Christopher Isherwood, Swami Prabhavananda & An Amazing Circle of Spiritual Writers

August 26, 2012 By 1 Comment


Christopher Isherwood was born on this day in 1904.

A novelist, perhaps best know for the film adaptation of his Berlin Stories which would be the basis for the film Cabaret.

He would also become an icon of the new Gay Rights movement.

He was most important to me as a spiritual writer. A friend of his, the mystic Gearld Heard, introduced him to Vedanta and specifically to the swami in charge of the Vedanta Socity in Southern California, Swami Prabhavananda. With the Swami, Isherwood translated several Hindu classics, a biography of of Sri Ramakrishna, Ramakrishna and his Disciples and a spiritual autobiography, My Guru and His Disciple.

These later two books were particularly important for me at the beginning of my spiritual quest all these years ago.

Looking for a suitable video to accompany this led me to a delightful video about Swami Prabhavananda, Isherwood and an amazing circle of spiritual writers…

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  • http://greatwave.org Gendo

    Isherwood and Swami Prabhavananda also translated the Bhagavad-Gita, the epitomizing source of Vedanta thought. As best as I can recall from the late 70s when I read it, it had an excellent glossary and an introduction by Aldous Huxley. The passage in which Arjuna sees God (Vishnu) in his true form, instead of in the form of his avatar, Krishna, is memorable.

    I am grateful to people like Isherwood for bringing eastern ideas to the west in something other than a romanticized/exoticized form.