c. 1999 Religion News Service

PORTLAND, Ore. _ In a flowing, saffron robe, Hindu monk Srimad Shuddhananda Brahmachari cut a striking figure as he walked with perfect posture to meet a handful of seekers waiting for him in a picnic shelter at Hoyt Arboretum here.

The guru from India gently wrapped his soft hands around the outstretched palm of a man, unblinkingly staring into his eyes for several seconds, then closing his own in meditation as he tried to feel a flow of energy.

A first glance seems to indicate there’s not much religious energy in the American West. It rates low in the percentage of people regularly attending churches, synagogues or mosques.

But this guru and others put no importance on sitting in a pew. Where others see religious depravity, they see spiritual opportunity.

According to Shuddhananda, the West is the most spiritual of places in the United States, open to Eastern religious practices as no other region in the country. Perhaps that’s why a growing number of gurus are making regular visits to the West, with Portland becoming a hot spot along with Seattle, San Francisco and Boulder, Colo.

The gurus guide people eager to walk their own spiritual paths where there are no dogmas or duties; where individual seekers, not institutions, make the rules; where people can accept or reject as they please.

This pick-and-choose, smorgasbord spirituality contrasts with the approach of established denominations, which have traditionally set the table and served the spiritual meals, take them or leave them.

No one knows how many self-styled seekers have rejected the old menu to find their own way. They don’t show up on surveys and can’t be counted in a church.

J. Gordon Melton, an expert on religious groups and author of the Encyclopedia of American Religion, says U.S. followers of Eastern practices are hardly a blip on the screen when tracking religious groups that count thousands and even millions of adherents.

“But they weren’t even here a generation ago,” Melton says. “So it’s spectacular growth when you think there was no base to start from. Now there are 200 or 300 gurus who either make regular stops here or live here. I liken it to establishing a beachhead.”

Jerry Jones of Portland is the co-author of “From Here to Nirvana: The Yoga Journal Guide to Spiritual India.” He conducted a nationwide book tour and says turnouts were twice as large on the West Coast as the East Coast and three times larger than in the South.

Many seekers are introduced to Eastern ways through yoga, meditation or a variety of healing practices. Others may have been exposed through retreats. This loosely connected movement used to be called New Age, but that term has become passe.

Hinduism does have beliefs, such as reincarnation and dharma, the sustaining power of the universe. But Hindus also maintain all paths go up the same mountain, where at the top it will be discovered that everyone is looking at the same moon.

“Interpretations are many, but the truth is one,” Shuddhananda said.

Some speculate that an emphasis on nature by Eastern teachers is what attracts those in Western states. Others say their individualistic mentality, shaped by a frontier history, complements Eastern theologies of tolerance and blazing your own spiritual trail. Or perhaps the West is simply a progressive place where trends, even spiritual ones, tend to begin.

According to an often-quoted survey early this decade, less than a third of Oregonians regularly attend church, a figure that tied the state with Alaska in the next-to-last-spot. Nevada ranked 50th.

Another survey showed 17 percent of Oregonians, the highest in the nation, claiming they have no religion, well above 14 percent in Washington, which puts that state in second place.

Ann Shannon of Portland wouldn’t pop up on such a survey as a regular churchgoer, even though she sees herself as quite spiritual.

Raised Roman Catholic, she left the church as a teen-ager. She’s now a devotee of Shuddhananda and thinks she was a nun and a priest in previous lives.

Two years ago, Shuddhananda had an intuition Shannon would reunite with her ex-husband. Last week he married them during an outdoor ceremony. A day later, all three sat cross-legged in a meadow of daisies with 17 other seekers.

The guru from India taught them a meditative technique: Take a deep breath, and exhale with a noise that should sound like a gong, beginning assertively and slowly fading.

The seekers sat in a circle around their teacher, adding a melodic “AHHhh-OHHhhh-MMMmmmm” to the air as the birds continued to sing.

DEA-RL END O’KEEFE