Swami Swahananda, a senior monk of the Ramakrishna order in India,
is the minister and spiritual leader of the Vedanta Society of
Southern California. He received his undergraduate degree from
Murari Chand College in Sylhet, India and earned an M.A.in English
Literature and Language from the University of Calcutta. He joined
the Ramakrishna Order in 1947 and received sannyasa, final vows, in
1956.
After joining the Order, he served in the
Madras Math and, later, as editor of the Order's scholarly
publication, the "Vedanta Kesari". He came to the United States in
1968 as the Assistant Minister of the San Francisco Vedanta Society
and was later appointed head of the Vedanta Society of Berkeley,
California. Immediately prior to coming to this country, the swami
was head of the Delhi Center, the premier center of the Ramakrishna
Order in the capital of India.
In December of 1976 he was transferred to
Hollywood, the headquarters of the Vedanta Society of Southern
California, where he remains the minister today.
In the late 1980s he was invited to lecture in
Moscow and provide spiritual guidance. The swami gives lectures
regularly at the Vedanta branch centers in Southern California. He
also lectures in many places throughout North America.
Swami Swahananda is the author of many books
and articles on religious life and spirituality including:
Meditation and Other Spiritual
Disciplines; Hindu Symbology and
Other Essays, and Service and
Spirituality.
Swami Swahananda was born in a village near
Habiganj in what is now Bangladesh.
He was initiated in 1937 by Swami Vijnanananda, one of Sri
Ramakrishna's direct disciples.
Swami Swahananda gave very important spiritual
guide to Swami Ramakrishnananda, and in 2007 accept him oficially
as his disciple and initiate him in the holy spiritual line of
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and the Holy Mother Sharada Devi ...
Swami Swahananda is very dear to Swami Ramakrishnananda, and one
of the most important siksha gurus or "instructing
spiritual masters" in his life.
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Ramakrishnananda in video
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Press here to see Swami Swahananda with Pope John
Paul II in video
Press here to see conference in video On the
Ideals of Service