One Life's Pilgrimage: Addresses, letters, and articles by the first Indian woman to teach Vedanta in the West

This edition is the only one that has been prepared and updated at Swami Paramananda’s own center, the Vedanta Centre in Cohasset, Massachusetts, by those carrying on his work.

Vedanta, India’s age-old philosophy of peace through transcendence, was first brought to the West by Swami Vivekananda in 1893. It was Vivekananda’s dream that some day an Indian woman would come to America and preach the universal ideas of their ancient seers. During the first two decades of the 1900s, America’s interest in India’s spiritual treasures grew, and teachers were supplied to meet the demand. Not until 1926, however, did a young woman of India venture to consecrate herself to the religious life in the New World. One and a half years after taking up residence in the American spiritual community of Swami Paramananda (a disciple of Vivekananda), Gayatri Devi was ordained by him to teach Vedanta.

As a member of one of the oldest spiritual communities in America, she became its head in 1940. During her fifty-five years of spiritual leadership, she experienced all the possible challenges and trials of community life. In the sixty-seven years since her coming to the United States, she has shared with countless seekers not only the tenets of her philosophy, but the richer gift of her example in living.

One Life’s Pilgrimage presents her talks on practical aspects of Vedanta and her articles on the lore, culture, sacred stories, and saints who have inspired her. Through her letters, which are full of counsel and direction the reader will follow a life unique in its unfoldment. This book, compiled at the urging of Mother Gayatri Devi’s many students and friends, is the reading public’s first exposure to what has, up to now, been a well-hidden life in God.