ABOUT THE LECTURE
Christopher
Isherwood gave this lecture, The Writer & Vedanta, at
the Santa Barbara Vedanta Temple on November 11, 1960. As both a
successful writer and a longtime earnest spiritual aspirant,
Isherwood brings a wealth of experience to bear in this original
and personal approach to the topic.
The
synthesis of art and spirituality was an issue that would
continue to occupy him. At the time of this lecture, he was in
the midst of writing Ramakrishna and His Disciples. In
the decade following this talk, he gave a series of lectures at
California universities on the craft of writing, including
“the problem of the religious novel.” And it must be remembered that his most overtly spiritual
books were still to come — A Single Man, A Meeting
by the River, and My Guru and His Disciple, not to
mention the completion of Ramakrishna and His Disciples.
In
this exploration, he touches on: the place of both the artist
and the mystic in polite society, karma yoga, the novel as a
limited model of maya, the rewards and difficulties in writing
about the saint, and more. One feels while listening that rather
than resort to abstractions, he takes the synthesis only as far
as he can personally attest to. Spicing the talk with a dry,
sometimes self-deprecating, humor, he shares with us insights on
the craft of writing and the struggle to merge, with
ever-increasing refinement, the worldly calling with
spirituality.
Special
Thanks to Don Bachardy. Front Cover: Detail Christopher
Isherwood, by Don Bachardy (January 11, 1963, ink on paper 15”
x 35”, copyright Don Bachardy, all rights reserved). It is
displayed in full on the back cover. Although originally photographed to use the portrait detail, we show it, fold and
all, as it’s gorgeous. For more on both Christopher Isherwood and
Don Bachardy, visit IF, the Isherwood Foundation.
ABOUT THIS RECORDING
The Writer and Vedanta was recorded live at the Santa Barbara Vedanta Temple on November 11, 1960 on a wire recorder. The wire recording was preserved by the
Vedanta Society of Southern California
and later digitized by the Vedanta Archives. The sound was engineered by mondayMEDIA and released on CD in 2012 by
Vedanta Press
and GemsTone.
The archival wire version includes the introductory and concluding musical offerings that traditionally accompanied lectures at the Vedanta temples at that time. These performances were not
mic'd well, and we decided not to include them on the CD; but as they have historic interest, they
will be available for listening here: Opening
Song and Closing
Song.
Lecturer Christopher
Isherwood is also a celebrated writer and collaborated
on numerous books with his guru, Swami Prabhavananda.*
 *Related
works are available from Vedanta
Press
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The Writer & Vedanta