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In 1958, Rudi met Shankaracharya of Puri during his first visit to the United States, and lived with him in New York for 4 months

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In 1958 Sri Paramhansa Yogananda, founder of the Self-Realization Fellowship, brought Sri Jagadguruji to america. It was the first time in the 1,000 year-old monastic Shankaracharya history that a Shankaracharya visited america. His Holiness also had rare mathematical skills and shared the unique mathematical laws of nature that he discovered through sadhana and reAding the Vedas at many american universities. In april 1958 Newsweek Magazine reported on this historic visit. During His three-month visit to america He left his disciple, His Holiness Sri Srimat Swami Shankar Purushottam Tirthaji Maharaj to preside over the Shankaracharya seat.
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1958 USA Tour
His Holiness Sri Jagadguru Shankaracharya of Puri, Head of the thousand year old monastic Shankaracharya Order and the first of its leaders ever to visit the west, went for a three month tour of the United States and the United Kingdom on an invitation by the Self Realization Fellowship (SRF) founded by Paramhansa Yogananda. The tour was hosted by Sister Daya Mata the President of the SRF.
Yogananda SRF logo

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Decades later, when it was discovered that the manuscripts were irretrievably lost, Swamiji completed the current book in a span of few months as a summary. In 1958, in spite of his failing health, Swamiji travelled to the USA delivering lectures on Vedanta philosophy and on Vedic Math. On Febraury 18, 1958, he gave a talk on Vedic Mathematics at CalTech, Pasadena, California, to a student group. This was the first talk by Swamiji in the US on his mathematical discoveries. This was followed by two subsequent talks at CalTech on March 4th (algebra and quadratics) and on March 10th (calculus). Due to constraints on time because of his short visit to the US, Swamiji could not fulfill his invitations to over 150 universtities and colleges accross the US (see [2] pp. 19-24, pp.107-112). According to the New York Times article dated April 3, 1958 [5], "The Shankaracharya's program includes appearances at Farleigh Dickinson University, Columbia University, Connecticut State Teachers College and the Community Church."

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Due to constraints on time because of his short visit to the US, Swamiji could not fulfill his invitations to over 150 universtities and colleges accross the US

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it seems that at least some of the people that become involved with cult groups may be in part complicit in their isolation and participation within such a spiritual subculture.

Guru X , from what I remember, was very careful not to explicitly tell people what to do. He was not as extreme as David Koresh, who routinely ordered his followers about. The Swami's manipulation operated on a much more subtle level.

(Corboy--by not explicitly giving orders and communicating merely by hints, such an evasive manipulator can avoid being accountable ('I never said that'). Two, people
who respond eagerly to this kind of hinting are often from troubled families, rather than
families with clear boundaries and communication signals. People from dysfunctional families will slip easily into a routine where a guru likes to manipulate indirectly and over time the ashram will turn into a codependent hothouse--lots of pseudointimacy
that is rationalized as intuition)

He merely encouraged his followers to pursue their selfish and often irresponsible pursuits. Satchidananda told them to listen to their "inner voices" and meditate on something to "know thyself," etc.

This subtle tactic was in the interest of his Yoga community, specifically to effectively garner more "full-time workers" to run the place.

But of course Guru would not say, "Well, it's good that you want to be a part of our community, but what about your responsibilities at home?"

His followers, my mother included, would constantly write him letters asking his advice about almost anything. His answers were often vague and ambiguous, making them open to all kinds of interpretation.

In his talks, Guru X used a lot of parables that were very general in nature. It was easy for my mother and her friends at IYI to put whatever spin they wanted on such "spiritual advice."

It's true that Swami Y never explicitly told my mother to move to Virginia. In the same way, according to my mother, he didn't tell his followers to kneel at his feet in airports, in lecture halls and at festivals.

But he didn't tell them NOT to either.

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And Assagioli would be the disciple who would take on the massive task of instituting this great sea-change in the thinking of humankind.

Alice Bailey, writing in a booklet dated 1933 entitled "The Next Three Years," predicted:

"The outstanding achievement of the coming cycle will be the growth of psychology and the emergence of a new understanding as to the nature of man as a result of its work. The mechanistic school of psychologists has served a valuable purpose; its findings are sound even if, from the standpoint of reality, its conclusions are temporarily erroneous. Its exponents serve as a needed brake upon the speculative and mystical school. From the adjustment of relationship between these two school . . . a third school will emerge. This will lay emphasis upon the soul and the mechanism it uses . . . "

Here we find the basis for Assagioli's so-called "Wall of Silence," addressed later in this article.

The success of Assagioli's work in the field of Psychosynthesis, the foundation of the Transpersonal Psychology movement, was best expressed by Martha Crampton, Director of the Canadian Institute of Psychosynthesis:

"Assagioli had the vision and the courage to put forward in psychiatry an approach that did justice to all the dimensions of man--physical, emotional, mental and spiritual, even though the view ran counter to the prevailing mechanistic conceptions of the time."

While Assagioli's public work is well-established and a matter of historical record, his association with the Tibetan Master, Djwahl Kuhl, is shrouded in the mists of time. Except for a diminishing circle of people who were close to Assagioli and were aware of the connection, and who studied with him and still alive today, nothing would be known of the esoteric background of his work.

Previous writers have only hinted at the depth of Assagioli's involvement with the esoteric tradition, just as few today know of the roots of womens' suffrage that lie in the Spiritualist movement of the 19th century.

Peter Roche de Coppens, one of the few to so much as hint at the Assagioli-Tibetan connection, wrote in Quest Magazine in August, 1994:

"Assagioli developed a friendship with Alice A. Bailey, who connected him with spiritual traditions, the esoteric mysteries, and the teachings that she had articulated in numerous books"--read, "The Tibetan!"

Perhaps the most mysterious assignment Assagioli received from the Tibetan Master was an instruction to

"establish a world-wide group to simultaneously and continually meditate upon the Laws and Principles of the New Age: The Law of Right Human Relations and the Principle of Goodwill; The Law of Group Endeavor and the Principle of Unanimity; The Law of Spiritual Approach and the Principle of Essential Divinity.

In the 1960s, Assagioli assembled a group of devoted friends who could be called his own "disciples" from several European countries and from the United States. He called this group "the committee." They met with him in Italy and began drafting a series of leaflets defining the Laws and the Principles together with appropriate meditative techniques. These were in turn refined and fleshed out by Assagioli himself. When the core group of disciples returned to their home lands, the booklets were published under the name of the Meditation Group for the New Age. Each booklet carried Assagioli's byline.

In the United States, the booklets evolved into a three year basic study now known as The Meditation Group for the New Age, and a ten-year continuation study of the Laws and Principles, known as The Group for Creative Meditation. The studies are distributed world-wide at no cost to participants by a non-profit corporation known as Meditation Groups, Inc. The group distributes Assagioli's materials to more than 7500 workers in 85 countries around the world, thus fulfilling the Tibetan Master's instructions to Roberto Assagioli. This world-wide group meditates every day on the Laws and Principles, as one.

Because the practice of meditation during the early years was looked upon as an Eastern aberration and because Assagioli's pioneering work with professional therapists was highly sensitive in it earliest years, no hint of the esoteric underpinnings could be made public. Had this happened at the time, Assagioli and his breakthrough ideas would have been subject to ridicule by his academic colleagues and he would have been denounced and ostracized from the exclusive fraternity of psychologists and psychotherapists. The work, of course, would have failed or at been been severely diminished.

Well aware of this threat, Assagioli wisely instituted what became known to his disciples as "The Wall of Silence." Only those closest to him in the esoteric aspects of his work were aware of the true roots of Psychosynthesis and they in turn were pledged to absolute silence. The "Wall" stood for lo these many years, until now, in a more enlightened time, the true esoteric nature of Assagiloi's pioneering work may be revealed...




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