True or False? Physical Yoga Has Influenced America More than Spiritual Yoga.

Answer: False!  The reverse is true.  Spiritual Yoga has had a far bigger impact on America than the physical poses most people think of as Yoga.

You’ll almost certainly agree after reading the startling new book  American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation How Indian Spirituality Changed the West  by Philip Goldberg

(See  accompanying interview with Phil Goldberg.)

The spirituality of the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads, the original texts of Yoga,  has found its way into the very core of spiritual life in America, according to Goldberg, even though this is often masked by the form it has taken, and sometimes through outright repression of historical facts.

American Veda is an absolute must-read for anyone serious about Yoga.  It is one of the  most important books I’ve personally ever read about Yoga, or anything else, for that matter.  It is surprising, entertaining, and highly readable throughout, and it will cause you to forever think differently about the impact of Yoga in America.

This book is so momentous, that at first I had trouble imagining how I could adequately describe it’s message and scope in a “review”.  Then I suddenly realized that this would be the easiest review I’ve ever written.  Here it is:

The following is just a partial list, just to give you an idea, of the famous people who, as documented in American Veda, have been profoundly influenced, not just a little bit influenced, but profoundly and pivotally influenced, by the Yoga of the original ancient Yoga texts, the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads, often referred to as “Vedanta Yoga” (Most are Americans, but I also included others who heavily influenced Americans.):

Authors

Ralph Waldo Emerson     Henry David Thoreau     Walt Whitman     Aldous Huxley

Samuel Taylor Coleridge     William Wordsworth     William Blake     Emily Dickinson

Robert Frost     Jack Kerouac     Allen Ginsberg     Alan Watts     Gotham Chopra

Tim Gallwey (Inner Game of  Tennis)        Herman Hesse     Oliver Wendell Holmes

Somerset Maugham    J. D. Salinger     Christopher Isherwood     Timothy Leary

Huston Smith    T.S. Eliot     William Butler Yeats

Psychologists

William James     Carl Jung     Abraham Maslow     Stanislav Grof     Daniel Goleman

New Spirituality/Self-help

Eckhart Tolle     Deepak Chopra     Michael Beckwith (Agape)     Ken Wilber

Joseph Cambell    Madame Blavatsky (Theosophical Society)    Wayne Dyer

Marianne Williamson     Norman Vincent Peale     Tony Robbins

John Gray     Joan Borysenko     Andrew Harvey

Musicians & Entertainers 

The Beatles (especially George Harrison)     Philip Glass     Judy Collins

Russell Simmons    Elvis Presley     John Coltrane     Alice Coltrane    Donovan

Mick Jagger     Marianne Faithful     Mia Farrow    Mike Love

Paul Horn     Madonna     John McGlaughlin

Yehudi Menuhin     Van Morrison     David Lynch     Shirley McClaine

Jerry Seinfeld     And many others

Religious Figures

Mary Baker Eddy (founder Christian Science)     Ernest Holmes (Religious Science)

Thomas Keating    Thomas Merton     Father Bede Griffiths     Rabbi David Gelberman

The “New Thought” Movement (source of many modern congregations)

Politicians/Activists

John Adams     Martin Luther King (through Mahatma Gandhi)     Booker T. Washington

Philosophers

Arthur Schoepenhauer     Friedrich Hegel    Alfred North Whitehead

Scientists

David Bohm (quantum physicist)     Rupert Sheldrake (biologist)     Fritjof Capra (The Tao of Physics)

J. Robert Oppenheimer     Erwin Shroedinger (physicist, close friend of Einstein)

Nikola Tesla (legendary inventor)     John Hagelin     Amrit Goswami

Health and Wellness

Andrew Weil     Dean Ornish     Mehmet “Dr.” Oz.     Herbert Benson (The Relaxation Response)

See also:  How Yoga Has Transformed American Spirtuality: An Interview with Phil Goldberg, Author of “American Veda”, and then read the book!

Phil Goldberg is the author or coauthor of nineteen books, including “Roadsigns: On the Spiritual Path” and “The Intuitive Edge.” Based in Los Angeles, he is an ordained interfaith minister, a public speaker and seminar leader, and the founder of Spiritual Wellness and Healing Associates. He is director of outreach for SpiritualCitizens.net and blogs regularly on religion for the Huffington Post. Visit philipgoldberg.com or americanveda.com for more information.