User:Titodutta/Draft/Vedanta Society of Northern California

Vedanta Society of Northern California is a Vedanta Society located at 2323 Vallejo Street, San Francisco, California 94123. The society was founded by Swami Vivekananda in 1900. During his second visit to the US, Vivekananda lectured and taught for three months in San Francisco, Oakland, and Alameda.

Establishment
In 1899, Vivekananda travelled to the West for the second time. On 22 February 1900, he reached the San Francisco Ferry Building where he stayed in a building at the Home of Truth centre, 1231 Pine Street. He then delivered his first lecture in San Francisco on "The Ideal of a Universal Religion". The lecture was followed by another on "Vedantism" which he delivered on 24 February. Vivekananda stayed at San Francisco for three months and continued to lecture at Oakland, and Alameda also.

Students from both sides of San Francisco Bay wanted Vivekananda to form an organization that would continue their study after Vivekananda left. On April 14, after one of Vivekananda's evening lectures, the Vedanta Society of Northern California was formed for the dual purpose “of assisting Swami Vivekananda in his work in India and studying Vedanta Philosophy.” By the time Vivekanandaleft San Francisco he had decided to send Swami Turiyananda as his successor to run it at the Red Men’s building in San Francisco.

In 1906, the first Hindu temple was built in the United States by Trigunatita.

At a later stage the San Francisco Vedanta Society split into the parent society, Vedanta Society of Northern California, and smaller branches in San Francisco, Berkeley, and Sacramento. In the beginning of 1915, the San Francisco Vedanta Society and the Pacific Vedanta Center were scheduled to be merged into the Vedanta Society of San Francisco.

When Vivekananda was in San Francisco, a lady devotee who had attended his lecture in Los Angeles and also met enthusiastic  Swami Abhedananda a young disciple, felt the need to establish a Vedanta retreat. To facilitate this need, she gave Vivekananda a gift of a forested hilly terrain about 12 miles from Lick Observatory, an area of 160 acres, in Northern California. Swami Turiyananda, a disciple of Swamiji  who had come from India to San Francisco on 26 July 1900 was asked to set out the land. Then a retreat was built. It was named as "Shanti Ashrama" where Turiyananda lived for the next two years and devoted himself to teaching, meditation, and chanting.

Swami Trugunatita, at one point, took efforts to revive the San Francisco Vedanta Society.

Activities
Of the seven Vedanta centers established in California, three are in Northern California - the Vedanta Society of Northern California at San Francisco, Berkley and the Vedanta Society of Sacramento. Marie Louise Burke—an eminent researcher on Vivekananda is resident at this Vedanta Society.