About The Author

Satchidananda Saraswati (22 December 1914 – 19 August 2002), born as C. K. Ramaswamy Gounder and known as Swami Satchidananda, was an Indian religious teacher, spiritual master and yoga adept, who gained fame and following in the West. He was the author of many philosophical and spiritual books. He had an enormous core of founding disciples who compiled and requested of Satchidananda Saraswati updated traditional handbooks of yoga such as the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and the Bhagavad Gita for modern readers, both with his incisive insights as a Yogiraj, master yogi, and as a master of humorous parables.

The international school Satchidananda Jothi Niketan is located in Mettupalyam, Tamil Nadu. Satchidananda was born in 1914 in 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. He was Perur Temple manager early in his life.

He remained a vegetarian all his life, and later wrote a book called The Healthy Vegetarian. After study at agricultural college, he worked in a family business which imported motorcycles. At age of 23 he became a manager at India’s National Electric Works. He married and had two sons. His wife died suddenly five years later. Ramaswamy’s children remained with his mother Sri Vellamai, and he embarked on the life of an ascetic yogi, for many years practising and mastering classical yoga. Apostle of Peace, his later biography, includes many details updated in the 1990s.Satchidananda characterised Integral yoga (Satchidananda) 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 to bring about a complete and harmonious development of the entire person.

Integral Yoga was trademarked to keep the teachings consistent as the popularity of yoga increased exponentially in the West and to have duly trained instructors imparting the teachings of the Satchidananda Saraswati lineage. Sivananda Saraswati, the Master of Satchidananda Saraswati, was founder of the global Divine Life Society and known worldwide as Sri Swami Sivananda Saraswati: a trained physician who wrote books on all aspects of yoga in English for the first time in history, thereby paving the way for a modern Western audience and the current vigorous practice of yoga around the world