Judith Tyberg
Judith Tyberg was an American yogi, Sanskrit scholar, and orientalist. She authored The Language of the Gods as well as two other texts in Sanskrit. She was the founder and guiding spirit of the East-West Cultural Center in Los Angeles, California, an institution through which many Indian yogis and spiritual teachers of various Eastern and mystical traditions were first introduced to America and the West.
Early life as a theosophist at Point Loma
Judith Marjorie Tyberg was born on May 16, 1902, at Point Loma, the "California Utopia", which was the new world headquarters of the Theosophical Society. Katherine Tingley, world president, founded "Lomaland" in 1898, and Tyberg's Danish theosophist parents, Marjorie and Olaf Tyberg, were among the first joiners. In 1900, Tingley founded the Raja Yoga School. Tyberg recalled how, as young children, they were instructed in the works of the world's great religious and spiritual traditions and were inspired to seek "Truth, Justice, Wisdom... more knowledge, more light". Early on, Tyberg displayed a serious and philosophical nature and a vocation for education. Madame Tingley called her "one of my true raja yogis". Tyberg grew up, studied, lived, and taught at Point Loma until its closing in 1942, and it was in this context that she knew orientalist Walter Evans-Wentz and Paul Brunton.She received all her educational degrees from the Theosophical University: a B.A. degree in Higher Mathematics and Languages ; an M.A. in Religion and Philosophy with a specialization in Oriental Thought; and a B.Th and M.Th in Sacred Scriptures and Ancient Civilizations, with a focus on the Bible and Kabbalah. Tyberg began her study of Sanskrit in 1930 with Gottfried de Purucker and received a Ph.D. in Sanskritic studies. She became a member of the American Oriental Society.
While still a teenager, Tyberg began her teaching career at the Raja Yoga School. She held the post of Assistant Principal of the Raja Yoga School from 1932 to 1935, became head of its Sanskrit and Oriental Division in 1940, and served as Dean of Studies as well as Trustee of the Theosophical University from 1935 to 1945. Starting in the late 1930s, she authored numerous articles on spirituality and consciousness for The Theosophical Forum magazine, including The Sacred Texts of the Gupta-Vidya, Possibilities of the Kali Yuga, Hinduism & Buddhism, and Where are your haunts of Consciousness? In 1934, Tyberg joined the team set up by de Purucker to create an encyclopedia of spiritual vocabulary used in theosophy, drawing from Greek, Chinese, Kabbalist, Zoroastrian, Hindu, and Buddhist texts. Tyberg's contribution was the exposition of over 2,000 terms.
First Sanskrit works
Tyberg translated the Hymn to the Origin of the World from the Rig Veda and collated, edited, and prefaced Charles Johnston's 1946 translation of Shankaracharya's Crest-Jewel of Wisdom. In 1940, Tyberg published Sanskrit Keys to the Wisdom Religion, an exposition of over 500 Sanskrit terms used in religious, occult, and theosophical literature. This was a groundbreaking work by virtue of its content and its innovative printing technology, as it was the first time anywhere, including India, that the ancient form of Sanskrit was linotyped. Tyberg, in collaboration with Geoffrey Baborka, chief linotype operator at the Theosophical University Press, transformed a modern Sanskrit keyboard into a keyboard for the ancient form of theDevanagari alphabet, composed of dozens of matrices. Tyberg's view of Sanskrit's importance was quoted by the Los Angeles Times: "Not only are the languages used on the European and American continents deficient in words dealing with spirit, but many of the English words that do have spiritual connotations are so weighty with false and dogmatic beliefs that it is difficult to convey an exact meaning to all... while Sanskrit expresses the inner mysteries of the soul and spirit, the many after-death states, the origin and destiny of worlds and men and human psychology." In 1941, Tyberg continued using her linotype innovation for the publication of the first edition of her First Lessons in Sanskrit Grammar. This was a revision of James R. Ballantyne's 1851 grammar, which Tyberg prepared in conjunction with Lawrence A. Ware of Iowa State University. Throughout her life, she reworked this text several times, subsequently republishing it in 1950, 1961, and 1977.
India and meeting with Sri Aurobindo
In 1946, due to a schism within the California theosophical movement, Tyberg resigned from her dean and trustee positions at Point Loma. After a brief period of teaching at the University of Southern California, she went out on her own and opened a Sanskrit center and bookshop in Glendale, California. There, she taught Indian philosophy, religion, languages and culture. She continued lecturing at universities and associations, thus developing both her reputation and a large network of contacts with other orientalists.In 1946, Tyberg attended a lecture at the University of Southern California given by S. Radhakrishnan, then Vice-Chancellor of Benares Hindu University, following which Tyberg applied for a Sanskrit research scholarship at BHU. In her application letter and scholarship request, she stated: "I have decided to give my life to the spreading of the beautiful teachings and religious philosophy as found in Sanskrit scriptures... and I would have the West illumined by its perfect philosophy." Explaining the "small means" earned from her teaching and lecturing, and her "simple way of living", she also expressed her belief that "when one dares and goes ahead with an unselfish heart and is convinced that the work is for the progress of humanity, help does come." The response was a three-year scholarship at the Oriental Division of Benares Hindu University, and Tyberg was made an honorary member of the All India Arya Dharma Seva Sangha.
Tyberg arrived at BHU in June 1947. At her first meeting, Tyberg chose the Vedic religious hymns for her Master's thesis topic. After a twenty-five-year study of humanity's sacred scriptures and seventeen years of Sanskrit, she was convinced that a deep but undiscovered spiritual secret was encrypted in the Vedas' archaic, complex language and that Western explanations of the texts were "nonsense". But, while the Vedas were accepted as the fount of India's spiritual culture, the current view, including in India, held that they were an interesting but "obscure, confused and barbarous hymnal". Tyberg's surprise and disappointment was great when she was thus informed that even the scholars at BHU knew of no one who could help her find this secret, if it even existed. She was advised to change her research topic.
Professor Arabinda Basu, then a young lecturer, overheard this exchange. He followed a crestfallen Tyberg into the corridor, quietly told her that there was someone who could help her and then gave her an as-yet unpublished manuscript of The Secret of the Veda by Sri Aurobindo, the revolutionary who, after a series of mystical experiences, renounced politics and founded an ashram in Pondicherry. Tyberg stayed up all night reading, and the next morning, told Basu that she'd found the object of her lifelong search for truth. On his advice, she wrote to Sri Aurobindo, asking for permission to come to see him.
The invitation that followed led Tyberg to spend two months in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Autumn 1947. On November 24, one of the four days annually when Sri Aurobindo broke his seclusion, Tyberg did her reverence to Sri Aurobindo and to his spiritual collaborator Mirra Alfassa, a Frenchwoman known as "The Mother". Tyberg's diary recorded her experience: "I just felt God", "electric forces", "stretched out to infinity", and "I really knew what was my soul." In a private audience with The Mother, Judith Tyberg asked to receive a spiritual name, which was chosen by Sri Aurobindo himself: "Jyotipriya, the lover of Light".
Back in Benares, Tyberg continued her studies in Sanskrit, Hindi, Pali, the Gita, the Upanishads, the Brahma Sutras, the Vedantic systems of philosophy and modern Indian thought, leading to an M.A. in Indian Religion and Philosophy. In March 1949, she wrote to Sri Aurobindo and The Mother: "I received the news that I had passed First Class in the M.A. examinations and had made a record for the university.... For the question 'State clearly and briefly the philosophical and religious views of Sri Aurobindo', I answered fully and enjoyed pouring out my soul in it."
Many eminent Indians, political leaders and yoga masters alike, were impressed with Tyberg's scholarship and her feeling for Indian culture: Mahatma Gandhi, Maulana Azad, V. K. Gokak, B. L. Atreya, Anandamayi Ma, Ramana Maharshi, Sri Ramdas, and Krishna Prem, and at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram: Kapali Shastri, Indra Sen, Sisir Mitra, Prithvi Singh, and former freedom fighters-turned-yogis Nolini Kanta Gupta and A.B. Purani, friends she referred to as "the cream of Hindu culture". Tyberg spent a week with the sage Ramana Maharshi at his Arunachala ashram where he told her "You're already realized, you just don't know it." Another lifelong friend was Swami Sivananda alongside whom Tyberg served as India's representative to the 1948 World University Round Table. Tyberg was the first President of the International Students Union, founded by S. Radhakrishnan, who called her "a real force in international understanding". Professor T.R.V. Murti declared "I am convinced that you are destined to play an important role in bringing the West and the East together on a spiritual plane."
In Autumn 1949, Tyberg went back to Pondicherry for a six-month stay as a disciple at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. During her two years in India, Tyberg had kept up regular correspondence with an extensive network of American seekers. When certain people criticized this as unyogic, Tyberg asked The Mother for her view. Her reply was "How do you think the Divine works if he doesn't work through people like you?" and she repeated what she'd told Tyberg at their very first meeting: "You have chosen it, to serve, long ago." After a final reverence to Sri Aurobindo on February 21, 1950, Tyberg recorded her impressions: "Vast deep calm with a mighty wisdom... his consciousness seemed infinite... such currents!"