The Global Diffusion and Westernization of Neo-Hindu Movements
Siddha Yoga and Sivananda Centres
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/rosa.v1i2.217Keywords:
East-West, England, France, globalization, Hinduism, mysticism, Siddha Yoga, SivanandaAbstract
Indian gurus continue today to be successful in attracting western disciples in India as well as disseminating their teachings all around the world, which seems to corroborate Colin Campbell’s interpretation of these cultural changes as a process of the easternization of the West. The aim of this article is to address this thesis, drawing on research undertaken in France and Britain on two neo-Hindu movements: Sivananda Centres and Siddha Yoga. Two aspects will be covered: the diffusion process of these organizations that became transnational, and their reception by the host cultures. The inescapable conclusion is that cultural encounter, adaptive strategies to national contexts, innovating ways of transmitting the teachings and simplification of the doctrines contribute to the transformation of neo-Hindu teachings as they spread transnationally. The reinterpretations and the selective approach of neo-Hindu teachings is extremely revealing of pervading attitudes regarding religion in modern societies: religious individualism, inner-worldly orientations, relativism and subjectivism about beliefs, and pragmatism. Thus one can assume that the diffusion of movements like Siddha Yoga and the Sivananda Centres probably tells us more about religious attitudes in western societies today, than about Hinduism itself.
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Anthony, D., Robbins, T., et al. 1977. ‘Patients and Pilgrims: Changing Attitudes toward Psychotherapy of Converts to Eastern Mysticism.’ American Behavioral Scientist 20: 861-85. doi:10.1177/000276427702000605
Bainbridge, W. 1997. ‘Asian Imports.’ In Bainbridge, The Sociology of Religious Movements: 179-207. New York: Routledge.
Beckford, J. A., Gale, R., Owen, D., Peach, C., Weller, P. 2006. Review of the Evidence Base on Faith Communities. London: Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
Bird, F. B. 1979. ‘The Pursuit of Innocence: New Religious Movements and Moral Accountability.’ Sociological Analysis 40: 335-46.
Brooks, C. 1989. The Hare Krishna in India. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Brooks, D., Sabharathnam, S. P., et al. 1997. Meditation Revolution, a History and Theology of the Siddha Yoga lineage. New York: Agama Press.
Bruce, Steve. 2002. ‘The Easternization of the West.’ In Bruce, God is Dead: Secularization in the West: 118-39. Oxford: Blackwell.
Campbell, C. 1978. ‘Religion of the Educated Classes.’ Sociological Analysis 39(2): 146-56. doi:10.2307/3710214
—1999. ‘The Easternization of the West.’ In Wilson, B., and Cresswell, J., (eds), New Religious Movements: Challenge and Response. London: Routledge.
—2007. The Easternization of the West: A Thematic Account of Cultural Change in the Modern Era. Boulder and London: Paradigm Publishers.
Carey, S. 1987. ‘The Indianization of the Hare Krishna Movement in Britain,’ In Burghart, R., Hinduism in Great Britain: The Perpetuation of Religion in an Alien Cultural Milieu: 81-99. London: Tavistock Press.
Chagnon, R. 1986. ‘Les nouvelles religions d’inspiration orientale au Québec.’ In Desrosiers, Y., Religion et culture au Québec: figures contemporaines du sacré :169-83. Montréal: Fidès.
Cox, H. 1977. L’appel de l’Orient. Paris: Seuil.
De Michelis, E. 2004. A History of Modern Yoga. London: Continuum.
Diesel, A. 1996. ‘The Ramakrishna Sarada Devi Ashram for Women in South Africa.’ Journal of Contemporary Religion 11(2): 169-84.
Farquhar, J. N. 1915. Modern Religious Movements in India. New York: Macmillan.
French, H. 1974. The Swan’s Wide Waters: Ramakrishna and Western Culture. New York; London: Kennikat Press.
Halbfass, Wilhelm. 1998. India and Europe: An Essay in Understanding. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Halbfass, Wilhelm, (ed.). 1995. Philology and Confrontation, Paul Hacker on Traditional and Modern Vedanta. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Hervieu-Léger, D. 2001. La religion en miette ou la question des sectes. Paris: Calmann-Lévy.
Holm, N. 1998. ‘The Indian Factor in New Religious Movements: A Religio-Psychological Perspective.’ In Barker, E., and Warburg, M., (eds.), New Religions and New Religiosity: 95-107. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
Hummel, R. 1988. Les gourous. Paris: Le Cerf.
Hutnyk, J. 2000. Critique of Exotica: Music, Politics and the Culture Industry. London: Pluto Press.
International Sivananda Vedanta Yoga Centres. 2007. [WWW] The Five Points of Yoga. http://www.sivananda.org/teachings/ (last accessed 25 June 07).
Jones, K. 1989. Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India. The New Cambridge History of India, 3/1; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Judah, J. Stillson. 1974. Hare Krishna and the Counterculture. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
King, R. 1999. Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India and ‘the Mystic East’. London; New York: Routledge.
Kopf, D. 1969. British Orientalism and the Bengal Renaissance: The Dynamics of Indian Modernization, 1773–1835. Berkeley, CA: California University Press.
—1979. The Brahmo Samaj and the Shaping of Modern India. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Minor, R. N. 1986. ‘In Defence of Karma and Rebirth: Evolutionary Karma.’ In Neufeldt, R. W., (ed.), Karma and Rebirth, Post Classical Developments: 15-40. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Muktananda, Swami. 1981. En compagnie d’un Siddha: Entretiens et conversations avec Swami Muktananda. Paris: Guy Trédaniel, éditions de la Maisnie.
Nye, M. 2003. Multiculturalism and Minority Religions in Britain: Krishna Consciousness, Religious Freedom, and the Politics of Location. Richmond: Curzon.
Pace, E. 1993. ‘Retour vers le futur: les nouveaux mouvements religieux orientaux, entre le mythe de l’âge d’or et la critique de la modernité.’ In Hervieu-Léger, D., (ed.), Religion et écologie: 197-213. Paris: Les éditions du Cerf.
Rochford. E. Burke. 1991. Hare Krishna in America. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1991.
—2000. ‘Demons, Karmies, and Non-devotees: Culture, Group Boundaries, and the Development of Hare Krishna in North America and Europe.’ Social Compass 47(2): 169-86. doi:10.1177/003776800047002003
Sarma, D. S. 1944. Studies in the Renaissance of Hinduism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Benares: Benares Hindu University.
Sharma, A. 1985. ‘The Rajneesh Movement.’ In Stark, R., (ed.), Religious Movements: Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers: 115?28. New York: Paragon House.
Sivananda. 2007a. Practical Lessons in Yoga. At http://www.dlshq.org/download/practical.htm (last accessed 25-6-07).
—2007b. What Becomes of the Soul after Death. At http://www.dlshq.org/download/afterdeath.htm (last accessed 25-06-07).
Squarcini, F. 2002. ‘ “Power of Mysticism” and “Mysticism of Power”: Understanding the Sociopolitical History of a Neo-Hindu Movement.’ Social Compass 49(3): 343-64. doi:10.1177/0037768602049003003
Stone, D. 1978. ‘New Religious Consciousness and Personal Religious Experience.’ Sociological Analysis 39(2): 123-34. doi:10.2307/3710212
Strauss, S. 2005. Positioning Yoga: Balancing Acts across Cultures. Oxford; New York: Berg.
Thursby, Gene. 1991. ‘Siddha Yoga: Swami Muktananda and the Seat of Power.’ In Miller, T., (ed.), When Prophets Die: The Postcharismatic Fate of New Religious Movements: 165-81. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Tipton, S. 1982. Getting Saved from the Sixties: Moral Meaning in Conversion and Cultural Change. Berkeley, CA; Los Angeles; London: University of California Press.
Vivekananda, Swami. 1973–79. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. 7 vols.; Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama.
—1985. The Nationalistic and Religious Lectures of Swami Vivekananda. Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math.
Published
2007-12-14
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Altglas, V. (2007). The Global Diffusion and Westernization of Neo-Hindu Movements: Siddha Yoga and Sivananda Centres. Religions of South Asia, 1(2), 217-237. https://doi.org/10.1558/rosa.v1i2.217
