Pravrajika Vrajaprana

Pravrajika Vrajaprana (born 1952) is a sannyasini or pravrajika (female swami) at the Vedanta Society of Southern California, affiliated with the Ramakrishna Order. She resides at Sarada Convent in Santa Barbara, California^[1][2][3] and a writer on Vedanta, the history and growth of the Vedanta Societies.^[4][5]

Pravrajika Vrajaprana
Born	1952 (age 72–73) California, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Pravrajika (or sannyasini), writer
Known for	Writer on Vedanta, Swami Vivekananda, Ramakrishna, Christopher Isherwood.

She is also a well known speaker and scholar on Hinduism and she speaks frequently at colleges, universities and interfaith gatherings and is the Hindu chaplain at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara.^[6] Her works on Vedanta include, Vedanta: A Simple Introduction (1999), editor of Living Wisdom (1994). She is the co-author, with Swami Tyagananda, of Interpreting Ramakrishna: Kali's Child Revisited (2010).^[7]

Pravrajika Vrajaprana was born in California in 1952. She graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she also worked briefly as Associate Professor of Literature.^[8] She came in contact with Swami Prabhavananda at the Vedanta Society of Santa Barbara in 1967, while involved with anti-Vietnam war activism.^[2] In 1977 she joined the Sarada Convent in Santa Barbara.^[1] She took the first vows of brahmacharya in 1983 and had final vows of sannyasa in 1988.^[8]

Vrajaprana was a co-speaker with the 14th Dalai Lama at the Interfaith Conference in San Francisco (2006).^[9] She was a panelist in the discussion on Interpreting Ramakrishna at DANAM, held at the annual AAR meeting 2010.^[10][11]

Selected works

• My Faithful Goodwin. Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1994. ISBN 81-85301-25-5. [Biography of J.J. Goodwin, disciple of Swami Vivekananda.]
• Seeing God Everywhere (editor). Hollywood: Vedanta Press, 1996.
• Living Wisdom: Vedanta in the West, (editor). Hollywood: Vedanta Press, 1994. “A Meaningful Life,” 58–62.
• A Portrait of Sister Christine. Calcutta: Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, 1996. ISBN 81-85843-80-5.
• Vedanta: A Simple Introduction. Hollywood: Vedanta Press, 1999.
• Review of Kali’s Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life of Ramakrishna. In Hindu-Christian Studies Bulletin, 10, (1997).
• "Contemporary Spirituality and the Thinning of the Sacred: A Hindu Perspective." Cross Currents (Spring/Summer 2000) 248–256.
• "Regaining the Lost Kingdom: Purity and Meditation in the Hindu Spiritual Tradition." In Purity of Heart and Contemplation: A Monastic Dialogue Between Christian and Asian Traditions, ed. Bruno Barnhart and Joseph Wong. New York: Continuum, December, 2001, pp. 23–38.
• "The Convert—Stranger in Our Midst: Crossing Borders in Two Worlds." In The Stranger’s Religion: Fascination and Fear, ed. Anna Lännström. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004, pp. 169–185.
• "Looking In and Letting Go: Viveka and Vairâgya in the Vedanta Tradition." In Asceticism, Identity and Pedagogy in Dharma Traditions, ed. Graham M. Schweig, Jeffery D. Long, Ramdas Lamb, Adarsh Deepak. Hampton, VA: Deepak Heritage Books. 2006, pp. 33–48.
• "The Guru and His Queer Disciple: The Guru-Disciple Relationship as the Locus of Christopher Isherwood’s Advaita Vedanta." Postscripts: The Journal of Sacred Texts & Contemporary Worlds (November 2010) 243–258.
• Interpreting Ramakrishna: Kali's Child Revisited, co-authored with Swami Tyagananda. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2010.
• "Interfaith Incognito or What a Hindu Nun Learned from Christian Evangelicals" in My Neighbor's Faith: Stories of Interreligious Encounter, Growth, and Transformation, ed. Rabbi Or Rose and Jennifer Peace. New York: Orbis Books, 2012, pp. 20–24.
• “Perfect Independence”: Vivekananda, Freedom, and Women in Swami Vivekananda: His Life, Legacy, and Liberative Ethics, ed. Rita D. Sharma. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2021, pp. 145–158.

See also

• Swami Atmajnanananda