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SWAMI DAYANANDA( 1930-2015)

Swami Dayananda Saraswati (1930-2015) taught Vedanta for more than five decades in India and around the world. A teacher of teachers, he designed and taught six resident Vedanta courses, each spanning 40 months. Graduates of these courses now teach around the world, approximately 60 as qualified acharyas and more than 100 as swamis.

Under Swami Dayananda’s guidance, more than 60 centres for Vedic teaching have been founded worldwide. These include the main Indian centres of Arsha Vidya Peetham in Rishikesh, Arsha Vienna Gurukulum in Nagpur and Arsha Vidya Gurukulum in Coimbatore. The main centre in the US is Arsha Vidya Gurukulam at Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania.

Swami Dayananda was a prolific writer with a number of books on various aspects of Vedanta. He was also a brilliant orator and spoke at many prestigious American universities, international conventions, UNESCO and the United Nations where he participated in the Millennium Peace Summit.

In 2000, Swami Dayananda founded All India Movement (AIM) for Serva whose main focus was to open student homes in every district of India. More than 100 homes have since been established. Swamiji’s vision is or guiding light to us to go forward.

SWAMI TATTVARUPANANDA

Swami Tattvarupananda Saraswati was born and raised in Thrissur, Kerala’s cultural capital. A spiritual seeker from an early age, he joined the Narayana ashram, Tapovanam at 18, studying under Swami Bhoomananda Thirtha. Swamiji set off for the Himalayas in search of a master and underwent rigorous spiritual practices in the company of many Himalayan spiritual masters.

It was here that he met Swami Dayananda Saraswati, the well-known traditional teacher of Vedanta which proved to be the most important event in Swamiji’s life. After studying the Prasthanatraya viz, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita and Brahmasutras with Adi Sankaracharya’s commentary, Swamiji mastered the scriptures and the traditional methodology of teaching from Swami Dayananda Saraswati. He was initiative into the traditional order of the Sanyasa by his guru Swami Dayananda Saraswati in 2003 and soon afterward, also on the advice of Swami Dayananda, opened the Trivandrum Chapter of All India Movement (AIM) for Seva.

Swamiji teaches Sanskrit, Bhagavad Gita, Upanishad and other Vedantic text related to Yoga. Swamiji is a master storyteller. He has a simple, humorous and direct way of teaching, which is much acclaimed all over the world. Nobody can miss the truth when it is unfolded traditionally and teachers from traditional lineages are rare.
Swamiji is currently engaged in teaching scriptures at different locations for Sivananda Yoga Vidya Peetham in India, Centres of Haus Yoga Vidya in Germany and for different spiritual groups in France, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Japan and also Thailand and Russia.
Swamiji can be contacted directly by email: tattva1008@gmail.cm

Masters

The ancient vedic teaching tradition is transmitted from Master to Disciple. There are brilliant Masters in this tradition who have given the vision of truth. The Masters of Vedanta belong to the sacred Guru Parampara, the unbroken traditional lineage of sages.

Swami Sivananda Saraswati (1887-1963), born in the illustrious family of Sage Appayya Dikshitar and several other renowned saints and savants, Sri Swami Sivananda had a natural flair for a life devoted to the study and practice of Vedanta. Added to this was an inborn eagerness to serve all and an innate feeling of unity with all mankind. His passion for service drew him to the medical career. He discovered that people needed right knowledge first of all. It was divine dispensation and the blessing of God upon mankind that the doctor of the body and mind renounced his career and took to a life of renunciation to qualify himself for ministering to the soul of man. He settled down in Rishikesh, practiced intense austerities and shone as a great Yogi, saint, sage and Jivanmukta. In Rishikesh he set up the Sivananda Ashram in 1932, the Divine Life Society in 1936 and Yoga Vedanta Forest Academy in 1948. Dissemination of spiritual knowledge and training of people in Yoga and Vedanta was his mission in life. A prolific writer, he wrote over 300 books including excellent English translations of the Upanishads and other ancient texts.

Swami Chinmayananda Saraswati (1917-1993), disciple of Swami Sivananda, was born of noble parents at Ernakulam (Kerala), South India. While working as a journalist, a chance assignment took him to Rishikesh where he came under the spell of Swami Sivananda. He was initiated into the Sannyasa order in 1949. He pursued further studies of the scriptures under Swami Tapovanam Maharaj in Uttarkashi. Then he embarked upon a Jnana Yajna Mission (lectures on scriptures) and gave eloquent discourses in English on the Bhagavad Gita and other holy scriptures. He traveled extensively in India and abroad to spread the message of Vedanta. His missionary zeal led to a renaissance of Indian culture and heritage.

Swami Dayananda Saraswati (born in 1930), disciple of Swami Chinmayananda, was born in Tamil Nadu, South India and is a distinguished, traditional teacher of Vedanta. His depth of understanding and nuanced appreciation of Western culture makes him that rare teacher who can communicate the vision of non-duality to modern listeners. He is able to make one see, with immediacy, the truth of oneself as the whole.