Swami Muktananda

Swami Muktananda is the monastic name of an Indian Hindu guru. Muktananda was the founder of Siddha Yoga, a new religious movement based on the Hindu philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism. He wrote a number of books, including an autobiography entitled "The Play of Consciousness".

Muktananda was born in 1908 near Mangalore in Karnataka State, India into a wealthy family. His birth name was Krishna. At 15 he encountered Bhagawan Nityananda, a wandering avadhoot who profoundly influenced his life. He studied under Siddharudha Swami at Hubli where he learned Sanskrit, Vedanta and all branches of yoga and took the initiation of sannyasa, becoming Swami Muktananda. He began wandering India on foot.

In 1947 Muktananda went to Ganeshpuri to receive the darshan of Bhagawan Nityananda. He received shaktipat initiation from his guru in the early morning of August 15 of that year. According to his description, it was a profound and sublime experience. Muktananda spent the next eight years living and meditating in a little hut in Yeola. He wrote about his sadhana and meditation experiences, kundalini-related, in his autobiography published in 1978. In 1956, Nityananda gave Muktananda a small piece of land at Gavdevi, near Ganeshpuri, on which Muktananda developed an ashram.

In the 1970s, on behalf of his guru Bhagawan Nityananda, Muktananda brought the tradition of Siddha Yoga to the West, giving shaktipat initiation to thousands of spiritual seekers. Rudi (Swami Rudrananda), a fellow disciple of Bhagawan Nityananda, sponsored his first trip to the United States in September 1970.

A Siddha Guru is a spiritual teacher, a master, whose identification with the supreme Self is uninterrupted. The unique and rare quality of a Siddha Guru is his or her capacity to awaken the spiritual energy, kundalini, in seekers through shaktipat.