quite ill.

He was invited by Josephine Mcleod, and her sister Betty's fianc Francis Legget, to join them in retreat in the Hudson Valley.

They were a wealthy family and owned a beautiful home.

He travelled up the river to Ridgely Manor which today is a major center of the Vedanta Society and a living Ashram.

[Pravrajika Gitaprana] Francis knew that Swami Vivekananda was ruining his health travelling around the country.

And you have to think that's back in the 1890s when it wasn't so easy to travel around the country.

He was giving many talks and there were no microphones there, no lights.

He was shouting, and he wasn't in the greatest of health anyway.

And so, Francis Leggett said, "Look, I have this house in the country.

"And it's where I go for respite.

"Why don't you come there?

"We won't ask you to do anything.

"You don't have to follow any rules.

Just stay there and rest and recuperate."

So, he did.

[narrator] Vivekananda was able to attract the support of women in an unusual way.

They saw in him a gentle transmitter of universal wisdom and a good friend, not a masculine threat.

The Ramakrishna Order was the first real Hindu order to ordain women monastics in America and then later in India.

[Pravrajika Gitaprana] My name is, formally, Pravrajika Gitaprana.

Pravrajika is a Sanskrit word that literally means "wanderer."

He first gave formal vows of renunciation to a French woman named Marie Louise, long before any of the formal convent started.

But when Swami Vivekananda was in this country, he often was working with women.

And women, I think, were predominantly the class attendees also.

[narrator] Josephine Mcleod became the role model for all women who completely devoted themselves to Vivekananda.

Because of her, and the others that followed, women found equal footing and power in the community.

[Pravrajika Gitaprana] I'd been around the Vedanta Society in Berkeley.

And I was really attracted to the kind of life that combined meditation, contemplation and service.

I was not attracted to just what we would call a general kind of a lifestyle.

Been done there done that!

And so, I decided I would try it.

And my friends said, "Oh, you're selling out to an organized religion."

But I don't think they really understood that Vedanta isn't an organized religion in that same way.

[narrator] During his recovery, he developed a deep fondness for Ridgely Manor and it would become his headquarters in America.

He returned here again and again.

Finally in 1999, the Ramakrishna Mission purchased Ridgely Manor from the Legget family.

[narrator] He came back to New York and started teaching again.

He was invited regularly to give major public talks, filling out venues like Madison Square Gardens and the Brooklyn Ethical Association.

He would travel everywhere by foot and by trolley train like any New Yorker.

He was very cosmopolitan.

He was also invited to speak uptown in private homes but found it quite distasteful.

All the while, he dreamt of independent Vedanta Centers across America, and a Mission to serve the poor in India.

Today, there are 21 Vedanta Centers in America alone, all connected to the Ramakrishna Order but autonomous in their own right.

In his New York days, he met Sarah Bernhardt, the greatest actress of the time, and Nikola Tesla, the famous inventor.

His teachings were rational and he perceived the similarities between science and non-dual Vedanta.

He found science fascinating.

He would visit Tesla in his Greenwich Village Studios.

[AL Bardach] You know what's remarkable is that Vivekananda was on every one of these things.

He saw it.

He saw it all as the scientific underpinning of the Vedic teachings.

He never had a doubt.

You see that even in the letters with Nikola Tesla.

"We are going to, we are going to merge this and find the actual scientific recipe."

[narrator] The Swami's teachings became more profound as he entered deeper and deeper states of meditation.

He started to teach his students the truth of Vedanta.

Every soul is potentially divine.

The goal is to manifest this divinity by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy.

By one, or more, or all of these and be free.

Take up one idea.

Make that one idea your life, think of it, dream of it, live on that idea.

Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone.

This is the way to success.

[narrator] He wanted everyone to become fearless in a world filled with fear and oppression.

The whole secret of existence is to have no fear.

Never fear what will become of you.

Depend on no one.

Only the moment you reject all help are you freed.

[narrator] He spoke of ultimate freedom and being true to one's self.

The moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him, That moment I am free from bondage.

Everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.

[narrator] By the summer of 1895 they had become quite organized.

Classes were well managed.

His network of admirers and dedicated students was growing.

They were already out-growing the digs at 54 W 33rd.

Money was being raised.

Publications were planned.

A real Society had come into being.

The great secret of true success, of true happiness, is this: the man or woman who asks for no return, the perfectly unselfish person, is the most successful.

[narrator] On a misty morning in the middle of June, Swami Vivekananda landed by steamer at a Thousand Islands Park.

This was a beautiful Methodist retreat in upstate New York.

City life had exhausted him.

Everyone wanted him as their personal curiosity.

[AL Bardach] Everybody wanted to adopt Vivekananda, whether it was Nelson Rockefeller, "You'll be my Guru."

"No, I don't think I will be."

"Can we just have you in our living room "like a potted palm?

You'll be Indian Guru."

The mysteries of the Orient presented to you.

He rejected all that stuff.

So, they're filled with orientalist fantasies.

They see him in the turban and I think they're obsessed with how he looks.

They think he's so beautiful.

And at the same time, the orientalist fantasies confine him in a box, because of course, he's much more than any stereotype can be.

[narrator] The art teacher Mary Dutcher, owned a cottage on the Island.

As a dedicated student, she had offered it to the Swami for his private retreat in the summer.

He chose to come here instead of going to Green Acre this year as he needed a rest and he also wanted to teach Vedanta.

He was ready to become a Guru.

He did some extraordinary spiritual retreats.

He took mostly women on the Thousand Island Retreat in Thousand Islands in the north of New York, in the St. Lawrence River.

[narrator] By July, there were 12 devotees with him.

Two became Swamis.

Leon Landsberg became Swami Kripananda, the blissful merciful one, and Marie Louise became Swami Abheyananda, the blissful fearless one.

Four others became Brahmacharis or renunciates taking vows of celibacy, purity and service.

Swami Vivekananda gave 43 talks in all over seven weeks, and Sarah Ellen Waldo wrote everything down.

These were later published as Inspired Talks.

On the first morning she noted that he came with the Bible in his hand and opened to the Book of John, saying that since they were all Christians, it was proper that he should begin with a Christian scripture.

Over the next few weeks, he gave talks on Indian Scriptures, God, Ramakrishna, the Path of Devotion, the Divine Mother, the Bible and the teachings of enlightened masters.

Classes started in the morning and continued throughout the day.

In the afternoons, he took quiet walks in the woods, wrote letters, read, and rested.

Evenings were spent on the screened porch where he spoke informally and meditated till late.

He even gave a talk at the Methodist Tabernacle.

Here in the woods, he experienced Samadhi or complete union with the Universal mind.

This was one of the favorite periods of his life.

[AL Bardach] There's a wonderful account of some of the women about one day of the retreat.

They're all inside the Dutcher House because it's raining cats and dogs.

Everyone went, "Where is Swami?

Where is Swami?"

They go out and they find him in a thunder and lightning storm.

He's sitting in meditation has no idea that it's thunder, lightning, he's drenched.

[narrator] The next nine months were a whirlwind.

He taught in New York, travelled to Boston, Chicago and Detroit.

And he completed his first book.

He even visited France and England to attend the wedding of his dear friends Francis Legget and Betty Mcleod Sturges.

In New York he started giving larger and larger public talks.

The Swami and his Vedanta Society were becoming a fixture in New York spiritual life.

Sarah Ellen Waldo became his manager and ran everything.

She would eventually move with him to India.

In fact, it was the women who really ran everything in his life.

[AL Bardach] Swami Vivekananda fell in love with American women, the whole race of American women.

You see in the letters that he writes back, he says, "Oh, my God, these Yank women, they can do anything!"

[narrator] In early 1896 he completed his first book, "Raja Yoga," which became the seminal book of its age.

It was the first book published on Yoga in English for a global audience.

He followed this with "Karma Yoga," on how to live spiritually while immersed in the World.

So meditation, he taught meditation.

That was literally the first thing he taught, technique.

He taught devotion, even ritual Bhakti and then he turned Karma itself into a ritualistic practice.

All the work that we do, not just in the temple but in the office, in the farmyard, wherever you do work, that can be done as a worship of the Divine, which is always everywhere present.

"Karma Yoga" and "Raja Yoga" were the two books which were very popular, which were published here in the Vedanta Society of New York, during Swami Vivekananda's own lifetime.

[narrator] In March he went to visit his dear friend and mentor Sarah Chapman Bull in Boston and gave a lecture on Vedanta at the prestigious Dane Hall, home of the Harvard Graduate Philosophical Club.

On his return to New York, the dream of growing the Vedanta Society across America began to percolate in his mind.

Places where anyone could study Vedanta and learn Yoga.

But they needed teachers.

He decided he would bring brother monks from India to manage the work to be done here.

On the other side he would take experienced devotees from America and England back to India to help set up and manage his dream of a Mission to serve the poor.

The Vedanta Society in America and the Ramakrishna Mission in India.

On the 15th of April 1896 he set sail for England and then on to India on board the SS Germanic.

He was finally returning home.

Swami Vivekananda spent seven months in England planning his India Mission and then on the 15th of January 1897, he returned home to his mother land.

To his surprise, his fellow countrymen had been following every step of his adventures in America from the Parliament of Religions to his teachings in New York, Chicago and Boston.

He had become quite a legend.

Thousands awaited him on shore to greet the returning hero and the Maharaja of Ramnad gave him a truly royal welcome.

In Madras he delivered a seminal speech, calling on the young of India to wake up to their destiny.

Arise!

Awake!

And stop not till the goal is reached.

Life is ever expanding, contraction is death.

Proclaim the glory of the Atman with the roar of a lion, and impart fearlessness unto all beings by saying, "Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached.

[narrator] The speech was a clarion call for a revolution of the Indian soul.

He realized he could use his celebrity to awaken a revolutionary spirit in the young men and women of India.

My India, arise!

Where is your vital force?

In your Immortal Soul.

[narrator] At the end of February, he finally arrived home in Calcutta after seven years away, and immediately went to see his Mother.

The Maharaja of Khetri had kept his promise and she had been well looked after.

And then he went to see Sarada Devi, Ramakrishna's wife.

She had become the spiritual mother of all the monks.

He was finally home.

[narrator] When he got back to his fellow monks, he had a new message for them.

The Ramakrishna Mission was not just for seeking enlightenment, it was to serve God through every human being.

[Swami Sarvadevananda] Atmano Mokshaartham Jagat Hitaayo Cha.

For the liberation of one's own self, and for the good of the world.

Swami Vivekananda said that each soul is potentially Divine.

The goal is to manifest this Divinity within.

So, this idea of Swamiji actually inspired our whole life, and we are still struggling every day to do the best we can.

[narrator] But the real surprise for the brothers was not just that they were going to serve mankind, but they were going to work with Americans and the English to build this new Mission and with women too.

That was a huge no-no in traditional monastic circles in India.

[AL Bardach] And he said, "I want schools for women.

Women are going to school."

And these monks said, "What do you mean women?

"Indian women don't go to school.

Holy Mother, she can't read, look at her."

He said, "Schools," and he went to Holy Mother, Sarada Devi, and she said "Absolutely, we want schools."

And he recognized the genius of the Western world was the education and development of women.

[narrator] In May of 1897, he formally founded the Ramakrishna Mission and it was a revolutionary idea.

A Spiritual Mission in India, by Indians, dedicated to serving all Indians irrelevant of caste, creed, religion, gender or social standing.

That's why our Karma, ideal in the Ramakrishna tradition is not Karma Yoga, it is much higher than that.

It is Practical Vedanta.

I am serving the Divine in the embodiment form of the human personality.

[narrator] Margaret Noble, later known as Sister Nivedita, Sarah Chapman Bull, Sister Christine, and Josephine Mcleod all arrived in India in 1898 and got straight to work building the Mission and serving during a major Bengal famine.

With the help of Sarah Bull and others, he purchased a small piece of land on the Ganges opposite Ramakrishna's temple called Belur Math.

Today it is the global headquarters of the Ramakrishna Mission and home to thousands of monks, and students.

[narrator] Swami Vivekananda returned to New York in 1899, but this time he was not alone.

He brought two young Swamis from Calcutta with him.

Swami Abhedananda and Swami Turiyananda.

They would lead the American movement.

The three Swamis set up headquarters at Ridgely Manor in what became known as the Swami Cottage.

His new message for America was that, "All there is in life is character," and Vedanta and Yoga were the ideal paths to cultivate it.

The ideal of Vedanta is to know man as he really is.

The solution of the Vedanta is that we are not bound, we are free already.

Not only so, but to say or to think that we are bound is dangerous.

Do not say it, do not think it.

This is summed up in the Vedanta philosophy by the celebrated aphorism, Tat Tvam Asi, Thou art That.

Now, what he does, and this is his genius.

He says that through any of these Yogas you can attain the highest goal.

There's no higher and lower.

It's not that one Yoga is higher than the others or lead somehow more directly to the same goal.

[narrator] The Vedanta Society of New York formally opened its doors on October 15th 1899, and Swami Abhedananda became its first Minister.

[Swami Sarvapriyananda] This is the first one.

It's a small place, but it's historically significant.

It's the first of the Vedanta Societies.

But it's also significant in the larger scheme of things because it's the first Hindu Ashram in the West.

And it is at the source of this vast movement of spiritual thought from India to the west, which happened in the 100 or more years after this Vedanta Society was established.

[narrator] A second center opened on the Upper East side in 1933 called The Ramakrishna Vivekananda Center.

This was founded by the legendary Swami Nikhilananda who taught JD Salinger and Joseph Campbell the mysteries of Vedanta.

Each in turn influenced American culture in a major way.

[AL Bardach] JD Salinger, was a desperate man.

I think it is fair to say suicide, as he writes in his novels, was something he was considering.

Such was the depression of what he had endured in World War II.

And he found in Vedanta, Nikhilananda became his Guru.

He was an initiated disciple, he found a way to live.

And his retreat from the world is not because he was some eccentric, crackerjack writer.

It's because he was doing his own retreat from name and fame for his own spiritual pursuits.

And he was a devotee of Vivekananda.

So, you have someone like George Lucas, who's not a scholar of Hinduism, but he reads Joseph Campbell's "The Hero with A Thousand Faces."

Campbell's ideas shaped George Lucas's desire to create a movie epic myth in its own right for America, which becomes Star Wars.

So, his role in the Saga would be very much like Obi Wan's role of mentoring Luke.

Luke would be America.

And Swamiji came to show us the ways of the Force.

The Force?

The force is what gives the Jedi his power.

It's an energy field created by all living things.

It surrounds us, it penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together.

He came to show us a deeper philosophy and way of life and way of approaching the world, which was badly needed in the world at that time, and is still badly needed today.

[narrator] Josephine Mcleod joined them in Ridgely Manor.

He always called her Tantine.

She discovered her brother was very ill in Pasadena and Swami immediately advised her to go.

He would follow.

Vivekananda knew his work on the East Coast was done.

Now California was calling.

[narrator] Vivekananda began to teach in Pasadena and soon he had gathered a huge following there.

This became the Vedanta Society of Southern California, today the largest center of his work in America.

For a variety of historical reasons, there were some major intellectual leaders who were drawn to Vedanta and to Swami Prabhavanada and they made the Vedanta Society their spiritual home.

And they included, primarily, three British expatriates who had come at the dawn of World War II to America to get away from Europe and from everything that was happening there.

Christopher Isherwood, Gerald Heard and Aldous Huxley.

These are the giants of Western scholarship and literature.

[narrator] In the 20th Century, this Center became the heart of Indian spirituality in California and Heard donated a lot of his land providing monasteries and temples in Hollywood, Santa Barbara and Pasadena.

Huxley, Maugham, and of course Isherwood loved it there.

[Jeffery Long] You have Huxley writing, "The Doors of Perception" and the band "The Doors" named themselves after that book because they loved the book so much.

So, these people are, I think, what today's generation might call influencers.

They influenced the larger society.

"The Razor's Edge," the novel by Somerset Maugham, came out in 1944 and became a huge bestseller.

Then a movie was made in '46.

A wonderful black and white film starring Tyrone Power as the young American seeker who ends up giving up his life of privilege, going to India seeking, and meets a Guru figure.

The Road to Salvation is difficult to pass through, as difficult as the sharp edge of a razor.

This much we know and all religions teach it, there is in every one of us a spark of the infinite goodness which created us, and when we leave this earth we are reunited with it, as a raindrop falling from heaven is at last reunited with the sea that gave it birth.

[narrator] He left California in May and travelled to Chicago.

He said his goodbyes to Mother Hale and the family.

He knew he would never see them again.

His work was done.

In his last action as the founder in America, he designed the seal of the Ramakrishna Mission by hand on a piece of paper.

He described it as symbolic of the work they did.

He said, "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 Paramatman.

"The ideal of the picture "is that by the union of Karma, Jnana, Bhakti and Yoga, the vision of the Paramatman is obtained."

In July 1900, he said farewell to America and sailed for India.

As he gazed out at his second home America for the last time, he could not have imagined the impact he would have in the future.

He gave us a foundation for religious universalism.

He taught tolerance and understanding and interfaith dialogue.

He gave women a spiritual voice on both sides of the world.

He gave creative, diverse people a sanctuary for their souls.

He taught Americans that they could realize their own inner divinity.

He brought East and West together for the first time.

[Vivekananda] Do you know what my idea is?

By preaching the profound secrets of the Vedanta religion in the Western world, we shall attract the sympathy and regard of the mighty nations, mainlining forever the position of their teacher in spiritual matters, and they will remain our teachers in all material concerns.

[narrator] He spent a few months traveling through England, France, Italy and Egypt and then went home to Belur Math.

In his final year he took his mother on a pilgrimage of some of the most sacred places in India and then as his health deteriorated, he returned to his beloved Ramakrishna Mission and there guided and helped shape the fledgling monastery and mission.

On the fourth of July 1902 he passed.

A fitting date.

It was almost as if he had planned it all along.

To free his soul on the very day America received her liberty.

[Vivekananda] As the different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their water in the sea, so, O Lord, the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.

[narrator] Many years later, Emma Calve, the French actress and a devotee, came looking for his tomb at Belur Math.

She wrote, "I saw the beautiful marble tomb "that one of his American friends, Mrs. Leggett, "had erected over his grave.

"I noticed that there was no name upon it.

"I asked his brother, "who was a monk in the same Order, "the reason of this omission.

"He looked at me in astonishment, "and, with a noble gesture that I remember to this day, "he answered, "'He has passed on.

He has passed on.'"