Why Have Eastern Saints Been Greater than Western Saints?

Question

Somewhere in an article written by Yoganandaji, he said that great saints have been born more so in India than elsewhere because of the yogic practices. In Bhagavad Gita, this yogic practice has been described in the Dhyan yoga chapter and it is also said that this practices are very ancient. Question is why this practices were given only in that part of the world? I guess we won’t be able to tell much from the history but I am just curious.

—P S, USA

Answer

Dear P S,

You are right: Yoganandaji did indeed say that the West has not had saints of the magnitude that India has had, and he attributed that in large part to the yogic techniques of India. Many Western saints have had great devotion, but without techniques, they could not focus that devotion as effectively as Indian saints could.

I doubt that God withheld those techniques from the West; rather, it was Indian culture’s intense interest in inner science that led to the discovery of those techniques. Plus, India has long honored the guru/disciple tradition.

In consequence, the techniques and teachings of India have been handed down through the generations, through millennia. In the West, there has been such inner, scientific focus and continuity only in relatively short-lived, isolated pockets of humanity, not widespread and enduring as in India.

Techniques and continuity make a big difference.

Blessings,
Gyandev