Controversy, thy name is Gandhi. Like a shadow, it pursued Gandhi , but sometimes, he himself initiated controversy, not intentionally, but by the sheer unconventionality of some of his actions. For example, his bold experiments in “brahmacharya” (celibacy as a spiritual sadhana in pursuit of Brahman), generated a strong public uproar.

In the century that followed the epochal messages brought to the United States by the reformist Hindu scholar Vivekananda near the end of the 19th Century, at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893 and in lectures around the county – the swami’s vision of Hinduism’s precepts and practices attracted many Americans.