Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

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Chögyam Trungpa
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 6/30/19

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They kept pouring in, their numbers rising from thirty thousand [30,000] to seventy thousand [70,000].....

At one point during this stage of her life she had an inexplicable insight. Freda "saw" that Tibetan Buddhism would not only travel to the West but would take root there. And the ones who would bring it about would be the tulkus, Tibet's recognized reincarnated high lamas and spiritual masters, who held the essence of the teachings.....


In the early 1960s, Buddhism was still virtually unknown in the West, outside of a very small handful of scholars ... In the eyes of the intellectual Buddhist scholars, Tibetan Buddhism was regarded as degenerate -- shrouded in the magic and mystery fostered by those shamans of the Bon religion that existed in Tibet before Buddhism took root. There was too much ritual, too much Tantra, too much mumbo jumbo....

There was also the matter of reincarnation itself, which in the predominantly Christian West was still regarded as heretical. People had been burned at the stake and been killed en masse (such as the Cathars) for believing such anathema. In the 1960s and 1970s reincarnation was still a taboo subject. The Tibetans, however, not only completely accepted reincarnation as a given fact of life, they went farther than any other Buddhist country by devising a system to find specific rebirths of accomplished spiritual masters who had forsaken higher states of consciousness after death in order to be reborn in an earthly body solely to continue to teach others how to reach the same exalted state they had achieved. The voluntary return to this vale of tears was seen as the highest mark of altruism, brave and noble beyond measure. These were the tulkus, titled rinpoches, or "Precious Ones." They were the cream of Tibetan society, revered, feted, and sometimes unwittingly used as pawns in others' games of corruption. These were the people Freda was now planning to bring to the West to plant the seeds of the Buddha's teachings into American, European, and Australian soil for the first time.

Finding the right candidates, however, posed an enormous problem. The entire community of Tibetan refugees was in total disarray, with lamas, yogis, householders, carpenters, tailors, and others, mingling together in a homogenized, indistinguishable mass formerly unheard of in the conservative, strictly hierarchical society of old Tibet, where Tulkus were kept apart from the hoi polloi for fear of contamination ....

Undeterred by, or unaware of, these seeming obstacles Freda forged ahead with her dream. She had seen for herself what she thought were exceptional, special qualities in the handful of tulkus she had come across amid the mayhem of the camps. To her eyes they exuded an unmistakable refinement, wisdom, maturity, and dignity way beyond their years, which she was convinced would be as attractive to Westerners as it was to her....


Trungpa was installed as the principal of the Young Lamas Home School, and Akong was its manager. When all was complete, Freda had an audience with Nehru to thank him profusely for his help. Nehru smiled and said in a low, quiet voice, "It was not for you I did it." Nevertheless Freda had single-handedly planned and brought into being the Young Lamas Home School. She had succeeded in her pioneering task to bring the tulkus into the twentieth century, and she was on her way to realizing the next stage of her vision -- to bring them to the West.....

The tulkus were learning English and their lessons on the modern world with varying degrees of success. Freda's star student, Trungpa Rinpoche, however, was making exceptional progress, and Freda's aspirations for him became increasingly ambitious. He had a natural aptitude for English and had taken to reading the poets that Freda presented him with, especially T.S. Eliot. He was keen on history and geography too. Freda decided that he was ready to try to get into Oxford, her own university, where he would receive the finest education the West had to offer. With such credentials he would be perfectly equipped and have the clout to bring the sacred Buddhist teachings to the outside world in a language it could understand.

With the help of John Driver, an Englishman who was also tutoring Trungpa, Freda set about getting a Spalding Scholarship for Trungpa, and succeeded. In early 1963 Trungpa set sail for England accompanied by Akong Rinpoche, to enter into the arcane, privileged, and hallowed halls of Oxford University. It was another epic journey into the unknown, heralding as many adventures, pitfalls, and triumphs as they had met in their escape from Tibet.

-- The Revolutionary Life of Freda Bedi, by Vicki Mackenzie


On January 17, 1960, they crossed the border into India.

Rinpoche spent nearly four years in India, where he encountered a world vastly different from Tibet. He had grown up in an essentially medieval culture, and a very unusual one at that. It was one of the very few places on earth, at least in the twentieth century, where spirituality was uppermost in the minds and hearts of almost the entire population. Tibet was certainly not an idyllic society. Rinpoche often said that there was it great deal of corruption in Tibet, and that this was a contributing factor in its occupation by the communist Chinese. At the same time, he loved the land and the people, and he was completely immersed in a Buddhist world there.

In Tibet, he had been a very special and privileged person. In India, the Tibetans were refugees and were not generally treated very well, although kindness was extended to them by the Indian government and many individuals living in India. However, Rinpoche was no longer a person of high status, as he had been. He told me that, not long after arriving in India, he was invited to an English garden party. The hostess was passing around a tray of cucumber sandwiches, which she offered first to Rinpoche. He took the whole tray, thinking that she had made a nice lunch for him. Later, he was quite embarrassed by this.

Many of the Tibetan refugees ended up in camps. He stayed in the camps for a short time, but then he was able to relocate to Kalimpong, which was close to the seat that His Holiness the Karmapa established in Sikkim after escaping from Tibet. While he was in Kalimpong, Rinpoche studied thangka painting, and he produced beautiful paintings of Padmasambhava and his consort Yeshe Tsogyal, as well as other subjects. Later, he was able to bring these paintings with him to the West, and one of them hangs in my house today. He became friends with Tendzin Rongae, a wonderful thangka painter who had also recently arrived from Tibet and helped Rinpoche with his painting. Rinpoche became close to the entire Rongae family. While in Kalimpong, he learned that Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche had also recently entered India and was living a few miles away, about an hour away by foot. Rinpoche used to walk over to see Khyentse Rinpoche and to receive teachings from him. Dilgo Khyentse was over six feet tall, very unusual for a Tibetan, and he had enormous warmth and presence. During this time, Rinpoche became friends with Khyentse Rinpoche's nephew Ato Rinpoche.

India is a significant place for Tibetans because it was the home of the Buddha and of many of the great teachers whose works are studied in Tibet. One could say that India is for Tibetans what the Middle East is for Jews, Muslims, and Christians. There are many Buddhist pilgrimage sites in India. Rinpoche was able to visit Bodhgaya, where the Buddha attained enlightenment, and other important sites.

In India, Rinpoche was also exposed to many non-Buddhist cultures for the first time. He came to love Indian food and to appreciate many things about the Indian culture. He encountered people from all over the world there. In particular, he met several English Buddhists who were extremely kind and helpful to him. Freda Bedi was one of these. She was an Englishwoman who had married an Indian, Baba Bedi. She worked for the Central Social Welfare Board of the Indian government helping Tibetan refugees, and she was so affected by her involvement with the Tibetans that she became a Buddhist herself. After her husband's death, she was one of the first Westerners to become a Tibetan Buddhist nun.

Rinpoche met her at the refugee camp in Bir, and she formed an immediate bond with him. From the earliest contacts he had with Westerners, he shone out like a light or a beacon to them. Lama Govinda, a Westerner and an early writer about Tibetan Buddhism, reported this quality. Lama Govinda met Rinpoche in northern India, just after Rinpoche's escape from Tibet. Many Tibetan refugees stayed at Lama Govinda's house in the Himalayas on their way south, and he said that Trungpa Rinpoche was the brightest of them all.

Freda Bedi helped Rinpoche resettle in Kalimpong, and later she asked him to help her establish a school to train young Tibetan monks, the Young Lamas Home School, in New Delhi, which moved to Dalhousie after about a year. He was delighted to do this, and with the blessings of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Rinpoche became the spiritual advisor to the young monks at the school.

This was the first time that Rinpoche had ever lived in a secular society, and although at first he found it quite strange, he soon took to it. He went to meetings of a British women's club so that he could hear the poetry of T.S. Eliot read, and he used to go to the cinema in New Delhi. On his way out of Tibet, close to the border with India, he was exposed to alcoholic beverages for the first time. In one of the villages where they stopped, you couldn't drink the water, and everyone drank a kind of Tibetan beer. He had been hesitant to imbibe any alcohol since it was a violation of his monastic vows, but once he gave in, he enjoyed the experience, an din India he started to drink occasionally, though not openly. Tendzin Rongae and Rinpoche liked to get together and drink from time to time.

On the way out of Tibet, Rinpoche had fallen in love with a young Tibetan nun, Konchok Paldron, who was part of the escape party. He became clandestinely involved with her while he was in India. She was living in the refugee camp in Bir. She visited him at the Young Lamas Home School, and they took a mattress up on the roof of the building, where they spent the night together. She became pregnant and gave birth to Rinpoche's eldest son, Osel Rangdrol Mukpo, a short time before Rinpoche left for England. When she was pregnant, she made a pilgrimage to Bodhgaya, and their son was born there. She could no longer be a nun, so after Osel was born, she worked as a road laborer to support herself for some time. Later, she married and had another child.

Around this time, Rinpoche received a Spaulding [Spalding] Scholarship to attend Oxford University. This had come through the intercession of Freda Bedi and John Driver, an Englishman who tutored Rinpoche in the English language in India and helped him with his studies later at Oxford. The Tibet Society in the United Kingdom had also helped him to get the scholarship. To go to England, Rinpoche needed the permission of the Dalai Lama's government. They would never have have allowed him to leave if they had known about his sexual indiscretion, nor do I think it would have gone over very well with the Tibet Society or his English friends in New Delhi. He and Konchok Paldron kept their relationship a secret, and it was a long time before anyone knew that Rinpoche was the father of her child. This caused him a great deal of pain, although I also think that he hadn't yet entirely faced up to the implications of the direction he was going in his relationships with women. At that time, in spite of the inconsistencies in his behavior, he still seemed to think that he could make life work for himself as a monk. Rinpoche continued to stay in touch with Konchok Paldron and his son Osel, and a few years later, he returned to see them and to make arrangements for his son to come to England.

Rinpoche sailed from Bombay for England early in 1963, on the P&O Line, accompanied by his close friend Akong, who was to be a helper and companion to him at Oxford. Rinpoche had been working very hard on his English, but when he left India, he was still struggling with the language, speaking what would be called a form of pidgin English. When Rinpoche and Akong docked in England, they were welcomed by members of the Tibet Society, and before his studies started at Oxford in the fall, Rinpoche spent time in London, where he met many of the most prominent members of the English Buddhist community. He was invited to give several talks at the Buddhist Society, and he attended a kind of summer camp they sponsored each year, where he gave a number of lectures.

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Remembering High Leigh SUMMER SCHOOLS

The Buddhist Lodge (now The Buddhist Society, London) ...

-- The 90th Anniversary of The Buddhist Society 1924–2014, by The Buddhist Society


... When he went up to Oxford, he had quite a challenge trying to bring his English up to speed so that he could understand the lectures and the books he was given to read. Rinpoche wanted to learn as much as he could about English history, philosophy, religion, and politics, but it was pretty tough going for him at the beginning. John Driver, who he had met in India and who had been instrumental in bringing him to England, returned to England and helped Rinpoche a great deal with his lessons, and Rinpoche never forgot this kindness. In the evenings, Rinpoche attended classes in the town of Oxford to improve his English. Years later, he still remembered how his teacher had made the class say words over and over, to improve their elocution, such as "policeman, policeman, policeman." Rinpoche proved himself a brilliant student of the English language. By the time he left England for America, his English vocabulary exceeded that of many of his students.

At Oxford Rinpoche was befriended by the Jesuits, who thought that his tremendous enthusiasm for learning about the Christian religion made him a good candidate for conversion. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, but Rinpoche enjoyed their company and felt that here at least he had found Westerners who had some understanding of a wisdom tradition, even though it was not his own.

-- Dragon Thunder: My Life with Chogyam Trungpa, by Diana J. Mukpo, Carolyn Rose Gimian


Alongside this new emergency, Freda continued to pursue another hugely ambitious project. 'My two lama "sons" are coming to England in March ... wonderful young lamas,' Freda told Olive Chandler -- an indication of the strong emotional as well as spiritual bonds forged with these tulkus.24 Along with John [E. Stapleton] Driver, a scholar of Tibet who had spent several years in Kalimpong, she managed to secure a Spalding scholarship to allow Trungpa to study at Oxford University. Akong was to accompany him. They were, in Cherry Armstrong's words, Freda's 'golden boys'. She recognised in Trungpa, in particular, an exceptional spiritual presence and an ability to communicate and to inspire those with whom he came into contact. Both had formal roles at the school -- Trungpa as codirector (he described himself as the school's spiritual advisor) while Akong made sure that the place ran with tolerable efficiency. Anita Morris, who taught English both at Green Park and at Dalhousie, had mixed opinions of the two. 'Akong was very much taking care of the younger ones -- a lot of them were a lot younger. So if they had any pains or any problems, they would go to Akong,' she recalls. 'He'd be going down maybe to a doctor at Dalhousie if necessary or just for ordinary shopping and taking care of things. Whereas Trungpa just did his own thing, his bits of painting and that sort of stuff.'25 A Tibetan lama who knew both well at Dalhousie comments that Trungpa always wanted attention and prominence, while Akong was solid and reliable. Trungpa was already developing a reputation as something of a wild child. Although it was a well-kept secret, he apparently fathered a child with a Tibetan nun who came to Dalhousie to visit him. They took a mattress up on the roof of the school -- said Trungpa's English wife in her memoirs -- and spent the night there. That was not at all typical of the school, but not entirely untypical ofTrungpa.26 He was an enormously important figure in the spread of Tibetan Buddhism in North America and Europe and one of the first to teach westerners in English, but he had lifelong issues about sexual promiscuity and the use of drink and drugs.

At Ladakh Buddhist Vihar, Cherry remembers Trungpa and Akong sitting in their room studying maps of the London Underground and out-of-date bus timetables in preparation for their journey. They travelled by boat. On the day they were due to dock outside London, the pupils at the Home School -- by now back in Dalhousie -- held a prayer ceremony on an open patch of woodland on the hillside adjoining Kailash. 'They lit a fire of juniper branches and the smoke rose in a blue spire into the branches of the trees and on up into the cloudless sky. We sat on brightly patterned Tibetan rugs spread over the stony ant-infested ground and the lamas began their chanting. It was a happy, picnic-like affair around the scented bonfire, with kettles of hot buttery Tibetan tea.'27 At Tilbury, Cherry's parents were on hand to welcome the two Tibetans -- as were Anita Morris and other well-wishers -- and to provide them with an initial berth at the family home in High Wycombe. Once installed at Oxford, Trungpa and Akong were joined by an old friend and another alumnus of the Home School, Chime Rinpoche. They shared a small flat in St Margaret's Road, on the same street as Freda's old college, and Akong took work as a hospital orderly to help support the household. All three became powerful beacons of Tibetan Buddhism in the west.


-- The Lives of Freda: The Political, Spiritual and Personal Journeys of Freda Bedi, by Andrew Whitehead


David Chadwick: [Trungpa] Rinpoche said that until he met Little Joe, the Peyote Road Man, Suzuki Roshi was the only sane man he'd met in America. Rinpoche said that after he left Tibet he never heard of his teacher again and he felt so sad and alone and then when he met Roshi he felt that he had a friend. He said that all the people supporting him in England were only making things worse -- the whole Christmas Humphreys crowd.

-- Interviews: Bob Halpern cuke page, by Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Zen Teaching of Shunryu Suzuki, by David Chadwick


Image
Chögyam Trungpa before 1959
Title Tulku
Personal
Born March 5, 1939
Nangchen, Kham region, Tibet
Died April 4, 1987 (aged 48)
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Cause of death Myocardial infarction and Liver cirrhosis[1]
Religion Buddhism
Nationality Tibetan
Spouse Lady Diana Mukpo
Children Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, Tagtrug (Taggie) Mukpo, Gesar Mukpo
School Vajrayana
Lineage Kagyu and Nyingma
Senior posting
Teacher Jamgon Kongtrul of Sechen
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
Khenpo Gangshar
Predecessor Chökyi Nyinche
Successor Choseng Trungpa
Reincarnation Trungpa Tulku
Website http://www.shambhala.org/

Chögyam Trungpa (Wylie: Chos rgyam Drung pa; March 5, 1939 – April 4, 1987) was a Buddhist meditation master and holder of both the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages, the eleventh Trungpa tülku, a tertön, supreme abbot of the Surmang monasteries, scholar, teacher, poet, artist, and originator of a radical re-presentation of Shambhala vision.

Recognized both by Tibetan Buddhists and by other spiritual practitioners and scholars[2][3] as a preeminent teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, he was a major figure in the dissemination of Buddhism to the West,[4] founding Vajradhatu and Naropa University and establishing the Shambhala Training method.

Among his contributions are the translation of numerous Tibetan texts,[5] the introduction of the Vajrayana teachings to the West, and a presentation of the Buddhadharma largely devoid of ethnic trappings. Trungpa coined the term crazy wisdom.[6] Some of his teaching methods and actions were the topic of controversy during his lifetime and afterwards.

Biography

Early years


Image
Khenpo Gangshar (left) and Chögyam Trungpa

Born in the Nangchen region of Tibet in March 1939, Chögyam Trungpa was eleventh in the line of Trungpa tülkus, important figures in the Kagyu lineage, one of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Among his three main teachers were Jamgon Kongtrul of Sechen, HH Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, and Khenpo Gangshar.

The name Chögyam is a contraction of Chökyi Gyamtso (Tibetan: ཆོས་ཀྱི་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, Wylie: Chos-kyi Rgya-mtsho), which means "ocean of dharma". Trungpa (Tibetan: དྲུང་པ་, Wylie: Drung-pa) means "attendant". He was deeply trained in the Kagyu tradition and received his khenpo degree at the same time as Thrangu Rinpoche; they continued to be very close in later years. Chögyam Trungpa was also trained in the Nyingma tradition, the oldest of the four schools, and was an adherent of the ri-mé ("nonsectarian") ecumenical movement within Tibetan Buddhism, which aspired to bring together and make available all the valuable teachings of the different schools, free of sectarian rivalry.

At the time of his escape from Tibet,[7] Trungpa was head of the Surmang group of monasteries.

Escape from Tibet

On April 23, 1959, twenty-year-old Trungpa set out on an epic nine-month escape from his homeland.[8][9] Masked in his account in Born in Tibet to protect those left behind,[10] the first, preparatory stage of his escape had begun a year earlier, when he fled his home monastery after its occupation by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA).[11] After spending the winter in hiding, he decided definitively to escape after learning that his monastery had been destroyed.[12] Trungpa started with Akong Rinpoche and a small party of monastics, but as they traveled people asked to join until the party eventually numbered 300 refugees, from the elderly to mothers with babies – additions which greatly slowed and complicated the journey. Forced to abandon their animals, over half the journey was on foot as the refugees journeyed through an untracked mountain wilderness to avoid the PLA. Sometimes lost, sometimes traveling at night, after three months’ trek they reached the Brahmaputra River. Trungpa, the monastics and about 70 refugees managed to cross the river under heavy gunfire,[13] then, eating their leather belts and bags to survive, they climbed 19,000 feet over the Himalayas before reaching the safety of Pema Ko.[14] After reaching India, on January 24, 1960 the party was flown to a refugee camp.[15][16]

Between 2006 and 2010, independent Canadian and French researchers using satellite imagery tracked and confirmed Trungpa’s escape route.[17] In 2012, five survivors of the escape in Nepal, Scotland and the U.S. confirmed details of the journey and supplied their personal accounts.[18] More recent analysis has shown the journey to be directly comparable to such sagas as Shackleton’s 1914/17 Antarctic Expedition.[19] In 2016 accumulated research and survivors’ stories were published in a full retelling of the story,[20] and later in the year preliminary talks began on the funding and production of a movie.

Early teachings in the West

In exile in India, Trungpa began his study of English. In collaboration with Freda Bedi, who had initiated the project,[21] Trungpa and Akong Tulku founded the Young Lamas Home School and, after seeking endorsement from the Dalai Lama, were appointed its spiritual head and administrator respectively.[22]

In 1963, with the assistance of sympathetic Westerners, Trungpa received a Spalding sponsorship to study comparative religion at St Antony's College, Oxford University.[23][24] In 1967, upon the departure of the western Theravadan monk Anandabodhi, Trungpa and Akong Rinpoche were invited by the Johnstone House Trust in Scotland to take over a meditation center, which then became Samye Ling, the first Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the West (future actor and musician David Bowie[25] was one of Trungpa's meditation pupils there). In 1970, after a break with Akong, Trungpa moved to the United States at the invitation of several students.

Shortly after his move to Scotland, a variety of experiences, including a car accident that left him partially paralyzed on the left side of his body, led Trungpa to give up his monastic vows and work as a lay teacher.[26] He made that decision principally to mitigate students' becoming distracted by exotic cultures and dress and to undercut their preconceptions of how a guru should behave.[26] He drank, smoked, slept with students, and often kept students waiting for hours before giving teachings. Much of his behavior has been construed as deliberately provocative and sparked controversy. In one account, he encouraged students to give up smoking marijuana, claiming that the smoking was not of benefit to their spiritual progress and that it exaggerated neurosis. Students were often angered, unnerved and intimidated by him, but many remained fiercely loyal, committed, and devoted.

Upon moving to the United States in 1970, Trungpa traveled around North America, gaining renown for his ability to present the essence of the highest Buddhist teachings in a form readily understandable to Western students. During this period, he conducted 13 Vajradhatu Seminaries, three-month residential programs at which he presented a vast body of Buddhist teachings in an atmosphere of intensive meditation practice. The seminaries also had the important function of training his students to become teachers themselves.[27]

Introduction of the Vajrayana

Trungpa was one of the first teachers to introduce the esoteric practice of the Vajrayana to the West. According to Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso, "The one who mainly spread the Vajrayana in the West was Trungpa Rinpoche."[28] In contrast to its traditional presentation in Tibet, where the esoteric practices are largely the domain of the monastic sangha, in the US Trungpa introduced the Vajrayana to the lay sangha.[29]

The presentation of these teachings gave rise to some criticism. According to Trungpa's former student Stephen Butterfield, "Trungpa told us that if we ever tried to leave the Vajrayana, we would suffer unbearable, subtle, continuous anguish, and disasters would pursue us like furies".[30] Other Vajrayana teachers also warn their students about the dangers of the esoteric path.

Butterfield noted "disquieting resemblances" to cults, and "to be part of Trungpa's inner circle, you had to take a vow never to reveal or even discuss some of the things he did." But Butterfield also notes that "This personal secrecy is common with gurus, especially in Vajrayana Buddhism,"[31] and acknowledges that Trungpa's organization is anything but a cult: "a mere cult leaves you disgusted and disillusioned, wondering how you could have been a fool. I did not feel that charlatans had hoodwinked me into giving up my powers to enhance theirs. On the contrary, mine were unveiled."[32]

Meditation and education centers

Image
The purkhang at Karmê Chöling

In 1973, Trungpa established Vajradhatu, encompassing all his North American institutions, headquartered in Boulder, Colorado. Trungpa also founded more than 100 meditation centers throughout the world. Originally known as Dharmadhatus, these centers, now more than 150 in number, are known as Shambhala Meditation Centers. He also founded retreat centers for intensive meditation practice, including Shambhala Mountain Center in Red Feather Lakes, Colorado, Karmê Chöling in Barnet, Vermont and Gampo Abbey in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

In 1974, Trungpa founded the Naropa Institute, which later became Naropa University, in Boulder, Colorado. Naropa was the first accredited Buddhist university in North America. Trungpa hired Allen Ginsberg to teach poetry and William Burroughs to teach literature.

Trungpa had a number of notable students, among whom were Pema Chödrön, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Anne Waldman, Diane di Prima, Peter Lieberson, John Steinbeck IV, José Argüelles, David Nichtern, Ken Wilber, David Deida, Francisco Varela, and Joni Mitchell, who portrayed Trungpa in the song "Refuge of the Roads" on her 1976 album Hejira.[33] Ginsberg, Waldman, and di Prima also taught at Naropa University, and in the 1980s Marianne Faithfull taught songwriting workshops. Lesser-known students Trungpa taught in England and the US include Alf Vial, Rigdzin Shikpo (né Michael Hookham), Jigme Rinzen (né P. Howard Useche), Ezequiel Hernandez Urdaneta (known as Keun-Tshen Goba after setting up his first meditation center in Venezuela), Miguel Otaola (aka Dorje Khandro), Francisco Salas Roche, and Francesca Fremantle. Rigdzin Shikpo promulgated Trungpa's teachings from a primarily Nyingma rather than Kagyü point of view at the Longchen Foundation.[34][35]

Shambhala vision

In 1976, Trungpa began giving a series of secular teachings, some of which were gathered and presented as the Shambhala Training,[36][37] inspired by his vision (see terma) of the legendary Kingdom of Shambhala. Trungpa had actually started writing about Shambhala before his 1959 escape from Tibet to India, but most of those writings were lost during the escape.[38]

In his view not only was individual enlightenment not mythical, but the Shambhala Kingdom, an enlightened society, could in fact be actualized. The practice of Shambhala vision is to use mindfulness/awareness meditation as a way to connect with one's basic goodness and confidence. It is presented as a path that "brings dignity, confidence, and wisdom to every facet of life." Trungpa proposed to lead the Kingdom as sakyong (Tib. earth protector) with his wife as queen-consort or sakyong wangmo.

Shambhala vision is described as a nonreligious approach rooted in meditation and accessible to individuals of any, or no, religion. In Shambhala terms, it is possible, moment by moment, for individuals to establish enlightened society. His book, Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, provides a concise collection of the Shambhala views. According to Trungpa, it was his intention to propagate the kingdom of Shambala that provided the necessary inspiration to leave his homeland and make the arduous journey to India and the West.[39]

Work with arts and sciences

From the beginning of his time in the US, Trungpa encouraged his students to integrate a contemplative approach into their everyday activities. In addition to making a variety of traditional contemplative practices available to the community, he incorporated his students' already existing interests (especially anything relating to Japanese culture), evolving specialized teachings on a meditative approach to these various disciplines. These included kyūdō (Japanese archery), calligraphy, ikebana (flower arranging), Sadō (Japanese tea ceremony), dance, theater, film, poetry, health care, and psychotherapy. His aim was, in his own words, to bring "art to everyday life." He founded the Nalanda Foundation in 1974 as an umbrella organization for these activities.[citation needed]

Death

Trungpa visited Nova Scotia for the first time in 1977. In 1983 he established Gampo Abbey, a Karma Kagyü monastery in Cape Breton. The following year, 1984–85, he observed a yearlong retreat at Mill Village and in 1986 he moved his home and Vajradhatu's international headquarters to Halifax.

By then he was in failing health due to the auto accident in his youth and years of heavy alcohol use. On September 28, 1986, he suffered cardiac arrest,[40] after which his condition deteriorated, requiring intensive care at the hospital, then at his home and finally, in mid-March 1987, back at the hospital, where he died on April 4, 1987.

In 2006 his wife, Diana Mukpo, wrote, "Although he had many of the classic health problems that develop from heavy drinking, it was in fact more likely the diabetes and high blood pressure that led to abnormal blood sugar levels and then the cardiac arrest".[41] But in a November 2008 interview, when asked "What was he ill with? What did he die of?," Trungpa's doctor, Mitchell Levy, replied, "He had chronic liver disease related to his alcohol intake over many years."[42] One of Trungpa's nursing attendants reported that he suffered in his last months from classic symptoms of terminal alcoholism and cirrhosis,[43] yet continued drinking heavily. She added, "At the same time there was a power about him and an equanimity to his presence that was phenomenal, that I don't know how to explain."[44]

Trungpa is reported to have remained in a state of samādhi for five days after his death, his body not immediately decaying and his heart remaining warm.[45] His body was packed in salt, laid in a wooden box, and conveyed to Karmê Chöling. A number of observers have reported that his cremation there on May 26, 1987, was accompanied by various atmospheric effects and other signs traditionally viewed as marks of enlightenment. These included the appearance of rainbows, circling eagles,[46][47] and a cloud in the shape of an Ashe.[48][49]

Continuation of the Shambhala lineage

Upon Trungpa's death, the leadership of Vajradhatu was first carried on by his American disciple, appointed regent and Dharma heir, Ösel Tendzin (Thomas Rich), and then by Trungpa's eldest son and Shambhala heir, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche.

The next Trungpa tülku, Chokyi Sengay, was recognized in 1991 by Tai Situ Rinpoche.
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Acclaim

Major lineage holders of Trungpa's Tibetan Buddhist traditions and many other Buddhist teachers supported his work.

Image
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

In 1974, Trungpa invited the 16th Karmapa, head of the Karma Kagyu lineage, to come to the West and offer teachings. Based on this visit, the Karmapa proclaimed Trungpa one of the principal Kagyu lineage holders in the west:

The ancient and renowned lineage of the Trungpas, since the great siddha Trungmase Chökyi Gyamtso Lodrö, possessor of only holy activity, has in every generation given rise to great beings. Awakened by the vision of these predecessors in the lineage, this my present lineage holder, Chökyi Gyamtso Trungpa Rinpoche, supreme incarnate being, has magnificently carried out the vajra holders' discipline in the land of America, bringing about the liberation of students and ripening them in the dharma. This wonderful truth is clearly manifest.

Accordingly, I empower Chögyam Trungpa Vajra Holder and Possessor of the Victory Banner of the Practice Lineage of the Karma Kagyu. Let this be recognized by all people of both elevated and ordinary station.[50]


In 1981, Trungpa and his students hosted the 14th Dalai Lama in his visit to Boulder, Colorado. Of Trungpa, the Dalai Lama later wrote, "Exceptional as one of the first Tibetan lamas to become fully assimilated into Western culture, he made a powerful contribution to revealing the Tibetan approach to inner peace in the West."[51]

Trungpa also received support from one of his own main teachers, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, head of the Nyingma lineage. In addition to numerous sadhanas and poems dedicated to Trungpa, Khyentse Rinpoche wrote a supplication after Trungpa's death specifically naming him a mahasiddha.[52][53][54] Among other Tibetan lamas to name Trungpa a mahasiddha are the Sixteenth Karmapa, Thrangu Rinpoche, Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche and Tai Situpa.[55]

The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche said, "As taught in the Buddhist scriptures, there are nine qualities of a perfect master of buddhadharma. The eleventh Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche possessed all nine of these."[56]

Suzuki Roshi, founder of the San Francisco Zen Center and Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, and another important exponent of Buddhism to western students, described Trungpa in the context of a talk about emptiness:

The way you can struggle with this is to be supported by something, something you don't know. As we are human beings, there must be that kind of feeling. You must feel it in this city or building or community. So whatever community it may be, it is necessary for it to have this kind of spiritual support.

That is why I respect Trungpa Rinpoche. He is supporting us. You may criticize him because he drinks alcohol like I drink water, but that is a minor problem. He trusts you completely. He knows that if he is always supporting you in a true sense you will not criticize him, whatever he does. And he doesn't mind whatever you say. That is not the point, you know. This kind of big spirit, without clinging to some special religion or form of practice, is necessary for human beings.[57]


Gehlek Rinpoche, who lived with Trungpa when they were young monks in India and later visited and taught with him in the U.S., remarked:

He was a great Tibetan yogi, a friend, and a master. The more I deal with Western Dharma students, the more I appreciate how he presented the dharma and the activities that he taught. Whenever I meet with difficulties, I begin to understand – sometimes before solving the problem, sometimes afterward – why Trungpa Rinpoche did some unconventional things. I do consider him to be the father of Tibetan Buddhism in the United States. In my opinion, he left very early – too early. His death was a great loss. Everything he did is significant.[58]


Diana Mukpo, his wife, stated:

First, Rinpoche always wanted feedback. He very, very much encouraged his students’ critical intelligence. One of the reasons that people were in his circle was that they were willing to be honest and direct with him. He definitely was not one of those teachers who asked for obedience and wanted their students not to think for themselves. He thrived, he lived, on the intelligence of his students. That is how he built his entire teaching situation.

From my perspective, I could always be pretty direct with him. Maybe I was not hesitant to do that because I really trusted the unconditional nature of our relationship. I felt there was really nothing to lose by being absolutely direct with him, and he appreciated that.[59]


Controversies

[Trungpa] caused more trouble, and did more good, than anyone I'll ever know.

—Rick Fields, historian of Buddhism in America[60][61]


Among the forebears formally acknowledged by the Trungpa lineage, and referred to by Trungpa, were the Indian mahasiddha Ḍombipa[62] (also known as Ḍombi Heruka; his name may have stemmed from his consorting with Dhombis, outcast women)[63] and Drukpa Künlek (also Kunley), the Mad Yogi of Bhutan, who converted Bhutan to Buddhism and was famous for his fondness for beer and women.[64][65] Both were recognized for their powerful but unorthodox teaching styles.

Trungpa's own teaching style was often unconventional. In his own words, "When we talk about compassion, we talk in terms of being kind. But compassion is not so much being kind; it is being creative to wake a person up."[66] He did not encourage his students to imitate his own behavior, and was troubled by those who felt empowered by his example to do whatever they wanted and manipulate people. As the third Jamgön Kongtrül explained to Trungpa's students, "You shouldn't imitate or judge the behavior of your teacher, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, unless you can imitate his mind."[67]

Trungpa's sexuality has been one of the sources of controversy, as he cultivated relations with a number of his female students. Tenzin Palmo, who met him in 1962 while he was still at Oxford, did not become one of his consorts, refusing his advances because he had presented himself as "a pure monk." But Palmo stated that had she known Trungpa had been having sexual relations with women since he was 13, she would not have declined.[68] Trungpa formally renounced his monastic vows in 1969.[69]

Trungpa was also known for smoking tobacco and liberally using alcohol;[70] many who knew him characterized him as an alcoholic.[71][72] He began drinking occasionally shortly after arriving in India.[73] Before coming to the US, Trungpa drove a sports car into a joke shop in Dumfries, Scotland.[74] While his companion was not seriously injured,[75] Trungpa was left partially paralyzed. Later, he described this event as a pivotal moment that inspired the course of his teachings. Some accounts ascribe the accident to drinking.[76][77] Others suggest he may have had a stroke.[78][79] According to Trungpa himself, he blacked out.[80]

Trungpa often combined drinking with teaching. David Chadwick recounts:[81]

Suzuki [Roshi] asked Trungpa to give a talk to the students in the zendo the next night. Trungpa walked in tipsy and sat on the edge of the altar platform with his feet dangling. But he delivered a crystal-clear talk, which some felt had a quality – like Suzuki's talks – of not only being about the dharma but being itself the dharma.


In some instances Trungpa was too drunk to walk and had to be carried.[77] Also, according to his student John Steinbeck IV and his wife, on a couple of occasions Trungpa's speech was unintelligible.[82] One woman reported serving him "big glasses of gin first thing in the morning."[43]

The Steinbecks wrote The Other Side of Eden, a sharply critical memoir of their lives with Trungpa in which they claim that, in addition to alcohol, he spent $40,000 a year on cocaine, and used Seconal to come down from the cocaine. The Steinbecks said the cocaine use was kept secret from the wider Vajradhatu community.[83]

An incident that became a cause célèbre among some poets and artists was the Halloween party at Snowmass Colorado Seminary in 1975, held during a 3-month period of intensive meditation and study of the Hinayana, Mahayana, and Vajrayana vehicles of Tibetan Buddhism. The poet W. S. Merwin had arrived at the Naropa Institute that summer and been told by Allen Ginsberg that he ought to attend the seminary. Although he had not gone through the several years' worth of study and preparatory mind training required, Merwin insisted on attending and Trungpa eventually granted his request – along with Merwin's girlfriend. At seminary the couple kept to themselves. At the Halloween party, after many, including Trungpa himself, had taken off their clothes, Merwin was asked to join the event but refused. On Trungpa's orders, his Vajra Guard forced entry into the poet's locked and barricaded room; brought him and his girlfriend, Dana Naone, against their will, to the party; and eventually stripped them of all their clothes, with onlookers ignoring Naone's pleas for help and for someone to call the police.[84] The next day Trungpa asked Merwin and Naone to remain at the Seminary as either students or guests. They agreed to stay for several more weeks to hear the Vajrayana teachings, with Trungpa's promise that "there would be no more incidents" and Merwin's that there would be "no guarantees of obedience, trust, or personal devotion to him."[85] They left immediately after the last talk. In a 1977 letter to members of a Naropa class investigating the incident, Merwin concluded,

My feelings about Trungpa have been mixed from the start. Admiration, throughout, for his remarkable gifts; and reservations, which developed into profound misgivings, concerning some of his uses of them. I imagine, at least, that I've learned some things from him (though maybe not all of them were the things I was "supposed" to learn) and some through him, and I'm grateful to him for those. I wouldn't encourage anyone to become a student of his. I wish him well.[86]


The incident became known to a wider public when Tom Clark published "The Great Naropa Poetry Wars". The Naropa Institute later asked Ed Sanders and his class to conduct an internal investigation, resulting in a lengthy report.[87][88][89][90][91]

Eliot Weinberger commented on the incident in a critique aimed at Trungpa and Allen Ginsberg published in The Nation on April 19, 1980. He complained that the fascination of some of the best minds of his generation with Trungpa's presentation of Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan theocracy created a dangerous exclusivity and elitism.[92]

Author Jeffery Paine commented on this incident that "[s]eeing Merwin out of step with the rest, Trungpa could have asked him to leave, but decided it was kinder to shock him out of his aloofness."[93] Paine also noted the outrage felt in particular by poets such as Robert Bly and Kenneth Rexroth, who began calling Trungpa a fascist.[94]

Trungpa's choice of Westerner Ösel Tendzin as his dharma heir was controversial, as Tendzin was the first Western Tibetan Buddhist lineage holder and Vajra Regent. This was exacerbated by Tendzin's own behavior as lineage holder. While knowingly HIV-positive, Tendzin was sexually involved with students, one of whom became infected and died.[95]

Chronology

1940: Born in Kham, Eastern Tibet. Enthroned as eleventh Trungpa Tulku, Supreme Abbot of Surmang Monasteries, and Governor of Surmang District. Some put his birth in 1939.[96]

1944–59: Studies traditional monastic disciplines, meditation, and philosophy, as well as calligraphy, thangka painting, and monastic dance.

1947: Ordained as a shramanera (novice monk).

1958: Receives degrees of Kyorpön (Master of Studies) and Khenpo (Doctor of Divinity). Ordained as a bhikshu (full monk).

1959–60: Follows the Dalai Lama to India during the 1959 Tibetan uprising, which failed to overthrow the Chinese government.

1960–63: By appointment of the 14th Dalai Lama, serves as spiritual advisor to the Young Lamas' Home School in Dalhousie, India.

1962: Fathers first son, Ösel Rangdröl (Mukpo), by a nun later referred to as Lady Kunchok Palden (or Lady Konchok Palden).[97]

1963–67: Attends Oxford University on a Spaulding scholarship, studying comparative religion, philosophy, and fine arts. Receives instructor's degree of the Sogetsu School of ikebana (Japanese flower arrangement).[98]

1967: Co-founds, with Akong Rinpoche, Kagyu Samyé Ling Monastery and Tibetan Centre, in Dumfriesshire, Scotland.[98]

1969: Travels to Bhutan and goes on solitary retreat.[98]

1969: Receives The Sadhana of Mahamudra terma text while on retreat in Paro Taktsang, a sacred cliffside monastery in Bhutan.[99]

1969: Becomes the first Tibetan British subject. Injured in a car accident, leaving him partially paralyzed.[100]

1970: After the accident Chögyam Trungpa renounces his monastic vows.[100] He claims that the dharma needs to be free of cultural trappings to take root.[98]

1970: Marries wealthy sixteen-year-old English student Diana Judith Pybus.[101]

1970: Arrives in North America. Establishes Tail of the Tiger, a Buddhist meditation and study center in Vermont, now known as Karmê Chöling. Establishes Karma Dzong, a Buddhist community in Boulder, Colorado.[102]

1971: Begins teaching at University of Colorado. Establishes Rocky Mountain Dharma Center, now known as Shambhala Mountain Center, near Fort Collins, Colorado.

1972: Initiates Maitri, a therapeutic program that works with different styles of neurosis using principles of the five buddha families. Conducts the Milarepa Film Workshop, a program which analyzes the aesthetics of film, on Lookout Mountain, Colorado.

1973: Founds Mudra Theater Group, which stages original plays and practices theater exercises, based on traditional Tibetan dance.[103] Incorporates Vajradhatu, an international association of Buddhist meditation and study centers, now known as Shambhala International. Establishes Dorje Khyung Dzong, a retreat facility in southern Colorado.[104] Conducts first annual Vajradhatu Seminary, a three-month advanced practice and study program.

1974: Incorporates Nalanda Foundation, a nonprofit, nonsectarian educational organization to encourage and organize programs in the fields of education, psychology, and the arts. Hosts the first North American visit of The Sixteenth Gyalwang Karmapa, head of the Karma Kagyü lineage. Founds The Naropa Institute, a contemplative studies and liberal arts college, now fully accredited as Naropa University. Forms the organization that will become the Dorje Kasung, a service group entrusted with the protection of the buddhist teachings and the welfare of the community.

1975: Forms the organization that will become the Shambhala Lodge, a group of students dedicated to fostering enlightened society. Founds the Nalanda Translation Committee for the translation of Buddhist texts from Tibetan and Sanskrit. Establishes Ashoka Credit Union.

1976: Hosts the first North American visit of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, revered meditation master and scholar of the Nyingma lineage. Hosts a visit of Dudjom Rinpoche, head of the Nyingma lineage. Empowers Thomas F. Rich as his dharma heir, known thereafter as Vajra Regent Ösel Tendzin. Establishes the Kalapa Court in Boulder, Colorado, as his residence and a cultural center for the Vajradhatu community. Receives the first of several Shambhala terma texts (see termas). These comprise the literary source for the Shambhala teachings. Founds Alaya Preschool in Boulder, Colorado.

1977: Bestows the Vajrayogini abhisheka for the first time in the West for students who have completed ngöndro practice. Establishes the celebration of Shambhala Day. Observes a year-long retreat in Charlemont, Massachusetts. Founds Shambhala Training to promote a secular approach to meditation practice and an appreciation of basic human goodness. Visits Nova Scotia for the first time.

1978: Conducts the first annual Magyal Pomra Encampment, an advanced training program for members of the Dorje Kasung. Conducts the first annual Kalapa Assembly, an intensive training program for advanced Shambhala teachings and practices. Conducts the first Dharma Art seminar. Forms Amara, an association of health professionals. Forms the Upaya Council, a mediation council providing a forum for resolving disputes. Establishes the Midsummer's Day festival and Children's Day.

1979: Empowers his eldest son, Ösel Rangdröl Mukpo, as his successor and heir to the Shambhala lineage. Founds the Shambhala School of Dressage, an equestrian school under the direction of his wife, Lady Diana Mukpo. Founds Vidya Elementary School in Boulder, Colorado.

1980–83: Presents a series of environmental installations and flower arranging exhibitions at art galleries in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, and Boulder.

1980: Forms Kalapa Cha to promote the practice of traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony. With the Nalanda Translation Committee, completes the first English translation of The Rain of Wisdom.

1981: Hosts the visit of the 14th Dalai Lama to Boulder, Colorado. Conducts the first annual Buddhist-Christian Conference in Boulder, Colorado, exploring the common ground between Buddhist and Christian contemplative traditions. Forms Ryuko Kyūdōjō to promote the practice of Kyūdō under the direction of Shibata Kanjuro Sensei, bow maker to the Emperor of Japan. Directs a film, Discovering Elegance, using footage of his environmental installation and flower arranging exhibitions.

1982: Forms Kalapa Ikebana to promote the study and practice of Japanese flower arranging.

1983: Establishes Gampo Abbey, a Karma Kagyü monastery located in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, for Western students wishing to enter into traditional monastic discipline. Creates a series of elocution exercises to promote precision and mindfulness of speech.

1984–85: Observes a year-long retreat in Mill Village, Nova Scotia.

1986: Moves his home and the international headquarters of Vajradhatu to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

1987: Dies in Halifax; cremated May 26 at Karmê Chöling. (His followers have constructed a chorten or stupa, The Great Stupa of Dharmakaya, located near Red Feather Lakes, Colorado, for his remains.)

1989: The child recognized as his reincarnation, Chokyi Sengay, is born in Derge, Tibet; recognized two years later by Tai Situ Rinpoche.

Bibliography

• Born in Tibet (1966), autobiography, story of escaping from Tibet.
• Meditation in Action (1969)
• Mudra (1972)
• Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism (1973)
• The Dawn of Tantra, by Herbert V. Guenther and Chögyam Trungpa (1975)
• Glimpses of Abhidharma (1975)
• The Tibetan Book of the Dead: The Great Liberation through Hearing in the Bardo, translated with commentary by Francesca Fremantle and Chögyam Trungpa (1975)
• Visual Dharma: The Buddhist Art of Tibet (1975)
• The Myth of Freedom and the Way of Meditation (1976)
• The Rain of Wisdom (1980)
• Journey without Goal: The Tantric Wisdom of the Buddha (1981)
• The Life of Marpa the Translator (1982)
• First Thought Best Thought: 108 Poems (1983)
• Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior (1984)
• Crazy Wisdom (1991)
• The Heart of the Buddha (1991)
• Orderly Chaos: The Mandala Principle (1991)
• Secret Beyond Thought: The Five Chakras and the Four Karmas (1991)
• The Lion's Roar: An Introduction to Tantra (1992)
• Transcending Madness: The Experience of the Six Bardos (1992)
• Training the Mind and Cultivating Loving Kindness (1993)
• Glimpses of Shunyata (1993)
• The Art of Calligraphy: Joining Heaven and Earth (1994)
• Illusion's Game: The Life and Teaching of Naropa (1994)
• The Path Is the Goal: A Basic Handbook of Buddhist Meditation (1995)
• Dharma Art (1996)
• Timely Rain: Selected Poetry of Chögyam Trungpa (1998)
• Great Eastern Sun: The Wisdom of Shambhala (1999)
• Glimpses of Space: The Feminine Principle and Evam (1999)
• The Essential Chögyam Trungpa (2000)
• Glimpses of Mahayana (2001)
• Glimpses of Realization (2003)
• The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa, Volumes One through Eight (2003)
• True Command: The Teachings of the Dorje Kasung, Volume I, The Town Talks (2004)
• The Sanity We Are Born With: A Buddhist Approach to Psychology (2005)
• The Teacup & the Skullcup: Chogyam Trungpa on Zen and Tantra (2007)
• The Mishap Lineage: Transforming Confusion into Wisdom (2009)
• Smile at Fear: Awakening the True Heart of Bravery (2010)
• The Truth of Suffering and the Path of Liberation (2010)
• Work, Sex, Money. Real Life on the Path of Mindfulness (2011)
• The Profound Treasury of the Ocean of Dharma (2013)
• The Path of Individual Liberation (volume 1) (2013)
• The Bodhisattava Path of Wisdom and Compassion (volume 2) (2013)
• The Tantric Path of Indestructible Wakefulness (volume 3) (2013)
• Training the Mind and Cultivating Loving-Kindness (2013)
• Devotion and Crazy Wisdom: Teachings on the Sadhana of Mahamudra (2015)
• Glimpses of the Profound: Four Short Works (2016)
• Mindfulness in Action: Making Friends with Yourself through Meditation and Everyday Awareness (2016)
• Milarepa: Lessons from the Life and Songs of Tibet's Great Yogi (2017)
• The Future Is Open: Good Karma, Bad Karma, and Beyond Karma (2018)

See also

• Buddhism in the United States
• Shambhala Buddhism
• Tulku (documentary film by Trungpa's son Gesar Mukpo)
• Celtic Buddhism
• Ken Keyes, Jr.
• Miksang (contemplative photography)
• Reginald Ray
• Samaya
• Charles H, Percy

Notes

1. https://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/27/us/2 ... rmont.html
2. Midal, 2005
3. Luminous passage: the practice and study of Buddhism in America By Charles S. Prebish; p44
4. "Exceptional as one of the first Tibetan lamas to become fully assimilated into Western culture, he made a powerful contribution in revealing the Tibetan approach to inner peace in the West." The Dalai Lama, "A message from his Holiness, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama" in Recalling Chogyam Trungpa Ed. Fabrice Midal; pp ix–x
5. Chögyam The Translator Archived 2008-08-29 at the Wayback Machine
6. Divalerio, David (2015). The Holy Madmen of Tibet. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 239.
7. MacLean, Grant (2016). From Lion's Jaws - Chögyam Trungpa's Epic Escape To The West (1 ed.). Mountain. ISBN 978-0-9950293-0-9.
8. Trungpa, Chögyam (1966). Born in Tibet.164
9. MacLean, Grant (2016). From Lion's Jaws: Chögyam Trungpa's Epic Escape To The West
10. Trungpa, Chögyam (1966). Born in Tibet.
11. From Lion's Jaws, 65-69.
12. Born in Tibet. 164
13. Born in Tibet.230
14. Born in Tibet.239
15. Born in Tibet.248
16. From Lion's Jaws.270
17. "Finding the Escape Route". Retrieved December 5, 2016.
18. From Lion's Jaws.10-12.
19. "Place in History". Retrieved December 5, 2016.
20. "From Lion's Jaws". Retrieved December 5, 2016.
21. Palmo., Tenzin (2014). The Life and Accomplishments of Freda Bedi, in Karma Lekshe Tsomo, editor. Eminent Buddhist Women. New York: SUNY. ISBN 143845130X.
22. From Lion's Jaws.284
23. Trungpa, Chogyam (2000). Born in Tibet (4 ed.). Boston: Shambhala Publications. p. 252. ISBN 1-57062-116-0.
24. The Buddhist Handbook: A Complete Guide to Buddhist Teaching and Practice at Google Books
25. "Bringing Chogyam Trungpa's "Crazy Wisdom" to the screen "
26. Born in Tibet, 1977 edition, Epilogue
27. last paragraph is exact quote from http://www.shambhala.org/teachers/chogyam-trungpa.php
28. Interview with Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche; 17 September 2003 [1], after [2]
29. Dead but not lost: grief narratives in religious traditions By Robert Goss, Dennis Klass; p74
30. Butterfield 11
31. Butterfield 12, 100
32. Butterfield 239
33. "What Kind of Buddhist was Steve Jobs, Really?". Retrieved 2015-10-26.
34. Longchen Foundation Archived 2012-01-28 at the Wayback Machine
35. Rigdzin Shikpo 2007
36. Midal 2001, pp 233–247
37. Trungpa 2004, Introduction to Volume 8
38. Midal 2005, pp 363–364
39. Chogyam The Translator, see p. 4 Archived 2008-08-29 at the Wayback Machine
40. Hayward, 2008, p 367
41. Mukpo, 2006, p. 382
42. Chronicles Radio Presents. November 1st, 2008.[3]
43. Butler, Katy. Encountering the Shadow in Buddhist America in Common Boundary May/June 1990. pg. 17
44. Zweig 1991, p. 142
45. Hayward, 2008, p. 371
46. Miles, 1989, pp. 526–528
47. Hayward, 2008, p. 373
48. "Collective identity and the post-charismatic fate of Shambhala International" by Eldershaw, Lynn P., Ph.D. thesis, University of Waterloo, 2004. pg 222
49. "Everyone who stayed long enough at Trungpa's cremation saw the rainbows." Stephen Butterfield, in The new Buddhism: the western transformation of an ancient tradition By James William Coleman; p77
50. "Proclamation to all Those Who Dwell Under the Sun Upholding the Tradition of the Spiritual and Temporal Orders", The Gyalwang Karmapa, 1974, in Garuda IV, 1976, pp 86–87, ISBN 0-87773-086-5.
51. Midal, 2005. p. x
52. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Light of Blessings
53. Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, Reflections on Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
54. The Vajracarya Trungpa Rinpoche Archived December 5, 2008, at the Wayback Machine: "The 1st Trungpa Rinpoche ... was an incarnation of the Indian Mahasiddha Dombipa"
55. Warrior-King of Shambhala: Remembering Chogyam Trungpa By Jeremy Hayward; p274
56. Midal, 2005. p. 16
57. Midal, 2005. p. 381
58. Midal, 2005. p. 418
59. [4]
60. Fields 1992
61. Fields 1988, poem "CTR, April 4, 1987" in Fuck You Cancer and Other Poems, p. 9. Crooked Cloud Projects (1999)
62. Born in Tibet. p. 33.
63. "Mahasiddha Dombhipa… Dombipa / Dombipāda (dom bhi he ru ka): "He of the Washer Folk"/"The Tiger Rider"". Retrieved 12 December 2016.
64. Chogyam Trungpa: His Life and Vision. p. 154.
65. Dowman, Keith (2014). The Divine Madman: The Sublime Life and Songs of Drukpa Kunley. Createspace. ISBN 1495379833.
66. The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa, Volume Six, p. 541
67. Midal 2001, p. 160
68. Cave in the Snow: Tendzin Palmo's quest for enlightenment by Vicki MacKenzie. Bloomsbury: 1998 ISBN 1-58234-004-8. pg 31
69. The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa, Volume 1. Shambhala Publications: 2004 ISBN 1-59030-025-4 pg xxix
70. Lojong and Tonglen Community Site. Biography of Chogyam TrungpaArchived 2006-05-14 at the Wayback Machine
71. Coleman 2001, pg. 74
72. Das 1997, pg. 251
73. Mukpo 72
74. Das 1997, pg. 199
75. The new Buddhism: the western transformation of an ancient tradition By James William Coleman; p75
76. The American occupation of Tibetan Buddhism: Tibetans and their American ... By Eve Mullen; p56
77. Zweig 1991, p.141
78. "Following a stroke which left him partially paralyzed, Trungpa renounced his monastic vows" The A to Z of Buddhism – Page 258 by Charles S. Prebish
79. The Dharma Fellowship
80. Warrior-King of Shambhala: Remembering Chogyam Trungpa By Jeremy Hayward; p10
81. Chadwick 1999, p. 374
82. Steinbeck 2001, pp. 176, 248
83. Steinbeck 2001, pp. 32, 41, 266
84. Sanders, 1977, throughout; Miles 1989, pp. 466–470; and Clark 1980, pp. 23–25
85. Sanders, 1977, pp. 56, 88
86. Sanders, 1977, pg. 89
87. Clark (1980)
88. Marin (1979) p43-58
89. Sanders (1977)
90. Kashner (2004) p. 278ff
91. Weinberger (1986) pp 30-33
92. "Cadmus Editions on Clark's publication".
93. Paine (2004) pp. 106–107
94. Paine (2004) pg. 102
95. Fields 1992, p. 365
96. Shambhala Teachers – Vidyadhara Chogyam Trungpa RinpocheArchived 2005-05-31 at the Wayback Machine
97. Eldershaw 2007, p. 83
98. Trungpa, Chögyam (1996). Judith L. Lief (ed.). True Perception: The Path of Dharma Art. Shambhala. p. 133. ISBN 1-57062-136-5.
99. Sadhana of Mahamudra
100. The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa, Volume 1, p. xxvii, at Google Books
101. Weinberger, 1986, p. 29
102. Karma Dzong
103. "Mudra Theater Group". Archived from the original on 2008-04-09. Retrieved 2008-03-25.
104. Dorje Khyung Dzong

References

• Butterfield, Stephen T. The Double Mirror: A Skeptical Journey into Buddhist Tantra. North Atlantic Books, 1994. ISBN 1-55643-176-7
• Chadwick, David (1999). Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Zen Teachings of Shunryu Suzuki. ISBN 0-7679-0104-5
• Clark, Tom (1980). The Great Naropa Poetry Wars. ISBN 0-932274-06-4
• Coleman, James William. The New Buddhism: The Western Transformation of an Ancient Tradition (2001) Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-513162-2
• Das, Bhagavan (1997). It's Here Now (Are You?) Broadway. ISBN 0-7679-0008-1
• Eldershaw, Lynn P. "Collective identity and the post-charismatic fate of Shambhala International" 2004 Ph.D. thesis, University of Waterloo; an article drawn from this thesis was published in Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, (2007) Vol. 10 No. 4, pp. 72–102, ISSN 1092-6690
• Fields, Rick (3rd ed., 1992). How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in America. ISBN 0-87773-631-6
• Hayward, Jeremy (2008). Warrior-King of Shambhala: Remembering Chögyam Trungpa. ISBN 0-86171-546-2
• Kashner, Sam. When I Was Cool: My Life at the Jack Kerouac School. HarperCollins, 2004. ISBN 0-06-000566-1.
• Mackenzie, Vicki (1999). Cave in the Snow: Tenzin Palmo's Quest for Enlightenment. ISBN 978-1-58234-045-6
• MacLean, Grant (2016). "From Lion's Jaws: Chögyam Trungpa's Epic Escape To The West". ISBN 978-0-9950293-0-9
• Marin, Peter. "Spiritual Obedience: The Transcendental Game of Follow the Leader." In Harpers Magazine. February 1979.
• Midal, Fabrice (2001). Chögyam Trungpa: His Life and Vision. ISBN 1-59030-098-X
• Midal, Fabrice (2005). Recalling Chögyam Trungpa. ISBN 1-59030-207-9
• Miles, Barry (1989). Ginsberg: A Biography. ISBN 0-671-50713-3
• Paine, Jeffery (2004) Re-Enchantment: Tibetan Buddhism Comes to the West ISBN 0-393-01968-3
• Rigdzin Shikpo (2007). Never Turn Away. ISBN 0-86171-488-1
• Sanders, Ed (ed.) (1977). The Party: A Chronological Perspective on a Confrontation at a Buddhist Seminary. (no ISBN)
• Steinbeck, John Steinbeck IV and Nancy (2001). The Other Side of Eden: Life with John Steinbeck Prometheus Books. ISBN 1-57392-858-5
• Trungpa, Chogyam (2004). "The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa, Volume Eight". ISBN 1-59030-032-7
• Weinberger, Eliot (1986). Works on Paper. ISBN 0-8112-1001-4
• Zweig, Connie; Jeremiah Abrams (eds.) (1991). Meeting the Shadow. ISBN 0-87477-618-X
Further reading[edit]
• Feuerstein, Georg. Holy Madness: The Shock Tactics and Radical Teachings of Crazy-Wise Adepts, Holy Fools, and Rascal Gurus. Paragon House, 1991. ISBN 1-55778-250-4
• Feuerstein, Georg. Holy Madness: Spirituality, Crazy-Wise Teachers, And Enlightenment (revised and expanded edition of Feuerstein, 1991). Hohm Press, 2006. ISBN 1-890772-54-2
• Marin, Peter. "Spiritual Obedience" in Freedom & Its Discontents, Steerforth Press, 1995, ISBN 1-883642-24-8
• Midal, Fabrice. Chögyam Trungpa: His Life and Vision. Shambhala, 2004. ISBN 1-59030-098-X
• Mukpo, Diana J. Dragon Thunder: My Life with Chögyam Trungpa. Shambhala, 2006. ISBN 1-59030-256-7
• Perks, John. The Mahasiddha and His Idiot Servant. Crazy Heart Publishers. ISBN 9780975383605
• Chögyam Trungpa/Dorje Dradül of Mukpo: Great Eastern Sun: The Wisdom of Shambhala (1999), 2nd edition 2001, [5], Shambhala Root Text.
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

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Anagarika Govinda
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 7/27/19

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From the earliest contacts he had with Westerners, he shone out like a light or a beacon to them. Lama Govinda, a Westerner and an early writer about Tibetan Buddhism, reported this quality. Lama Govinda met [Trungpa] Rinpoche in northern India, just after Rinpoche's escape from Tibet. Many Tibetan refugees stayed at Lama Govinda's house in the Himalayas on their way south, and he said that Trungpa Rinpoche was the brightest of them all.

-- Dragon Thunder: My Life with Chogyam Trungpa, by Diana J. Mukpo with Carolyn Rose Gimian


Image
Lama Anagarika Govinda
Born Ernst Lothar Hoffmann
17 May 1898
Waldheim, Saxony, German Empire
Died 14 January 1985 (aged 86)
Mill Valley, California, U.S.
Other names Lama Govinda
Citizenship
German (1898-1938)
British (1938-47)
Indian
Spouse(s) Li Gotami Govinda
(m. 1947; his death 1985)

Anagarika Govinda (born Ernst Lothar Hoffmann, 17 May 1898 – 14 January 1985) was the founder of the order of the Arya Maitreya Mandala and an expositor of Tibetan Buddhism, Abhidharma, and Buddhist meditation as well as other aspects of Buddhism. He was also a painter and poet.[1]

Life in Europe

Ernst Lothar Hoffmann was born in Waldheim, Germany, the son of a German father and a Bolivian mother. His father was quite well to do and owned a cigar factory. His mother died when he was three years old. While enrolled in the German army during World War I, he caught tuberculosis in Italy and was discharged. He recovered at a sanatorium and then studied philosophy, psychology and archaeology at Freiburg University. He did not finish his studies, but went to live in a German art colony on Capri in Italy, as a painter and poet. He studied at the Universities of Naples and Cagliari and made archeological research journeys in North Africa. He lived on Capri from 1920 until 1928.[2] During his time in Italy Hoffman became familiar with the work of German life-philosopher Ludwig Klages whose biocentric metaphysics greatly fascinated him and influenced his approach to and understanding of Buddhism.[3] Already at the age of 16 he started to study philosophy and by way of Schopenhauer he encountered Buddhism. After having made a comparative study of the major religions, he became a convinced Buddhist at the age of 18. He joined the Bund für buddhistisches Leben (Association for Buddhist Living). On Capri he practiced meditation with an American Buddhist friend.[4]

Sri Lanka

In December 1928, Hoffman moved from Capri to Sri Lanka and stayed as a celibate Buddhist layman (brahmacāri), and later as a celibate, homeless layman (anagarika), for nine weeks at the Island Hermitage with Nyanatiloka Thera, a teacher and scholar in the Theravada tradition. He was instrumental in founding the International Buddhist Union (IBU) in 1929, of which he made Nyanatiloka the president. The aim of the IBU was to unite all Buddhists worldwide and to promote Buddhism through the virtuous and exemplary conduct of practising Buddhists. As secretary of the IBU, he travelled to Burma and Europe to raise support. Although he came to Sri Lanka with the aim of becoming a Buddhist monk, he was discouraged to do so by Anagarika Dharmapala on the grounds that it would be difficult to travel as a Buddhist monk. In 1930 he founded the Variyagoda Hermitage in a tea-estate in the mountains near Gampola, but he only lived there for one year with his German stepmother Anne Habermann who had come with him from Europe. At Variyagoda Govinda studied Abhidhamma and Pali.[5]

Life and travels in India and Tibet before WWII

In April 1931 Govinda went to All-India Buddhist Conference in Darjeeling as the representative of the IBU, to propagate the "pure Buddhist teaching as preserved in Ceylon, in a country where it had degenerated into a system of demon worship and fantastic forms of belief." However, in nearby Sikkim he met the Tibetan Gelugpa meditation teacher Tomo Geshe Rimpoche alias Lama Ngawang Kalzang (1866–1936),[6] who greatly impressed him and completely changed his views about Tibetan Buddhism. From then on he embraced Tibetan Buddhism, although he never abandoned his Theravada roots and stayed in contact with Nyanatiloka and later with Nyanaponika. Lama Ngawang Kalzang taught meditation to Govinda, who remained in contact with him until his death. During their 1947–1948 expeditions to Tibet, Govinda and Li Gotami met Ajo Repa Rinpoche, who, according to Govinda, initiated them into the Kagyüpa school of Tibetan Buddhism.[7]

The scholar Donald Lopez questions whether the 'initiations' that Govinda received are to be understood in the traditional Tibetan way of the term, i.e., as an empowerment by a Lama to carry out Tantric rituals or meditations. When he first met Lama Ngawang Kalzang, Govinda spoke no Tibetan and his description of the initiation is vague. According to Lopez, no initiation into the Kagyu order or any other Tibetan order exists, and it is unclear what was the nature of the initiation ceremony and the teachings that Govinda and his wife received from Ajo Repa Rinpoche. Govinda himself wrote in Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism that he understood 'initiates' to mean 'individuals who, in virtue of their own sensitiveness, respond to the subtle vibrations of symbols which are presented to them either by tradition or intuition.'[8] And in The Way of White Clouds, he wrote: "A real Guru's initiation is beyond the divisions of sects and creeds: it is the awakening to our own inner reality which, once glimpsed, determines our further course of development and our actions in life without the enforcement of outer rules."[9]

Govinda stayed on in India, teaching German and French at Rabindranath Tagore's Vishva Bharati university in Santinekan. He lost interest in the IBU, which caused it to collapse. In 1932 Govinda briefly visited Tibet from Sikkim (visiting Mount Kailash), and in 1933 from Ladakh. The summer months of 1932 and 1934 he and his stepmother, who had followed him to India, stayed at his hermitage at Variyagoda, where a German Buddhist nun, Uppalavaṇṇā (Else Buchholz), and a German monk, Vappo, were then also living. Uppalavaṇṇā acquired the property from Govinda in 1945 and stayed there until the 1970s.[10] In a letter dated 1.9.1934 Govinda wrote that he had come to Sri Lanka accompanied by Rabindranath Tagore and had given a series of lectures on Tibetan Buddhism in various places in Sri Lanka, trying to raise support for the planned Buddhist university at Sarnath. The reception in Sri Lanka was poor and Govinda, who had run out of funds, was quite disappointed.[11]

On orders of Tomo Geshe Rimpoche Govinda founded his order, The Buddhist Order Arya Maitreya Mandala, on 14.10.1933. Fourteen people were then ordained. Govinda received the name Anangavajra Khamsung Wangchuk. In 1934, in Calcutta, he had the first exhibition of his paintings. From 1935 to 1945 he was the general secretary of the International Buddhist University Association (IBUA), for which he held lectures on Buddhist philosophy, history, archeology, etc., at the Buddhist academy at Sarnath. In 1936 he got a teaching position at the University of Patna, from where he gave guest lectures at the universities of Allahabad, Lucknow and Benares. His lectures on Buddhist psychology at the University of Patna were published in 1939 as The Psychological Attitude of Early Buddhist Philosophy, and his lectures at Shantinekan as Psycho-Cosmic Symbolism of the Buddhist Stupa in 1940. In 1938, after two failed attempts and on recommendation of the prime minister of Uttar Pradesh, he managed to become a full British citizen. In 1947 he became a citizen of India. From 1937 to 1940 he lived with his stepmother in a house in Darjeeling.[12]

World War II

Although Govinda was now a British citizen, he was nevertheless interned by the British during WWII due to his associations with "persons of anti-British sympathies," i.e. the Nehru family. First he was interned at Ahmednagar. Because he made no secret of being against Fascism, the Nazis in the prison camp bullied him, just as they did with other anti-fascists. This bullying compelled the British to open a special camp for anti-fascists at Dehra Dun, where he was transferred to in 1942. Nyanatiloka and other German Buddhist monks from Sri Lanka were also interned at Dehra Dun. In the camp Govinda stayed with the German monk Nyanaponika, with whom he studied languages, and formed a close friendship that lasted till the end of his life.[13]

Life in Kasar Devi after WWII and travels to Tibet

Image
Lama Govinda and Li Gotami after their wedding in 1947.

In 1947 he married the Parsi artist Li Gotami (original name Ratti Petit, 22.4.1906 - 18.8.1988) from Bombay, who, as a painter, had been his student at Santinekan in 1934. Govinda and Li Gotami wore Tibetan styles robes and were initiates in the Drugpa Kagyu lineage.[14] The couple lived in a house rented from the writer Walter Evans-Wentz at Kasar Devi, near Almora in northern India.[15] Kasar Devi, in hippie circles known as 'Crank's Ridge', was a bohemian colony home to artists, writers and spiritual seekers such as Earl Brewster, Alfred Sorensen and John Blofeld. Many spiritual seekers, including the Beat Poets Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder, the LSD Gurus Timothy Leary and Ralph Metzner, the psychiatrist R. D. Laing, and Tibetologist Robert Thurman came to visit Govinda at his ashram. The number of visitors became so great that the couple eventually put signs to keep unwanted visitors away.[16]

From Kasar Devi, Govinda and Li Gotami undertook journeys to Tibet in the late 1940s, making a large number of paintings, drawings and photographs. These travels are described in Govinda's book The Way of the White Clouds.[17] While on the expedition to Tsaparang and Tholing in Western Tibet in 1948-49, sponsored by the Illustrated Weekly of India, Govinda received initiations in the Nyingma and Sakyapa lineages.[18] Pictures of the Tsaparang frescoes taken by Li Gotami, then, before the Cultural Revolution, still intact appear in Govinda's The Way of the White Clouds Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism and Tibet in Pictures (co-authored with Li Gotami).[19] In The Way of the White Clouds Govinda writes that he was a reincarnation of the poet Novalis.[20]

1960s and 1970s world tours

Image
Li Gotami, Anagariki Govinda, Nyanaponika Thera, late 1960s or early 1970s

The German Hans-Ulrich Rieker, who was ordained in the Arya Maitreya Mandala Order in 1952, was ordered by Govinda to set up a Western wing of the Order. The founding took place simultaneously in Berlin by Rieker, and in Sanchi by Govinda, on 30.11.1952. In 1960 Govinda went to Europe as a representative of Tibetan Buddhism at an international religious conference in Venice. Subsequently, he went to England, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands. In 1965 he went on a lecturing tour through Germany, France, and Switzerland. In 1968-69 through the USA and Japan. In 1972-73, and 1974-76 he went on world tours. In 1977 he last visited Germany.

On his journeys to the West Govinda made friends with the Swiss philosopher Jean Gebser, the Zen and Taoist teacher Alan Watts, the pioneer of transcendental psychotherapy Roberto Assagioli and the author Luise Rinser.[21]

Later years

For health reasons Govinda finally settled in the San Francisco Bay area, where he and his wife were taken care of by Alan Watts and Suzuki Roshi's San Francisco Zen Centre.[22] In San Francisco he established a branch of his order, called "Home of Dhyan".[23] In 1980 he visited India for a last time and gave up his house in Almora. He remained mentally agile despite suffering from several strokes from 1975 onwards. During an evening discussion on 14.1.1985, he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his neck that traveled downwards. He lay down on his right side and died laughing.[24]

His ashes were placed in the Nirvana-Stupa, which was erected in 1997 on the premises of Samten Choeling Monastery in Darjeeling.[25]

Writings

Govinda wrote several books on a wide variety of Buddhist topics. His most well known books are The Way of the White Clouds and Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism, which were translated in many languages. Some of his works such as Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism were written in German and were subsequently translated to English. His articles were published in many Buddhist journals such as the Maha Bodhi, and the German journal Der Kreis[26] published by his Buddhist Order Arya Maitreya Mandala.[27] Govinda considered The Inner Structure of the I Ching, the Book of Transformation as his most important book.[28]

Works in English

• Art and Meditation, (an introduction and 12 abstract paintings), Allahabad 1936.
• The Psychological Attitude of Early Buddhist Philosophy, Allahabad 1937; New Delhi (Motilal Banarsidass Publishers), 1992: ISBN 81-208-0941-6, 1998 edition: ISBN 81-208-0952-1
• Psycho-Cosmic Symbolism of the Buddhist Stupa, Emeryville 1976 ( Dharma Publishing): ISBN 0-913546-36-4. First shorter edition published as Some Aspects of Stupa Symbolism, Allahabad 1936.
• Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism, London 1957, 1959, 1969 edition, ISBN 0-87728-064-9
• The Way of the White Clouds, London 1966; Fourth reprint, 1972. 1988 edition: ISBN 0-87773-462-3, reprint: ISBN 0-87773-007-5, Hardcover: ISBN 1-58567-465-6, Paperback: ISBN 1-58567-785-X, Ebury: ISBN 0-7126-5543-3.
• Tibet in Pictures: A Journey into the Past, coauthored with Li Gotami, 1979, 2004, Dharma Publishing. ISBN 978-0-89800-345-1
• Drugs or Meditation? Consciousness Expansion and Disintegration versus Concentration and Spiritual Regeneration, Kandy 1973, Buddhist Publication Society, Bodhi Leaves Series No. 62.[5]
• Creative Meditation and Multi-Dimensional Consciousness, London 1976, Allen and Unwin.
• Pictures of India and Tibet, Haldenwang and Santa Cruz 1978. (Perhaps identical with Tibet in Pictures: A Journey into the Past?)
• The Inner Structure of the I Ching, the Book of Transformation, San Francisco 1981 (Wheelwright Press). Reprinted: Art Media Resources, ISBN 0-8348-0165-5
• A Living Buddhism for the West, Boston 1990, (Shambhala), translated by Maurice Walshe, ISBN 0-87773-509-3

Compilations

• Buddhist Reflections, New Delhi 1994, Motilal Banarsidass, ISBN 81-208-1169-0 (Collected essays.)
• Insights of a Himalayan Pilgrim, Oakland 1991, Dharma Press. ISBN 0-89800-204-4. (Thirteen later essays on Buddhism, art, and the spirituality that appeared in American, British, German Buddhist magazines.)
• The Lost Teachings of Lama Govinda: Living Wisdom from a Modern Tibetan Master, Wheaton, IL, 2008, Quest Books. Ed. Richard Power, Foreword by Lama Surya Das. ISBN 978-0-8356-0854-1 (Collection of essays and dialogues. Includes a comprehensive introduction to Govinda’s life and work by R. Power.)

References

1. "Lama Anagarika Govinda Papers," in "Collection on Lama Govinda." New York, New York: C.V. Starr East Asian Library, Columbia University Libraries, retrieved online June 24, 2018.
2. Hecker, 1990, p.84.
3. Volker Zotz, Ludwig Klages as reflected by Lama Anagarika Govinda, in: Gunnar Alksnis, Chthonic Gnosis - Ludwig Klages and his Quest for the Pandaemonic All, Theion Publishing, 2015.
4. Hecker, 1990, p.84.
5. Hecker, 1990, pp.84-85. Bhikkhu Nyanatusita and Hellmuth Hecker, 2008, pp. 105-107.
6. Hecker, 1990, p.85, Birgit Zotz, 'Tibetische Mystik, - nach Lama Anagarika Govinda Lama Anagarika Govinda' [1] (retrieved 6.8.2011)
7. Govinda, 1966, p.156. Donald S. Lopez, p.60. Birgit Zotz, 'Tibetische Mystik, - nach Lama Anagarika Govinda Lama Anagarika Govinda' (retrieved 6.8.2011)
8. Donald S. Lopez, p.60. Govinda 1969, p.25.
9. Govinda, 1966, p.157.
10. Hecker, 1990, p.86. Donald S. Lopez, p.61. Bhikkhu Nyanatusita and Hellmuth Hecker, 2008, pp. 107, 129.
11. Hecker, 1995, pp.170–171
12. Hecker, 1990, p.86-87.
13. Hellmuth Hecker, 1990, p.87. Bhikkhu Nyanatusita and Hellmuth Hecker, 2008, pp. 130.
14. Hecker, 1990, p.87
15. Donald S. Lopez, p.61.
16. Donald S. Lopez, p.61.
17. Collection on Lama Govinda, C.V. Starr East Asian Library, Columbia University Libraries.
18. Hecker, 1990, p.87
19. Donald S. Lopez, p.61.
20. Hecker, 1990, p.88
21. Birgit Zotz, 'Tibetische Mystik, - nach Lama Anagarika Govinda Lama Anagarika Govinda' [2] (retrieved 6.8.2011)
22. Donald S. Lopez, p.61.
23. "Lama Anagarika Govinda" [3], retrieved 6.8.2011.
24. Hecker, 1990, p.87-88
25. "Lama Anagarika Govinda" [4], retrieved 6.8.2011.
26. Der Kreis Archived 1 September 2010 at the Wayback Machine
27. Hecker, 1990, p.88-115
28. Donald S. Lopez, p.61.

Sources

• Hellmuth Hecker, Lebensbilder Deutscher Buddhisten Band I: Die Gründer. Konstanz, 1990, 2. verb. Aufl. Verlag Beyerlein-Steinschulte, Stammbach, ISBN 978-3-931095-57-4. (A whole chapter is on pp. 84–115 is on Govinda. Includes an extensive bibliography.)
• Volker Zotz, Ludwig Klages as reflected by Lama Anagarika Govinda, in: Gunnar Alksnis, Chthonic Gnosis - Ludwig Klages and his Quest for the Pandaemonic All, Theion Publishing, Munich 2015 [6]
• Bhikkhu Nyanatusita and Hellmuth Hecker, The Life of Nyanatiloka: The Biography of a Western Buddhist Pioneer, Kandy, 2009, ISBN 978-955-24-0290-6. Book
• Hellmuth Hecker, Der Erste Deutsche Bhikkhu: Das bewegte Leben des Ehrwürdigen Nyanatiloka (1878 - 1957) und seiner Schüler. Konstanz 1995 (University of Konstanz; reprinted by Verlag Beyerlein - Steinschulte) ISBN 978-3-931095-67-3. (A whole chapter, pp. 155–176, is on Govinda and includes his correspondence with Nyanatiloka from 1931 to 1939.)
• Donald S. Lopez, Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West, Chicago 1998.[7]
• Birgit Zotz, 'Tibetische Mystik: nach Lama Anagarika Govinda Lama Anagarika Govinda' [8]

Further reading

• Ken Winkler, 1000 Journeys: The Biography of Lama Anagarika Govinda, Oakland 1990, Dharma Press; reprinted: Element Books, ISBN 1-85230-149-X

External links

• Website of The Buddhist Order Arya Maitreya Mandala
• Lama Anagarika Govinda, The Pioneer Translator of Buddhist literature, Stayed at Crank's Ridge (Kasardevi), District Almora ,
• Buddhist Ashram Established by Lama Anagarika Govinda, Crank's Ridge (Kasardevi), District Almora ,
• Lama Anagarika Govinda, brief bio sketch.
• Lama Anagarika Govinda's Buddhist Ashram area and around, 2000-2007 and 2013 videos and photos
• "Lama Anagarika Govinda Papers," in "Collection on Lama Govinda." New York, New York: C.V. Starr East Asian Library, Columbia University Libraries, retrieved online June 24, 2018.
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Wed Jul 31, 2019 5:25 am

1974 Seminary: Visit the 1974 Vajradhatu Seminary in Snowmass, Colorado
by Vicki Alexis Genson
January 13, 2017

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


Filmed and edited by Vicki Genson
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Vajradhatu seminary, a twelve-week program of practice and study, was the principal training ground for Trungpa Rinpoche’s North American students. During his lifetime, the Vidyadhara conducted thirteen seminaries starting in 1973. The 1974 Seminary took place during September, October, and November of 1974 in Snowmass, Colorado.

The images and sounds that make up this film were all recorded during the Seminary, primarily during days off. His Holiness the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa visited Seminary and performed the Black Crown Ceremony, during his first visit to North America. The nun at the end, touching foreheads with Rinpoche, is Sister Palmo, Freda Bedi, an Englishwoman who gave Trungpa Rinpoche English language lessons in India, and facilitated his entrance into Oxford University.

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Throughout the film, there are many glimpses of seminary participants, including Bill Ames, Diane Ames, Latha Barasch, Marc Barasch, Cicely Berglund, Helen Berliner, Gene Bobker, Ken Campbell, Rob Curtis, Nancy Craig, Cyrus Crane, Lodro Dorje, Graham Elliott, Jonathan Eric, Martha Espeset, Fred Ferraris, Wendy Ferraris, Rick Fields, David Flint, Martin Fritter, Tom Garnett, Jason Gavras, Carolyn Gimian, Brian Grimes, Gerry Haase, Paul Hardman, Alice Haspray, Richard Haspray, Tom Hast, Norman Hirsch, Rachel Homer, Giovannina Hughes, Laura Kaufman, Hart Keeler, Rick Kentner, Dr. John Kerns, Max King, Poppy Koch, Otto Koch, Michael Kohn (Sherab Chodzin), Robin Kornman, Tania Leontov, Linda Levine, Ellen Mains, Michelle Matthews, Tony Matthews, Meera Mead, Larry Mermelstein, Bob Morehouse, Noreen Morris, Molly Nudell, Tom Pathe, Douglas Penick, Meg Penick, Bob Rader, Arlan Ray, Reggie Ray, Bruce Robinson , Melissa Robinson, Dorje Root, Karen Roper, John Roper, Marvin Ross, David Sable, Eric Salter, Alan Schwartz, Julie Sheen, Susan Skjei, Alan Sloan, Judy Smith, Bob Sonne, Ricky Spiegel, Ann Spruyt, Alan Sternman, Lena Stone, Margaret Sullivan (Drescher), Randy Sunday, Paul Susnis, Erik Swanson, Anna Taylor, John Tischer, Tsultrim (the monk), Tsultrim Allione, Ludwig Turzanski,

Chogyam Trungpa often worked with large groups of participants. Quite early on he realized that it would not always be possible to provide everyone with the tools and the education to do ikebana in all of the dharma art seminars he presented. Moreover, he was trying to work with principles that could apply to many artistic enterprises, not just flower arrangement. So Chogyam Trungpa, together with Ludwig Turzanski, an art professor from the University of Colorado who was instrumental in the development of dharma art, came up with the idea of object arrangements: arranging various ordinary objects as an exercise for students attending his seminars on art and dharma. In this practice, someone chooses an object and places it on a tapletop or piece of paper. This is the heaven element, which represents the vastness of the primary manifestation and gives the arrangement its tone.

-- Chogyam Trungpa: His Life and Vision, by Fabrice Midal


Over the years, Rinpoche was invited to do a number of ikebana or flower-arranging exhibitions. Later, the exhibits evolved into Dharma Art "installations" in which Rinpoche placed extraordinary flower arrangements in rooms that he and his students designed and created. At the end of 1980, he and a group of students had done a major Dharma Art installation at the LAICA (Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art) Gallery. In September, 1981, Rinpoche went to San Francisco for several weeks to give a Dharma Art seminar and to do an installation there.

As with so many other areas, his artistic endeavors drew a large group of students to him, some of them professional artists but many not. A group called the Explorers of the Phenomenal World was formed to explore the principles of Dharma Art and to work on the exhibits and installations. One of the directors of this work, Ludwig Turzanski, was a professor of art at the University of Colorado when we arrived in Boulder. Ludwig and his wife Basia were our close friends from the earliest days in Boulder.

-- Dragon Thunder: My Life with Chogyam Trungpa, by Diana J. Mukpo with Carolyn Rose Gimian


Karl Usow, Patricia Usow, Gerry Weiner, Eric Weiss, Lee Weingrad, Herbert Wickenheiser, David Wright, and Elaine Yuen.
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Fri Aug 02, 2019 12:07 am

Integral Yoga (Satchidananda)
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/1/19

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

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Integral Yoga is a system of yoga that claims to synthesize six branches of classical Yoga philosophy and practice: Hatha, Raja, Bhakti, Karma, Jnana, and Japa yoga. It was brought to the West by Swami Satchidananda Saraswati, the first centre being founded in 1966. Its aim is to integrate body, mind, and spirit, using physical practices and philosophical approaches to life to develop the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual aspects of individuals.[1] The system includes the practices of asana (yoga postures), pranayama (breathing exercises), and meditation to develop physical and mental stillness so as to access inner peace and joy, which Satchidananda believed was a person's true nature. It also encourages practitioners to live service-oriented lives.[2]

Integral Yoga is based on interfaith understanding. Satchidananda taught that all religions share essential universal principles and encouraged Integral Yogis to respect and honor the unity in diversity, summarized by his motto, "Truth is one, paths are many." [3] It is not a religion, but a combination of teachings that form the foundation of spiritual practice. Its branches are not hierarchical in nature; practitioners can find a combination of practices that suits their individual needs.

Classes of Integral Yoga are taught around the world. Its headquarters, Satchidananda Ashram–Yogaville, is in Buckingham, Virginia.[4]

Teachings

The main practices of Integral Yoga focus on restoring the ease and peace of the body and mind. Swami Satchidananda said that "dis-ease"—the disturbance of one's natural ease—is the cause of disease, so prevention and restoration are the hallmarks of Integral Yoga practices.[1]

Principles

The Goal of Integral Yoga, According to Swami Satchidananda:

The goal of Integral Yoga, and the birthright of every individual, is to realize the spiritual unity behind all the diversities in the entire creation and to live harmoniously as members of one universal family. This goal is achieved by maintaining our natural condition of a body of optimum health and strength, senses under total control, a mind well-disciplined, clear and calm, an intellect as sharp as a razor, a will as strong and pliable as steel, a heart full of unconditional love and compassion, an ego as pure as a crystal, and a life filled with Supreme Peace and Joy.


The teachings of Integral Yoga are rooted in the system of Yoga formalized by the sage Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.[5] Foundational teachings include moral and ethical precepts (yama and niyama), which include non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, moderation, non-greed, purity, contentment, self-discipline, spiritual study, and leading a dedicated or selfless life.[6] Integral Yoga synthesizes the following six branches of classical Yoga.

Six branches

Hatha Yoga combines asanas with pranayama, and deep relaxation. A vegetarian diet and abstinence from tobacco, alcohol, and other stimulants are part of this physical component. Patanjali stated that asanas should be "steady and comfortable." Therefore, Integral Yoga practitioners are encouraged to avoid over-exertion and to take periods of rest and relaxation during their practice, allowing for a more meditative flow.[7]

An Integral Yoga Hatha course

Image
A swami leads an Integral Yoga hatha course at the Satchidananda Ashram in Yogaville.

Raja Yoga is the path of meditation and self-discipline, based on ethical principles. Practicing the eight limbs of Yoga described in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali helps to strengthen and harmonize all aspects of the individual, culminating in Self-realization.[8] The Yoga Sutras offer detailed guidance on how to practice. In the Integral Yoga tradition, these teachings are seen as tools for transformation. Swami Satchidananda encouraged his students to implement them in daily life, explaining that, "The teachings of Raja Yoga are a golden key to unlock all health, happiness, peace, and joy." [9]

Bhakti Yoga, the practice that focuses on cultivating love and devotion toward God, is derived from the Bhagavad Gita[10] and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali,[11] which assert that total love and surrender to God would aid the practitioner on the path to enlightenment. In the Integral Yoga tradition, Bhakti Yoga is practiced in many ways. Common practices include kirtan call-and-response chanting, prayer, puja (worship), and "constant remembrance of the divine". The Integral Yogi finds these devotional practices to be external expressions of an internal attitude of surrender, or releasing the ego's selfish wanting.[12]

Karma Yoga is selfless service, a form of meditation in action. It gives without expecting anything in return; thinking of the actions themselves as an offering to the divine or to all of humanity.[13] In the Integral Yoga tradition, Karma Yoga is a central practice. Swami Satchidananda taught that the key to happiness is being of service to others. His motto was "The dedicated ever enjoy supreme peace and joy. Therefore, live only to serve." [14]

Jnana Yoga, the path of wisdom, involves study, analysis, and the cultivation of greater awareness. Through it, practitioners strive to cease to identify with their bodies and minds and realize the unchanging "witness" within. To attain this awareness, Integral Yogis practice reflection and self-inquiry, both of which can be forms of meditation. Reflection means that a part of the mind stands back and observes; this part of the mind is referred to as the witness. Self-inquiry in Jnana Yoga is a more direct questioning of "Who am I?"—a practice aimed at aiding a practitioner in experiencing his or her true identity.[15]

Japa Yoga, mantra repetition, is one of the easiest and most effective direct approaches to developing a successful meditation practice. When one utilizes a mantra, that mantra represents and invokes in one's system a particular aspect of the "cosmic vibration."[16] Swami Satchidananda explained that mantras don't have to have personal meaning—anything that calms and uplifts the mind when repeated could be considered mantra. However, he also suggested that selected mantras, given through an initiation, could be beneficial, "like a prescription signed by a doctor."[17]

Spread in the West

In 1966, filmmaker Conrad Rooks invited Swami Satchidananda to visit Europe.[18] During this visit, he was invited to give talks and classes at Divine Life Societies throughout Europe. He returned to Europe thereafter, having received invitations to speak on Integral Yoga at Yoga conferences, at Yoga centers, and to serve as an advisor to Yoga organizations.[19] During the first European visit, pop artist Peter Max consulted with Rooks and then suggested that Swami Satchidananda visit America on his return to the East. A two-day visit led to an extended stay in order to teach Integral Yoga to American students.[18]

Image
Swami Satchidananda opening the Woodstock Music and Art Festival.

In 1966, the first Integral Yoga Institute was founded on the Upper West Side of New York City. There, Swami Satchidananda, and some of his newly trained students began leading classes for the general public in Hatha, meditation, breath work, and stress management.[18] In August 1968, a group of students took up residence in an apartment in the 500 West End Avenue building to immerse themselves in the yogic lifestyle, forming the first Integral Yoga ashram.

Swami Satchidananda's students in New York planned and organized a public lecture on Integral Yoga for him to deliver at Carnegie Hall. There, a sold-out Hatha demonstration and lecture took place in January 1969.[1] Later that year in August, he was invited to give the invocation at the opening of the Woodstock Music and Art Festival.[20]

You remember that big concert they had back in the 60’s, where everybody was smoking pot, and they were doing experiments on young people? Guess who did all of the flying in of all the bands and drug dealers and everything? Who arranged it all? General Sheehan’s father. Woodstock, New York. That’s where he’s from. Now, isn’t that unusual that the head of NATO would be [organizing a rock concert?]

And his brother was doing all kinds of weapons deals, and selling things to the military. And I went to his wife’s home after my husband disappeared. They lived in a Virginia house.

[Pastor Strawcutter] Was Woodstock a –

[Kay Griggs] Of course! A testing ground for drugs! Of course, it was just an experiment. Like the Jim Jones thing down there. I think even little David Koresh was used.

-- Mrs. Kay Griggs on How the Government Works, Interview with Eric Hufschmid


Soon after, Satchidananda's weekly lectures on Integral Yoga moved to the Universalist Church on Central Park West, as crowds became larger. Finally, in 1970, a large building in New York's West Village was purchased, which continues to be the site of the Integral Yoga Institute today.[1] The members of the Institute opened New York's first vegetarian food store, Integral Yoga Natural Foods, in 1972. It remained the only all-vegetarian health food store in Manhattan until it closed January 2019.[21]

More Integral Yoga Institutes, teaching centers, and ashrams opened in the late 1960s and early 1970s across America. In 1975, Integral Yoga established one of the first Yoga teacher training certification programs and, in 1999, joined with other US-based Yoga lineages to form the Yoga Alliance.[1]

Controversies

Some followers criticised the founder for sexual misconduct and protested against him at Woodstock in 1991.[22][23]

Institutions

Image
The LOTUS Shrine in Yogaville, VA at the Satchidananda Ashram—the headquarters of Integral Yoga

Integral Yoga Institutes and Centers exist on six continents. The international headquarters of Integral Yoga, Satchidananda Ashram–Yogaville, in Buckingham, Virginia, is a large community and programs center dedicated to Integral Yoga.[24]

In 1972, many people attending programs at the Integral Yoga centers and institutes in America expressed interest in developing residential Yoga communities, or ashrams. Yogaville West, the first Satchidananda Ashram was located in Seigler Springs, California. In 1973, a second ashram opened in Pomfret, Connecticut, which became the headquarters for the Integral Yoga organization.[18][19]

In 1980, due to severe winters, Swami Satchidananda closed the Connecticut ashram and moved the community to Buckingham, Virginia. Satchidananda Ashram–Yogaville, serves as Integral Yoga's world headquarters and is home to the Light Of Truth Universal Shrine (LOTUS). As of 2015, around 220 people lived permanently in Yogaville, and 2,000 to 3,000 guests were visiting each year. Yogaville operates as a residential spiritual community, Yoga retreat and programs center, and as a Yoga training center, offering teacher trainings, workshops, vegetarian cooking courses, and programs designed around the teachings of Integral Yoga.[25]

In the grounds of Satchidananda Ashram—Yogaville is the Integral Yoga Academy. This is a training center that offers certification courses in Hatha Yoga and therapeutic Yoga, as well as continuing education courses for health care professionals. This academy operates year-round, offering residential programs that encourage students to immerse themselves in a "yogic lifestyle" based on the teachings of Integral Yoga.[26]

References

1. Anjali, P. (2005). Boundless Giving: The Life and Service of Sri Swami Satchidananda (A Commemorative) (Vol. 1). Integral Yoga Magazine.
2. Satchidananda, Swami. What Is Integral Yoga? Yogaville. Integral Yoga International.
3. Satchidananda, Swami LOTUS: The Truth is One. (n.d.)
4. De Sachy, Kumari. [Yogaville.org About Yogaville]. Integral Yoga International. 15 May 2015.
5. Integral Yoga: About. (n.d.). Retrieved May 6, 2015, from http://www.integralYoga.org/about
6. Swami, Satchidananda. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Integral Yoga Publications. 2012. ii-17. ISBN 978-1938477072
7. Swami, Satchidananda. To Know Your Self. 2008. 65-85. Print
8. Karunananda, S. Raja Yoga: The Nature of the Mind. (n.d.)
9. Swami, Satchidananda. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. 2012. 57-69.
10. Swami, S. (1988). The Living Gita: The Complete Bhagavad Gita - A Commentary for Modern Readers (8, 9.34 and 18.55).
11. Swami, Satchidananda. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. 2012. 57-69. (9, Sutra I.23; II.45). Print.
12. Satchidananda, Swami. Yogaville. Integral Yoga International. Web. 15 May 2015.
13. Maze, K. Karma Yoga: At Your Selfless Service. (2014, May 1)
14. Satchidananda, S. The Greatness of Karma Yoga. (n.d.)
15. Jnana Yoga: Who am I? A Talk by Sri Swami Satchidananda [Motion picture on DVD]. (1994). Integral Yoga Multimedia.
16. Sivananda, S. Japa Yoga. (n.d.)
17. Satchidananda, S. To Know Your Self. 2008. 129-131. Print.
18. Anjali, P. The Milestones of Sri Swami Satchidananda. (n.d.)
19. Anjali, P. (Director). (2007). Living Yoga [Motion picture on DVD]. Integral Yoga Multimedia.
20. Martin, Douglas (21 August 2002). "Swami Satchidananda, Woodstock Guru, Dies at 87". The New York Times.
21. Integral Yoga Natural Foods: A History. (n.d.)
22. Broad, William J. (27 February 2012). "Yoga and Sex Scandals: No Surprise Here". The New York Times.
23. Chopra, Sonia (14 June 1999). "Satchidananda's Yoga Ashram Caught Up In A New Controversy, Past Sexual Charges Begin Resurfing". Rediff.
24. Integral Yoga: Lineage. (n.d.).
25. About Yogaville. Yogaville. Integral Yoga International, 2012. W
26. The Integral Yoga Academy. Yogaville. Integral Yoga International, 2012.

Further reading

• Katz, Donald (1992). Home Fires: An Intimate Portrait of One Middle-Class Family in Postwar America | Excerpts from the book--regarding Satchidananda, Integral Yoga and Yogaville. HarperCollins. pp. 377 ff. ISBN 978-0060190095. Archived from the original on 5 July 2014.
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Fri Aug 02, 2019 1:09 am

Naropa University
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/1/19

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

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Image
Naropa University
Seal of Naropa University
Type Private, non-profit
Established 1974
President Charles G. Lief
Academic staff
164
Undergraduates 402
Postgraduates 617
Location Boulder, Colorado, United States
Website http://www.naropa.edu

Image
Naropa's main Arapahoe Campus, as seen from Arapahoe Avenue.

Naropa University is an American private liberal arts university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1974 by Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa, it is named for the 11th-century Indian Buddhist sage Naropa, an abbot of Nalanda. The university describes itself as Buddhist-inspired, ecumenical, and nonsectarian rather than Buddhist. Naropa promotes non-traditional activities like meditation to supplement traditional learning approaches.

Naropa was accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools in 1988, making it the first Buddhist-inspired academic institution to receive United States regional accreditation. It remains one of only a handful of such schools. The university has hosted a number of Beat poets under the auspices of its Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics.

History

Image
The Administration Building

Image
Allen Ginsberg Library

Naropa University was founded by Chögyam Trungpa, an exiled Tibetan tulku who was a Karma Kagyu and Nyingma lineage holder. Trungpa entered the USA in 1970, established the Vajradhatu organization in 1973, and then in 1974, established Naropa Institute under the Nalanda Foundation.[1] Initially, the Nalanda Foundation and Vajradhatu were closely linked, having nearly identical boards of directors. In subsequent years they differentiated into more independent institutions.[2]

Trungpa asked poets Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, John Cage, and Diane di Prima to found a poetics department at Naropa during the first summer session. Ginsberg and Waldman, who roomed together that first summer, came up with the name for the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics.[3]

Naropa's first formal degree programs were offered in 1975–76. These included a BA in Buddhist studies and visual art, MA in psychology, MFA in visual art, and expressive arts certificates in dance, theater, and poetics.

The MA in psychology was originally designed as an extension of Trungpa's Maitri program, a 16-week meditation course held in Connecticut, and based on Vajrayana teachings on esoteric energy patterns within the mind and body. Trungpa asked Marvin Casper to restructure the Maitri program for use at Naropa as a full-fledged graduate degree program in contemplative psychology. Casper went on to chair that department and edit two of Trungpa’s books. Initially for the degree, students were required to attend three of the institute’s summer sessions, take two Maitri programs in Connecticut, and complete a six-month independent project.

In 1977, at Trungpa's urging, Naropa's administration made the decision to seek regional accreditation. Evaluation visits continued through 1986, and in 1988, Naropa Institute received accreditation from the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. In the mid-1980s, Naropa's president, Barbara Dilley, asked Lucien Wulsin to chair the board of directors. One of Wulsin's first acts was to formally separate Naropa from Vajradhatu.[4] Ties with Vajradhatu were further weakened with the physical relocation of Vajradhatu's main center to Halifax, and then by Trungpa's death in 1987.

In 1991 Naropa's board of trustees hired John Cobb, a Harvard-educated lawyer and practicing Buddhist, as president.[5] Thomas B. Coburn served in this role from 2003 to 2009, succeeded by Stuart C. Lord in July 2009. Naropa denotes Buddhist teacher Sakyong Mipham as its current lineage holder.[6]

The university began engaging in electrophysiology research at The Graduate School of Counseling and Psychology when the university introduced new equipment for the study of heart rate variability, galvanic skin response, and respiration during 2012 - 2014. Later, Jordan Quaglia, PhD established the Cognitive and Affective Sciences Laboratory to study Electroencephalography (EEG) to monitor brainwave patterns in 2016 - 2017 [7].

Spiritual principles

Naropa promotes contemplative education – a term used primarily by teachers associated with Naropa University or Shambhala Buddhist organizations – including activities such as meditation, the Japanese tea ceremony, taijiquan, Christian labyrinth, ikebana, and neo-pagan ritual.[citation needed] Robert Goss comments that

Geoffrey Samuel, Reginald Ray, and Judith Simmer-Brown have traced the Shambhala lineage [Trungpa's teaching] back to the 19th century Rimé movement in Eastern Tibet... When Naropa describes itself as a Buddhist-inspired, 'nonsectarian' liberal arts college, "nonsectarian" translating to the Tibetan rimed. Nonsectarian does not, however, mean 'secular' as it is commonly used in higher education. Nonsectarian is perhaps understood as ecumenical openness to contemplative practices and arts of the world religious traditions that foster precision, gentleness, and, spontaneity.[8]


Goss goes on to note that as with many U.S. Protestant and Catholic colleges and universities, Naropa has faced pressure to establish independence from its associated religious organization, Shambhala International; but unlike many such institutions, it has avoided relegating religion to the periphery of university life.[9]

Naropa's description of contemplative education makes liberal use of Buddhist language and concepts. For example, its catalogue speaks of "students wholeheartedly engag[ing] in mindfulness awareness practices in order to cultivate being present in the moment"..."the development of openness, self-awareness, and insight"...and "interior work" as "preparation for compassionate and transformative work in the world."[10]

As of 2008, contemplative education requirements include: All undergraduate students must select three semester hours of "Body-Mind Practice" such as taijiquan or African dance, as well as three hours of "World Wisdom Traditions" which may include a religion course. In addition certain majors, such as psychology and religious studies, require specialized courses in meditation. In the psychology program, the type of meditation required is specific to Shambhala Buddhism.[citation needed] Besides these requirements, a number of Naropa's professors incorporate a contemplative element into their classroom teaching or course requirements, such as beginning with a bow or a moment of silence or asking students to consider how to integrate their studies into their lives.

For one day each semester, Naropa University holds Community Practice Day, during which regular classes are not held and offices are closed. On this day, members of the Naropa community — students, faculty, staff, and others — are invited to participate in group sitting meditation practice during the morning. Other contemplative disciplines are offered throughout the day. Panel discussions, departmental lunches, and community service projects are often offered in the afternoon. The stated object of the day is to cultivate togetherness in the Naropa community and to emphasize the importance of leading a mindful, aware life rather than a high-speed, cluttered one.

Notable alumni

• Gregory Alan Isakov
• Brenda Coultas
• Bunky Echo-Hawk
• Justine Frischmann
• Tim Z. Hernandez
• Cedar Sigo
• Eleni Sikelianos
• Brad Will

See also

• Colorado portal
• Buddhism portal
• University portal
• Buddhist universities in the United States and Canada

References

1. Hayward (2008) pp.91–93
2. Goss, p. 220.
3. "The Inner Scholar". New York Times. November 4, 2007. Retrieved March 5, 2013.
4. Goss, p. 220
5. Goss, p. 221
6. "Naropa lineage holder".
7. Hernandez, Elizabeth (August 2, 2017). "'Souped-up meditation': Boulder's Naropa University to back up mindfulness with science". Boulder Daily Camera. Retrieved May 17, 2019.
8. Goss, pp. 218–219.
9. Goss, p. 229 ff.
10. "Naropa on contemplative education".

Further reading

• Clark, Tom: The Great Naropa Poetry Wars. Graham Mackintosh, 1979. ISBN 0-932274-06-4.
• Goss, Robert E. "Buddhist Studies at Naropa: Sectarian or Academic?" Chapter twelve of Duncan Ryuken Williams & Christopher S. Queen (eds.), American Buddhism: Methods and Findings in Recent Scholarship. Curzon Press, 1999.
• Kashner, Sam. When I Was Cool: My Life at the Jack Kerouac School. HarperCollins, 2004. ISBN 0-06-000566-1.
• Hayward, Jeremy (2008) "Warrior-King of Shambhala: Remembering Chögyam Trungpa" ISBN 0-86171-546-2
• Marin, Peter. "Spiritual Obedience: The Transcendental Game of Follow the Leader." In Harpers Magazine. February 1979.
• Sanders, Ed (ed.): The Party: A Chronological Perspective on a Confrontation at a Buddhist Seminary. 1977.

External links

• Official website
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Fri Aug 02, 2019 4:32 am

The Spiritual Odyssey of Freda Bedi
by Richard
United Kingdom Shang Shung Institute
The London Institute of Tibetan Studies
August 27, 2017

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


Excerpt From: THE SPIRITUAL ODYSSEY OF FREDA BEDI: England, India, Burma, Sikkim & Beyond. published by Shang Shung Editions in September 2017.
Author: Naomi Levine

CHAPTER ONE: A Conscious Death

I met Freda Bedi not in her life but in her death. From the little I knew, I imagined her an English memsahib, a vestige of the British raj, a great organizer, a doer of good deeds, an Oxford-educated aristocrat. In photographs, she was to be seen always standing behind her guru, the great Sixteenth Karmapa, her large deep-set eyes glowing with tender devotion, her gaze showing no trace of a history that could have been any other. I saw her simply as a nun in maroon robes, although on closer inspection, her face showed she had drunk deeply of a potent spiritual elixir. Nonetheless I thought of her only as a quiet presence in the eclectic entourage of monks, spiritual seekers, and hippies of the 60’s who surrounded the Sixteenth Karmapa. Her death in 1977 had been barely noted in Buddhist circles.

Image
HH Karmapa at Karme Choling 1974. John Gorman to his left, Karl Springer far right. Sister Palmo standing left. original slide 1974 in KCL fonds. Shambhala Archives.

But when her attendant Anila Pema Zangmo described the manner of her death, I had to reconsider my first impressions. Zangmo described her death as manifesting signs that indicated Freda Bedi had reached a high level of realization. Implausible as it seemed, Freda, the daughter of a watchmaker from Derbyshire, might have been a bodhisattva, a remarkable incarnation. Why had I never heard this? Such things seldom pass unnoticed in the Buddhist world where news of a conscious death usually travels far. As I delved deeper, I was intrigued by the mythic dimension of her life’s journey and its conclusion amid signs of the miraculous.

**********************

Anila Pema Zangmo was an unusually confident Tibetan nun. She had every reason to feel blessed by the Buddha in the spring of 1980 when I first met her at Sherabling, the monastic seat of Tai Situ Rinpoche where I had lived for five years. The monastery spread like a fan on three ridges high in the Dhauladhar Mountain Range of the Kangra Valley, thirteen kilometers from where Freda Bedi had built a simple retreat house in the village of Andretta.

Pema Zangmo had been the lifelong attendant of the first Western woman to be ordained as a nun in the Vajrayana or Tibetan Buddhist tradition. After Freda’s death in 1977, she had continued to develop Tilokpur, her nunnery, located on a site above the cave of Tilopa, an enlightened Indian master who had meditated there a thousand years before. Now here was Ani Zangmo, strong enough at the age of forty to manage the construction of a nuns’ retreat center in a pine forest on the western slope of Sherabling.

Pema Zangmo’s karma had borne fruit of an unusual kind for a village girl from a simple family. Only the most fortunate see with their own eyes the fruition of a spiritual path or bear witness to the signs of attainment, as she claimed to have beheld.

Born to a Buddhist family in a remote village in Himachal Pradesh, at the age of twenty-five she paid homage to the lineage of enlightened masters in a year’s retreat, completing 110,000 arduous full-length prostrations in one month at a back-breaking rate of 4,000 per day. Fortune led her, following a lama’s advice, to Dalhousie in 1963, where Freda Bedi had started the Young Lamas’ Home School and was helping Tibetan refugees. Although Ani Zangmo was not a refugee, her faith in the Buddha Dharma brought her into close contact with an especially courageous woman at the forefront of her time.

Freda Bedi was the first English woman to voluntarily enter prison as a freedom fighter under Mohandas Gandhi for Indian independence. She became a close friend of Nehru, the first Prime Minister and his only daughter Indira and was appointed Social Welfare Advisor as the Tibetans flooded the borders of India escaping from the Chinese in 1959.

On meeting the Sixteenth Karmapa, the renowned hierarch of the Karma Kagyu tradition, Freda embraced Tibetan Buddhism and became the Karmapa’s chela or heart disciple.

Image
HH 16th Karmapa and Sister Palmo [and Diana Mukpo], Shambhala archives

In 1966 at the age of fifty-five she shifted her focus from worldly achievements and family life to take ordination as a Buddhist nun. The Karmapa gave her the name Karma Khechog Palmo but like all the Tibetans, he called her by the more familiar but respectful Mummy-la. In the same year he ordained Pema Zangmo on his visit to Freda Bedi’s school for young lamas in Dalhousie. Ani Pema Zangmo was twenty-six.

Outwardly, Freda Bedi and Pema Zangmo seemed at opposite ends of the social and physical spectrum. Freda’s aristocratic demeanor did not reveal the fact that her parents were simple English country folk nor that her Oxford education, significant as it was, resulted in a graduation with only a third class degree. She was elegant, fair, delicate but strong-minded; Anila Zangmo was robust, determined, and earthy in manner. What they both embodied with singular certainty was an intensity of faith and devotion to the spiritual path. And they shared a guru, the Karmapa.

Pema Zangmo became Sister Palmo’s attendant, serving her with devotion day and night, both on her numerous retreats and outside of them. ”Karmapa said to me, ‘Look after Mummy. Looking after me and looking after Mummy are the same.”’ On March 26, 1977, the night before the World Buddhist Conference was to begin, she attended Mummy-la on the last day of her life in their room at the Oberoi Hotel in Delhi. The miraculous signs she witnessed at Sister Palmo’s transition marked Pema Zangmo’s life forever, for one thing inspiring her to reach out to Westerners at Sherabling in contrast to the attitude of the suspicious elderly Tibetan monks.

I arrived at Sherabling two years after Freda’s death. You had to be strong to survive there. In winter leopards came down from the mountains and snatched small dogs and calves. The summer heat brought out the reptile population. Gigantic lizards like small dinosaurs emerged from behind thin exhausted trees to sun themselves on the rocks. Long thick muscular snakes slithered hastily out of sight at the sound of approaching footsteps. At night jackals prowled the forests, shrieking their relentless grief. The water supply dried up and we all suffered from dysentery. No cars, no paved roads, no phones, no taxis, no clean water, no ATM’s, no taps, no flush toilets, no culinary variety. Under these primitive conditions six Westerners were building retreat houses.

The sloping site I chose for my construction was at the furthest end of the same hillside as Pema Zangmo’s retreat hut, about a five-minute sprint on the topmost ridge. She walked unusually fast and came through the woods to arrive breathless at dusk after a full day in the bazaar procuring a consignment of black-market cement.

Barely had we exchanged greetings before she mentioned what was uppermost on her mind. In broken English she related the highlights of Freda’s amazing story which emerged in bursts with every phrase an exclamation mark. ”Mummy-la, Mummy-la, Holy Mother,” she intoned excitedly as if to invoke her presence. ”She is very high incarnation. Karmapa said she is bodhisattva, White Tara emanation. All the lamas call her Mummy. She is like the sun shining. Everywhere is Dharma. People are all the same. She is real bodhisattva. Everything she gives away.”

Anila hurriedly blurted out the story of a remarkable death. ”When she die, her body get smaller and smaller and there are rainbows. I see it with my own eyes. Her death is very famous.” I listened with surprise. No one else seemed to be aware of what Anila was telling me, that this Western woman who had led a full, active life, had shown signs of enlightenment at her death. Miraculous signs in after-death meditation shown by great lamas are made known immediately to inspire their disciples. Thus there was something about Anila’s account that I felt did not quite ring true. My suspicion was confirmed when I asked Tai Situ Rinpoche about it; he was disinclined to commit himself as if the subject were taboo.

Sporadically over a few years at Sherabling and decades later at our meeting in Delhi, more fragments of Mummy-la’s story, as narrated by Pema Zangmo, came to light. ”The night she died,” Anila continued, “I said ‘Karmapa is far away.’ She said, ‘Not far away. He is always with me.’ She said we needed the record of Karmapa chanting Lama Chenno, “Calling the Lama.” We played the Lama Chenno tape of Jamgon Kongtrul and Karmapa. She said, ‘My guru is always with me, not far away.’”

”That night she did Mahakala protector puja. I made some bread, she ate, and then we talked. She gave me some advice. She said, ‘Tomorrow go to find some Lama.’ She put her clothes away nicely. She was wearing her normal ani robes, no zen. She went into meditation. I didn’t sleep properly. I heard her breathing heavily. When I went into her room she was sitting in meditation, but she was gone, still in meditation.”
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W. B. Yeats
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William Butler Yeats photographed in 1903 by Alice Boughton

William Butler Yeats[a] (13 June 1865 – 28 January 1939) was an Irish poet and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. A pillar of the Irish literary establishment, he helped to found the Abbey Theatre, and in his later years served two terms as a Senator of the Irish Free State. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival along with Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn and others.

Yeats was born in Sandymount, Ireland and educated there and in London. He spent childhood holidays in County Sligo and studied poetry from an early age when he became fascinated by Irish legends and the occult. These topics feature in the first phase of his work, which lasted roughly until the turn of the 20th century. His earliest volume of verse was published in 1889, and its slow-paced and lyrical poems display debts to Edmund Spenser, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and the poets of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. From 1900, his poetry grew more physical and realistic. He largely renounced the transcendental beliefs of his youth, though he remained preoccupied with physical and spiritual masks, as well as with cyclical theories of life. In 1923, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Biography

Early years


William Butler Yeats was born at Sandymount in County Dublin, Ireland.[1] His father, John Butler Yeats (1839–1922), was a descendant of Jervis Yeats, a Williamite soldier, linen merchant, and well-known painter who died in 1712.[2] Benjamin Yeats, Jervis's grandson and William's great-great-grandfather, had in 1773[3] married Mary Butler[4] of a landed family in County Kildare.[5] Following their marriage, they kept the name Butler. Mary was of the Butler of Neigham (pronounced Nyam) Gowran family, descended from an illegitimate brother of the 8th Earl of Ormond.[6]

By his marriage, William's father John Yeats was studying law but abandoned his studies to study art at Heatherley School of Fine Art in London.[7] His mother, Susan Mary Pollexfen, came from a wealthy merchant family in Sligo, who owned a milling and shipping business. Soon after William's birth, the family relocated to the Pollexfen home at Merville, Sligo to stay with her extended family, and the young poet came to think of the area as his childhood and spiritual home. Its landscape became, over time, both literally and symbolically, his "country of the heart".[8] So also did its location on the sea; John Yeats stated that "by marriage with a Pollexfen, we have given a tongue to the sea cliffs".[9] The Butler Yeats family were highly artistic; his brother Jack became an esteemed painter, while his sisters Elizabeth and Susan Mary—known to family and friends as Lollie and Lily—became involved in the Arts and Crafts movement.[10]

Yeats was raised a member of the Protestant Ascendancy, which was at the time undergoing a crisis of identity. While his family was broadly supportive of the changes Ireland was experiencing, the nationalist revival of the late 19th century directly disadvantaged his heritage and informed his outlook for the remainder of his life. In 1997, his biographer R. F. Foster observed that Napoleon's dictum that to understand the man you have to know what was happening in the world when he was twenty "is manifestly true of W.B.Y."[11] Yeats's childhood and young adulthood were shadowed by the power-shift away from the minority Protestant Ascendancy. The 1880s saw the rise of Charles Stewart Parnell and the home rule movement; the 1890s saw the momentum of nationalism, while the Catholics became prominent around the turn of the century. These developments had a profound effect on his poetry, and his subsequent explorations of Irish identity had a significant influence on the creation of his country's biography.[12]

In 1867, the family moved to England to aid their father, John, to further his career as an artist. At first, the Yeats children were educated at home. Their mother entertained them with stories and Irish folktales. John provided an erratic education in geography and chemistry and took William on natural history explorations of the nearby Slough countryside.[13] On 26 January 1877, the young poet entered the Godolphin school,[14] which he attended for four years. He did not distinguish himself academically, and an early school report describes his performance as "only fair. Perhaps better in Latin than in any other subject. Very poor in spelling".[15] Though he had difficulty with mathematics and languages (possibly because he was tone deaf[16]), he was fascinated by biology and zoology. In 1879 the family moved to Bedford Park taking a two-year lease on 8 Woodstock Road.[17] For financial reasons, the family returned to Dublin toward the end of 1880, living at first in the suburbs of Harold's Cross[18] and later Howth. In October 1881, Yeats resumed his education at Dublin's Erasmus Smith High School.[19] His father's studio was nearby and William spent a great deal of time there, where he met many of the city's artists and writers. During this period he started writing poetry, and, in 1885, the Dublin University Review published Yeats's first poems, as well as an essay entitled "The Poetry of Sir Samuel Ferguson". Between 1884 and 1886, William attended the Metropolitan School of Art—now the National College of Art and Design—in Thomas Street.[1] In March 1888 the family moved to 3 Blenheim Road in Bedford Park.[20] The rent on the house was £50 a year.[17]

He began writing his first works when he was seventeen; these included a poem—heavily influenced by Percy Bysshe Shelley—that describes a magician who set up a throne in central Asia. Other pieces from this period include a draft of a play about a bishop, a monk, and a woman accused of paganism by local shepherds, as well as love-poems and narrative lyrics on German knights. The early works were both conventional and, according to the critic Charles Johnston, "utterly unIrish", seeming to come out of a "vast murmurous gloom of dreams".[21] Although Yeats's early works drew heavily on Shelley, Edmund Spenser, and on the diction and colouring of pre-Raphaelite verse, he soon turned to Irish mythology and folklore and the writings of William Blake. In later life, Yeats paid tribute to Blake by describing him as one of the "great artificers of God who uttered great truths to a little clan".[22] In 1891, Yeats published John Sherman and "Dhoya", one a novella, the other a story. The influence of Oscar Wilde is evident in Yeats's theory of aesthetics, especially in his stage plays, and runs like a motif through his early works.[23] The theory of masks, developed by Wilde in his polemic The Decay of Lying can clearly be seen in Yeats's play The Player Queen,[24] while the more sensual characterisation of Salomé, in Wilde's play of the same name, provides the template for the changes Yeats made in his later plays, especially in On Baile's Strand (1904), Deirdre (1907), and his dance play The King of the Great Clock Tower (1934).[25]

Young poet

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1900 portrait by Yeats’ father, John Butler Yeats

The family returned to London in 1887. In March 1890 Yeats joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and with Ernest Rhys[26] co-founded the Rhymers' Club, a group of London-based poets who met regularly in a Fleet Street tavern to recite their verse. Yeats later sought to mythologize the collective, calling it the "Tragic Generation" in his autobiography,[27] and published two anthologies of the Rhymers' work, the first one in 1892 and the second one in 1894. He collaborated with Edwin Ellis on the first complete edition of William Blake's works, in the process rediscovering a forgotten poem, "Vala, or, the Four Zoas".[28][29]

Yeats had a lifelong interest in mysticism, spiritualism, occultism and astrology. He read extensively on the subjects throughout his life, became a member of the paranormal research organisation "The Ghost Club" (in 1911) and was especially influenced by the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.[30] As early as 1892, he wrote: "If I had not made magic my constant study I could not have written a single word of my Blake book, nor would The Countess Kathleen ever have come to exist. The mystical life is the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write."[31] His mystical interests—also inspired by a study of Hinduism, under the Theosophist Mohini Chatterjee, and the occult—formed much of the basis of his late poetry. Some critics disparaged this aspect of Yeats's work.[32]

His first significant poem was "The Island of Statues", a fantasy work that took Edmund Spenser and Shelley for its poetic models. The piece was serialized in the Dublin University Review. Yeats wished to include it in his first collection, but it was deemed too long, and in fact, was never republished in his lifetime. Quinx Books published the poem in complete form for the first time in 2014. His first solo publication was the pamphlet Mosada: A Dramatic Poem (1886), which comprised a print run of 100 copies paid for by his father. This was followed by the collection The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems (1889), which arranged a series of verse that dated as far back as the mid-1880s. The long title poem contains, in the words of his biographer R. F. Foster, "obscure Gaelic names, striking repetitions [and] an unremitting rhythm subtly varied as the poem proceeded through its three sections";[33]

We rode in sorrow, with strong hounds three,
Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair,
On a morning misty and mild and fair.
The mist-drops hung on the fragrant trees,
And in the blossoms hung the bees.
We rode in sadness above Lough Lean,
For our best were dead on Gavra's green.


"The Wanderings of Oisin" is based on the lyrics of the Fenian Cycle of Irish mythology and displays the influence of both Sir Samuel Ferguson and the Pre-Raphaelite poets.[34] The poem took two years to complete and was one of the few works from this period that he did not disown in his maturity. Oisin introduces what was to become one of his most important themes: the appeal of the life of contemplation over the appeal of the life of action. Following the work, Yeats never again attempted another long poem. His other early poems, which are meditations on the themes of love or mystical and esoteric subjects, include Poems (1895), The Secret Rose (1897), and The Wind Among the Reeds (1899). The covers of these volumes were illustrated by Yeats's friend Althea Gyles.[35]

During 1885, Yeats was involved in the formation of the Dublin Hermetic Order. The society held its first meeting on 16 June, with Yeats acting as its chairman. The same year, the Dublin Theosophical lodge was opened in conjunction with Brahmin Mohini Chatterjee, who travelled from the Theosophical Society in London to lecture. Yeats attended his first séance the following year. He later became heavily involved with the Theosophy and with hermeticism, particularly with the eclectic Rosicrucianism of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. During séances held from 1912, a spirit calling itself "Leo Africanus" apparently claimed it was Yeats's Daemon or anti-self, inspiring some of the speculations in Per Amica Silentia Lunae.[36] He was admitted into the Golden Dawn in March 1890 and took the magical motto Daemon est Deus inversus—translated as 'Devil is God inverted'.[ b] He was an active recruiter for the sect's Isis-Urania Temple, and brought in his uncle George Pollexfen, Maud Gonne, and Florence Farr. Although he reserved a distaste for abstract and dogmatic religions founded around personality cults, he was attracted to the type of people he met at the Golden Dawn.[37] He was involved in the Order's power struggles, both with Farr and Macgregor Mathers, and was involved when Mathers sent Aleister Crowley to repossess Golden Dawn paraphernalia during the "Battle of Blythe Road". After the Golden Dawn ceased and splintered into various offshoots, Yeats remained with the Stella Matutina until 1921.[38]

Maud Gonne

Main article: Maud Gonne

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Maud Gonne c. 1900

In 1889, Yeats met Maud Gonne, a 23-year-old English heiress and ardent Irish Nationalist.[c] She was eighteen months younger than Yeats and later claimed she met the poet as a "paint-stained art student."[39] Gonne admired "The Island of Statues" and sought out his acquaintance. Yeats began an obsessive infatuation, and she had a significant and lasting effect on his poetry and his life thereafter.[40] In later years he admitted, "it seems to me that she [Gonne] brought into my life those days—for as yet I saw only what lay upon the surface—the middle of the tint, a sound as of a Burmese gong, an over-powering tumult that had yet many pleasant secondary notes."[41] Yeats's love was unrequited, in part due to his reluctance to participate in her nationalist activism.[42]

In 1891 he visited Gonne in Ireland and proposed marriage, but was rejected. He later admitted that from that point "the troubling of my life began".[43] Yeats proposed to Gonne three more times: in 1899, 1900 and 1901. She refused each proposal, and in 1903, to his dismay, married the Irish nationalist Major John MacBride.[44] His only other love affair during this period was with Olivia Shakespear, whom he first met in 1894, and parted from in 1897.

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W. B. Yeats (no date)

Yeats derided MacBride in letters and in poetry. He was horrified by Gonne's marriage, at losing his muse to another man; in addition, her conversion to Catholicism before marriage offended him; Yeats was Protestant/agnostic. He worried his muse would come under the influence of the priests and do their bidding.[45]

Gonne's marriage to MacBride was a disaster. This pleased Yeats, as Gonne began to visit him in London. After the birth of her son, Seán MacBride, in 1904, Gonne and MacBride agreed to end the marriage, although they were unable to agree on the child's welfare. Despite the use of intermediaries, a divorce case ensued in Paris in 1905. Gonne made a series of allegations against her husband with Yeats as her main 'second', though he did not attend court or travel to France. A divorce was not granted, for the only accusation that held up in court was that MacBride had been drunk once during the marriage. A separation was granted, with Gonne having custody of the baby and MacBride having visiting rights.[46]

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William Butler Yeats, Charcoal drawing by John Singer Sargent,1908

Yeats's friendship with Gonne ended, yet, in Paris in 1908, they finally consummated their relationship. "The long years of fidelity rewarded at last" was how another of his lovers described the event. Yeats was less sentimental and later remarked that "the tragedy of sexual intercourse is the perpetual virginity of the soul."[43] The relationship did not develop into a new phase after their night together, and soon afterwards Gonne wrote to the poet indicating that despite the physical consummation, they could not continue as they had been: "I have prayed so hard to have all earthly desire taken from my love for you and dearest, loving you as I do, I have prayed and I am praying still that the bodily desire for me may be taken from you too."[47] By January 1909, Gonne was sending Yeats letters praising the advantage given to artists who abstain from sex. Nearly twenty years later, Yeats recalled the night with Gonne in his poem "A Man Young and Old":[48]

My arms are like the twisted thorn
And yet there beauty lay;
The first of all the tribe lay there
And did such pleasure take;
She who had brought great Hector down
And put all Troy to wreck.


In 1896, Yeats was introduced to Lady Gregory by their mutual friend Edward Martyn. Gregory encouraged Yeats's nationalism and convinced him to continue focusing on writing drama. Although he was influenced by French Symbolism, Yeats concentrated on an identifiably Irish content and this inclination was reinforced by his involvement with a new generation of younger and emerging Irish authors. Together with Lady Gregory, Martyn, and other writers including J. M. Synge, Seán O'Casey, and Padraic Colum, Yeats was one of those responsible for the establishment of the "Irish Literary Revival" movement.[49] Apart from these creative writers, much of the impetus for the Revival came from the work of scholarly translators who were aiding in the discovery of both the ancient sagas and Ossianic poetry and the more recent folk song tradition in Irish. One of the most significant of these was Douglas Hyde, later the first President of Ireland, whose Love Songs of Connacht was widely admired.

Abbey Theatre

Main article: Abbey Theatre

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Yeats photographed in 1908 by Alvin Langdon Coburn

In 1899, Yeats, Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn and George Moore began the Irish Literary Theatre to present Irish plays.[50] The ideals of the Abbey were derived from the avant-garde French theatre, which sought to express the "ascendancy of the playwright rather than the actor-manager à l'anglais."[51][52] The group's manifesto, which Yeats wrote, declared, "We hope to find in Ireland an uncorrupted & imaginative audience trained to listen by its passion for oratory ... & that freedom to experiment which is not found in the theatres of England, & without which no new movement in art or literature can succeed."[53]

The collective survived for about two years but was not successful. Working with two Irish brothers with theatrical experience, William and Frank Fay, Yeats's unpaid yet independently wealthy secretary Annie Horniman, and the leading West End actress Florence Farr, the group established the Irish National Theatre Society. Along with Synge, they acquired property in Dublin and on 27 December 1904 opened the Abbey Theatre. Yeats's play Cathleen ni Houlihan and Lady Gregory's Spreading the News were featured on the opening night. Yeats remained involved with the Abbey until his death, both as a member of the board and a prolific playwright. In 1902, he helped set up the Dun Emer Press to publish work by writers associated with the Revival. This became the Cuala Press in 1904, and inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement, sought to "find work for Irish hands in the making of beautiful things."[54] From then until its closure in 1946, the press—which was run by the poet's sisters—produced over 70 titles; 48 of them books by Yeats himself.

Yeats met the American poet Ezra Pound in 1909. Pound had travelled to London at least partly to meet the older man, whom he considered "the only poet worthy of serious study."[55] From that year until 1916, the two men wintered in the Stone Cottage at Ashdown Forest, with Pound nominally acting as Yeats's secretary. The relationship got off to a rocky start when Pound arranged for the publication in the magazine Poetry of some of Yeats's verse with Pound's own unauthorised alterations. These changes reflected Pound's distaste for Victorian prosody. A more indirect influence was the scholarship on Japanese Noh plays that Pound had obtained from Ernest Fenollosa's widow, which provided Yeats with a model for the aristocratic drama he intended to write. The first of his plays modelled on Noh was At the Hawk's Well, the first draft of which he dictated to Pound in January 1916.[56]

The emergence of a nationalist revolutionary movement from the ranks of the mostly Roman Catholic lower-middle and working class made Yeats reassess some of his attitudes. In the refrain of "Easter, 1916" ("All changed, changed utterly / A terrible beauty is born"), Yeats faces his own failure to recognise the merits of the leaders of the Easter Rising, due to his attitude towards their ordinary backgrounds and lives.[57]

Yeats was close to Lady Gregory and her home place of Coole Park, Co, Galway. He would often visit and stay there as it was a central meeting place for people who supported the resurgence of Irish literature and cultural traditions. His poem, "The Wild Swans at Coole" was written there, between 1916 and 1917.

He wrote prefaces for two books of Irish mythological tales, compiled by Augusta, Lady Gregory: Cuchulain of Muirthemne (1902), and Gods and Fighting Men (1904). In the preface of the latter, he wrote: "One must not expect in these stories the epic lineaments, the many incidents, woven into one great event of, let us say the War for the Brown Bull of Cuailgne or that of the last gathering at Muirthemne."[58]

Politics

Yeats was an Irish Nationalist, who sought a kind of traditional lifestyle articulated through poems such as 'The Fisherman'. However, as his life progressed, he sheltered much of his revolutionary spirit and distanced himself from the intense political landscape until 1922, when he was appointed Senator for the Irish Free State.[59][60]

In the earlier part of his life, Yeats was a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.[61] Due to the escalating tension of the political scene, Yeats distanced himself from the core political activism in the midst of the Easter Rising, even holding back his poetry inspired by the events until 1920.


In the 1930s Yeats was fascinated with the authoritarian, anti-democratic, nationalist movements of Europe, and he composed several marching songs for the right-wing Blueshirts, although they were never used. He was a fierce opponent of individualism and political liberalism and saw the fascist movements as a triumph of public order and the needs of the national collective over petty individualism. On the other hand, he was also an elitist who abhorred the idea of mob-rule, and saw democracy as a threat to good governance and public order.[62] After the Blueshirt movement began to falter in Ireland, he distanced himself somewhat from his previous views, but maintained a preference for authoritarian and nationalist leadership.[63] D. P. Moran called him a minor poet and "crypto-Protestant conman."[64]

Marriage to Georgie Hyde Lees

Main article: Georgie Hyde-Lees

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Walter de la Mare, Bertha Georgie Yeats (née Hyde-Lees), William Butler Yeats, unknown woman, summer 1930; photo by Lady Ottoline Morrell

By 1916, Yeats was 51 years old and determined to marry and produce an heir. His rival John MacBride had been executed for his role in the 1916 Easter Rising, so Yeats hoped that his widow might remarry.[65] His final proposal to Maud Gonne took place in mid-1916.[66] Gonne's history of revolutionary political activism, as well as a series of personal catastrophes in the previous few years of her life—including chloroform addiction and her troubled marriage to MacBride—made her a potentially unsuitable wife;[43] biographer R. F. Foster has observed that Yeats's last offer was motivated more by a sense of duty than by a genuine desire to marry her.

Yeats proposed in an indifferent manner, with conditions attached, and he both expected and hoped she would turn him down. According to Foster "when he duly asked Maud to marry him and was duly refused, his thoughts shifted with surprising speed to her daughter." Iseult Gonne was Maud's second child with Lucien Millevoye, and at the time was twenty-one years old. She had lived a sad life to this point; conceived as an attempt to reincarnate her short-lived brother, for the first few years of her life she was presented as her mother's adopted niece. When Maud told her that she was going to marry, Iseult cried and told her mother that she hated MacBride.[67] When Gonne took action to divorce MacBride in 1905, the court heard allegations that he had sexually assaulted Iseult, then eleven. At fifteen, she proposed to Yeats. In 1917, he proposed to Iseult but was rejected.

That September, Yeats proposed to 25-year-old Georgie Hyde-Lees (1892–1968), known as George, whom he had met through Olivia Shakespear. Despite warnings from her friends—"George ... you can't. He must be dead"—Hyde-Lees accepted, and the two were married on 20 October.[43] Their marriage was a success, in spite of the age difference, and in spite of Yeats's feelings of remorse and regret during their honeymoon. The couple went on to have two children, Anne and Michael. Although in later years he had romantic relationships with other women, Georgie herself wrote to her husband "When you are dead, people will talk about your love affairs, but I shall say nothing, for I will remember how proud you were."[68]

During the first years of marriage, they experimented with automatic writing; she contacted a variety of spirits and guides they called "Instructors" while in a trance. The spirits communicated a complex and esoteric system of philosophy and history, which the couple developed into an exposition using geometrical shapes: phases, cones, and gyres.[69] Yeats devoted much time to preparing this material for publication as A Vision (1925). In 1924, he wrote to his publisher T. Werner Laurie, admitting: "I dare say I delude myself in thinking this book my book of books".[70]

Nobel Prize

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Yeats photographed in 1923

In December 1923, Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation".[71] He was aware of the symbolic value of an Irish winner so soon after Ireland had gained independence, and sought to highlight the fact at each available opportunity. His reply to many of the letters of congratulations sent to him contained the words: "I consider that this honour has come to me less as an individual than as a representative of Irish literature, it is part of Europe's welcome to the Free State."[72]

Yeats used the occasion of his acceptance lecture at the Royal Academy of Sweden to present himself as a standard-bearer of Irish nationalism and Irish cultural independence. As he remarked, "The theatres of Dublin were empty buildings hired by the English travelling companies, and we wanted Irish plays and Irish players. When we thought of these plays we thought of everything that was romantic and poetical because the nationalism we had called up—the nationalism every generation had called up in moments of discouragement—was romantic and poetical."[73] The prize led to a significant increase in the sales of his books, as his publishers Macmillan sought to capitalise on the publicity. For the first time he had money, and he was able to repay not only his own debts but those of his father.[74]

Old age and death

By early 1925, Yeats's health had stabilised, and he had completed most of the writing for A Vision (dated 1925, it actually appeared in January 1926, when he almost immediately started rewriting it for a second version). He had been appointed to the first Irish Senate in 1922, and was re-appointed for a second term in 1925.[75][76] Early in his tenure, a debate on divorce arose, and Yeats viewed the issue as primarily a confrontation between the emerging Roman Catholic ethos and the Protestant minority.[77] When the Roman Catholic Church weighed in with a blanket refusal to consider their anti position, The Irish Times countered that a measure to outlaw divorce would alienate Protestants and "crystallise" the partition of Ireland.

In response, Yeats delivered a series of speeches that attacked the "quixotically impressive" ambitions of the government and clergy, likening their campaign tactics to those of "medieval Spain."[78] "Marriage is not to us a Sacrament, but, upon the other hand, the love of a man and woman, and the inseparable physical desire, are sacred. This conviction has come to us through ancient philosophy and modern literature, and it seems to us a most sacrilegious thing to persuade two people who hate each other... to live together, and it is to us no remedy to permit them to part if neither can re-marry."[78] The resulting debate has been described as one of Yeats's "supreme public moments", and began his ideological move away from pluralism towards religious confrontation.[79]

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William Butler Yeats, 1933; photo by Pirie MacDonald (Library of Congress)

His language became more forceful; the Jesuit Father Peter Finlay was described by Yeats as a man of "monstrous discourtesy", and he lamented that "It is one of the glories of the Church in which I was born that we have put our Bishops in their place in discussions requiring legislation".[78] During his time in the Senate, Yeats further warned his colleagues: "If you show that this country, southern Ireland, is going to be governed by Roman Catholic ideas and by Catholic ideas alone, you will never get the North... You will put a wedge in the midst of this nation".[80] He memorably said of his fellow Irish Protestants, "we are no petty people".

In 1924, he chaired a coinage committee charged with selecting a set of designs for the first currency of the Irish Free State. Aware of the symbolic power latent in the imagery of a young state's currency, he sought a form that was "elegant, racy of the soil, and utterly unpolitical".[81] When the house finally decided on the artwork of Percy Metcalfe, Yeats was pleased, though he regretted that compromise had led to "lost muscular tension" in the finally depicted images.[81] He retired from the Senate in 1928 because of ill health.

Towards the end of his life—and especially after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and Great Depression, which led some to question whether democracy could cope with deep economic difficulty—Yeats seems to have returned to his aristocratic sympathies. During the aftermath of the First World War, he became sceptical about the efficacy of democratic government, and anticipated political reconstruction in Europe through totalitarian rule.[82] His later association with Pound drew him towards Benito Mussolini, for whom he expressed admiration on a number of occasions.[73] He wrote three "marching songs"—never used—for the Irish General Eoin O'Duffy's Blueshirts.

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Chantry House, Steyning. A plaque on the wall reads "William Butler Yeats 1865–1939 wrote many of his later poems in this house".

At the age of 69 he was 'rejuvenated' by the Steinach operation which was performed on 6 April 1934 by Norman Haire.[83] For the last five years of his life Yeats found a new vigour evident from both his poetry and his intimate relations with younger women.[84] During this time, Yeats was involved in a number of romantic affairs with, among others, the poet and actress Margot Ruddock, and the novelist, journalist and sexual radical Ethel Mannin.[85] As in his earlier life, Yeats found erotic adventure conducive to his creative energy, and, despite age and ill-health, he remained a prolific writer. In a letter of 1935, Yeats noted: "I find my present weakness made worse by the strange second puberty the operation has given me, the ferment that has come upon my imagination. If I write poetry it will be unlike anything I have done".[86] In 1936, he undertook editorship of the Oxford Book of Modern Verse, 1892–1935.[44]

He died at the Hôtel Idéal Séjour, in Menton, France, on 28 January 1939, aged 73.[1] He was buried after a discreet and private funeral at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. Attempts had been made at Roquebrune to dissuade the family from proceeding with the removal of the remains to Ireland due to the uncertainty of their identity. His body had earlier been exhumed and transferred to the ossuary.[87] Yeats and George had often discussed his death, and his express wish was that he be buried quickly in France with a minimum of fuss. According to George, "His actual words were 'If I die, bury me up there [at Roquebrune] and then in a year's time when the newspapers have forgotten me, dig me up and plant me in Sligo'."[88] In September 1948, Yeats's body was moved to the churchyard of St Columba's Church, Drumcliff, County Sligo, on the Irish Naval Service corvette LÉ Macha.[89] The person in charge of this operation for the Irish Government was Seán MacBride, son of Maud Gonne MacBride, and then Minister of External Affairs.[90] His epitaph is taken from the last lines of "Under Ben Bulben",[91] one of his final poems:

Cast a cold Eye
On Life, on Death.
Horseman, pass by!


French ambassador Stanislas Ostroróg was involved in returning the remains of the Irish poet from France to Ireland in 1948; in a letter to the European director of the Foreign Ministry in Paris "Ostrorog tells how Yeats's son Michael sought official help in locating the poet's remains. Neither Michael Yeats nor Sean MacBride, the Irish foreign minister who organised the ceremony, wanted to know the details of how the remains were collected, Ostrorog notes. He repeatedly urges caution and discretion and says the Irish ambassador in Paris should not be informed." Yeats' body was exhumed in 1946 and the remains were moved to on ossuary and mixed with other remains. The French Foreign Ministry authorized Ostrorog to secretly cover the cost of repatriation from his slush fund. Authorities were worried about the fact that the much-loved poet's remains were thrown into a communal grave, causing embarrassment for both Ireland and France. "Mr Rebouillat, (a) forensic doctor in Roquebrune would be able to reconstitute a skeleton presenting all the characteristics of the deceased." per a letter from Ostroróg to his superiors.[92]

Style

See also: W. B. Yeats bibliography and Category:Works by W. B. Yeats

Yeats is considered one of the key twentieth century English language poets. He was a Symbolist poet, using allusive imagery and symbolic structures throughout his career. He chose words and assembled them so that, in addition to a particular meaning, they suggest abstract thoughts that may seem more significant and resonant. His use of symbols[93] is usually something physical that is both itself and a suggestion of other, perhaps immaterial, timeless qualities.[94]

Unlike other modernists who experimented with free verse, Yeats was a master of the traditional forms.[95] The impact of modernism on his work can be seen in the increasing abandonment of the more conventionally poetic diction of his early work in favour of the more austere language and more direct approach to his themes that increasingly characterises the poetry and plays of his middle period, comprising the volumes In the Seven Woods, Responsibilities and The Green Helmet.[96] His later poetry and plays are written in a more personal vein, and the works written in the last twenty years of his life include mention of his son and daughter,[97] as well as meditations on the experience of growing old.[98] In his poem, "The Circus Animals' Desertion", he describes the inspiration for these late works:

Now that my ladder's gone
I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.[99]


During 1929, he stayed at Thoor Ballylee near Gort in County Galway (where Yeats had his summer home since 1919) for the last time. Much of the remainder of his life was lived outside Ireland, although he did lease Riversdale house in the Dublin suburb of Rathfarnham in 1932. He wrote prolifically through his final years, and published poetry, plays, and prose. In 1938, he attended the Abbey for the final time to see the premiere of his play Purgatory. His Autobiographies of William Butler Yeats was published that same year.[100] In 1913, Yeats wrote the preface for the English translation of Rabindranath Tagore's Gitanjali (Song Offering) for which Tagore received Nobel Prize in literature.[101]

Image
"A Coat" on a wall in Leiden

While Yeats's early poetry drew heavily on Irish myth and folklore, his later work was engaged with more contemporary issues, and his style underwent a dramatic transformation. His work can be divided into three general periods. The early poems are lushly pre-Raphaelite in tone, self-consciously ornate, and, at times, according to unsympathetic critics, stilted. Yeats began by writing epic poems such as The Isle of Statues and The Wanderings of Oisin.[102] His other early poems are lyrics on the themes of love or mystical and esoteric subjects. Yeats's middle period saw him abandon the pre-Raphaelite character of his early work[103] and attempt to turn himself into a Landor-style social ironist.[104]

Critics who admire his middle work might characterize it as supple and muscular in its rhythms and sometimes harshly modernist, while others find these poems barren and weak in imaginative power. Yeats's later work found new imaginative inspiration in the mystical system he began to work out for himself under the influence of spiritualism. In many ways, this poetry is a return to the vision of his earlier work. The opposition between the worldly-minded man of the sword and the spiritually minded man of God, the theme of The Wanderings of Oisin, is reproduced in A Dialogue Between Self and Soul.[105]

Some critics claim that Yeats spanned the transition from the nineteenth century into twentieth-century modernism in poetry much as Pablo Picasso did in painting while others question whether late Yeats has much in common with modernists of the Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot variety.[106]

Modernists read the well-known poem "The Second Coming" as a dirge for the decline of European civilisation, but it also expresses Yeats's apocalyptic mystical theories and is shaped by the 1890s. His most important collections of poetry started with The Green Helmet (1910) and Responsibilities (1914). In imagery, Yeats's poetry became sparer and more powerful as he grew older. The Tower (1928), The Winding Stair (1933), and New Poems (1938) contained some of the most potent images in twentieth-century poetry.[107]

Yeats's mystical inclinations, informed by Hinduism, theosophical beliefs and the occult, provided much of the basis of his late poetry,[108] which some critics have judged as lacking in intellectual credibility. The metaphysics of Yeats's late works must be read in relation to his system of esoteric fundamentals in A Vision (1925).[109]

Legacy

Yeats is commemorated in Sligo town by a statue, created in 1989 by sculptor Ronan Gillespie. It was erected outside the Ulster Bank, at the corner of Stephen Street and Markievicz Road, on the 50th anniversary of the poet's death. Yeats had remarked, on receiving his Nobel Prize that the Royal Palace in Stockholm "resembled the Ulster Bank in Sligo". Across the river is the Yeats Memorial Building, home to the Sligo Yeats Society.[110]

Notes

1. Pronounced /jeɪts/ YAYTS, rhyming with gates.
2. Daemon est Deus inversus is taken from the writings of Madame Blavatsky in which she claimed that "... even that divine Homogeneity must contain in itself the essence of both good and evil", and uses the motto as a symbol of the astral plane's light.
3. Gonne claimed they first met in London three years earlier. Foster notes how Gonne was "notoriously unreliable on dates and places (1997, p. 57).

References

1. Obituary. "W. B. Yeats Dead". The New York Times, 30 January 1939. Retrieved on 21 May 2007.
2. Jeffares, A. Norman. W. B. Yeats, Man and Poet. Palgrave Macmillan, 1996. 1
3. Conner, Lester I.; Conner, Lester I. (2 May 1998). "A Yeats Dictionary: Persons and Places in the Poetry of William Butler Yeats". Syracuse University Press. Retrieved 2 May 2018 – via Google Books.
4. Limerick Chronicle, 13 August 1763
5. Margaret M. Phelan. "Journal of the Butler Society 1982. Gowran, its connection with the Butler Family". p. 174.
6. Old Kilkenny Review, The Journal of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society, vol. 2, no. 1, 1979, p. 71
7. "Ricorso: Digital materials for the study and appreciation of Anglo-Irish Literature". http://www.ricorso.net. Retrieved 2 May 2018.
8. Yeats 1994, p. vii.
9. W. B. Yeats, Autobiographies (1956), p. 12. London: Macmillan.
10. Gordon Bowe, Nicola. "Two Early Twentieth-Century Irish Arts and Crafts Workshops in Context". Journal of Design History, Vol. 2, No. 2/3 (1989). 193–206
11. Foster (1997), p. xxviii
12. Foster (1997), p. xxvii
13. Foster (1997), p, 24
14. Hone 1943, p. 28.
15. Foster (1997), p. 25
16. Sessa, Anne Dzamba; Richard Wagner and the English; p. 130. ISBN 0-8386-2055-8
17. Yeats in Bedford Park, chiswickw4.com
18. Jordan 2003, p. 119.
19. Hone 1943, p. 33.
20. "The attraction of Bedford Park" Archived 19 October 2018 at the Wayback Machine by Amy Davies, 8 April 2013, Weidenfeld & Nicolson
21. Foster (1997), p. 37
22. Paulin, Tom. Taylor & Francis, 2004. "The Poems of William Blake". Retrieved on 3 June 2007.
23. Doody 2018, pp. 10–12.
24. Doody 2018, pp. 116–123.
25. Doody 2018, pp. 207, 280.
26. Hone 1943, p. 83.
27. Alford, Norman. "The Rhymers" Club: Poets of the Tragic Generation". Nineteenth-Century Literature, Vol. 50, No. 4, March 1996, pp. 535–538
28. Lancashire, Ian. "William Blake (1757–1827): Archived 14 June 2007 at the Wayback Machine. Department of English, University of Toronto, 2005. Retrieved on 3 June 2007.
29. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 26 September 2011. Retrieved 27 May 2016.
30. Burke, Martin J. "Daidra from Philadelphia: Thomas Holley, Chivers and The Sons of Usna". Columbia University, 7 October 2005. Retrieved on 15 July 2007.
31. Ellmann (1948), p. 97.
32. Mendelson, Edward (ed.) "W. H. Auden" Archived 10 June 2007 at the Wayback Machine. The Complete Works of W.H. Auden: Prose, Vol. II, 1939–1948, 2002. Retrieved on 26 May 2007.
33. Foster (1997), pp. 82–85
34. Alspach, Russell K. "The Use by Yeats and Other Irish Writers of the Folklore of Patrick Kennedy". The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 234, December 1946, pp. 404–412
35. Gould, Warwick (2004). "Gyles, Margaret Alethea (1868–1949)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 1 August 2015.
36. Nally, Claire V. "National Identity Formation in W. B. Yeats' A Vision". Irish Studies Review, Vol. 14, No. 1, February 2006, pp. 57–67
37. Foster (1997), p. 103
38. Cullingford, Elizabeth. "How Jacques Molay Got Up the Tower: Yeats and the Irish Civil War". English Literary History, Vol. 50, No. 4, 1983, pp. 763–789
39. Foster (1997), p. 57
40. Uddin Khan, Jalal. "Yeats and Maud Gonne: (Auto)biographical and Artistic Intersection". Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, 2002.
41. Foster (1997), pp. 86–87
42. "William Butler Yeats". BBC Four."William Butler Yeats 1865–1939". Archived from the original on 5 February 2008. Retrieved 20 June2007.
43. Cahill, Christopher. "Second Puberty: The Later Years of W. B. Yeats Brought His Best Poetry, along with Personal Melodrama on an Epic Scale". The Atlantic Monthly, December 2003.
44. Ó Corráin, Donnchadh. "William Butler Yeats Archived 2 July 2007 at the Wayback Machine". University College Cork. Retrieved on 15 July 2007.
45. Jordan 2003, pp. 139–153; Jordan 1997, pp. 83–88
46. Jordan 2000, pp. 13–141.
47. Foster (1997), p. 394
48. Malins; Purkis (1994), p. 124
49. Corcoran, Neil. After Yeats and Joyce: Reading Modern Irish Literature. Oxford University Press, 1997, p. viii
50. Foster (2003), pp. 486, 662
51. Foster (1997), p. 183
52. Text reproduced from Yeats's own handwritten draft.
53. Foster (1997), p. 184
54. "Irish Genius: The Yeats Family and The Cuala Press". Trinity College Dublin, 12 February 2004. Retrieved on 2 June 2007.
55. Monroe, Harriet (1913). "Poetry". (Chicago) Modern Poetry Association. 123
56. Sands, Maren. "The Influence of Japanese Noh Theater on Yeats". Colorado State University. Retrieved on 15 July 2007.
57. Foster (2003), pp. 59–66
58. Lady Gregory, Augusta (1904), Gods and Fighting Men: The Story of the Tuatha de Danann and of the Fianna of Ireland, p. xiv
59. Sanford, John (18 April 2001). "Roy Foster: Yeats emerged as poet of Irish Revolution, despite past political beliefs". Stanford University. Retrieved 7 May 2018.
60. Ellmann (1948), p. 244.
61. Sternlicht, Sanford V. A Reader's Guide to Modern Irish Drama, Syracuse University Press, 1998, p. 48
62. Nally, Claire. 2010. Envisioning Ireland: W. B. Yeats's Occult Nationalism. Peter Lang
63. Allison, Jonathan (ed.). 1996. Yeats's Political Identities: Selected Essays. University of Michigan Press
64. "An Irishman's Diary" by Brian Maye, The Irish Times, 7 January 2002
65. Jordan 2003, p. 107.
66. Mann, Neil. "An Overview of A Vision". The System of W. B. Yeats's A Vision. Retrieved on 15 July 2007.
67. Gonne MacBride, Maud. A Servant of the Queen. Gollanz, 1938 pp. 287–289
68. Brown, Terence. The Life of W. B. Yeats: A Critical Biography". Wiley-Blackwell, 2001, p. 347. ISBN 0-631-22851-9
69. Foster (2003), pp. 105, 383
70. Mann, Neil. "Letter 27 July 1924". The System of W. B. Yeats's A Vision. Retrieved on 24 April 2008.
71. "Nobel Prize in Literature 1923". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
72. Foster (2003), p. 245
73. Moses, Michael Valdez. "The Poet As Politician". Reason, February 2001. Retrieved on 3 June 2007.
74. Foster (2003), pp. 246–247
75. Foster (2003), pp. 228–239
76. William Butler Yeats Membership History, Tithe an Oireachtas. Retrieved on 19 February 2019.
77. Foster (2003), p. 293
78. Jump up to:a b c Foster (2003), p. 294
79. Foster (2003), p. 296
80. ""Seanad Resumes: Debate on Divorce Legislation Resumed"Archived 6 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine". Seanad Éireann, Vol. 5, 11 June 1925. Retrieved on 26 May 2007.
81. Jump up to:a b Foster (2003), p. 333
82. Foster (2003), p. 468
83. Wyndham, Diana; Kirby, Michael (2012), Norman Haire and the Study of Sex, Sydney University Press, Foreword, and pp. 249–263, ISBN 978-1-74332-006-8
84. "The Life and Works of William Butler Yeats". National Library of Ireland (search for Steinach). Retrieved on 19 October 2008.
85. Foster (2003), pp. 504, 510–511
86. Letter to Dorothy Wellesley, 17 June 1935; cited Ellmann, "Yeats's Second Puberty", The New York Review of Books, 9 May 1985
87. Jordan 2003, p. 114.
88. Foster (2003), p. 651
89. Foster (2003), p. 656.
90. Jordan 2003, p. 115.
91. Allen, James Lovic. "'Imitate Him If You Dare': Relationships between the Epitaphs of Swift and Yeats". An Irish Quarterly Review, Vol. 70, No. 278/279, 1981, p. 177
92. "The Documents". The Irish Times. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
93. Ulanov, Barry. Makers of the Modern Theater. McGraw-Hill, 1961
94. Gale Research International. Twentieth Century Literary Criticism, No. 116. Gale Cengage Learning, 2002, p. 303
95. Finneran, Richard. Yeats: An Annual of Critical and Textual Studies 1995. University of Michigan Press, 1997. 82
96. Logenbach, James. Stone Cottage: Pound, Yeats, and Modernism. Oxford University Press, 1988, pp. 13–14
97. Bell, Vereen. Yeats and the logic of formalism. University of Missouri Press, 2006. 132
98. Seiden, Morton. William Butler Yeats. Michigan State University Press, 1962, p. 179
99. O'Neill (2003), p. 6.
100. Martin, Wallace. Review of "Tragic Knowledge: Yeats' "Autobiography" and Hermeneutics" by Daniel T. O'Hara. Contemporary Literature. Vol. 23, No. 2, Spring 1982, pp. 239–243
101. Paul, S. K. (1 January 2006). The Complete Poems of Rabindranath Tagore's Gitanjali: Texts and Critical Evaluation. Sarup & Sons. p. 29. ISBN 8176256609.
102. Howes, Marjorie. Yeats's nations: gender, class, and Irishness. Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 28–31
103. Seiden, 153
104. Bloom, Harold. Yeats. Oxford University Press, 1972, p. 168 ISBN 0-19-501603-3
105. Raine, Kathleen. Yeats the Initiate. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1990, pp. 327–329. ISBN 0-389-20951-1
106. Holdeman, David. The Cambridge Introduction to W. B. Yeats. Cambridge University Press, 2006 ISBN 9780521547376, p. 80
107. Spanos, William. ″Sacramental Imagery in the Middle and Late Poetry of W. B. Yeats.″ Texas Studies in Literature and Language. (1962) Vol. 4, No. 2. pp. 214-228.
108. Lorenz, Dagmar C. G. Transforming the Center, Eroding the Margins. University of Rochester Press, 2004, p. 282. ISBN 1-58046-175-1
109. Powell, Grosvenor E. "Yeats's Second Vision: Berkeley, Coleridge, and the Correspondence with Sturge Moore". The Modern Language Review, Vol. 76, No. 2, April 1981, p. 273
110. "Sligo: W.B. Yeats Statue". atriptoireland.com. 8 July 2014. Retrieved 2 May 2018.

Sources

• Doody, Noreen (2018). The Influence of Oscar Wilde on W. B. Yeats: "An Echo of Someone Else's Music". Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-3-319-89547-5.
• Ellmann, Richard (1948). Yeats: The Man and the Masks. New York: Macmillan.
• Foster, R. F. (1997). W. B. Yeats: A Life, Vol. I: The Apprentice Mage. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-288085-3
• Foster, R. F. (2003). W. B. Yeats: A Life, Vol. II: The Arch-Poet 1915–1939. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-818465-4
• Hone, Joseph (1943). W. B. Yeats, 1865–1939. New York: Macmillan Publishers. OCLC 35607726.
• Jordan, Anthony J. (1997). Willie Yeats & The Gonne-MacBrides. Westport Books. ISBN 0-9524447-1-2.
• Jordan, Anthony J. (2000). The Yeats Gonne MacBride Triangle. Westport Books. ISBN 0-9524447-4-7.
• Jordan, Anthony J. (2003). W. B. Yeats: Vain, Glorious, Lout – A Maker of Modern Ireland. Westport Books. ISBN 0-9524447-2-0.
• O'Neill, Michael (2003). Routledge Literary Sourcebook on the Poems of W. B. Yeats. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-23475-1.
• Yeats, W. B. (1994). The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. Wordsworth Poetry Library. ISBN 1-85326-454-7.

Further reading

• Cleeve, Brian (1972). W. B. Yeats and the Designing of Ireland's Coinage. New York: Dolmen Press. ISBN 0-85105-221-5
• Igoe, Vivien (1994). A Literary Guide to Dublin. Methuen Publishing. ISBN 0-413-69120-9
• Jordan, Anthony J. (2013). Arthur Griffith with James Joyce & WB Yeats – Liberating Ireland. Westport Books. ISBN 978-0-9576229-0-6.
• Longenbach, James (1988). Stone Cottage: Pound, Yeats, and Modernism. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-506662-6
• Ryan, Philip B. (1998). The Lost Theatres of Dublin. Wiltshire: The Badger Press. ISBN 0-9526076-1-1
• Yeats, W. B. (1900). "The Philosophy of Shelley's Poetry", in Essays and Introductions, 1961. New York: Macmillan Publishers. OCLC 362823

External links

• Media related to William Butler Yeats at Wikimedia Commons
• Works written by or about William Butler Yeats at Wikisource
• The National Library of Ireland's exhibition, Yeats: The Life and Works of William Butler Yeats
• Works by W. B. Yeats at Project Gutenberg
• William Butler Yeats: Profile and Poems at Poets.org
• Yeats' correspondence and other archival records at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Special Collections Research Center
• Recordings of 24 lectures Donald Davie gave at Stanford in 1975 on W. B. Yeats
• Boston College collection of Yeats family papers at John J. Burns Library, Boston College
• Yeats and Mysticism, BBC Radio 4 discussion with Roy Foster, Warwick Gould and Brenda Maddox (In Our Time, 31 January 2002)
• Yeats and Irish Politics, BBC Radio 4 discussion with Roy Foster, Fran Brearton & Warwick Gould (In Our Time, 17 April 2008)
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Swami Satchidananda Saraswati
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Image
Swami Satchidananda
Swami Satchidananda in Switzerland in 1987
Personal
Born C. K. Ramaswamy Gounder
22 December 1914
Chettipalayam, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, British India
Died 19 August 2002 (aged 87)
Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Religion Hinduism, Ecumenism
Nationality Indian, then American citizenship in 1976, granted to him as "Minister of Divine Words"
Philosophy Integral Yoga
Senior posting
Guru Sivananda Saraswati
Honors U Thant Peace Award, B'nai B'rith Antidefamation League Award and many more.
Occupation Spiritual teacher
His motto:
"Easeful, peaceful and useful"

Satchidananda Saraswati (22 December 1914 – 19 August 2002), born as C. K. Ramaswamy Gounder and known as Swami Satchidananda, was an Indian religious teacher, spiritual master and yoga adept, who gained fame and following in the West. He was the author of philosophical and spiritual books. He had a core of founding disciples who compiled and requested of Satchidananda Saraswati updated traditional handbooks of yoga such as the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and the Bhagavad Gita for modern readers.

The international school Satchidananda Jothi Niketan is located in Mettupalyam, Tamil Nadu.

Early years

Satchidananda was born in a Kongu Vellalar family in 1914 in Chettipalayam, a small village in Coimbatore, near Podanur in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, and was named C. K. Ramaswamy Gounder. His parents affectionately called him Ramu. He was Perur Temple manager early in his life.

He remained a vegetarian all his life, and wrote a book called The Healthy Vegetarian.[1] After study at agricultural college, he worked in a family business which imported motorcycles. At the age of 23 he became a manager at India's National Electric Works. He married and had two sons. He briefly served with the Indian defense forces and is a WW2 veteran who saw combat. His wife died five years after their marriage.[2] Ramaswamy's children remained with his mother Sri Vellamai, and he embarked on the life of an ascetic yogi, for many years practising and mastering classical yoga.[3] Apostle of Peace, his later biography, includes many details updated in the 1990s.

Spiritual quest

After the sudden death of his wife, Ramaswamy travelled throughout India, meditating at holy shrines and studying with revered spiritual teachers. For years, Ramaswamy searched for real sages, saints, and spiritual masters. Eventually, he was initiated into pre-sannyasa in the Ramakrishna Thapovanam and given the name Sambasiva Chaitanya. While at the ashram, his job was to care for orphaned young boys. During this period, he also studied along with the renowned Ramana Maharshi. He eventually left the ashram when he could not bear the suffering of Sri Ramana's arm cancer and treatment procedures. Ramana Maharshi died shortly after his departure. He then travelled to Rishikesh, a holy town in the foothills of the Himalayas, located on the banks of the Ganges River. There, he discovered his guru, Sivananda Saraswati, founder of the Divine Life Society and a former physician, who ordained him into the holy order of sannyasa in 1949 and gave him the name Satchidananda Saraswati.[3]

The name Saccidānanda or Satchidananda (Sanskrit: सच्चिदानंद) is a compound of three Sanskrit words, Sat (सत्), Cit (चित्), and Ānanda (आनंद), meaning essence, consciousness, and bliss, respectively. The expression is used in yoga and other schools of Indian philosophy to describe the nature of Brahman as experienced by a fully liberated yogi. Saccidānanda may be understood as the energetic state of non-duality, a manifestation of our spiritually natural, primordial, and authentic state which is comparable in quality to that of deity.

During the late 1950s and into the 1960s, Satchidananda headed (jointly with another Sivananda disciple, Satchidananda Saraswati Mataji) the Kandy Thapovanam, one of Sivananda's ashrams situated in the hill country of Sri Lanka. Here, Satchidananda taught yoga, conceived and implemented innovative interfaith approaches to traditional Hindu festivals and modernised the ancient mode of living that renunciates had followed for many years. For instance, Satchidanda drove a car (to teach throughout Sri Lanka), wore a watch (to be on time), and actively engaged the questions of seekers. These modernisations were ridiculed by certain individuals in the orthodoxy but he felt them to be necessary natural extensions and serving tools for betterment in his spiritual yogic work.

Time in America

Image
Swami Satchidananda on stage at the 1969 Woodstock Festival

After serving his guru for many years, in 1966 he visited New York City at the request of the artist Peter Max. Soon after his initial visit Satchidananda formally moved to the United States, and eventually became a citizen. From his new home he spread his teachings of yoga, selfless service, ecumenism and enlightenment.

Satchidananda came to public attention as the opening speaker[4] at the Woodstock music arts and peace festival in 1969, after he was called in as an emergency measure. Over the years he wrote numerous books and gave hundreds of lectures. He also ordained a number of western disciples into the order of sannyasa. He was the founder of the Integral Yoga Institute and Yogaville in America, and Spiritual Guru of major Hollywood actors and western musicians. In 1986 he opened the Light of Truth Universal Shrine (LOTUS) at Yogaville in Buckingham County, Virginia.

On 19 August 2002, Satchidananda Saraswati died after speaking at a peace conference in Chennai. His funeral took place in Buckingham, Virginia on 22 August at Chidambaram, a designated shrine for contemplation facing the ecumenical shrine to the Light, LOTUS (LOTUS.org) which Satchidananda Saraswati considered the most important part of all his life's work: A place to honour the universality of all faiths, through the symbol of light which is shared by all cultures in the world.

Integral Yoga International and Yogaville continue to educate yogis around the world and at the world headquarters in Buckingham, Virginia.[5]

Integral Yoga origins

Further information: Integral yoga (Satchidananda)

Satchidananda characterised Integral Yoga as "...a flexible combination of specific methods to develop every aspect of the individual: physical, intellectual, and spiritual. It is a scientific system which integrates the various branches of Yoga to bring about a complete and harmonious development of the entire person.

Integral Yoga was trademarked to keep the teachings consistent as the popularity of yoga increased exponentially in the West and to have duly trained instructors imparting the teachings of the Satchidananda Saraswati lineage. Sivananda Saraswati, the Master of Satchidananda Saraswati, was founder of the global Divine Life Society and known worldwide as Sri Swami Sivananda Saraswati: a trained physician who wrote books on all aspects of yoga in English for the first time in history, thereby paving the way for a modern Western audience and the current vigorous practice of yoga around the world.[6][7]

Credo

Manifestos relating to religious belief are described as Credos. "Easeful, peaceful and useful" was the simple motto of Satchidananda Saraswati.

Integral Yoga believes:

The goal and the birthright of all individuals is to realize the spiritual unity behind the diversity throughout creation and to live harmoniously as members of "one universal family".
This goal is achieved by the maintaining of our natural condition as:

• a body of optimal health and strength,
• senses under total control,
• a mind well disciplined, clear, and calm,
• an intellect as sharp as a razor,
• a will as strong and pliable as steel,
• a heart full of unconditional love and compassion,
• an ego as pure as crystal, and
• a life filled with supreme peace, joy and bliss.

Attain this through asanas, pranayama, the chanting of holy names, self-discipline, selfless action, mantra japa, meditation, study, and reflection.

Notable Disciples

• Alice Coltrane, who titled her 1971 album Journey in Satchidananda[8]
• Rivers Cuomo[9]
• Laura Dern[10]
• John Fahey, who dedicated his 1973 album Fare Forward Voyagers (Soldier's Choice) to "my guru, Swami Satchidananda." Fahey later said that "Probably the primary reason I got involved with them was that I fell in love with Swami Satchidananda's secretary Shanti Norris. So I was doing benefits for them, hoping to score points with her, and along the way I learned a lot of hatha yoga."[11]
• Jeff Goldblum[12]
• Carole King, who donated 600 acres of land to the Yogaville ashram.[10][13]
• Sally Kirkland[10]
• Diane Ladd[10]
• Peter Max[14]
• Dean Ornish[10][15]
• Scott Shaw[16]
• Paul Winter[13]
• Paul Horn[13]
• Gerald Blitz, founder of Club Med[13]

References

1. Sri Swami Satchidananda, The Healthy Vegetarian, Integral Yoga Publications, third edition, 1994, p. 115.
2. Martin, Douglas (21 August 2002). "Swami Satchidananda, Woodstock's Guru, Dies at 87". New York Times.
3. Swami Satchidananda: His Biography, Straight Arrow Books, First Edition, 1970.
4. Attendance at Woodstock Archived 23 February 2008 at the Wayback Machine
5. Martin, Douglas (21 August 2002). "Swami Satchidananda, Woodstock's Guru, Dies at 87". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 May 2016.
6. Trademark history 1
7. Trademark history 2
8. Livingstone, Josephine (3 February 2019). "Alice Coltrane | Journey in Satchidananda". Pitchforlk. Retrieved 7 March 2019.
9. Grigoriadis, Vanessa. "Rivers Cuomo: Weezer's Invisible Man". RollingStone. Retrieved 7 March 2019. his childhood, which was spent on ashrams – first at the Zen Center in upstate New York and, after his father left the family when he was five (he eventually settled in Germany for a while as a suffragan bishop in a Pentecostal church), at “Woodstock guru” Swami Satchidananda’s Yogaville commune in Connecticut. Everyone was a vegetarian, and no one raised his voice or cursed. Cuomo didn’t like it much.
10. Woo, Elaine (25 August 2002). "Swami Satchidananda, 87; Yoga Master and Guru Preached and Practiced a Life of Spiritual Unity". Los Angeles Times. Among his disciples are singer-composer Carole King, who donated 600 acres to his Virginia ashram; jazz pianist Alice Coltrane; and actresses Diane Ladd, Laura Dern and Sally Kirkland. Another adherent is Dr. Dean Ornish, the best-selling author,
11. "The Fahey Files - John Fahey - Notes on the Songs -Fare Forward Voyagers". http://www.johnfahey.com. Retrieved 4 June 2018.
12. Martin, Douglas (21 August 2002). "Swami Satchidananda, Woodstock's Guru, Dies at 87". The New York Times. Retrieved 4 June2018.
13. Jump up to:a b c d Baker, Donald P. (21 July 1986). "Swami Dedicates $2 Million Temple in Va". The Washington Post. Among well-known devotees who participated in the weekend dedication were pop artist Peter Max, who has illustrated several of the swami's books, composer-singer Carole King, jazz musicians Paul Winter and Paul Horn, and Gerald Blitz, founder of the Club Med resorts.
14. "Love Yoga? Thank Peter Max". Park West Gallery. 29 March 2017. Retrieved 7 March 2019.
15. Kolata, Gina. "SCIENTIST AT WORK: Dean Ornish; A Promoter of Programs To Foster Heart Health". Retrieved 21 August 2018.
16. "Be Positive". Scott Shaw. Retrieved 7 March 2019.

External links

• Satchidananda Ashram Yogaville
• Swami Satchidananda.org
• Swami Satchidananda at New York Times
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Sun Aug 04, 2019 2:40 am

Blueshirts
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/3/19

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Army Comrades Association /
National Guard /
Young Ireland / League of Youth
Abbreviation Blueshirts, ACA
Leader Eoin O'Duffy
Key Members Thomas F. O'Higgins
Ernest Blythe
Ned Cronin
Founded 1932
Dissolved 1933
Merged into Fine Gael
Succeeded by National Corporate Party
Newspaper The Nation
Ideology Fascism
Irish integral nationalism
Catholic corporatism
Anti-communism
Political position Far-right
Religion Roman Catholicism
Colours Light Blue
Party flag
Image
Politics of the Republic of Ireland
Political parties
Elections

The Army Comrades Association (ACA), later the National Guard, then Young Ireland[1] and finally League of Youth, but better known by the nickname The Blueshirts (Irish: Na Léinte Gorma), was a paramilitary movement in the Irish Free State in the early 1930s. The organisation provided physical protection for political groups such as Cumann na nGaedheal from intimidation and attack by the anti-Treaty IRA.[2] Some former members went on to fight for the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War. (It had been dissolved before the civil war started.)

Most of the political parties whose meetings the Blueshirts protected would merge to become Fine Gael, and members of that party are still sometimes nicknamed "Blueshirts".

Origins and early history

In February 1932, the Fianna Fáil party was elected to lead the Irish Free State government. On 18 March 1932, the new government suspended the Public Safety Act, lifting the ban on a number of organisations including the Irish Republican Army. Some IRA political prisoners were also released around the same time. The IRA and many released prisoners began a "campaign of unrelenting hostility" against those associated with the former Cumann na nGaedheal government. There were many cases of intimidation, attacks on persons, and the breaking-up of Cumann na nGaedheal political meetings in the coming months. In view of the increased activities of the IRA, National Army Commandant Ned Cronin founded the Army Comrades Association in early 1932. As its name suggested, it was designed for Irish Army veterans, a society for former members of the Free State army. The Blueshirts felt that freedom of speech was being repressed, and began to provide security at Cumann na nGaedheal events. This led to several serious clashes between the IRA and the ACA. In August 1932, Dr. Thomas F. O'Higgins, a Cumann na nGaedheal TD, became the leader of the ACA. By September 1932 it had over 30,000 members.[3]

Eoin O'Duffy becomes leader

Image
O'Duffy with Blueshirts

In January 1933, the Fianna Fáil government called a surprise election, which the government won comfortably. The election campaign saw a serious escalation of rioting between IRA and ACA supporters. In April 1933, the ACA began wearing the distinctive blueshirt uniform. Eoin O'Duffy was a guerrilla leader in the IRA in the Irish War of Independence, a National Army general in the Irish Civil War, and the Garda Síochána police commissioner in the Irish Free State from 1922 to 1933. After Fianna Fáil's re-election in February 1933, President of the Executive Council Éamon de Valera dismissed O'Duffy as commissioner; that July, O'Duffy was offered and accepted leadership of the ACA and renamed it the National Guard. He re-modelled the organisation, adopting elements of European fascism, such as the Roman straight-arm salute, uniforms and huge rallies. Membership of the new organisation became limited to people who were Irish or whose parents "profess the Christian faith". O'Duffy was an admirer of Benito Mussolini, and the Blueshirts adopted corporatism as their chief political aim. According to the constitution he adopted, the organisation was to have the following objectives:[4]

• To promote the reunification of Ireland.
• To oppose Communism and alien control and influence in national affairs and to uphold Christian principles in every sphere of public activity.
• To promote and maintain social order.
• To make organised and disciplined voluntary public service a permanent and accepted feature of our political life and to lead the youth of Ireland in a movement of constructive national action.
• To promote of co-ordinated national organisations of employers and employed, which with the aid of judicial tribunals, will effectively prevent strikes and lock-outs and harmoniously compose industrial influences.
• To cooperate with the official agencies of the state for the solution of such pressing social problems as the provision of useful and economic public employment for those whom private enterprise cannot absorb.
• To secure the creation of a representative national statutory organisation of farmers, with rights and status sufficient to secure the safeguarding of agricultural interests, in all revisions of agricultural and political policy.
• To expose and prevent corruption and victimisation in national and local administration.
• To awaken throughout the country a spirit of combination, discipline, zeal and patriotic realism which will put the state in a position to serve the people efficiently in the economic and social spheres.

Stanley G. Payne has argued that the Blueshirts "really was never a fascist organization at all".[5] Maurice Manning also did not consider them fascists, with their mixture of patriotic conservatism, militia activities and corporatism amounting "to no more than a kind of Celtic Croix-de-Feu".[6] Historians are divided on the extent to which the Blueshirts took a lead from Mussolini and his many imitators at that time.[7][8] Some of the Blueshirts later went to fight for Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War and were anti-communist in nature, however historian R. M. Douglas has stated that it is incorrect to portray them as an "Irish manifestation of fascism".

March on Dublin

The National Guard planned to hold a parade in Dublin in August 1933. It was to proceed to Glasnevin Cemetery, stopping briefly on Leinster lawn in front of the Irish parliament, where speeches were to be held. The goal of the parade was to commemorate Irish leaders Arthur Griffith, Michael Collins and Kevin O'Higgins. It is clear that the IRA and other fringe groups representing various socialists intended to confront the Blueshirts if they marched in Dublin.

The government banned the parade, remembering Mussolini's March on Rome, and fearing a coup d'état. Decades later, de Valera told Fianna Fáil politicians that in late summer 1933 he was unsure whether the Irish Army would obey his orders to suppress the perceived threat, or whether the soldiers would support the Blueshirts (who included many ex-soldiers). O'Duffy accepted the ban and insisted that he was committed to upholding the law. Instead, several provincial parades took place to commemorate the deaths of Griffith, O'Higgins and Collins. De Valera saw this move as defying his ban, and the Blueshirts were declared an illegal organisation.

Fine Gael and the National Corporate Party

In response to the banning of the National Guard, Cumann na nGaedheal and the National Centre Party merged to form a new party, Fine Gael, on 3 September 1933. O'Duffy became its first president, with W. T. Cosgrave and James Dillon acting as vice-presidents. The National Guard changed into the Young Ireland Association, and became part of a youth wing of the party. The party's aim was to create a united Ireland within the British Commonwealth, although its programme made no mention of a corporatist state.[9] The 1934 local elections were a trial of strength for the new Fine Gael and the Fianna Fáil government. When Fine Gael won only six out of 23 local elections, O’Duffy lost much of his authority and prestige. The Blueshirts began to disintegrate by mid-1934.[3] The Blueshirts floundered also on the plight of farmers in the Economic War, as the Blueshirts failed to provide a solution. Following disagreements with his Fine Gael colleagues, O'Duffy left the party, although most of the Blueshirts stayed in Fine Gael. In December 1934, O'Duffy attended the Montreux Fascist conference in Switzerland. He then founded the National Corporate Party, and later raised an Irish Brigade that took General Francisco Franco's side in the Spanish Civil War.[10]

See also

• Ailtirí na hAiséirghe
• Irish Christian Front
• Greenshirts

Notes and references

1. Young Ireland was historically the name of a 19th Century Irish revolutionary movement. There is, however, no organizational continuity - and little ideological similarity - between it and the 20th Century movement.
2. R. M. Douglas, "Architects of the Resurrection: Ailtirí na hAiséirghe and the Fascist 'New Order' in Ireland, Manchester University Press, ISBN 0-7190-7998-5
3. Mark Tierney, OSB, MA "Modern Ireland", Gill & Macmillan, 1972 p 175-182
4. Maurice Manning, "The Blueshirts", Dublin, 1970
5. Stanley G. Payne, 'Fascism in Western Europe' in Walter Laqueur (ed.), Fascism: A Reader's Guide. Analyses, Interpretations, Bibliography (Pelican Books, 1979), p. 310.
6. Payne, p. 310.
7. here Archived 2009-10-31 at WebCite and here Archived August 19, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
8. O’Halpin, E. (1999). Defending Ireland: The Irish State and its Enemies since 1922. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-820426-4.
9. Eoin O'Duffy: A Self-Made Hero, Fearghal McGarry, OUP Oxford, 2005, page 222
10. "Irish Involvement in the Spanish Civil War 1936-39". rte.ie. Retrieved 6 February 2014.

Sources

• Eunan O'Halpin, (1999). Defending Ireland: The Irish State and its Enemies since 1922. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-820426-4.
• Mike Cronin, The Blueshirts and Irish Politics
• Michael O'Riordan. 1979 Connolly Column. New Books Dublin. ASIN: B0006E3ABG
• J. Bower Bell. 1983 The Secret Army: The IRA 1916-1979. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-52090-7.
• Tim Pat Coogan. De Valera.
• Michael Farrell. 1980. Northern Ireland: The Orange State. London: Pluto Press. ISBN 0-86104-300-6.
• F.S.L. Lyons. Ireland Since the Famine.
• Maurice Manning. The Blueshirts.
• Keith Thompson, Irish Blueshirts. 2012. London: Steven Books. ISBN 9781-899435-74-6
• The Blueshirts - fascism in Ireland? The Irish Story
• Cian McMahon, The Blueshirts and the Abyssinian Crisis. History Ireland
• Donal O Driscoll, When Dev deaulted on the Land annuities. History Ireland
• Niall Cunningham, Eoin O'Duffy, Ireland's answer to Mussolini
• 'Before the Blueshirts - early Fianna Fáil and fascism', Mark Phelan, Irish Times, 27 June 2016
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