India’s spiritual influence on Western culture didn’t start with the 1960s counterculture, says author Philip Goldberg. He maintains that influence can be traced as far back as the early 19th century.
Goldberg, who has written 19 books and is an educator, Interfaith minister and counselor, will discuss his recently published book, “American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation, How Indian Spirituality Changed the West,” in a program from 7-8:30 p.m. Wednesday in Schorling Auditorium, Room 1202 in the School of Education Building.
The author documents the history and influence of India’s spiritual legacy on Western culture. Goldberg explores the Indian influence during the ’60s counterculture explosion, and chronicles a radical reshaping of the American philosophical landscape and worldview. He says this reshaping is evidenced by meditation and yoga being studied in American laboratories, and recommended by medical and educational experts. Goldberg says the Indian influence also has been embraced in our belief systems and pop culture.
He goes back 200 years to trace early Indian influences, to the libraries of John Adams and Ralph Waldo Emerson. He says India’s spiritual legacy continued to influence generations of philosophers and artists — such as Thoreau, Whitman, Coltrane and the Beatles — who absorbed India’s “science of consciousness” and helped weave it into the fabric of Western society.
The Program in Creativity and Consciousness Studies (PCCS) and the National Center for Institutional Diversity are sponsoring Goldberg’s free appearance, which is open to the public.
PCCS is a cross-disciplinary initiative devoted to the exploration of creativity and its relationship with consciousness through course and curriculum design, guest seminars and symposia, a faculty study group, and related research.
