One hundred years ago on Sept. 19, the Indian yogi and guru Paramahansa Yogananda arrived in Boston as the Indian delegate for the Unitarian Conference of Religious Liberals. Yogananda’s arrival, along with an earlier visit by another Indian teacher, Swami Vivekananda, began yoga’s rise on these shores into a major industry, as well as one of the most significant examples of syncretism — a religious and cultural mashup — in the history of the West.
Yogananda’s contribution to the growing diversity of America’s religious landscape in the 20th century was to adapt yoga’s poses, originally designed to honor the Hindu sun god Surya, for an American audience. But his deeper influence was to pioneer a vision of wellness in which spirituality and self-help converge.