Satyananda Saraswati 

(25 December 1923 – 5 December 2009), was

a sannyasin, 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.[1] He wrote over 80 books,
including Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha.

Contents
  [hide] 

 1Biography
o 1.1Early life
o 1.2Bihar School of Yoga
o 1.3Seclusion
 2Teachings
 3Publications
 4References
 5Sources
 6External links

Biography[edit]
Early life[edit]
Satyananda Saraswati was born 1923 at Almora, Uttaranchal,[2] into a family of
farmers and zamindars.[citation needed]
As a youth he was classically educated and studied Sanskrit, the Vedas and
the Upanishads. He says that he began to have spiritual experiences at the age
of six, when his awareness spontaneously left the body and he saw himself lying
motionless on the floor. Many saints and sadhus blessed him and reassured his
parents that he had a very developed awareness. This experience of
disembodied awareness continued, which led him to many saints of that time
such as Anandamayi Ma. He also met a tantric bhairavi, Sukhman Giri, who gave
him shaktipat and directed him to find a guru to stabilise his spiritual experiences.
[3][page  needed]
 However, in one of his early publications, Yoga from Shore to Shore, he
says he would become unconscious during meditation and that "One day I met a
mahatma, a great saint, who was passing by my birthplace...So he told me I
should find a guru." [4]
At age eighteen, he left his home to seek a spiritual master. In 1943 at the age of
twenty, he met his guru Sivananda Saraswati and went to live at Sivananda's
ashram in Rishikesh.[1] Sivananda initiated him into the Dashnam Order of
Sannyasa on 12 September 1947 on the banks of the Ganges and gave him the
name of Swami Satyananda Saraswati. He stayed with Sivananda for a further
nine years but received little formal instruction from him.[2]
Bihar School of Yoga[edit]
In 1956, Sivananda sent Satyanda away to spread his teachings. Basing himself
in Munger, Bihar, he wandered as a mendicant parivrajaka travelling through
India, Afghanistan, Nepal, Burma and Ceylon for the next seven years (although
on several occasions he said he travelled only through India[5]), extending his
knowledge of spiritual practices and spending some time in seclusion.[2]
According to Harry Aveling, some followers of Satyananda established the
International Yoga Fellowship Movement (IYFM) in Rajnandgaon in 1962 but the
organisation struggled to make an impact because he spent too much time
travelling and was thus unable to direct it.[2] J. Gordon Melton says that
Satyananda founded the IYFM himself in 1956. In 1964, he founded the Bihar
School of Yoga (BSY) at Munger,[1] with the intention that it would act as a centre
of training for future teachers of yoga as well as offer courses for ordinary people.
[6]

Among those who attended courses at BSY were students from abroad and
students who subsequently emigrated from India. Some of these people in turn
invited Satyananda to teach in their own countries. He lectured and taught for the
next twenty years, including a tour of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan,
Singapore, North America between April and October 1968. The foreign and
expatriate students also established new centres of teaching in their respective
countries. These people included John Mumford in Australia and Janakananda
Saraswati in Denmark. With the organisation expanding into a chain of ashrams
within India and without, the IYFM had 54 centres by the mid-1970s, including
eight in Australia. These were all guided by Satyananda and operated on behalf
of the BSY.[6][1]
Seclusion[edit]
In 1988 Satyananda handed over the active work of his ashram and organisation
to his spiritual successor, Niranjanananda Saraswati, and left Munger.[citation needed]
From September 1989 he was in Rikhia, Deoghar, Jharkhand.[7] There he lived as
a paramahamsa sannyasin and performed vedic sadhanas including panchagni,
an austerity performed before five blazing fires outdoors during the hottest
months of the year.[8] At Rikhia, Satyananda conducted a 12-year Rajasooya
Yajna which began in 1995 with the first Sat Chandi Maha Yajna, invoking the
Cosmic Mother through a tantric ceremony. During this event, Satyananda
passed on his spiritual and sannyasa sankalpa to Niranjanananda.[9]
He died on 5 December 2009.[10]
Teachings[edit]
Satyananda's teachings emphasise an "Integral Yoga" with a strong emphasis
on Tantra, known as the "Bihar Yoga" system or "Satyananda Yoga". This
system addresses the qualities of head, heart and hands – intellect, emotion and
action - and attempts to integrate the physical, psychological and spiritual
dimensions of yoga into each practice.[11] His system of tantric yoga involves the
practice of:

 Kundalini Yoga, in the tradition following Sivananda's explanation.

Kundalini Yoga is the yoga of the evolutionary energy of the universe.
 Kriya Yoga through the practices of pratyahara, dharana and dhyana,
which are the three
components of Kriya yoga, in combination with other practices such as asana,
pranayama, mudras and badhas. Kriya Yoga aims to awaken the dimensions of
consciousness where our dormant potential and creativity lies.

 Mantra Yoga, the repetition of sacred sounds.

 Laya yoga, the practice of a state of absorption on an object of meditation.
 The four advanced stages of the Eight Limbs of Yoga as codified
by Patanjali: Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi.
Satyananda classified and expounded the techniques given in the tantras as a
series of different stages and levels of pratyahara, such as antar mouna, and
different stages of meditation.[12] He invented a technique of yoga-nidra, now
known worldwide as Satyananda Yoga Nidra, and defined and codified the
different stages of the technique.[13]

Publications[edit]
Satyananda wrote over 80 books, including Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha.
Satyananda's writings have been published by the Bihar School of Yoga and,
since 2000, by the Yoga Publications Trust established by his disciple
Niranjanananda to promote his teachings.[14]

References[edit]
1. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Melton (2010), p. 1483.
2. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Aveling (1994), p. 60.
3. Jump up^ Saraswati (2004).
4. Jump up^ Saraswati (1974), p. 8.
5. Jump up^ Saraswati (1974), p. 10, 72.
6. ^ Jump up to:a b Aveling (1994), p. 61.
7. Jump up^ "Paramhamsa Swami Satyananda, the Sadhana of a Sage".
life-positive.com. Archived from the original on 2011-07-18.
8. Jump up^ Saraswati, Satyasangananda. "Panchagni – the Bath of Fire".
9. Jump up^ Past, Present and Future: consolidated history of Bihar School
of Yoga, Swami Yogakanti, Swami Yogawandana (eds.), 2009, Yoga
Publications Trust
10. Jump up^ "Yoga Magazine - Synopsis of the Life of Swami Satyananda
Saraswati". www.yogamag.net. Retrieved 2016-06-07.
11. Jump up^ Saraswati, Niranjanananda. "The Growth of Satyananda Yoga
or Bihar Yoga". Retrieved 9 December 2009.
12. Jump up^ Meditations From the Tantras, Satyananda Saraswati,Yoga
Publications Trust
13. Jump up^ Yoga Nidra, Swami Satyananda Saraswati,Yoga Publications
Trust
14. Jump up^ "Yoga Publications Trust". Satyananda Yoga. Retrieved 2014-
12-27.