Westerners in India
A story about the Book of Brighu by Birgitte Rodriguez
Part Four of Glimpses of the Divine by Birgitte Rodriguez The Book of Brighu (The Sathya Sai Compendium ~ compiled and edited by Brian Steel) Ancient prophecies written on palm leaves. Copies and expert pundits to translate them are available in a few places in India, including Bombay and Poona, and in Kathmandu in Nepal. …
A story about the Book of Brighu by Phyllis Krystal
Chapter 3, Sai Baba : The Ulitimate Experience by Phyllis Krystal The Book of Brighu (The Sathya Sai Compendium ~ compiled and edited by Brian Steel) Ancient prophecies written on palm leaves. Copies and expert pundits to translate them are available in a few places in India, including Bombay and Poona, and in Kathmandu in Nepal. …
A story about the Book of Brighu by Rita Bruce
Chapter 18, Vision of Sai by Rita Bruce The Book of Brighu (The Sathya Sai Compendium ~ compiled and edited by Brian Steel) Ancient prophecies written on palm leaves. Copies and expert pundits to translate them are available in a few places in India, including Bombay and Poona, and in Kathmandu in Nepal. “Maharshi Bhrigu …
Early Western devotees of Ramana Maharshi 1940 to 1950
Series: Westerners in India. The following is an expanded and more compressive article that is sourced from Ashrams of India Volume 2. In 1911, Frank Humphreys, a policeman stationed in India, became the first Westerner to discover Sri Ramana. He wrote articles about him which were first published in The International Psychic Gazette in 1913. Sri Ramana only became relatively …
Early Western devotees of Ramana Maharshi 1911 to 1939
Series: Westerners in India. The following is an expanded and more compressive article that is sourced from Ashrams of India Volume 2. In 1911, Frank Humphreys, a policeman stationed in India, became the first Westerner to discover Sri Ramana. He wrote articles about him which were first published in The International Psychic Gazette in 1913. Sri Ramana only became relatively …
Early Western devotees of Sathya Sai Baba from the 1970s to the 1980s
Series: Westerners in India. Sri Sathya Sai Baba’s (1926 – 2011) early Western devotees and visitors to the ashram from the 1930s onwards… From The Hagiographer and the Avatar (2021) by Antonio Rigopoulos “Foreign interest in the guru of Puttaparthi grew rapidly, especially during the period 1965-1975. Through their testimony and books, a few select Westerners, primarily from …
Early Western devotees of Sathya Sai Baba from the 1930s to the 1960s
Series: Westerners in India. Sri Sathya Sai Baba’s (1926 – 2011) early Western devotees and visitors to the ashram from the 1930s onwards… From The Hagiographer and the Avatar (2021) by Antonio Rigopoulos “Foreign interest in the guru of Puttaparthi grew rapidly, especially during the period 1965-1975. Through their testimony and books, a few select Westerners, primarily from …
How the hippies’ Seventies search for enlightenment turned sour
For many, the journey East – as depicted in new BBC drama ‘The Serpent’ – ended in disillusionment and worse. By Mick Brown 3 January 2021. In 1961, the American beat poet Allen Ginsberg, along with his partner Peter Orlovsky, set off for India in search of enlightenment. Travelling to Paris, then Tangier, Israel, and Kenya, …
Judith Tyberg (Jyotipriya)
A Tribute to Jyotipriya (Dr Judith M. Tyberg) May16, 1902 – October 3, 1980. Text by Mandakini, Photo layout and design by Anie Nunnally. “By heaven’s illuminings one perceives her to be a bearer of the Truth.” Rig Veda, 111.61.6 Hymn to Usha ONCE Jyotipriya asked the great Sanskrit pandit Kapali Sastri if she could …
Wanda Dynowska
Polish writer Wanda Dynowska (Uma Devi) (Tenzin Chordon) (1888 – 1971) lived in India from 1935 until her death in Mysore in 1971, often visited the ashram. Wanda Dynowska came to India in 1935 on a soul-searching mission. Born to Catholic parents of Polish nobility in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1888, Wanda was drawn to the Bhagavad …
Maurice Frydman
Maurice Frydman (Maurycy Frydman or Maurycy Frydman-Mor in Polish) (1894 – 1976), aka Swami Bharatananda was a Polish Jew who subsequently converted to Hinduism. he was an engineer and humanitarian who spent the later part of his life in India. He lived on the ashram of Mahatma Gandhi and took an active part in India’s …
Sita Sharan (Susan McCarthy)
Sita Sharan is the owner and founder of Surya Incense Company, LLC. Sita Sharan lived in Montreal until 1970, when she heard two Ram Dass recordings on the radio. After listening to Ram Dass’ experiences in India with Neem Karoli Baba, gurus and yogis, she went to India a few months later. Sita met Neem …
Sadhu Uma (Marcelle Hanselaar)
The Spectator: 20 February 2021: Why is the smoky, febrile art of Marcelle Hanselaar so little known? by Laura Gascoigne. Her work is in the collections of the Ashmolean and Metropolitan Museum, New York, yet her powerful paintings and etchings remain under the radar. I first became aware of the work of Marcelle Hanselaar in a mixed …
Jesus Lived in India: Suzanne Olsson
Suzanne Marie Olsson is an American author best known for investigating the bloodline and alleged tomb of Jesus in India. She wrote ‘Jesus in Kashmir, The Lost Tomb’ , research of the RozaBal in Srinagar, Kashmir alleged to contain the remains of Jesus, a claim first made widely known in the book titled ‘Book of Balauhar and Budasaf, the Ikmaj-ud-Din’, authored by …
Thelma Rappold: In Search of Bhagavan
Article by Michael Highburger published in SARANAGATI SRI RAMANASRAMAM Magazine. Dear Devotees, In this issue, we begin a new biography of a devotee who spent more than two years in Bhagavan’s presence up until his Mahanirvana in Thelma Rappold took copious notes throughout her stay at Ramanasramam in the late 1940s and compiled them into …
How a Monk from America was taught by an Indian Rikshaw Driver ?
2018 Interview and editing: Ginta Gaivenyte Photos: Sarune Cepulyte and Ginta Gaivenyte I bought a new airplane ticket and when the day came, I sent my belongings back to the monastery and prepared to take a leave the next day. But that night as I set about to pack my small bag, something prevented me from doing …
Somerset Maugham’s Swami
From the New York Times, A letter from India by David Shaftel. Books about Westerners seeking enlightenment in India seem to be everywhere these days, including in India itself. In Mumbai, Elizabeth Gilbert’s juggernaut of a memoir, “Eat, Pray, Love,” is prominently displayed in street corner bookstalls and hotel bookstores. Bootlegged copies are hawked to …
When Utopia Met Dystopia, They Were There
For the New York Times by Alisha Haridasani Gupta. Akash Kapur and Auralice Graft are married now, but they first met in 1975 when they were just toddlers, racing around on wooden scooters, in a hut in utopia. Well, kind of. They were living in an “aspiring utopia,” as Kapur describes it in his new …
When the Prime Minister met the saint, and other memories and reflections
Afterthoughts, by James George, August 1, 2016. Looking back, I see my five years in India as the high-point of my diplomatic life, and my most memorable time in India as the four days in January of 1971 before Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s official visit to India. […] When the prime minister met the saint, …