Swami Satchidananda
Encyclopedia
Swami Satchidananda born as C. K. Ramaswamy Gounder, was an India
n religious teacher, spiritual master and yoga
adept, who gained fame and following in the West during his time in New York. He was the author of many philosophical and spiritual books, including a popular illustrative book on Hatha Yoga
. He is widely known in India
as the spiritual guru of the Indian cinema superstar Rajinikanth. He also founded the school Satchidananda Jothi Niketan located in Mettupalyam, Tamil Nadu.
family at Chettipalayam
, a small village in Coimbatore
, near Podanur
in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu
and was named C. K. Ramaswamy Gounder. His parents affectionately called him Ramu. Swami remained a vegetarian
all his life and abstained from eating meat at all times. After graduating from an agricultural college, he took a position with his uncle's firm, which imported motorcycles. By the age of 23 he became a manager at India
's National Electric Works. During this period he got married and had two children. His wife died five years later. Ramaswamy then left his two young sons with their paternal grandmother and decided to go on a spiritual journey.
, meditating at holy shrine
s and studying with revered spiritual teachers. For years, Ramaswamy searched for real sages, saints, and spiritual masters. Eventually, he was initiated into pre-sannyasa
in the Ramakrishna Thapovanam and given the name Brother Sambasiva Chaitanya. While at the ashram
, his job was to care for orphaned young boys. During this period, he also studied along with the renowned Sri Ramana Maharshi
. He eventually left the ashram
when he could not bear the suffering of Sri Ramana's arm cancer and treatment procedures. Ramana Maharshi died shortly after his departure. He then traveled to Rishikesh, a holy town in the foothills of the Himalayas
, located on the banks of the Ganges River
. There, he discovered his guru
, Sri Swami Sivananda
who ordained him into the order of sannyasa
in 1949 and gave him the name Swami Satchidananda.
During the late 1950s and into the 1960s, Swami Satchidananda headed, along with another swami female disciple of Sri
Swami Sivananda
, to the Kandy Thapovanam, one of Swami Sivananda's ashrams situated in the hill country of Sri Lanka
. Here, Swami Satchidananda taught yoga
, conceived and implemented innovative interfaith approaches to traditional Hindu festivals and modernized the ancient mode of living that renunciates had followed for many years. For instance, Swami Satchidanda drove a car (to teach throughout Sri Lanka), wore a watch (to be on time), and actively engaged the questions of seekers. These modernizations were ridiculed by certain individuals in the orthodoxy but he felt them to be necessary natural extensions and serving tools for betterment in his spiritual yogic work.
words, Sat (सत्), Cit
(चित्), and Ānanda
(आनंद) (the ā is of longer vocal length), meaning essence, consciousness, and bliss, respectively. The expression is used in yoga and other schools of Indian philosophy
to describe the nature of Brahman
as experienced by a fully
liberated
yogi
. Satcidānanda may be understood as the energetic state of non-duality, a manifestation of our spiritually natural, primordial, and authentic state which is comparable in quality to that of deity.
After serving his guru for many years, in 1966 he visited New York City
at the request of the artist Peter Max
. Soon after his initial visit, Swamiji, as he was known to disciples, formally moved to the United States
and eventually became a citizen. From his new home he spread his teachings of yoga, selfless service, ecumenism and enlightenment.
Satchidananda came to public attention as the opening speaker at the Woodstock
music and arts festival in 1969. Over the years he wrote numerous books and gave hundreds of lectures. He also ordained a number of western disciples into the order of sannyasa
. He was the founder of the Integral Yoga
Institute and Yogaville
in America, and Spiritual Guru of major Hollywood actors and western musicians. He was also the spiritual guru for the popular Tamil actor Rajinikanth, and in 1986 opened the Light of Truth Universal Shrine (LOTUS) at Yogaville
in Buckingham
, Virginia
.
On August 19, 2002, Satchidananda died from a ruptured thoracic aneurysm
in his native Tamil Nadu, India. However, Integral Yoga and Yogaville
continue.
Satchidananda's better-known western disciples include: Alice Coltrane
, John Fahey
, Allen Ginsberg
, Dean Ornish
, Jeff Goldblum
, Carole King
, and Scott Shaw
. Liev Schrieber and Weezer
frontman Rivers Cuomo
lived at the Satchidananda Ashram during the early part of their lives. Drummer Muruga Booker
met Satchidananda at the Woodstock Festival while playing with Tim Hardin
, and was given the name Muruga at that time.
, he viewed his brand of teaching as a unique entity. Swami Satchidananda characterized Integral Yoga as "...a flexible combination of specific methods to develop every aspect of the individual: physical, intellectual, and spiritual. It is a scientific system which integrates the various branches of Yoga in order to bring about a complete and harmonious development of the individual."
This would make it very similar to Sri Aurobindo's concept of Integral Yoga, which clearly preceded the work of Swami Satchidananda. Sri Aurobindo describes the nature and practice of integral yoga in his opus The Synthesis of Yoga. As the title of that work indicates, his integral yoga is a yoga of synthesis, intended to harmonize the paths of karma
, jnana
, and bhakti
yoga
as described in the Bhagavad Gita
. It can also be considered a synthesis between Vedanta
and Tantra
, and between Eastern and Western approaches to spirituality.
There are also similarities in the symbol
ism used by Sri Aurobindo and Swami Satchidananda. In addition, Satchidananda's center was given the name "Yogaville." (Aurobindo's "Auroville
" had been founded in 1968.)
Satchidananda's group trademark
ed the term "Integral Yoga" in the United
States.
are described as Credo
s. "Easeful, peaceful and useful" was the simple motto of Yogiraj
Sri Swami Satchidananda.
Integral Yoga believes:
, where she was known as Swami Krupaananda. She left after a friend claimed to her that Satchidananda had made sexual advances toward her the previous summer, Ms. Zuckerman said. In 1991, placard-carrying protesters demonstrating against the alleged transgressions marred one of the Swami's last local public appearances, a speech at the Omni Hotel. Satchidananda denied the allegations.
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n religious teacher, spiritual master and yoga
Yoga
Yoga is a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline, originating in ancient India. The goal of yoga, or of the person practicing yoga, is the attainment of a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility while meditating on Supersoul...
adept, who gained fame and following in the West during his time in New York. He was the author of many philosophical and spiritual books, including a popular illustrative book on Hatha Yoga
Hatha yoga
Hatha yoga , also called hatha vidya , is a system of yoga introduced by Yogi Swatmarama, a Hindu sage of 15th century India, and compiler of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika....
. He is widely known in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
as the spiritual guru of the Indian cinema superstar Rajinikanth. He also founded the school Satchidananda Jothi Niketan located in Mettupalyam, Tamil Nadu.
Early years
Swami Satchidananda was born in 1914 into a pious and devoted South Indian HinduHindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
family at Chettipalayam
Chettipalayam
Chettipalayam is a suburb of Coimbatore city in Tamil Nadu, India. The place and its vicinity is also home to Kari Motor Speedway and the Coimbatore Golf Club. It is located 17 km away from Coimbatore Junction. There is also a railway station in Podanur nearby...
, a small village in Coimbatore
Coimbatore
Coimbatore , also known as Kovai , is the second largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is a major commercial centre in Tamil Nadu and is known as the "Manchester of South India"....
, near Podanur
Podanur
Podanur , is a town 6 km southeast of the city of Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, India. Its history goes back to the creation of first and major railway station and colony during British rule. The station has lost its importance after the major railway stations were built at Coimbatore and Palakkad...
in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
and was named C. K. Ramaswamy Gounder. His parents affectionately called him Ramu. Swami remained a vegetarian
Vegetarianism
Vegetarianism encompasses the practice of following plant-based diets , with or without the inclusion of dairy products or eggs, and with the exclusion of meat...
all his life and abstained from eating meat at all times. After graduating from an agricultural college, he took a position with his uncle's firm, which imported motorcycles. By the age of 23 he became a manager at India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
's National Electric Works. During this period he got married and had two children. His wife died five years later. Ramaswamy then left his two young sons with their paternal grandmother and decided to go on a spiritual journey.
Spiritual quest
After the sudden death of his wife, Ramaswamy traveled throughout IndiaIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, meditating at holy shrine
Shrine
A shrine is a holy or sacred place, which is dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, daemon or similar figure of awe and respect, at which they are venerated or worshipped. Shrines often contain idols, relics, or other such objects associated with the figure being venerated....
s and studying with revered spiritual teachers. For years, Ramaswamy searched for real sages, saints, and spiritual masters. Eventually, he was initiated into pre-sannyasa
Sannyasa
Sannyasa is the order of life of the renouncer within the Hindu scheme of āśramas, or life stages. It is considered the topmost and final stage of the ashram systems and is traditionally taken by men or women at or beyond the age of fifty years old or by young monks who wish to renounce worldly...
in the Ramakrishna Thapovanam and given the name Brother Sambasiva Chaitanya. While at the ashram
Ashram
Traditionally, an ashram is a spiritual hermitage. Additionally, today the term ashram often denotes a locus of Indian cultural activity such as yoga, music study or religious instruction, the moral equivalent of a studio or dojo....
, his job was to care for orphaned young boys. During this period, he also studied along with the renowned Sri Ramana Maharshi
Ramana Maharshi
Sri Ramana Maharshi , born Venkataraman Iyer, was a Hindu spiritual master . He was born to a Tamil-speaking Brahmin family in Tiruchuzhi, Tamil Nadu. After experiencing at age 16 what he later described as liberation , he left home for Arunachala, a mountain considered sacred by Hindus...
. He eventually left the ashram
Sri Ramana Ashram
Sri Ramana Ashram also known as Sri Ramanasramam is the ashram, which was home to modern sage and Advaita Vedanta philosopher, Ramana Maharishi from 1922 till his death here in 1950...
when he could not bear the suffering of Sri Ramana's arm cancer and treatment procedures. Ramana Maharshi died shortly after his departure. He then traveled to Rishikesh, a holy town in the foothills of the Himalayas
Himalayas
The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...
, located on the banks of the Ganges River
Ganges River
The Ganges or Ganga, , is a trans-boundary river of India and Bangladesh. The river rises in the western Himalayas in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, and flows south and east through the Gangetic Plain of North India into Bangladesh, where it empties into the Bay of Bengal. By discharge it...
. There, he discovered his guru
Guru
A guru is one who is regarded as having great knowledge, wisdom, and authority in a certain area, and who uses it to guide others . Other forms of manifestation of this principle can include parents, school teachers, non-human objects and even one's own intellectual discipline, if the...
, Sri Swami Sivananda
Swami Sivananda
Swami Sivananda Saraswati was a Hindu spiritual teacher and a proponent of Yoga and Vedanta. Sivananda was born Kuppuswami in Pattamadai, in the Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu. He studied medicine and served in Malaya as a physician for several years before taking up monasticism...
who ordained him into the order of sannyasa
Sannyasa
Sannyasa is the order of life of the renouncer within the Hindu scheme of āśramas, or life stages. It is considered the topmost and final stage of the ashram systems and is traditionally taken by men or women at or beyond the age of fifty years old or by young monks who wish to renounce worldly...
in 1949 and gave him the name Swami Satchidananda.
During the late 1950s and into the 1960s, Swami Satchidananda headed, along with another swami female disciple of Sri
Sri
Sri , also transliterated as Shri or Shree or shre is a word of Sanskrit origin, used in the Indian subcontinent as polite form of address equivalent to the English "Mr." in written and spoken language, or as a title of veneration for deities .-Etymology:Sri has the root meaning of radiance, or...
Swami Sivananda
Swami Sivananda
Swami Sivananda Saraswati was a Hindu spiritual teacher and a proponent of Yoga and Vedanta. Sivananda was born Kuppuswami in Pattamadai, in the Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu. He studied medicine and served in Malaya as a physician for several years before taking up monasticism...
, to the Kandy Thapovanam, one of Swami Sivananda's ashrams situated in the hill country of Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
. Here, Swami Satchidananda taught yoga
Yoga
Yoga is a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline, originating in ancient India. The goal of yoga, or of the person practicing yoga, is the attainment of a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility while meditating on Supersoul...
, conceived and implemented innovative interfaith approaches to traditional Hindu festivals and modernized the ancient mode of living that renunciates had followed for many years. For instance, Swami Satchidanda drove a car (to teach throughout Sri Lanka), wore a watch (to be on time), and actively engaged the questions of seekers. These modernizations were ridiculed by certain individuals in the orthodoxy but he felt them to be necessary natural extensions and serving tools for betterment in his spiritual yogic work.
Swami's time in America
The name Saccidānanda, Satchidananda, or Sat-cit-ānanda (Sanskrit: सच्चिदानंद) is a compound of three SanskritSanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
words, Sat (सत्), Cit
Cit (consciousness)
Chit is a Sanskrit word meaning consciousness. It is a core principle in all ancient spiritual traditions originating from the Indian subcontinent. In Upanishads it is referred to as the Drishta or the Seer, the Sense that makes sense of all other sense experiences...
(चित्), and Ānanda
Ananda
Ānanda was one of the principal disciples and a devout attendant of the Buddha. Amongst the Buddha's many disciples, Ānanda had the most retentive memory and most of the suttas in the Sutta Pitaka are attributed to his recollection of the Buddha's teachings during the First Buddhist Council...
(आनंद) (the ā is of longer vocal length), meaning essence, consciousness, and bliss, respectively. The expression is used in yoga and other schools of Indian philosophy
Indian philosophy
India has a rich and diverse philosophical tradition dating back to ancient times. According to Radhakrishnan, the earlier Upanisads constitute "...the earliest philosophical compositions of the world."...
to describe the nature of Brahman
Brahman
In Hinduism, Brahman is the one supreme, universal Spirit that is the origin and support of the phenomenal universe. Brahman is sometimes referred to as the Absolute or Godhead which is the Divine Ground of all being...
as experienced by a fully
Fully
Fully is a municipality in the district of Martigny in the canton of Valais in Switzerland.-Geography:Fully has an area, , of . Of this area, 30.5% is used for agricultural purposes, while 27.7% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 5.7% is settled and 36.2% is unproductive land.It is on the...
liberated
Moksha
Within Indian religions, moksha or mukti , literally "release" , is the liberation from samsara and the concomitant suffering involved in being subject to the cycle of repeated death and reincarnation or rebirth.-Origins:It is highly probable that the concept of moksha was first developed in...
yogi
Yogi
A Yogi is a practitioner of Yoga. The word is also used to refer to ascetic practitioners of meditation in a number of South Asian Religions including Jainism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.-Etymology:...
. Satcidānanda may be understood as the energetic state of non-duality, a manifestation of our spiritually natural, primordial, and authentic state which is comparable in quality to that of deity.
After serving his guru for many years, in 1966 he visited New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
at the request of the artist Peter Max
Peter Max
Peter Max is a German-born Jewish American artist. At first, works in this style appeared on posters and were seen on the walls of college dorms all across America. Max then became fascinated with new printing techniques that allowed for four-color reproduction on product merchandise...
. Soon after his initial visit, Swamiji, as he was known to disciples, formally moved to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and eventually became a citizen. From his new home he spread his teachings of yoga, selfless service, ecumenism and enlightenment.
Satchidananda came to public attention as the opening speaker at the Woodstock
Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Music & Art Fair was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music". It was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm in the Catskills near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York, from August 15 to August 18, 1969...
music and arts festival in 1969. Over the years he wrote numerous books and gave hundreds of lectures. He also ordained a number of western disciples into the order of sannyasa
Sannyasa
Sannyasa is the order of life of the renouncer within the Hindu scheme of āśramas, or life stages. It is considered the topmost and final stage of the ashram systems and is traditionally taken by men or women at or beyond the age of fifty years old or by young monks who wish to renounce worldly...
. He was the founder of the Integral Yoga
Integral yoga
In the teachings of Sri Aurobindo, Integral yoga refers to the process of the union of all the parts of one's being with the Divine, and the transmutation of all of their jarring elements into a harmonious state of higher divine consciousness and existence.Sri...
Institute and Yogaville
Yogaville
Satchidananda Ashram - Yogaville was founded by Yogiraj Sri Swami Satchidananda in 1980. The ashram is the international organizational headquarters of Swami Satchidananda's documented teachings, located in the county of Buckingham, Virginia....
in America, and Spiritual Guru of major Hollywood actors and western musicians. He was also the spiritual guru for the popular Tamil actor Rajinikanth, and in 1986 opened the Light of Truth Universal Shrine (LOTUS) at Yogaville
Yogaville
Satchidananda Ashram - Yogaville was founded by Yogiraj Sri Swami Satchidananda in 1980. The ashram is the international organizational headquarters of Swami Satchidananda's documented teachings, located in the county of Buckingham, Virginia....
in Buckingham
Buckingham, Virginia
Buckingham is a census-designated place in and the county seat of Buckingham County, Virginia, United States...
, Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
.
On August 19, 2002, Satchidananda died from a ruptured thoracic aneurysm
Aneurysm
An aneurysm or aneurism is a localized, blood-filled balloon-like bulge in the wall of a blood vessel. Aneurysms can commonly occur in arteries at the base of the brain and an aortic aneurysm occurs in the main artery carrying blood from the left ventricle of the heart...
in his native Tamil Nadu, India. However, Integral Yoga and Yogaville
Yogaville
Satchidananda Ashram - Yogaville was founded by Yogiraj Sri Swami Satchidananda in 1980. The ashram is the international organizational headquarters of Swami Satchidananda's documented teachings, located in the county of Buckingham, Virginia....
continue.
Satchidananda's better-known western disciples include: Alice Coltrane
Alice Coltrane
Alice Coltrane, née McLeod was an American jazz pianist, organist, harpist, and composer.-Biography:...
, John Fahey
John Fahey (musician)
John Fahey was an American fingerstyle guitarist and composer who pioneered the steel-string acoustic guitar as a solo instrument. His style has been greatly influential and has been described as the foundation of American Primitivism, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the...
, Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
, Dean Ornish
Dean Ornish
Dean Michael Ornish, M.D., is president and founder of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, as well as Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco....
, Jeff Goldblum
Jeff Goldblum
Jeffrey Lynn "Jeff" Goldblum is an American actor. His career began in the mid-1970s and he has appeared in major box-office successes including The Fly, Jurassic Park and its sequel Jurassic Park: The Lost World, and Independence Day...
, Carole King
Carole King
Carole King is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. King and her former husband Gerry Goffin wrote more than two dozen chart hits for numerous artists during the 1960s, many of which have become standards. As a singer, King had an album, Tapestry, top the U.S...
, and Scott Shaw
Scott Shaw
Scott Shaw is an American actor, author, journalist, film director, film producer, musician, professor and martial artist.-Early life:...
. Liev Schrieber and Weezer
Weezer
Weezer is an American alternative rock band. The band currently consists of Rivers Cuomo , Patrick Wilson , Brian Bell , and Scott Shriner . The band has changed lineups three times since its formation in 1992...
frontman Rivers Cuomo
Rivers Cuomo
Rivers Cuomo is an American musician, best known as the lead singer, lead guitarist, and principal songwriter of the alternative rock band Weezer. Raised in an Ashram in Connecticut, Cuomo moved to Los Angeles at age 19, where he participated in a number of rock bands before founding Weezer in 1992...
lived at the Satchidananda Ashram during the early part of their lives. Drummer Muruga Booker
Muruga Booker
Muruga Booker is an American drummer, recording artist, and Orthodox priest.- Biography :Booker was born Steven Bookvich in Detroit, Michigan on December 27, 1942 and is of Serbian decent. His father, Melvin Bookvich, was a shoemaker who played accordion. He has a wife, Shakti; a son, Aaron; and a...
met Satchidananda at the Woodstock Festival while playing with Tim Hardin
Tim Hardin
James Timothy "Tim" Hardin was an American folk musician and composer. He wrote the Top 40 hits "If I Were a Carpenter", covered by, among others, Joan Baez, Bobby Darin, Johnny Cash, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, and Robert Plant, and "Reason to Believe", covered by many, including Rod Stewart, as well...
, and was given the name Muruga at that time.
Integral Yoga origins
Although Satchidananda is thought to have briefly met Sri AurobindoSri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo , born Aurobindo Ghosh or Ghose , was an Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru, and poet. He joined the Indian movement for freedom from British rule and for a duration became one of its most important leaders, before developing his own vision of human progress...
, he viewed his brand of teaching as a unique entity. Swami Satchidananda characterized Integral Yoga as "...a flexible combination of specific methods to develop every aspect of the individual: physical, intellectual, and spiritual. It is a scientific system which integrates the various branches of Yoga in order to bring about a complete and harmonious development of the individual."
This would make it very similar to Sri Aurobindo's concept of Integral Yoga, which clearly preceded the work of Swami Satchidananda. Sri Aurobindo describes the nature and practice of integral yoga in his opus The Synthesis of Yoga. As the title of that work indicates, his integral yoga is a yoga of synthesis, intended to harmonize the paths of karma
Karma
Karma in Indian religions is the concept of "action" or "deed", understood as that which causes the entire cycle of cause and effect originating in ancient India and treated in Hindu, Jain, Buddhist and Sikh philosophies....
, jnana
Jnana
Jñāna or gñāna is a Sanskrit and Pali word that means knowledge. It has various nuances of meaning depending on the context. The idea of jnana centers around a cognitive event which is recognized when experienced...
, and bhakti
Bhakti
In Hinduism Bhakti is religious devotion in the form of active involvement of a devotee in worship of the divine.Within monotheistic Hinduism, it is the love felt by the worshipper towards the personal God, a concept expressed in Hindu theology as Svayam Bhagavan.Bhakti can be used of either...
yoga
Yoga
Yoga is a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline, originating in ancient India. The goal of yoga, or of the person practicing yoga, is the attainment of a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility while meditating on Supersoul...
as described in the Bhagavad Gita
Bhagavad Gita
The ' , also more simply known as Gita, is a 700-verse Hindu scripture that is part of the ancient Sanskrit epic, the Mahabharata, but is frequently treated as a freestanding text, and in particular, as an Upanishad in its own right, one of the several books that constitute general Vedic tradition...
. It can also be considered a synthesis between Vedanta
Vedanta
Vedānta was originally a word used in Hindu philosophy as a synonym for that part of the Veda texts known also as the Upanishads. The name is a morphophonological form of Veda-anta = "Veda-end" = "the appendix to the Vedic hymns." It is also speculated that "Vedānta" means "the purpose or goal...
and Tantra
Tantra
Tantra , anglicised tantricism or tantrism or tantram, is the name scholars give to an inter-religious spiritual movement that arose in medieval India, expressed in scriptures ....
, and between Eastern and Western approaches to spirituality.
There are also similarities in the symbol
Symbol
A symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...
ism used by Sri Aurobindo and Swami Satchidananda. In addition, Satchidananda's center was given the name "Yogaville." (Aurobindo's "Auroville
Auroville
Auroville is an "experimental" township in Viluppuram district in the state of Tamil Nadu, India, near Pondicherry in South India. It was founded in 1968 by Mirra Alfassa and designed by architect Roger Anger...
" had been founded in 1968.)
Satchidananda's group trademark
Trademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...
ed the term "Integral Yoga" in the United
States.
Credo
Manifestos relating to religious beliefReligious belief
Religious belief is a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny. Such a state may relate to the existence, characteristics and worship of a deity or deities, divine intervention in the universe and human life, or values and practices centered on the teachings of a...
are described as Credo
Credo
A credo |Latin]] for "I Believe") is a statement of belief, commonly used for religious belief, such as the Apostles' Creed. The term especially refers to the use of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed in the Mass, either as text, Gregorian chant, or other musical settings of the...
s. "Easeful, peaceful and useful" was the simple motto of Yogiraj
Yogiraj
Yogiraj is a title of Lord Shiva meaning "King of Yoga." It is also an honorific often given to an advanced yogi, especially a teacher of yoga....
Sri Swami Satchidananda.
Integral Yoga believes:
Controversy
Until December 1990, Joy Zuckerman was living at YogavilleYogaville
Satchidananda Ashram - Yogaville was founded by Yogiraj Sri Swami Satchidananda in 1980. The ashram is the international organizational headquarters of Swami Satchidananda's documented teachings, located in the county of Buckingham, Virginia....
, where she was known as Swami Krupaananda. She left after a friend claimed to her that Satchidananda had made sexual advances toward her the previous summer, Ms. Zuckerman said. In 1991, placard-carrying protesters demonstrating against the alleged transgressions marred one of the Swami's last local public appearances, a speech at the Omni Hotel. Satchidananda denied the allegations.
Cultural References
- Satchidananda is referenced in the song "MetanoiaMetanoia (song)"Metanoia" is the special limited edition single release that was originally a b-side on MGMT's debut CD single "Time to Pretend". It was released August 18, 2008, available in 10" etched vinyl....
" by the band MGMTMGMTMGMT is an American alternative rock band founded by Benjamin Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden. After the release of their first album, the members of their live band, Matthew Asti, James Richardson and Will Berman, joined the core band in the studio...
. - Satchidananda (voice) is listed as one of the personnel in Alice ColtraneAlice ColtraneAlice Coltrane, née McLeod was an American jazz pianist, organist, harpist, and composer.-Biography:...
's 1972 album World GalaxyWorld Galaxy-Reception:The Allmusic review by Thom Jurek awarded the album 4½ stars stating "This set may take some getting used to for some, but it's easily one of the strongest records Alice Coltrane ever released, and one of the finest moments in jazz from the early '70s"....
.