About Mahamandleshwar Swami Nityananda Saraswati ji

 

 

Mahamandaleshwar Swami Nityananda’s title signifies he ranks in the top echelon of spiritual teachers in India. However, he is a gentle, unassuming presence who makes spirituality a practical part of daily reality.

He leads people in the pursuit of spirituality by modeling non-violence in speech and action, guided by the prayer, “May all beings live in peace and contentment”.  He favours simplicity of action, enabling him to pay attention to everything and everyone in an unhurried and undistracted manner.

Swami Nityananda was born in 1962 in Mumbai, India and raised from birth in an environment of yoga and meditation.  His parents were devotees of the famous ascetic Avadhoot Bhagwan Nityananda, and then became disciples of his successor, the renowned Siddha Meditation Master, Swami Muktananda (Baba). 

Much of his childhood was spent in Baba Muktananda’s ashram in Ganeshpuri.  He lived full time with Baba from the age of 15 and under his Guru’s guidance he was schooled in the major classical disciplines of yoga and the philosophies of Vedanta and Kashmir Shaivism (right).  In 1980 he was initiated as a Hindu monk in the Saraswati order and given the name Swami Nityananda, the name of Baba Muktananda’s own Guru.  In 1981 Baba announced Swami Nityananda would succeed him to carry on the lineage.

In 1987 he established Shanti Mandir as a vehicle to continue the work of Baba Muktananda’s ‘meditation revolution’ centred on Baba’s message, “Honour and meditate on your own Self; your God dwells within you as you.”

He has subsequently established three ashrams to enable people to pursue the teachings and practices of yoga and meditation. He travels between the ashrams in India and the United States, stopping in various countries to share the spiritual practices in which he has been trained. 

His Shanti Mandir Ashrams also support three Community Projects in India including; Shanti Vidya Mandir a free Sanskrit school providing a rounded and authentic  exposure to Vedic teachings, Shanti Arogya Mandir a mobile clinic and bi-annual eye camps, and Shanti Hastkala which supports the development of small-scale handicraft industries for poorer rural people.

In 1995 at the age of 32 he was installed as a Mahamandaleshwar by the Acharyas (right) – the spiritual heads of India’s monastic orders.  He is the youngest recipient in the history of this spiritual title which was established by Adi Shankaracharya in the eight century.

The title was bestowed in recognition of his spiritual work around the world, and his capacity to uphold and continue the teachings and practices of his Guru,  Baba Muktananda.

May 2008 marks the 100th Anniversary of Baba Muktananda’s birth. To mark the occasion Swami Nityananda is conducting a year-long global pilgrimage from May 2007 to May 2008, visiting many places where Baba is revered and his teachings practiced. 

By traveling and meeting with people around the world in the same way Muktananda himself did in the 1970s,  Swami Nityananda aims to rekindle the people’s enthusiasm for the path of inner transformation which marked Muktananda’s own travels.

In continuation of Muktananda’s tradition of welcome and “Paraspar Devo Bhava” - See God in each other – he  invites all to participate in following Baba’s footsteps of bliss.