Do you notice the results of the work that Vivekananda did in America?

Sri Chinmoy: The great souls, liberated souls, realised souls, the earth-saviours, come into this world for world-transformation, but it is practically in vain. They come here, but they can hardly achieve anything. It was Vivekananda who brought Indian spirituality to the West. It lasted, but it would have lasted longer if so many Hatha Yoga teachers had not come to the West. On the one hand, you can say that Westerners, since they were not very spiritual to begin with, did the right thing by starting with Hatha Yoga, which is like kindergarten. There is a great difference between Hatha Yoga exercises and ordinary physical exercises, and there is a great advantage in doing Hatha Yoga. But on the other hand, if they had started with the yoga of concentration and meditation right from the beginning, as the Indians do, they would have made much faster progress. There are many ashrams in India where they do not practise Hatha Yoga at all. They do not give any importance to Hatha Yoga there. In the same way, they could have started with real meditation in America.
But a great number of swamis came here after Vivekananda and started teaching Hatha Yoga. They ignored meditation and the inner life, so Westerners associated Yoga with only physical exercises. Vivekananda’s Vedanta movement was thwarted by Hatha Yoga here. Again, there were some in America who cared for deeper spirituality. Then the Hatha Yoga teachers, who perhaps never meditated in India, became clever. They attached meditation to their own teachings so that they could keep at least some disciples.