NEW YORK, NEW YORK, January 13, 2025 (RNS): The Vedanta Society of New York is easy to miss. The center of worship, housed in a plain-old brownstone on the Upper West Side, has hosted dozens of monks, lamas and other spiritual celebrities over more than 100 years — all thanks to Swami Vivekananda, the young monk who brought the ancient Hindu spiritual wisdom to the city. Vivekananda was born 162 years ago in Kolkata, India. Often referred to as “America’s first guru,” Vivekananda founded the Vedanta Society of New York in 1894, one year after landing in the U.S. It became the very first ashram of its kind outside of India. “He said New York is ‘the purpose’ of America,” said Swami Sarvapriyananda, the presiding minister of the center. “That spirit, that vibrancy, the dynamism, the ability to execute and achieve, he noticed it, and he sought to channel it in a spiritual direction.”

About 80 New Yorkers, including Hindus, Christians, Buddhists and others of any or no label, piled into the center on Sunday (Jan. 12) to celebrate the life of the pioneer who opened the door to a wave of Indian wisdom and teachers in the West. Vivekananda was 30 years old when he traveled to Chicago to speak at the Parliament of the World’s Religions as its first Hindu Indian delegate, where he gave a historic speech that emphasized the Vedantic Hindu teaching of coexistence and non-sectarianism. Vivekananda became one of the 16 direct disciples of the Ramakrishna Order: a mission of the Vedanta spiritual tradition that often discusses existence, the universe and the interconnectedness of all beings as told in the Vedas. But Vivekananda was different from the rest, said Sarvapriyananda. It was simply predestined, or “in his bones,” to spread Ramakrishna’s teachings to the rest of the world, rather than remaining spiritually introspective as he may have desired.

Much more at source.
https://religionnews.com/2025/01/13/new-york-celebrates-the-birth-anniversary-of-swami-vivekananda/


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