Swami Atmajnanananda

Minister, Vedanta Center of Greater Washington, DC

Swami Atmajnanananda (born Stuart Elkman) joined the Ramakrishna Order in 1981. He earned BA in philosophy from Northwestern University and PhD in Indian philosophy from University of Pennsylvania. He joined the Ramakrishna Order in 1981 at the Vedanta Society of Southern California; took first vows of brahmacharya in India in 1992 and sanyasa in India in 1996; transferred to the Vedanta Center of Greater Washington, DC in 1997. He is a scholar in Indian philosophy and traveled extensively throughout India and Bangladesh; contributed various articles and translations to some of the books and magazines of the Ramakrishna order. One of his articles was published in Living Wisdom: Vedanta in the West. He also authored Jiva Gosvamin’s Tattvasandarbha: A Study on the Philosophical and Sectarian Development of the Gaudiya Vaisnava Movement, published by Motilal Banarsidass in 1986 under his pre-monastic name. He envisions that with the help of a healthy imagination and a smattering of devotion, all action can be converted into acts of worship. All activities can be spiritualized until the line of demarcation between sacred and secular, spiritual practice and worldly duties, begins to gradually melt away.