A. K. Mozumdar
| Akhoy Kumar Mozumdar |
|
| Born |
1864 |
| Died |
March 9, 1953
San Diego |
Akhoy Kumar (A.K.) Mozumdar (1864–1-March 9, 1953)[1] was an Indian-born lecturer and writer of the New Thought Movement during the first half of 20th-century United States. He had enjoyed a large following of students and regular readers of his books and pamphlets until he was denaturalized in a decision on American immigration law which reached the United States Supreme Court in 1924.
Teachings
- "If man thinks and acts, is not the thinker and actor God? If God is all life, then all lives are God. The creative power is the very nature of the being of the Creator; hence the creative power is God. Life is the Creator, and will never be reduced to the level of its own creation. The creature will forever be ensouled with the creative activity, and move and act according to the inner impulse of the Creator. By thinking with the mind of the one life, you become conscious of being the thinker. At the back of your every action you should find yourself. You are spirit and therefore spiritual. The permanent substance is underneath all forms. The forms are made of the everlasting substance. This knowledge sets a man free."[2]
Critique of Mozumdar's writings
- "While Mozumdar's teaching is popular ... it shows us what happens when a thinker immersed in Hindu lore completely accepts a world-affirming position. What happens is an identification of the Hindu conception of a divine universal Self with the Hebrew conception of a divine creative power. To Mozumdar the ultimate God is not uncreative bliss, as in the view of Sankara, but creative power, as in the Hebrew tradition. Yet this creative Power, he declares, is the same as the universal Self. Here the universal Self, we should note, is not a finite Ideal, as in Greek philosophy, but the infinite Substance of the world."[3]
U.S. immigration law
In 1913 Mozumdar became the first Indian-born person to earn U.S. citizenship, having convinced the Spokane district judge that he was in fact Caucasian and thereby met the requirements of naturalization law then restricting citizenship to "free white persons".
Ten years later, however, as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, stipulating that no person of East Indian origin could become a naturalized United States citizen, Mozumdar's citizenship was revoked. A decision on his appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the revocation.[4] He apparently remained, however, in the United States until his death in San Diego in 1953,[1] as he was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.
Major works
- The Triumphant Spirit
- The Conquering Man (also translated into Swedish by Eric O.G. Olson, Den segrande människan)
- The Mystery of the Kingdom
- The Commanding Life
- Christ on the Road of Today
- Key to the New Messianic World Message
- Christ Speaketh
- Today and Tomorrow
- Open Door to Heaven
- The Life and the Way
See also
References
- ^ a b Martell, Francesca (1981), "A New Mozumdar Chapter", Valley Wide Resorter 22 (45), http://www.mozumdar.org/images/Hesperia.pdf
- ^ Mozumdar's The Life of Man, pp. 1, 3, 7, 27, and The Conquering Man, p. 41, as synthesized by Wendell Marshall Thomas in his 1930 study, Hinduism Invades America, published by Beacon Press, p. 253 ff.
- ^ Hinduism Invades America by Wendell Marshall Thomas (Beacon Press, 1930)
- ^ In re Mozumdar, 207 F. 115 (E.D. Wash. 1913); United States v. Akhay Kumar Mozumdar, 296 F. 173 (1923); and Akhay Kumar Mozumdar v. United States, 299 F. 240 (1924)
External links
| Persondata |
| Name |
Mozumdar, A.K. |
| Alternative names |
Mozumdar, Akhoy Kumar |
| Short description |
India-born United States-based spiritual writer and teacher |
| Date of birth |
1864 |
| Place of birth |
|
| Date of death |
1953 |
| Place of death |
San Diego |