Theos Casimir Bernard

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Theos Casimir Hamati Bernard (born December 10, 1908 in Pasadena , † 1947 in Punjab ) was one of the first western researchers of Tibetan Buddhism , Indian philosophy and yoga . After initiations in Tibet, he also called himself The White Lama ("The White Lama ").

Life

Theos Casimir Hamati Bernard was born on December 10, 1908 in Pasadena , California . With the third name Hamati, his parents, Glen Bernard and Aura Crable, honored their common guru Sylvais Hamati, one of the first tantra teachers in the United States.

Shortly after the birth of his son, Glen traveled to India, whereupon Aura moved to her hometown of Tombstone , Arizona . After Glen's return, they divorced and Aura remarried.

Theos attended college in Tucson . After a year he developed severe pneumonia and had to be hospitalized. Since the doctors were unable to successfully treat Theos and predict his death, his mother forced her to take the terminally ill son home, where he gradually recovered. Tied to his bed, he read his mother's spiritual library and met his mother's Indian guru. This made him familiar with Eastern wisdom and philosophy. After recovering, he returned to college, graduating with a Bachelor of Laws in 1931.

After graduation, Theos went to Los Angeles , where he first met his father. He was now one of the first yoga teachers in the United States. he also taught his son hatha yoga and advised him to study philosophy.

In 1934 Theos began to study at Columbia University in New York . In the same year he married Viola Wertheim's first marriage. In New York he also met his uncle Pierre Arnold Bernard (1875–1955), who successfully taught tantric yoga and was known as "Omnipotent Oom".

After graduating with a Master of Arts degree in 1936, he and his wife left for India to meet his guru from his youth. However, he had died and so Theos traveled all over India and was introduced to various spiritual traditions. After he was advised to go to Tibet , he learned Tibetan and traveled to Lhasa in 1936 , where he met the reigning regent Reting Rinpoche and several lamas and was initiated into various rituals.

On his return he opened a yoga school in New York and also visited Columbia University again, where he received his doctorate in 1943 with his dissertation: Haṭha Yoga: The Report of a Personal Experience . This dissertation was published as a book in 1944, one of the first Western works to make hathayoga practices such as asanas and pranayama available to a Western audience, and which has since been translated into several languages.

In 1942 he married the opera star Ganna Walska for the second time . The couple moved to California and founded in Beverly Hills , the Tibet country . There Theos archived his Tibetan manuscripts, photographs and films and housed Tibetan monks and lamas who came to California.

Shortly after the divorce in 1946, Theos married his third wife, Helen, and traveled with her to Calcutta , where he left Helen to do research in Ladakh for certain ancient Tibetan scripts. In 1947 he got caught in a Lahauli uprising in Punjab , where he was killed by the insurgents and his body was thrown into a river.

plant

Theos Bernard was one of the few Western researchers who traveled to Lhasa before the Chinese occupation and was able to study Tibetan Buddhism; he also met several high-ranking lamas and was introduced to various rituals. During his stay of several months in 1937, he took countless photographs and made several films. He was also able to look at various scriptures and also brought manuscripts to America. After the trip he published his experiences in two books ( Heaven Lies Within Us and Penthouse of the Gods ) and in various interviews, which made Tibetan culture accessible to a broader public.

In India Theos Bernard met several spiritual teachers who gave him deeper insight into Indian philosophy. In addition, he achieved an advanced practice in Hatha Yoga and made this accessible to a wide audience through his dissertation published as a book.

Works (selection)

  • Heaven Lies Within Us . Scribner's Sons, New York (1939)
  • Penthouse of the Gods. A Pilgrimage into the Heart of Tibet and the Sacred City of Llasa . Scribner's Sons, New York (1940, also published under the title Land of a Thousand Buddhas )
  • Haṭha Yoga: The Report of a Personal Experience . PhD. dissertation Columbia University (1943, as a book 1944).
  • Philosophical Functions of India . Rider (1945).
  • A Simplified Grammar of the Literary Tibetan Language . Tibetan Text Society (1946).
  • Hindu Philosophy . (1947).

literature

  • Paul G. Hackett: Theos Bernard, the White Lama. Columbia University Press (2012). ISBN 978-0-231-15886-2 .
  • Douglas Veenhof: White Lama: In Search of Theos Bernard, Tibet's Lost Missionary to the New World . Harmony Books, New York (2011). ISBN 978-0-385-51432-3 .

Web links

Footnotes