THE MAKING OF A DEVOTEE

by Swami Vidyatmananda (John Yale)

of the Ramakrishna Order of India

"As the different streams, having their sources in different places, all mingle their water in the sea, so O Lord, the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee."

— Hymn on the Greatness of Shiva

Centre Védantique Ramakrichna, 77220 Gretz, France

CONTENTS

• Introduction
• Chapter   1: The Devotee as Historical Incident
• Chapter   2: The Devotee as Inquirer after Truth
• Chapter   3: The Devotee as Psycho-Physical Being
• Chapter   4: The Devotee as Disciple
• Chapter   5: The Devotee as Literary Enthusiast
• Chapter   6: The Devotee as Friend of Vivekananda
• Chapter   7: The Devotee as Admirer of Sri Ramakrishna
• Chapter   8: The Devotee as Sadhu
• Chapter   9: The Devotee as Passenger to India and More
• Chapter 10: The Devotee as "Manager Maharaj"
• Chapter 11: The Devotee as Aide to a Holy Man
• Chapter 12: The Devotee as Witness to Evidences of the Faith
• Epilogue
• Additional material:
• A Talk by Swami Vidyatmananda on His Guru
• Reply of the Swami on the occasion of his birthday celebration 1988

Notes:

The late Swami Vidyatmananda completed the writing of this book in January 1993 (just before the death of Swami Ritajananda, who was the head of the ashrama and whom he appreciated so much). He himself passed away on March 22, 2000 at the age of 86.

Besides entrusting the manuscript to someone at the Ramakrishna Order, the Swami sent a copy (in the form of a set of diskettes) to his friend Arlen Wolpert. As the manuscript remained unpublished Wolpert finally made the original text available on the website http://theworld.com/~elayj in 2003. The present text is taken from that website. I inserted photos, added italics where appropriate, and redesigned the presentation and html-coding. In a few instances I added missing dates where the manuscript has only "??", or, when the date couldn't be found, I deleted these question marks. Asterisks (in "A Talk") with no follow-up were also deleted. I corrected a considerable amount of typing errors — some may have escaped my notice — and changed the spelling to American usage.

Picture credits: Ch.6: drawing by Sw. Tadatmananda; Ch.7: the swami kept this naïve painting by an unknown devotee in his room; Ch.9: probably photographed by the swami himself; Ch.12: photographed by Barbara Seiller; Epilogue: Saas Fee advertisement 1925; the other pictures are by unknown devotees.

F.Z., Sept. 2008