How Thoreau's Walden Pond Mixed with the Ganges and Yoga Came to America with Swami Vivekananda

aspect of God. They are buildings for the focus for individual sacrifice, surrender
and overwhelming gratitude.
Village India worships a different God than that of the modern world. I do not
mean Krishna or Kali instead of Jesus, but the mystery of God with millions of
faces, formless and with form; who is one God, many Gods and only God . . . a
superior power and intelligence that must be taken into account, infinitely greater
than our comprehension, who is worshipped, idolized, feared and adored and
ultimately not other than what is.
In Delhi, Calcutta, Mumbai or Bangalore, such understanding is no longer
true in the first few years of the 21 st century, as all over India a flood-tide of
westernization grows higher and buildings that embody the new ideals of
business and finance are rising quickly.
India is the origin of the world's oldest civilization, the flowering tree at the
heart of the world. Although many of its branches have been removed, the
roots are still here, even though modern India is digging them out as quickly
as it can with both hands, passionately trying to copy the West. This culture
has withstood the Moguls, the Portuguese, the French and the English, and its
walls have never been breached. But now something has changed . . . the
Trojan horse of technology has been hauled within the walls of nearly every
Indian household and the westernizing mind and values inside it are
destroying the age-old traditions that protected this culture for thousands of
years.
India is so old that we are like young children, dismissing our grandparents
as out of touch, when in fact, it is we (like the frog in the well that
Vivekananda referred to) who have never seen the ocean, who are immature,
limited and have little idea of the insufficiency of our experience or what is
even possible.
Something extraordinary once flourished here. It still does – it is merely
sleeping in the winter of a world increasingly ruled by the concerns of
business and money. The voice of true religion has fallen more quiet, but it is
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