There are moments along our path when something new enters our lives and, strangely, feels less like a discovery than a remembering. That is how Ayurveda came to me. My formal path into Yoga began at Satchidananda Ashram–Yogaville in 2009, where I completed my...
Swami Sivananda and the Yoga of Synthesis: A Formative Stream of Integral Yoga
As we celebrate sixty years of Integral Yoga, we also look back to the spiritual streams that helped shape the path Swami Satchidananda brought to the West. In 1949, Swami Satchidananda met his Guru, Sri Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh, and received Sannyas initiation...
Carry the Harmonium Through the Door
On September 8, 2026, we celebrate the 139th birth anniversary of Sri Swami Sivananda Maharaj, one of the great spiritual luminaries of modern India and the beloved Guru of Swami Satchidananda. We know Swami Sivananda as the sage of Rishikesh, founder of the Divine...
The Charged Ground
The Satchidananda Ashram–Yogaville ground is charged. Once someone tells you to notice it, you cannot stop noticing it, and I mean this in more than a figurative sense. A practitioner who arrives with a settled enough mind can feel the field the way you feel a...
A Sacred Tapestry: The Spiritual Roots of Integral Yoga
This month, in place of our regular installment of “Embarking on a Spiritual Odyssey,” we turn to the spiritual lineage that shaped Sri Swami Satchidananda (Sri Gurudev) before he arrived in America in July 1966. As we celebrate Guru Poornima, we also mark 60 years...
“How I Came to the West”: Sri Swami Satchidananda in His Own Words
Editor’s note: On July 31, 1966, Sri Swami Satchidananda arrived in New York City for what was expected to be a brief visit. Sixty years later, and as we also mark the 40th anniversary of the Light Of Truth Universal Shrine (LOTUS), we revisit Sri Gurudev’s own...
Integral Yoga 60th Anniversary Merch!
Honor 60 years of Integral Yoga with this special Diamond Jubilee design featuring Sri Swami Satchidananda alongside his beloved Guru, Sri Swami Sivananda. From t-shirts to water bottles to and travel mugs – each item honors the Diamond Jubilee (1966-2026) of Integral...
Bring Inspiration Home!
Bring the inspiration of Integral Yoga into your space. Our IY shop features a curated collection of wall art—from sacred Yantras and vintage posters to iconic Peter Max designs—available as ready-to-hang canvas, gallery panels, or classic poster formats. Each piece...
Moving Through Here
Moving Through Here is a book published in 1970 that traces the arc of a single extraordinary year in American cultural history. The story begins in the spring of 1967, when thousands gathered in Central Park for the exuberant Easter Sunday Be-In—a moment filled with...
Swami Sivananda’s Sampoorna Yoga for Modern Seekers
If you asked Sri Swami Sivananda what a busy person in the West should actually do each day to grow spiritually, he would likely point you to a deceptively simple framework: do a little meditation, a little prayer, a little study, a little service—every day—with...
The Greatest Victory
Gurudev Sivanandaji used to say that we should watch our thoughts because they create habits. Once you develop a habit, it becomes your character. And then your character becomes your destiny. So, it all originates with your thinking. That is why it is so important to...
A Life of Grace and Service: Remembering Narayana Kiekens
“If you ask me ‘What is Yoga?’ the only reply I can think of is: Yoga is a state of grace.” These words by Narayana Kiekens distill a life wholly devoted to the spirit of Yoga and the teachings of his Gurus. For more than six decades, Narayana—alongside his wife...
How God Came Into My Life
It would be easy to dismiss the question by saying: "Yes, after a prolonged period of intense austerities and meditation while I was living in Swarg Ashram, during which I had the darshan of a number of maharishis and their blessings, the Lord appeared before me in...
Living the Yoga of Sound
In 1971, Michael Grosso had an extraordinary experience in Greenwich Village, New York, that led him to realize he needed to balance his overly intellectual life with music. Michael had just spent the last several years obtaining a Ph.D. in philosophy from Columbia...
“Bear Insult, Bear Injury, Highest Sadhana”
On September 8, 2023, we celebrate the 136th Jayanthi (Birth Anniversary) of Sri Swami Sivananda, the Guru of Sri Swami Satchidananda. In honor of this occasion, we offer this video during which Swami Satchidananda is asked to explain this well-known teaching of his...
Jnana Yoga’s Fourfold Sadhana
The Fourfold Sadhana of Jnana Yoga consists of viveka, vairagya, shadshampat or sixfold virtues and mumukshutva or strong yearning for liberation. Viveka dawns in one who, through the grace of God, has done virtuous actions in their previous births as offerings unto...
