A Heart Poured Out: A Story of Swami Ashokananda
This fascinating biography tells the story of Swami Ashokananda (1893-1969), an illustrious teacher of the Ramakrishna Order who spent most of his life expanding the Vedanta movement in northern California while training his American students to lead authentic spiritual lives. Award-winning author Marie Louise Burke (Sister Gargi), his famed disciple, recounts the Swami's life and conversations in a personal style that is eloquent, witty, and wise. His powerful spiritual guidance-here...
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\ Library JournalSwami Ashokananda (1893-1969) entered the world as Yogesh Datta in what is now Bangladesh. A spiritually precocious youth even for that religiously charged culture, Datta dedicated himself to the pursuit of God, achieved an early enlightenment, and took monastic vows under the name Ashokananda in the Ramakrishna Order of Advaita Vedanta (the school of modern Hinduism conceptualizing the relationship between the individual and the absolute as nondualistic). In 1931, he arrived in San Francisco to assist the lead Swami at the Vedanta Society of Northern California, which Ashokananda then led from 1932 until his death. Burke, now in her nineties and author of the six-volume Swami Vivekananda in the West: New Discoveries, met and became Ashokananda's devotee in 1948. In this loving biography, she relies upon her own memories of events and conversations, supplemented by those of Ashokananda's early companions, to chronicle his life in India, successful efforts to expand Vedanta throughout the Bay Area and Sacramento, struggles against prejudice, and constant attention to the spiritual well-being of his followers. A well-written, even compelling remembrance of a saintly life, this is recommended for public and academic libraries.-James R. Kuhlman, Univ. of North Carolina Lib., Asheville Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.\ \
