Realizing God: Lectures on Vedanta. This item is unavailable.Realizing God: Lectures on Vedanta

Here is a major collection of the lectures of Swami Prabhavananda on Vedanta as delivered from 1935-1976 in the United States. The editor collected all the lectures on a given topic that were available in the Vedanta Archives and combine the different points of the lectures to thus merge them into one lecture.

Swami Prabhavananda lived in the United States for over 50 years. His primary focus was to present Vedanta to Westerners. He adopted Western clothing, moved freely in Western society, and was the only one of his peers to become an American citizen. He founded both the Vedanta Society of Southern California and the Vedanta Society of Portland. He had an enormous literary output that even today continues to move people and enhance their spiritual life.

Swami Prabhavananda (December 26, 1893 July 4, 1976) was an Indian philosopher monk of the Ramakrishna Order, and religious teacher. Born in India, he joined the Ramakrishna Order after graduating from Calcutta university in 1914. He was initiated by Swami Brahmananda. In 1923, he was sent to the United States of America. Initially he worked as an assistant minister of the Vedanta Society of San Francisco. After two years, he established the Vedanta Society of Portland. In December 1929, he moved to Los Angeles where he founded the Vedanta Society of Southern California in 1930. Under his administration the Vedanta Society of Southern California grew over the years to become the largest Vedanta Society in the West, with monasteries in Hollywood and Trabuco Canyon and convents in Hollywood and Santa Barbara. Swami Prabhavananda was a scholar who authored a number of books on Vedanta and Indian religious scriptures and commentary. He was assisted on several of the projects by Christopher Isherwood or Frederick Manchester. His comprehensive knowledge of philosophy and religion attracted such disciples as Aldous Huxley and Gerald Heard. Swami Prabhavananda died on the bicentennial of America's independence, July 4, 1976, and on the 74th anniversary of the death, or mahasamadhi, of Swami Vivekananda.