The failure to produce a robust type of yogic tradition in the west is connected with the confusion over gnosticism which tended to displace traditions of self-development behind a front of doing otherwise. Gurdjieff is the classic case: he promotes a new consciousness but no one every succeeds in that. Not one public success has ever arisen. Behind the scenes a few gangsters get all the spiritual energy.
The west brought great problems to itself in the decline of the Occident. The great hopes for a brilliant future after the Greek flowering turned into a degenerate empire so grotesque, cf. the Roman games, that intervention seems to have sprung from mysterious sources. The confusion of Christianity and gnosticism resulted in the latter’s elimination. In Islam the similar sufism appears to have better succeeded. But how has every found a path in sufism? Look at the YouTube sufis: blah blah god in the fronts facing Islamic fanatics. Who can say. Idries Shah wrote dozens of books on sufism but after reading them you still know nothing about them. Christianity is a totally barren outcome. But it did somehow lead civilization out of Roman depravity. In the end however the effect of Christianity has been spiritual hypnosis, not awareness. The gnostic confusion ended up eliminating the meditation realm. It is not realizable to graft some path to enlightenment onto the culture of the west. Already we see the cooptation by capitalism of mindfulness.
Having discussed buddhism’s fate we must note our larger meaning: Buddhism and the realm of yoga have begun to subtly transform the religious environment of the West. In that sense it is surv…
New Man, New Age, New Socialism 