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Marshall Govindan
Satchidananda has practiced Babaji's Kriya Yoga intensively since 1969.
He studied and practiced Kriya Yoga in India for five years with
Yogi S.A.A. Ramaiah. He also assisted him in the establishment of
23 yoga
centers around the world during an 18 year period. During this period
he practiced Kriya Yoga for eight hours per day on average, and as
a result attained Self-realization. While in India he studied the
Tamil language and the works of the Tamil Yoga Siddhas. In 1980 he
assisted
in the collection and publication of the complete writings of Siddhar
Boganathar.
In 1986 he administered the construction of a rehabilitation hospital
dedicated to Yoga therapy and physical therapy in Tamil Nadu, India.
In 1988 he was asked by Babaji Nagaraj, the founder of Kriya Yoga
to begin teaching. This followed the completion of certain rigorous
requirements
to initiate others in the 144 Kriyas given to him by Yogi Ramaiah
five years earlier.
In 1991, he wrote the best selling book, "Babaji and the 18 Siddha
Kriya Yoga Tradition", now published in 13 languages. In 1992
he established Babaji's Kriya Yoga Ashram in St. Etienne de Bolton,
Quebec. Classes, seminars and retreats are offered there year round.
In 1995, he retired from his work as the chief systems auditor for
Quebec's largest employer, the cooperative Mouvement Desjardins to
devote himself full time to teaching and publishing in the field of
Yoga. Since then, he has travelled extensively throughout the world
guiding about 50 Kriya Yoga study groups in over 20 countries, and
an ashram and publiishing office in Bangalore, India, and a lay order
of teachers of Kriya Yoga: Babaji's Kriya Yoga Order of Acharyas, a
non-profit educational charity, incorporated in the USA, Canada and
India. He has authored and published over fifteen books on the subject
of Yoga, His book, the “Kriya Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and the
Siddhas,” has been critically acclaimed, and for the first
time demonstrates the close connections between Classical Yoga
and the Siddhars.
Since 1989 he has personally initiated over 10,000 persons in Babaji's
Kriya Yoga in a series of intensive sessions and retreats.
In October 1999 he was blessed with the darshan of Babaji Nagaraj
near
his
ashram in Badrinath, Himalayas.
He is currently co-directing a team of scholars in a large
scale research project encompassing the whole of the literature
related
to the Yoga
of the Tamil Siddhars. He is a graduate of Georgetown University
School of Foreign Service and George Washington University
in Washington, D.C. He is married to Durga Ahlund. |
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Durga Ahlund
Govindan has been practicing and studying
Yoga since 1967.
She has shared her experience of yoga as a teacher
of Hatha Yoga, Kundalini Yoga, Raja Yoga and Kriya Yoga and as
a therapist since 1984. She co-authored, performed, and produced
with
Marshall Govindan, the Yoga video, "Babaji's Kriya HathaYoga,
Self-realization through Action with Awareness."
She developed
and teaches a 200-hour Teacher Training Course for Babaji's Kriya
Yoga and she developed the Kriya Yoga correspondence course,
'The Grace Course' and writes it with MG Satchidananda. She was
inducted
into the teaching Order of Acharyas of Babaji's Kriya Yoga in
Bangalore, India in January 2003. She is married to Marshall Govindan
and has
two grown sons. |
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Rudra Shivananda has
been married since 1981, and has two grown-up children.
He was
trained as an engineer and has a Masters of Science in Electronics,
as well as a Doctorate in Law, and has worked in the high- tech
industry for over 27 years. Having been born in Hong Kong, he
has been privileged to have studied Taoist and Buddhist Yogas for
many
years, before recognizing Babaji as his Satguru. He was inducted
into the teaching Order of Babaji's Kriya Yoga in 1999. He has
also been trained in the Indian Nath tradition (closely associated
with the Siddha tradition) and is an Acharya of Hatha, Raja,
Kundalini and Kriya Yogas. He is also adept in healing modalities
such as
Shakti Healing as well as in Reiki and the use of oils and gemstones.
Currently he lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, and has committed
himself to spreading Babaji's teachings wherever he is called
to do so. |
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Rohini has practiced
Kriya Yoga intensely since 1997, under the guidance and direction
of M. Govindan, disciple of Babaji and author of the book babaji
and the 18 Siddha Kriya Yoga Tradition.
After fullfilling certain
rigorous conditions over several years, Rohini was inducted into
Babaji's Kriya Yoga Order of Acharyas in Bangalore, India. She
is now authorized to conduct first level initiations into Babaji's
Kriya Yoga in Australia and abroad. She began her study of Yoga
in the 1990's with Patabhis Jois, in Mysore and has raised a
daughter through college graduation, managed a boutique and taught
high
school students.
She gives weekly classes at her home in Daylesford, Australia,
and teaches Kriya Yoga in seminars all over Australia and abroad.
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Shanti Ananda was
born in Guatemala City, Central America.
She earned her Masters
in Counseling Psychology from ASU, and has worked in the prevention
and intervention field for the last 15 years. She has been studying
Yoga since 1970, and was first initiated into Babaji's Kriya
Yoga in 1991. In July, 2001 she became a member of Babaji's Kriya
Yoga
Order of Acharyas. Shanti is now authorized to initiate others
into the first level of Babaji's Kriya Yoga. She conducts regular
satsang gatherings in her hometown of Tempe, Arizona. In July,
2001, after several years of rigourous training, Shantiananda
was authorized to become an Acharya in Babaji's Kriya Yoga Order
of
Acharyas.
She now teaches the first level initiation seminar
of Babaji's Kriya Yoga in the Southwest as well as in Spanish
speaking countries. |
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Arjuna
Really I do not know what to write, my past is of no real importance,
and who I am is not what I've done or I'm doing. I'm an actor
in a perfect drama, I do not know what tomorrow reserves me in
the role play, but it doesn't really matter. I'm the wick, remember?
Complete surrender to the Lord helps to bring the wax to the
flame and burn to the light, that is what I feel here and now.
So, I'm not the candle or the flame, I'm not the light either,
but only the means for the Divine to let Himself being experienced.
What
experiences in the representation of my actual life are more
significant? I do not know, and probably they are so only if
read in the context of past and future lives, but there is no
past or future either,
only space and through that space we are desperately seeking
for truth, not our limited sensorial truth, but that which has
no words,
only a deep total experience of bliss. We can say I'm an ordinary
person, born in Italy, with a love for horseback riding, living
in Italy with a stressful job in an investment bank, with an
expertise in NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) and hypnosis,
I daily experiment all emotions everyone does, I can feel frustration,
sadness,
happiness, sexuality and so on.
I know how to laugh and how to
cry, how to
get
angry and how to forgive, but moreover I never am any of these
emotions, I simply can experiment and enjoy these variations
like diving in
the sea and playing with the waves.This is what I can say.
Om Kriya Babaji Nama Aum. |
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Ananda is the organizer
our activities in Atlanta, Georgia and was initiated in 1993 more
than 10 years ago. She is a representative of the Bell South Telephone
company in Atlanta, and the mother of a teenage daughter.
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(Nityananda)
Nacho Albalat is a native of Valencia, on the east coast of Spain. He
was initiated into Babaji's Kriya Yoga in 1997, learned the advanced
Kriyas in 1998 and 1999, and since then has practiced them faithfully.
He has also actively collaborated in the diffusion of Babaji's
Kriya Yoga throughout Spain by organizing seminars and translating
publications. He has translated into Spanish the books "Kriya
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and the Siddhas", "The Voice
of Babaji: The Trilogy on Kriya Yoga", and the Kriya Yoga
Journals since the beginning, and several initiation seminars.
He was also responsible for translating and recording the video
course "Babaji's Kriya Hatha Yoga: Self-realization through
Action with Awareness".
He has a University degree in journalism and he has worked for
several local media organizations, promoting subjects related
to personal growth and spirituality in the community. He is happily
married to his wife Aurora, who is also a distinguished journalist,
and has one daughter.
As an acharya, his major aspiration is: "to transmit the
best possible way the teachings and techniques of Babaji's Kriya
Yoga." Through it, any person can manifest his potential
and improve not only one's own life, but that of everyone around. |
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Sharana Devi of Sao
Paulo, Brazil, became an Acharya in 2003.
Born in 1961, she recounts
how she first met Babaji in a dream, in 1993. At that time she
had no knowledge of Yoga or of Babaji. Babaji told her that he
was her Guru. After this dream she began looking for information
about Babaji, and found Yoganandaji's "Autobiography of a
Yogi." She followed Yogananda's lessons from the SRF, for
five years, and then met M. Govindan Satchidananda, who initiated
her into the 144 Kriyas of Babaji's Kriya Yoga from 1998 to 2000,
in Brazil and Canada. She has practiced these diligently and faithfully
since then. She also completed the requirements for the Kriya Hatha
Yoga Teacher Training program and gives several classes to the
public every week since 2001.
Sharana Devi works as a body mind therapist since 1993. She
was certified by Stanilaus Grof in Holotropic Breathwork in 1996
and uses it to facilitate the growth of those who are in spiritual
emergencies or emotional problems.
Married with three children, she states that "the practice
of Babaji's Kriya Yoga has completely transformed my life and
the people around me." |
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Saraswati
Karuna Devi of Sao Paulo Brazil. Born in 1948, in Egypt, of British nationality,
she moved with her parents to Brazil when she was twelve. She became
a seeker of God and a practioner of a Yoga as a teenager. During
her first visit to India in 1981, she recognized the presence and
guidance of Babaji in her life.
In 1996 she was initiated by M. Govindan Satchidananda into
Babaji's Kriya Yoga in Canada, and received the second and third
level initiations in 1997 and 1998. Since that time she has not
stopped practicing it, and began sharing it with others while
completing the Teacher Training requirements for Kriya Hatha
Yoga in 2001. She teaches several classes per week in Kriya Hatha
Yoga.
Trained as a Jungian psychologist, she became a student of Stanislaus
Grof in the 1970's, and since then has worked intensively in
private practice as a transpersonal psychologist, using his Holotropic
Breathwork and related techniques. She is knowledgeable in numerous
spiritual traditions and practices. |
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Satyananda was inducted
into the Order of Babaji's Kriya Yoga in Aug 2005, in a ceremony
in Germany. He had dedicated several years to intense study and
practice of Babaji's Kriya Yoga and to serving Babaji's Kriya Yoga
in the form of Karma Yoga, and as a translator, both at the Quebec
ashram and in Germany.
Satya, who is trained as a Clinical Psychologist
has worked as a psychosomatic therapist and as an Industrial
Psychologist in various corporation settings in Germany. But, it
has been his
spiritual pursuits and aspirations, which have created the overriding
direction in his life, since 1997. During this time he pursued
a study of the spiritual wisdom of the world, eastern psychology,
Vedanta and Yoga and taken several personal pilgrimages to India.
Presently, in addition to giving Kriya Yoga initiation seminars,
mainly in German speaking countries, Satyananda offers psychological
and spiritual counseling and consultation to initiates (or
on personal request their friends) on an individual basis for personal
affairs,
such as: spiritual growth, finding and developing personal
potential
and new dimensions of a yogic lifestyle or partnership, coping
with a spiritual crisis, acute conflict or chronic stress management,
preparation for spiritual psychotherapy, handling or psychosomatic-energies
symptoms, and processing towards physical and mental health. |
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Ramana became an Acharya in the Order
of Babaji's Kriya Yoga in 2005. All throughout his adult life he
had always acknowledged that there was a silent "guiding hand" directing
his spiritual and material life. The "guiding hand" was always full
of compassion, patience and love. It was in 1998 while on a Pilgrimage
to North India that the identity of the guiding force revealed itself
to be Babaji. In 2002, through a series of direct dictations, Babaji
asked Ramana to teach Kriya Yoga.
Ramana is a householder with a young family. He was
born in 1970 into a Gujarati, Indian family and grew up in London
and Hong Kong. He has a Batchelor's degree in Microbiology and a
Doctorate in Environmental Pollution Treatment. He works as a Consultant
in the environmental protection industry, specializing in wastewater
treatment.
Ramana says that "through Babaji's Grace and Love
he is learning to recognize Him in every moment of his life and
to surrender to Him. It is only through surrender of the ego that
we can fully understand what our dharma in life is. That's when
inspiration can flow, we can communicate with our higher self and
become instruments in the hands of the divine". Ramana is committed
to helping others seek a spiritual purpose, motivation and direction
in their lives and to show how one can realize their full potential
through the practice of Babaji's Kriya Yoga.
Ramana will be teaching hatha yoga and giving first
level initiations into Babaji's Kriya Yoga in the United Kingdom
and Ireland.
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Vyasa first became interested in
Yoga as a university student in Toronto, where he learned hatha
yoga and meditation. As he matured, Vyasa fulfilled his life as
a spouse, father and in a successful real estate career. As mid-life
approached, he was moved to look for a way to continue his growth
and self-awareness with all that is entailed in modern life as a
householder. Gradually he made changes that led him to retire from
his career and earn an independent living, to devote his time to
charity hospice work and to maintain a practice of Kriya Yoga. Vyasa
has been initiated into Babaji's Kriya Yoga and, as an acharya,
welcomes all those who are sincere in learning the scientific art
of God-Truth union.
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Ishvarananda became an acharya of
Babaji's Kriya Yoga in May 2007, during a cermony attended by over
100 persons of the intentional community, Lilleoru, near Tallin,
Estonia, which he founded fifteen years earlier. He is the spiritual
director of this community and has for many years taught couses
in developing awareness and higher consciousness. He has practiced
and taught Yoga for more than 20 years. He has received initiations
from several lamas and yogis from Tibetan buddhist traditions. Shri
Muniraj, disciple of Herakhan Baba, has authorized him to conduct
havan (yagya) fire ceremonies. These are conducted regularly at
the Lilleroru community temple and yagna peetam. He has made several
pilgrimages to India, both north and south. He is a skilled herbalist,
community leader, and teacher of spiritual arts and sciences.
Ishvarananda was the managing director of a private company for several years. In his youth he served in the Soviet army for several years. He is now constructing an Eco Village with fourteen homes and a community center, following plans approved with a grant from the European Community. He is married, and the father of three children.
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Dayananda was born in Montreal, Quebec in 1953. From the age of 15, he has been passionately engaged in spiritual study and the practice of tai-chi, Buddhism and Yoga. He was initiated into Babaji's Kriya Yoga by Yogi S.A.A. Ramaiah in 1986 in Washington, and received his second initiation from him in Yuma, Arizona in 1987. He received the third initiation, into the balance of the 144 Kriyas in 1991, from M. G. Satchidananda in Quebec. Ever since he has remained in close contact, sharing his experience and karma yoga with Satchidananda. He became a member of Babaji's Kriya Yoga Order of Acharyas on June 24, 2007. With the arrival of his retirement in two years, he will dedicate his life to service to the Divine and to Kriya Yoga.
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Nandi Devar Nandi Devar began his
diverse spiritual training from the age of 16. He studied and practiced
both Japanese and Tibetan Buddhism. Sogyal Rinpoche taught him Dzogchen.
He worked 7 years with S. Salpietro, a Sufi guru. He practiced martial
arts for 6 years with a great master. It was after this master died
that he felt the need to find some strong tools for personal transformation.
He found them in Babaji's Kriya Yoga in 2002, when he was initiated
by MG Satchidananda. He was certified in both Kriya Hatha Yoga and
Shivananda Yoga and began to teach Hatha Yoga in 2003. His longing
to free the personal self into the universal self increased, and
what followed was a period of intense sadhana of the 144 Kriya techniques.
His prayer that the divine would provide guidance for his life was
answered when four weeks later, Satchidananda asked him to join
the Order of Acharyas.
Nandi is a professional dancer, with an academic degree and has worked for many years as dance instructor. As a choreographer, he both developed dance theatre and performed with the company. He, and his wife Shakti are now running their own Yoga and Dance studio in Düsseldorf/Germany.
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Premananda (Joseba Imanol Idoyaya) of Bilbao, Spain was born and raised in a devoted Christian family, and educated in the values of love and forgiveness. As a young man, he practiced the spiritual exercises prescribed by the St.Ignatius of Loyola. He aspired to dedicate his life to a religious order, until he married and had two children.
He is a graduate in psychopedagogy (the study of psychological education) and computer engineering. He worked for ten years as a computer analyst and later as a teacher in public schools. More recently he became a teacher trainer and lecturer in education centers.
He became an initiate of Tibetan Buddhism and made a pilgrimage to the Himalayas before beginning his initiation and training in Babaji´s Kriya Yoga in 2000. Since completing the teacher training course in Kriya Hatha Yoga, in 2003, he has organized many Kriya Yoga classes, seminars and satsangs in the Basque country.
His main motivation is to serve, and now to do so through Babaji´s
Kriya Yoga. Kriya Yoga has been a great support to him during difficult
periods, even removing from him the notion of being "difficult."
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Valmiki (Mikel Agirrfazkuenaga) is a long time student of languages. He is currently a professor of linguistics in the University of theBasque region in Spain. Since 1998 he has worked with the Foundation "Life and Languages" based upon thework of Dr. M.M. Sanchez Carrion, to sustain language cultures- Since beginning his training in Babaji´s Kriya Yoga in 2000, he has come to appreciate it as "language of transformation and service." He has attended many seminars in Babaji´s Kriya Yoga and a Kriya Yoga pilgrimage to India.
He has been sharing his knowledge and love for Babaji´s Kriya Yoga in the Basque region of Spain for several years since completing his training as a teacher of Babaji´s Kriya Hatha Yoga. He is married and has one daughter.
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