Swami Dayananda Saraswati was a renunciate monk of the Hindu Saraswati order of sannyasa. Pujya Swamiji as he was fondly known was a renowned traditional teacher of Advaita Vedanta, and founder of the Arsha Vidya Gurukulams in Pennsylvania, USA; Rishikesh, Uttarakhand and Coimbatore Tamil Nadu, India. He was also the spiritual Guru of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He was awarded posthumously the Padma Bhushan,, for his exemplary service to the nation in the field of spiritualism in 2016.
Swami Chinmayananda Saraswati, born Balakrishna Menon; 8 May 1916 – 3 August 1993, was a Hindu spiritual leader and a teacher. In 1951, he founded Chinmaya Mission, a worldwide nonprofit organisation, in order to spread the knowledge of Advaita Vedanta, the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads, and other ancient Hindu scriptures. Through the Mission, Chinmayananda spearheaded a global Hindu spiritual and cultural renaissance that popularised these spiritual texts and values, teaching them in English all across India and abroad.
An ashram is a spiritual hermitage or a monastery in Indian religions.
Sivananda Saraswati was a yoga guru, a Hindu spiritual teacher, and a proponent of Vedanta. Sivananda was born in Pattamadai, in the Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu, and was named Kuppuswami. He studied medicine and served in British Malaya as a physician for several years before taking up monasticism.
Japa is the meditative repetition of a mantra or a divine name. It is a practice found in Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Buddhism, with parallels found in other religions.
Satyananda Saraswati, was a Sanyasi, yoga teacher and guru in both his native India and the West. He was a student of Sivananda Saraswati, the founder of the Divine Life Society, and founded the Bihar School of Yoga in 1964. He wrote over 80 books, including the popular 1969 manual Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha.
Satchidananda Saraswati, born C. K. Ramaswamy Gounder and usually known as Swami Satchidananda, was an Indian yoga guru and religious teacher, who gained fame and following in the West. He founded his own brand of Integral Yoga, and its spacious Yogaville headquarters in Virginia. He was the author of philosophical and spiritual books and had a core of founding disciples who compiled his translations and updated commentaries on traditional handbooks of yoga such as the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and the Bhagavad Gita for modern readers.
Muni Ki Reti is a town and a municipal council in Tehri Garhwal district in the Indian state of Uttarakhand. It lies close to the pilgrimage town of Rishikesh and is known for its ashrams, including the Divine Life Society of Sivananda Saraswati.
Vishnudevananda Saraswati was an Indian yoga guru known for his teaching of asanas, a disciple of Sivananda Saraswati, and founder of the International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres and Ashrams. He established the Sivananda Yoga Teachers' Training Course, possibly the first yoga teacher training programs in the West. His books The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga (1960) and Meditation and Mantras (1978) established him as an authority on Hatha and Raja yoga. Vishnudevananda was a peace activist who rode in several "peace flights" over places of conflict, including the Berlin Wall prior to German reunification.
Sivananda Yoga is a spiritual yoga system founded by Vishnudevananda; it includes the use of asanas but is not limited to them as in systems of yoga as exercise. He named this system, as well as the international Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres organization responsible for propagating its teachings, after his guru, Sivananda with the mission 'to spread the teachings of yoga and the message of world peace' which has since been refined to 'practice and teach the ancient yogic knowledge for health, peace, unity in diversity and self-realization.'
Pranavānanda Saraswati known previously as N. Ponniah was a founding member of the Divine Life Society in Malaysia.
Swami Krishnananda Saraswati (IAST: Swāmī Kṛṣṇānanda Sarasvatī, 25 April 1922 – 23 November 2001) was a disciple of Sivananda Saraswati and served as the General Secretary of the Divine Life Society in Rishikesh, India from 1958 until 2001. Author of more than 40 texts, and lecturing extensively, on yoga, religion, and metaphysics, Krishnananda was a prolific theologian, saint, yogi and philosopher.
ascent was an independent, not-for-profit magazine published quarterly that explores the intersection of spiritual values with social and political issues, art, culture and contemporary thought. ascent also published a website, a blog, books, and held an annual retreat at Yasodhara Ashram. The tag line for the magazine was "Yoga for an inspired life". Its offices were based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Chidananda Saraswati was president of the Divine Life Society, Rishikesh, India. He is well known in India as a yogi and spiritual leader. He succeeded as president of the Divine Life Society in 1963, after the death of his predecessor, Sivananda Saraswati, who founded the Society.
Swami Nigamananda Paramahansa was an Indian yogi, guru and mystic well known in Eastern India. He is associated with the Shakta tradition and viewed as a perfect spiritual master of vedanta, tantra, yoga and prema or bhakti. His followers idealized him as their worshipped and beloved thakura.
The Advaita Guru-Paramparā is the traditional lineage (parampara) of divine, Vedic and historical teachers of Advaita Vedanta. It begins with the Daiva-paramparā, the gods; followed by the Ṛṣi-paramparā, the Vedic seers; and then the Mānava-paramparā, with the historical teachers Gaudapada and Adi Shankara, and four of Shankara's pupils. Of the five contemporary acharyas, the heads of the five Advaita mathas, four acharyas trace their lineage to those four pupils and one to Adi Shankara himself.
Sivananda Radha Saraswati, born Sylvia Demitz, was a German yogini who emigrated to Canada and founded Yasodhara Ashram in British Columbia. She established a Western-based lineage in the Sivananda tradition and published books on several branches of Yoga, including Kundalini Yoga for the West and Mantras; Words of Power. She was a member of the California Institute of Transpersonal Psychology and developed transpersonal psychology workshops to help students prepare for intense spiritual practice. Teachers trained at Yasodhara Ashram can now be found across North America and in Europe, the Caribbean, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
Om Namo Bhagavate Vāsudevāyalit. '"I bow to the Ultimate Reality, Vāsudeva"' is one of the most popular Hindu mantras, and according to the Bhagavata tradition, the most important mantra in Vaishnavism. It is called the Dvadasakshari Mantra, or simply Dvadasakshari, meaning the "twelve-syllable" mantra, dedicated to Vishnu and Krishna both. It has two traditions—Tantric and Puranic. In the Tantric tradition, the rishi of the mantra is Prajapati; in the Puranic tradition, the rishi is Narada. Both refer to it as the supreme Vishnu mantra.
Integral Yoga is a system of yoga that claims to synthesize six branches of classical Yoga philosophy and practice: Hatha, Raja, Bhakti, Karma, Jnana, and Japa yoga. It was brought to the West by Swami Satchidananda, the first centre being founded in 1966. Its aim is to integrate body, mind, and spirit, using physical practices and philosophical approaches to life to develop the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual aspects of individuals. The system includes the practices of asana, pranayama, and meditation to develop physical and mental stillness so as to access inner peace and joy, which Satchidananda believed was a person's true nature. It also encourages practitioners to live service-oriented lives.
Yoga tourism is travel with the specific purpose of experiencing some form of yoga, whether spiritual or postural. The former is a type of spiritual tourism; the latter is related both to spiritual and to wellness tourism. Yoga tourists often visit ashrams in India to study yoga or to be trained and certified as yoga teachers. Major centres for yoga tourism include Rishikesh and Mysore.
