Vidyatmananda, swami, 1913-2000

Author, monk in Ramakrishna order, born John Yale in 1913.

From the description of Swami Vidyatmananda Collection, 1923-1986. (Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center (HRC); University of Texas at Austin). WorldCat record id: 122632908

Swami Vidyatmananda, born John Yale in 1913, underwent initiation and training under Swami Prabhavananda at the Vedanta Society of Southern California. He observed brahmacharya, took sannyas in 1964, and was ordained as a monk in the Ramakrishna order.

On a trip to India, Vidyatmananda visited the Belur Math in Howrah, the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture in Calcutta, and other pilgrimage sites throughout the subcontinent. Based on his experiences he contributed a number of travelogue articles to the journal Vedanta and the West . Eventually he collected his impressions of India to write A Yankee and the Swamis: A Westerner's View of the Ramakrishna Order (2001).

In time, Swami Vidyatmananda became an editor of Vedanta and the West, and also edited What Religion Is: In the Words of Swami Vivekananda (1982), with an introduction by Christopher Isherwood. He continued his career as a devotee of Ramakrishna at the Centre Védantique Ramakrishna in Gretz, France, where he served as the center's manager until his death in 2000.

From the guide to the Swami Vidyatmananda Collection TXRC03-A21., 1923-1986, (The University of Texas at Austin, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center)