INTRODUCTION M A K I N G WAV E S THOMAS A. FORSTHOEFEL AND CYNTHIA ANN HUMES EVERYTHING CHANGES. Mystics and storytellers in South Asia have woven this deceptively simple observation into the Indic consciousness for millennia.Hindu scriptures warn that the true nature of endlessly changing phenomenal reality can be lost to us as we thrash about the crashing waves of life.Yet the Hindu emphasis on the phenomenal fact of impermanence is tempered by the promise of something substantial, enduring, and utterly liberating beyond the very flux of life, so often likened to a roiling ocean,the “ocean of samsara.”The phenomenal flux of mundane reality,staggering in its chaos and suffering,nonetheless motivates the journey to cross the “far shore,”the quintessential Indian metaphor for lib- eration.Among the premier rafts for this tumultuous crossing is the spiritual teacher, the guru, a term that, not incidentally, also means “heavy.”The word intimates the higher truth that there is something weighty, substantial, and enduring about life,a truth borne witness to by extraordinary spiritual teach- ers.Gurus assist in the journey to make the crossing—from the ocean of sam- sara to the ocean of awareness,from the changing flux of phenomenal reality to the far shore of liberation,from death to immortality.The far shore is the “site”for an ultimate ground that suffers no loss or change,understood vari- ously in Hinduism to be an enduring soul, consciousness, an unchanging Absolute or a deity with form. This book is about gurus who have crossed the far shore,but not necessar- ily to ultimate liberation.They have indeed crossed roiling oceans—in this case,Indian,Atlantic,and Pacific—landing upon the far shore of America.In making this passage,from the sacred land of India to the bewildering world of 1 © 2005 State University of New York Press, Albany 2 Gurus in America modern day America,they may or may not have achieved the most sublime goal of Hindu spirituality,but they certainly took it upon themselves to teach it, propagate it, and cultivate a subculture dedicated to it. In doing so, they invariably have “made waves,”that is,they have brought a conceptual and cul- tural matrix that has interfaced with a dominant American cultural matrix. Such interface has produced numerous interesting developments, which we will detail in this volume.Among these developments are reconfigurations and redefinitions of Hinduism by our subjects,a project that becomes a case study on the slippery hold of definitions. The academic study of religion in the twentieth century has seen a lengthy, though fruitful, discussion of the category religion. Most scholars of religion today accept the quixotic nature of the term, agreeing on its fluid boundaries and the need to emphasize its context and frame. Most scholars and teachers of religious studies accept the provisional quality of definitions,at once constructing them for heuristic benefits while later deconstructing them in the face of diverse data.Thus,for example,to teach “religion”we paradoxi- cally find ourselves teaching that there is no such thing as “religion.”To teach Hinduism, we find ourselves teaching that there is no such thing as “Hin- duism.”Neither “religion”nor “Hinduism”is a frozen or absolute entity,some- thing that stands above specific concrete cultural,political,and historical phe- nomena.Instead,there are religions and Hinduisms,collections of shifting but related sets of events that share certain characteristics.About these events—reli- gions and Hinduisms—useful things can and have been said,especially by self- aware thinkers,conscious not only of their own frame of reference,but also of the goals of such framing and educating. Once we recognize the crucial importance of historical, economic, and political contexts to the study of religion,those of us called to teach the twice- suspect category of Hindu religion often find ourselves caught in moments of cognitive dissonance.We stutter,misstep,walk forward two paces,retreat back another.Ultimately we hope there is increased nuance in our knowledge by this spiral forward,but the process is decidedly awkward;indeed,we may find ourselves in the peculiar position of objecting to our own “working defini- tions” of Hinduism or other sweeping categories in the study of religion. Moreover,we are painfully aware that we participate in and contribute to the very political structure that perpetuates stereotypes of the complex set of phe- nomena we so wish to deconstruct:the whistle-stop tour of Hinduism in our culturally mandated World Religions courses.We know the term Hinduism to be problematic,but we can’t help ourselves:We are a product of the system, and teach within it. To teach—not to mention to live—the complexity of events demands a certain comfort with ambiguity,and this is no easy task.Categories and con- cepts speak to clear lines,decisive boundaries,but,as Steven Batchelor has elo- quently reminded us,there are no lines in nature.1Things are blurry.One finds © 2005 State University of New York Press, Albany Introduction 3 more grey than black and white.Full comprehension often eludes us.2 Some academics or devotees may prefer clear lines,offering a construction of partic- ular traditions in ways that suggest decisive boundaries, marking off a set of timeless truths that capture the “real”tradition,preserved in its pristine clarity. No doubt,to claim such yields an emotional payoff—clarity resolves the diffi- cult intellectual and emotional conflicts that a fluid universe generates.But in our view,it is disingenuous to assume stability where there is none.Moreover, the appeal to timeless truths is academically suspicious, for it often serves to perpetuate specific social or power structures:What appears to be “timeless”is, on inspection, sets of beliefs and practices emerging and being sustained by patterns of religious, social, and political conventions. In short, it is perhaps permissible for religious leaders to claim timeless truths, but not those who critically study spiritual teachers. Our goal in this book is to monitor and assess the conceptual and cultural changes that have obtained by the arrival of significant Hindu spiritual teachers in America.The word guru by now has become quite familiar to many Ameri- cans. Its most basic meaning signifies any qualified teacher, regardless of discipline, in India. However, when the term applies to Hindu worldviews, overtones emerge.The guru is the adept, the skilled one, the preceptor, the saint,the destroyer of karma,the embodiment of god.And,on occasion,the guru appears to be a “confounder”too,sometimes transgressing socially con- structed expectations, even those associated with guru-hood. In this book, while the teachers here all express a host of “spiritual” sensibilities, several became quite skilled in “worldly”and entrepreneurial programs as part of their program of propagation,and several have been accused of sexual impropriety. In any case,the phenomenon of the guru is one of the most prominent fea- tures of Hinduism in all its permutations.Often considered to be repositories of sacred power and the living vehicle for truth,gurus constitute a phenome- non that most Hindus would identify as important and crucial to their self-understanding as persons of faith. Indeed, the gurus in this book have sometimes been called mahagurus—great gurus—“great”or maha here usually indicating the significance of their cultural and religious impact, quality of teaching or life example,number of devotees and spiritual cachet. Our use of gurus is the lens by which we examine religious and cultural change. It is perhaps a commonplace to note that change in religion comes from internal and external stimuli,including movements within a tradition led by thinkers and reformers and the broader cultural interface with intruding forces such as armies, migrants, and missionaries.These external forces can threaten the sanctity and safety of specific cultural “universes.”When alternate universes do collide,both feel the impact of reverberating waves.In this book, we highlight a quite specific manner in which this occurs.In this case,Hin- duism, whose “purity” has often been viewed as coterminous with the geo- graphical boundaries of Bharata (the ancient name for India), has seen a © 2005 State University of New York Press, Albany 4 Gurus in America remarkable migratory expansion to Europe,Africa,Asia,and North America. The recent movement to the West has been fueled not only by the migratory patterns of workers, students, and families, relocating under force of circum- stance or particular personal aspirations, but the migratory patterns of gurus too, relocating with their own specific aspirations as well.This book marks what might be called the second wave of gurus in America,the first being the seminal transmission that began with Swami Vivekananda at the World Parlia- ment of Religions in Chicago in 1893.The contours and impact of the first wave of gurus have been most notably examined by Polly Trout.3 We examine a recent, more contemporary, wave of gurus, noting the effects that occur when they—or their devotees—come to America bringing with them their “alternate universe.”In doing so,fascinating cultural transfor- mations have occurred,the awareness of which we hope has been stimulated by asking our contributors to consider specific questions. Concerning each tradition represented in this volume,how is the identity of the particular guru constructed? How do the gurus understand or represent whatever it is they mean by “Hinduism”? How do they adapt their form of Hinduism to a new cultural milieu? What changes can be seen in such a cultural interaction? What strategies do gurus employ to represent and/or propagate their particular rep- resentations of Hinduism? And how does that cultural milieu affect them in return? These inquiries require repeated and persistent self-examination of identity. On a personal level, the central question, as articulated by Ramana Maharshi, one of the spiritual teachers examined in this volume, is simply: “Who am I?”On a social level,the question central to this volume is still one of identity:“What do we—scholars, devotees, gurus—mean by Hinduism?” This collection of essays is the record of one set of scholars’responses,and,we hope, marks the “forward spiral” that characterizes increasing nuance to our understanding of Hinduism in America. This volume is unique in its examination of this most recent wave of gurus in America.It is also unique in the way it brings together the contribu- tions of scholars trained in various approaches to South Asian studies.These approaches include the methods of history of religions,anthropology,philoso- phy of religion, and sociology of religion.This diversity of approaches, with differing emphases on fieldwork,is a methodological illustration of one of the goals of the volume.Diversity reveals difference—and continuities.Perhaps the most unique aspect of this volume is that most of the contributors have had direct personal experience of the guru, or the guru’s ashram or community. Several, such as Chris Chapple, Cynthia Humes, Lola Williamson, and Ravi Gupta,have been participants in the tradition embodied and taught by partic- ular gurus.Others,such as Selva Raj,and Jeff Kripal,have had close contact with the gurus whom they have studied,which has not been without positive or formative impact.Still others,such as Tom Forsthoefel and Norris Palmer, © 2005 State University of New York Press, Albany Introduction 5 have visited the ashram or worship communities of the gurus they have stud- ied,also with positive outcomes.These scholars nevertheless do not let either their personal experience or their spiritual commitments prohibit their will- ingness and ability to engage their topics from a critical perspective, nor do they disallow their spiritual commitments to be enriched by their critical study.We hope that the interface of personal experience and academic reflec- tion in this volume produce in our audience a similar response to that of an anonymous reader of the text for our publisher: an awareness of an honesty and vitality to our scholarship that is refreshing.We trust that this unique pres- entation will cross the boundaries of the academic and lay universes,in turn enriching both. While the religio-cultural stream identified as Hinduism is vast and multi- faceted,the gurus here can be classified for heuristic purposes as belonging to one of four substreams of Hindu thought and practice:Yoga,Advaita Vedanta, Bhakti,and Tantra,all easily recognized as native categories by Hindus.All four traditions share certain assumptions.For example,all four traditions share the notion of a soul, although its relationship to the Transcendent is often con- strued differently.Second,all four traditions note an existential human problem with the ego,and all assert that the struggle with egoism results in suffering. Third, all four share the conviction that there exists a state of unconditional bliss behind or beyond the flux of samsara,phenomenal,mundane reality. While these and other Hindu traditions share certain assumptions, there are specific differences,too.The Samkhya Yoga tradition,for example,has a dif- ferent answer to the notion of the human soul than most Hindu traditions.The Samkhya Yoga tradition is clearly pluralistic and dualistic;there are innumerable spirits (purusha) and there is matter (prakriti).The Yogic Path,which Christo- pher Chapple addresses in his essay,teaches there to be an infinite plurality of souls trapped in matter, and to remove the soul from this trap of materiality requires a discipline that calms one’s mind from the disturbances of material nature to unveil the reality of the transcendent self as it is,free from egotistical imputations commonly mistaken for the true self.While many or even most ashrams in America include physical or hatha yoga as part of their conditioning and spiritual discipline,the Yoga Anand Ashram described in Chapple’s essay is unusual in its staunch commitment to the dualistic yoga philosophy.Chapple clearly articulates the distinguishing features of classical yoga theory and prac- tice as he discusses the life and leadership of Guru Anjali,the Bengali spiritual leader who established an ashram on Long Island based on the “royal yoga”of Patanjali, the second-century sage and reputed author of the Yoga Sutra. Chapple’s essay also succeeds in situating the value and meaning of the guru in Hinduism and,drawing from the work of Harvey Cox and others,speaks to the psychological issues and occasional pathologies associated with an institu- tion that gives sacrosanct status to the teacher-disciple relationship. © 2005 State University of New York Press, Albany 6 Gurus in America The work of Forsthoefel and Humes is clearly situated within the Hindu philosophical school of Advaita Vedanta,the tradition of Non-Dualism.Vedanta is one of the six schools (darshanas) of Indic thought. Vedanta’s primary methodology has been the exegesis and analysis of sacred texts called the Vedas, especially the most esoteric texts in the Vedic corpus,the Upanishads.Vedanta itself is heterogeneous:Advaita is just one of three standard representations,and its most famous spokesperson and systematizer is understood to be the eighth- century philosopher,Shankara.The other two forms of Vedanta are Qualified Non-Dualism (Vishishtadvaita Vedanta), systematized by Ramanuja (1017– 1137), and the Vedanta of Dualism (Dvaita Vedanta), whose great leader is understood to be Madhva (1238–1317).Vishishtadvaita and Dvaita Vedanta are devotional,privileging the practice of Bhakti,human “sharing”or partaking of the divine through the practice of love of God. Advaita asserts that all phenomenal differences have no substantial or enduring reality.Reality is one.All temporal and finite differences are nullified upon the realization of truth.This philosophical viewpoint has proved useful in the cultural translation of Hinduism to America. How so? Advaita relativizes the cultural and even “religious”products of Hinduism,opening up Hinduism to a broader swath of humanity besides those born and raised in South Asia. Differences can be downplayed,for at its most basic,there are no differences. There is only the Real. Forsthoefel highlights the development of such relativization in his essay on Ramana Maharshi,a teacher who never traveled beyond his native land of Tamil Nadu, let alone to America. However, Ramana’s quintessential non- dualism paved the way for a migration of an idea swaddled in Hindu clothes. Many of the gurus who did come West either claim to be in Ramana’s lineage or respond directly to his message and example. Ramana’s life and teaching called into question the tendency to exclusivism in traditional Advaita,render- ing coherent the universalism implied by the axioms of non-dualism.Ramana’s foundation set the stage for the other gurus who did come to America.Such gurus often appealed to non-dualism as a signal strategy for the propagation and promotion of their spirituality,positing its universality,transportability,and malleability.The work of our colleagues clearly shows that Sai Baba,Ammachi, Rajneesh,and Adi Da all have drawn from Vedanta,especially Advaita,in their own pastiche of latter-day Hinduism.The premier value of non-dualism for some gurus may be less its philosophical excellence than its global marketing strategy. Cynthia Humes highlights the relevance of Advaita to the global transmis- sion of Hinduism as well in her study of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi,the founder of the Transcendental Meditation program. In particular, she notes the push and pull between appropriating and selling Vedanta on American terms, and subsequent attempts to clothe Maharishi’s bare Vedantic meditation frame with Hindu cultural markers.Maharishi became skilled at adapting Hinduism to his © 2005 State University of New York Press, Albany Introduction 7 American audience, consciously marketing a spiritual program less bound to culture or ethnicity.He assertively and creatively used the universalism implied byAdvaita Vedanta to thrust Hinduism into the global marketplace of ideas.He taught Americans that classical programs of renunciation bound in hoary tradi- tion could be discarded.Instead,“cosmic consciousness,”pared of its cultural baggage,could be attained by the mere recitation of a sacred mantra,learned, Cynthia wryly notes,for a minimum price.But Maharishi became more than a spiritual teacher.He is a consummate empire builder too,creating,through his subsidiaries,a line of consumer goods to be purchased,television programs,a political party that is international in scope, and recently, a new,“sovereign” country,replete with its own currency. Maharishi’s political developments are crucial to note,for only the disin- genuous believe that religion and politics are absolutely separated. Both the Natural Law Party and its Indian variant,the Ajeya Bharat Party,reveal a strong neoconservatism and exclusivism with respect to other religions. But in the Ajeya Bharat Party,the jingoism is blatant and undisguised;its platform posi- tion papers rail against Western colonialism,including the very commercial and political structures Maharishi adopts,adapts,and exploits.This spiritual exclu- sivism holds for the superiority of Hinduism over other religions,and shows a curious development in Maharishi’s program. Although he began with the universalism implied by Advaita Vedanta,he “returns”to a particularism,which steadily imbeds and validates features of Hinduism, gradually revealing it, as Humes writes,as the most accurate vision of true religion.So,while Forsthoe- fel’s essay demonstrates how Advaita migrates well,Humes shows not only just how well it migrates,but how well it returns to its homeland,too. Humes shows the versatile manner in which the Maharishi perpetually adapts to each situation.In South Asian terms,adapting one’s message to par- ticular time and circumstance is upaya, skillful means.Upaya as a category has been used by several of our colleagues as a heuristic device to explain (or per- haps explain away,as Norris Palmer notes) the teaching (or methodology or egregious excess) of the guru.Humes,Palmer,Urban,and even the essay by Goswami and Gupta,all advert to upayaas an explanatory tool for the teaching of the gurus they examined.Adapting one’s message to the particular time and circumstance is the very essence of upaya (and seems peculiarly recognizable in our modern multicultural teaching,as we have mentioned).Our essays show the features of such adaptations to whatever might be called “classical” Hin- duism, and the institutional and authority structures that developed as these gurus or their devotees established foundations in America. The essays by Norris Palmer,the late T.K.Goswami and Ravi Gupta,and Selva Raj address guru traditions that privilege Bhakti.The devotional tradition in India emerged under a complex set of historical and cultural circumstances. The Bhakti tradition, while heterogeneous, nonetheless promoted religious experience as the decisive,most meritorious,and universalist option for spiritual © 2005 State University of New York Press, Albany 8 Gurus in America progress.The passion and longing seen in the great Bhakti saints of Hinduism reveal a powerful energy ready to be tapped for spiritual progress. Norris Palmer’s essay focuses on Satya Sai Baba,the enigmatic and con- troversial spiritual teacher easily identified by his Afro hairstyle.Palmer’s com- prehensive essay includes Baba’s life,ontology,and empire,all fueled by Baba’s magic (some have said sleight-of-hand) and mystery as well as the fuel of the faith of his ardent devotees.Palmer’s study explores the particular way that an inclusivist Hinduism emerges in the relationship that obtains between Hin- duism and non-Hindu religions. Some gurus reflect a kind of egalitarian inclusivism; for example, concerning the different religious traditions of the world, Ramana Maharshi was quite clear:“All go to the same goal.”4 This attitude is not universally held by the gurus here. Instead some, including Baba,admit of pluralism while nonetheless holding that Hinduism offers the purest window to the Supreme.So,the symbolic and ritual programs of some of our subjects will include Western religious iconography and even the read- ing of Western religious texts in certain ritual circumstances.But such inclu- sivism is not always radical egalitarianism;rather,it is often an inclusivism (all religions have value) with an exclusivist subtext (while all religions have value,all find their ultimate meaning and value in Hinduism).Palmer points out that Baba, borrowing from Vedantic paradigms, is the Divine Presence; transcending time and space,his omnipresence therefore renders his spiritual- ity universalist and accessible to all.This accessibility accounts for the spread of Sai Centers in the United States and Europe.The assumption of Baba’s miraculous powers and omnipresence naturally leads a global audience and a global program of Sai spirituality,Baba being the other guru in this volume (the other is Ramana) who has “come to America” through his teaching, devotees,and spiritual centers. However,Baba’s agenda is also particularist and his teachings have a con- servative goal,that is,reestablishing Vedic and Shastric religion.This “reinvigo- ration” of Hinduism back in India is especially evident in the careers of Maharishi and Rajneesh as well,whose modernizing and globalizing strategies also saw a return to particularist religion in which Hinduism emerges as the superior religious form.According to Baba,all spiritual wisdom can be traced back to India, for Bharat “was once the guru of humanity.” Palmer clearly demonstrates what appear to be incompatible attitudes in Baba’s approach:an openness to all persons and religious traditions and a superiority toward Indian culture and Hindu identity. The inclusivist pluralism is clearly showed in the essays on Gurumayi, Rajneesh,Ammachi,and Adi Da.In his ethnographic approach to Ammachi, Selva Raj shrewdly observes a dynamic interchange between Ammachi’s spiri- tuality and Christianity.Ammachi’s program is clearly universalist and egalitar- ian,one of the strongest themes that emerged in the medieval devotional tradi- tions of India.Spiritual merit accrues from experience,not birthright.Women © 2005 State University of New York Press, Albany Introduction 9 and low-caste and outcaste saints are among the great models of devotion in the Bhakti movement. Indeed, Ammachi’s devotion to Krishna has been likened to that of the sixteenth-century Rajasthani saint,Mirabai.The innate impulse toward the divine (articulated by Guru Anjali as well) is clearly affirmed by Ammachi, whose own universalism is seen in the flourishing Amma centers in America and Europe.In addition to availing herself to non- Hindus for spiritual growth,Ammachi has borrowed liberally from other tradi- tions to speak to themes of unconditional love of the Divine Mother.More- over, Ammachi has developed numerous cultural innovations, initiating Westerners with “Christ”or “Mary”mantras.Raj also points out a fascinating development in the devotional services held in the West,where certain forms of ritual communion clearly borrow from Eucharistic models of Christian communion. These changes often lead to the recalibration of Hindu categories.In his essay on Ammachi, Raj neatly addresses a hermeneutic of darshan, a central event in traditional Hindu religiosity.Darshan is the efficacious encounter,the exchange of sight between deity and devotee.To “take darshan” means to encounter God visibly, whether in iconography, nature, or human form.Yet, Ammachi’s universalism not only breaks the bounds of caste and ethnicity,but also the very method of darshan itself.Here,darshan includes a potent,robust embrace.Such tactile darshan is a radical break with traditional,highly circum- spect sensibilities of avoiding bodily contact.Another innovation is “water dar- shan,” conducted at her ashram in Kerala, in which devotees receive her embrace in a pool,ostensibly to minimize the physical hardship on Ammachi. A further development involves the fusion of commercial opportunity and spirituality,such as the sale of “Amma dolls”said to be charged with the shakti (power) of Ammachi indicate. Finally, as with other gurus in this volume, Ammachi has constructed a powerful institutional structure to promote her numerous charitable and teaching organizations. While devotion remains the supreme method in the spiritual program of Ammachi and Sai Baba,these gurus do pepper their spirituality with a pun- gent sprinkling of Advaita as well.This is not the case in the illuminating essay byT.K.Goswami,to whom this volume is dedicated.Goswami,whose essay was completed by his friend and colleague Ravi Gupta,looks at the theology implicit in the “transplantation”of Krishna worship in the West.The theology of the Hare Krishna movement is avidly monotheistic,based on the subtle phi- losophy of “inconceivable difference and non-difference”between the devotee and god.Unadulterated enthusiasm,modeled by the Bengali saint Chaitanya,is the supreme method of liberation,and this is what has been most noticeable about the Hare Krishna movement in America and Europe.However,this tra- dition does not at all operate from a premise of non-dualism, and instead counts “differences,” notably the divine excellences of Krishna, as supremely salvific. Additionally, cultural patterns are also accorded certain sacrosanct © 2005 State University of New York Press, Albany 10 Gurus in America status,with the literal home of Krishna,Vrindaban,being the human realm that best captures and models the divine realm.This means that A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami, the missionary of Krishna worship to the West, needed carefully to address what Goswami and Gupta call the Krishna against culture,the Krishna of culture,and,following classical Gaudiya philosophy,a Krishna that both dis- tinguishes and affirms the two. His theology reveals the premier value of Krishna worship over all other cultural and religious programs,and yet,owing to his subtle nuances,he could not condemn in absolute terms either Indian or non-Indian culture. Indian culture, especially in Krishna’s homeland of Vraj, models the heavenly realm, and non-Indian culture has value insofar as its resources can be used to promote Krishna consciousness.Despite the inherent conservativism of Bhaktivedanta’s theology, he nonetheless cultivated radical innovations in the interface between Hinduism and America, namely, the ongoing use of English in services,the valuation of women’s spirituality and leadership,and the possibility for non-Indians to be Brahmins. The essays of Lola Williamson, Hugh Urban, and Jeffrey Kripal turn to three gurus within the Tantric fold,a complex religious matrix that emerged in India perhaps as early as the sixth century.Steeped in secrecy and fueled by its own version of non-dualism,Tantra is often viewed as radically iconoclastic and transgressive,shattering conventional categories and social mores with the aim of breaking through all mental constructs and organizing filters to an awareness of reality as it is.This tradition “used” all energies to provoke and promote such goals,and,under specific ritual circumstances sexuality itself was such a vehicle. One must note the condition of such sexual activity: specific ritual circumstances;in “classical”Tantra,this was not a sexual romp.Tantra is fun- damentally a soteriological,not sexual,path.Its countercultural methods aim for the collapse of boundaries and a breakthrough to the non-dual Absolute. Both Rajneesh and Adi Da drew from a central assumption of Tantra—that sexual energy itself can be a vehicle for non-dual experience—but the history of those gurus and their movements shows all too clearly the egregious excesses that can be effected in the name of spiritual wisdom. Lola Williamson’s essay elucidates the history and development of the Siddha Yoga community based in upstate New York,centering on the direction of its current leader,Guru Chidvilasananda,or Gurumayi.Also drawing from the Tantric tradition, among others, the Siddha Yoga community very much shows the “Americanization” of Hinduism in upstate New York.Williamson charts this out, while also demonstrating how Siddha Yoga has become a “global sangham,”with a vast network of technical and institutional helpers to support it.Williamson explains how the Tantric notions of the transmission of shaktipat, the transfer of energy between guru and disciple, are modified to facilitate the guru’s global reach. In the newly imagined universe of Siddha Yoga,shaktipat—traditionally,a rare and tactile experience—is now transmitted © 2005 State University of New York Press, Albany