Buddhist/Hindu
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Arya Samaj (1875)
The Arya Samaj is a Hindu modernization and reform movement founded in 1875 by Dayananda Saraswati, and it was the first significant Hindu organization to actively seek converts to Hinduism. Saraswati, born Mool Shankar Tiwari, was born in 1824 into a Brahmin family. At age eight, he was initiated into religious study in the Saivite… Continue reading
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Art of Living Foundation (1981)
Ravi Shankar was born in Tamil Nadu, India, in 1956 and became a student of Hindu Vedic philosophy at a young age. After completing college, he became involved with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation movement, first travelling with the Maharishi and then setting out on his own to establish TM training centers. In 1981, after… Continue reading
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Ancient Teachings of the Masters (1983)
After stints in Scientology, the Self-Revelation Church of Absolute Monism, and several other groups, Paul Twitchell founded Eckankar in 1965. He claimed to be the 971st in the line of ECK Masters, the spiritual leader of Eckankar. Twitchell adapted many Sanskrit words into English in his teachings, and it is believed that “Eckankar” is a… Continue reading
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Ānanda Mārga (1955)
Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar was born in West Bengal in 1921 and studied at the University of Calcutta. He completed basic science studied but was forced to leave college to support his family after his father died, and worked as an accountant for the Indian railways system until the mid-1950s. But his chief interest was in… Continue reading
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Ananda Church of Self-Realization (1968)
James Donald Walters was born in Romania to American parents in 1926. When he was in college, he read Autobiography of a Yogi by the Hindu monk Paramahansa Yogananda, which had recently been published. Walters made his way to the headquarters of Yogananda’s Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) in California and took vows of discipleship. Walters moved… Continue reading
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Agni Yoga (1920)
Agni Yoga is a spiritual system with roots in Hinduism and Theosophy that was created by Nicholas and Helena Roerich in the early 20th century and that continues to have practitioners today. Though Nicholas Roerich was the public face of Agni Yoga, many of its ideas came primarily from Helena, who influenced her husband’s spiritual… Continue reading
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Adidam (1972)
Franklin Albert Jones was born into a middle-class household in Queens, New York, in 1939. In his youth, he considered becoming a minister in the Lutheran church in which he was raised, and studied philosophy at Columbia University. After obtaining his bachelor’s degree, he did graduate work in English literature at Stanford, studying under novelist… Continue reading