America's First Guru: how Vivekananda brought Vedanta and yoga to the United States

In 1893, before more than 4,000 people worn out by speeches, a 30-year-old Indian monk opened his address at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago by calling the audience sisters and brothers of America. America's First Guru tells what came before and after that moment.

The film is by Raja Choudhury, who wrote, produced and directed it; it was presented by the Chicago public station WTTW and distributed on PBS. Actor Samrat Chakrabarti plays Vivekananda in staged scenes that alternate with interviews with historians, such as Ruth Harris of Oxford, and with monks of the Ramakrishna Order, among them Swami Sarvapriyananda of the Vedanta Society of New York.

From Narendra to Vivekananda

Born Narendranath Datta in Calcutta in 1863, the son of a lawyer, he was raised for his father's profession. His meeting with Ramakrishna, a priest at the Dakshineswar temple, changed his course. After his teacher's death in 1886, he became a wandering monk and traveled across colonial India, whose poverty left a deep mark on him. The Maharaja of Khetri paid for the voyage and gave him both the name Vivekananda and the outfit that would become his signature.

America, 1893 to 1900

The film reconstructs his arrival without credentials, the help of a Harvard professor in getting him into the Parliament, and his sudden fame. It also shows the racism: applauded on stage, he could not get a hotel room in some cities. In New York he founded the Vedanta Society, taught in a modest apartment and published Raja Yoga, on meditation, and Karma Yoga, on action without attachment. In 1897, back in India, he created the Ramakrishna Mission, devoted to serving the poor. He died on July 4, 1902.

What to keep in mind

This is a work of admiration. Many of the interviewees are monks of the order Vivekananda founded, and the director sells spirituality courses through his own school, A Thousand Suns Academy. Some episodes, such as the meeting said to have transformed John D. Rockefeller, are presented by the film itself as a story that is told, not as documented fact. The actor voices passages from Vivekananda's letters and lectures, which makes it hard for viewers to separate record from dramatization.

Why watch

Despite its reverent tone, the film helps explain where ideas now commonplace in the West come from, such as daily meditation and respect between religions, and why a monk from Calcutta became, for a few weeks in 1893, the sensation of Chicago.