Muktananda

Muktananda
Muktananda
Born 16 May 1908(1908-05-16)
Mangalore, Karnataka
Died 2 October 1982(1982-10-02) (aged 74)

Swami Muktananda (May 16, 1908-October 2, 1982) is the monastic name of an Indian Hindu guru and disciple of Bhagavan Nityananda. Swami Muktananda was the founder of Siddha Yoga. He wrote a number of books on the subjects of Kundalini Shakti, Vedanta, and Kashmir Shaivism, including an autobiography entitled The Play of Consciousness.

Contents

Biography

Muktananda was born in 1908 near Mangalore in Karnataka State, India, into a wealthy family. His birth name was Krishna.[1] At 15 he encountered Bhagavan Nityananda, a wandering avadhoot who profoundly changed his life.[1] 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 then began wandering India on foot.

In 1947 Muktananda went to Ganeshpuri to receive the darshan of Bhagavan Nityananda. He received shaktipat initiation from him in the early morning of August 15 of that year. Swami Muktananda often said that his spiritual journey didn't truly begin until he received shaktipat from the holy man Bhagavan Nityananda. According to his description, it was a profound and sublime experience.[2]

August 15, 1947 Nityananda stood facing me directly. He looked into my eyes again. Watching carefully, I saw a ray of light entering me from his pupils. It felt hot like burning fever. Its light was dazzling, like that of a high-powered bulb. As that ray emanating from Bhagavan Nityananda's pupils penetrated mine, I was thrilled with amazement, joy, and fear. I was beholding its color and chanting Guru Om. It was a full unbroken beam of divine radiance. Its color kept changing from molten gold to saffron to a shade deeper than the blue of a shining star. I stood utterly transfixed. He sat down and said in his aphoristic fashion, "All mantras... one. Each... from Om. Om Namah Shivaya Om... should think, Shivo'ham, I am Shiva... Shiva-Shiva...Shivo'ham...should be internal repetition. Internal...superior to external".[2]

Muktananda spent the next eight years living and meditating in a little hut in Yeola. He wrote about his sadhana and kundalini-related meditation experiences, in his autobiography published in 1970 as GURU, by Harper & Row and as Play of Consciousness in India in 1971. In 1966, Swami Nityananda gave Muktananda a small piece of land at Ganeshpuri, near Bombay on which Muktananda developed an ashram.[3]

Muktananda established Gurudev Siddha Peeth as a public trust in India to administer the work there, and founded the SYDA Foundation in the United States to administer the global work of Siddha Yoga meditation.[4] He wrote many books; sixteen are still kept in print by the SYDA Foundation.

In May 1982, Muktananda appointed two successors as joint leaders of the movement, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, his former translator, and her brother Mahamandaleshwar Nityananda, who later resigned and formed his own group. Muktananda died in October 1982 and is buried at Ganeshpuri, where the Gurudev Siddha Peeth ashram houses his samādhi shrine.

According to the Siddha Yoga organization,[5]

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.

Teaching

Swami Muktananda's teaching can be summarized in two quotations:

  • Honor your Self, Worship your Self, Meditate on your Self, God dwells within you as you.
  • See God in Each Other.

Criticism

Some former members of Siddha Yoga have accused Muktananda of abusive behaviour which is at odds with his teachings. Stan Trout (Swami Abhayananda) repeated a story told to him in an open resignation letter in 1981, that Muktananda had molested women on the pretext of checking their virginity.[6] William Rodarmor published an article in CoEvolution Quarterly of winter 1983.[7] These included a number of young women who claimed to have been raped by Muktananda at the Ganeshpuri ashram. Other allegations concerned harassment of ex members who claimed to have witnessed various abuses by Muktananda, Micheal Dinga and his wife Chandra reported receiving death threats after they left which they claimed only stopped when a detective visited the Oakland ashram.[7]

Lis Harris repeated and extended those in The New Yorker of November 14, 1994.[8] Sarah Caldwell suggests in 2001, in the academic journal Nova Religio, that Muktananda was both an enlightened teacher and a secret practitioner of an esoteric form of Tantric sexual yoga, and that he also engaged in actions that were not ethical, legal, or liberatory with many disciples.[9]

Bibliography

  • Light on the Path (1972), Siddha Yoga Publications, ISBN 0-914602-54-3
  • Mukteshwari: The Way of Muktananda (1972), SYDA Foundation
  • Getting Rid of What You Haven't Got (1974), Wordpress ISBN 0-915104-00-8
  • Ashram Dharma (1975), SYDA Foundation, ISBN 0-911307-38-9
  • I Love You (1975), SYDA Foundation
  • Selected Essays (1976), Siddha Yoga Publications, ISBN 0-911307-37-0
  • God is With You (1978), Siddha Yoga Publications ISBN 0-914602-57-8
  • I Am that: The Science of Hamsa from the Vijnana Bhairava (1978), Siddha Yoga Publications, ISBN 0-914602-27-6
  • I Welcome You All With Love (1978), Siddha Yoga Publications, ISBN 0-911307-65-6
  • In the Company of a Siddha: Interviews and Conversations With Swami Muktananda (1978), Siddha Yoga Publications ISBN 0-911307-53-2
  • The Nectar of Chanting: Sacred Texts and Mantras Sung in the Ashrams of Swami Muktananda (1978), SYDA Foundation, ISBN 0-914602-16-0
  • Play of Consciousness: A Spiritual Autobiography (1978), Siddha Yoga Publications, ISBN 0-911307-81-8
  • Satsang with Baba : questions and answers between Swami Muktananda and his devotees (1978), Volumes 1 - 5, SYDA, ISBN 0-914602-40-3
  • Kundalini: The Secret of Life (1979), Siddha Yoga Publications, ISBN 0-911307-34-6
  • To Know the Knower (1979), Siddha Yoga Publications, ISBN 0-914602-91-8
  • Meditate (1980), State University of New York Press, ISBN 0-87395-471-8
  • Kundalini Stavah (1980), SYDA Foundation, ISBN 0-914602-55-1
  • The Perfect Relationship: The Guru and the Disciple (1980), SYDA Foundation, ISBN 0-914602-53-5
  • Reflections of the Self (1980), Siddha Yoga Publications, ISBN 0-914602-50-0
  • Secret of the Siddhas (1980), Siddha Yoga Publications, ISBN 0-911307-31-1
  • A Book for the Mind (1981), SYDA Foundation
  • Does Death Really Exist? (1981), Siddha Yoga Publications, ISBN 0-911307-36-2
  • Lalleshwari (1981), SYDA Foundation, ISBN 0-914602-66-7
  • Where Are You Going?: A Guide to the Spiritual Journey (1981), Siddha Yoga Publications, ISBN 0-911307-60-5
  • I Have Become Alive: Secrets of the Inner Journey (1985), Siddha Yoga Publications, ISBN 0-911307-26-5
  • From the Finite to the Infinite (1990), Siddha Yoga Publications, ISBN 0-911307-31-1
  • Mystery of the Mind (1992), SYDA Foundation
  • The Self is Already Attained (1993), Siddha Yoga Meditation Publications, ISBN 0-914602-77-2
  • Bhagawan Nityananda (1996), Siddha Yoga Publications, ISBN 0-911307-45-1
  • Nothing Exists that Is Not Shiva: Commentaries on the Shiva Sutra, Vijnana Bhairava, Guru Gita, and Other Sacred Texts (1997) Siddha Yoga Publications, ISBN 0-911307-56-7

References

  1. ^ a b "Baba Muktananda's Meditation Revolution Continues Ten Years After His Passing". Hinduism Today. October 1992. http://www.hinduismtoday.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=1170. Retrieved 2006-06-01. 
  2. ^ a b Muktananda, Swami (1978). Play Of Consciousness. Siddha Yoga Publications. ISBN 0-911307-81-8. 
  3. ^ http://www.answers.com/topic/swami-muktananda
  4. ^ "Muktananda's Legacy". Hinduism Today. April 1995. Archived from the original on 2006-05-22. http://web.archive.org/web/20060522190357/http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/1995/4/1995-4-05.shtml. Retrieved 2006-06-01. 
  5. ^ "The Guru". http://www.siddhayoga.org/guru-siddha-yoga.html. Retrieved 2008-10-05. 
  6. ^ Stan Trout, open letter[1], 1981
  7. ^ a b Rodarmor, William (1983). "The Secret Life of Swami Muktananda". CoEvolution Quarterly. http://www.leavingsiddhayoga.net/secret.htm. 
  8. ^ Harris, Lis (November 14, 1994). "O Guru, Guru, Guru". The New Yorker. http://www.leavingsiddhayoga.net/o_guru_english.htm. 
  9. ^ Sarah Caldwell (2001). "The Heart of the Secret: A Personal and Scholarly Encounter with Shakta Tantrism in Siddha Yoga" (PDF). Nova Religio 5 (1): 9–51. doi:10.1525/nr.2001.5.1.9. http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/pdf/10.1525/nr.2001.5.1.9. Retrieved 2008-01-15. 

External links

v · Siddha Yoga
Gurus
Ashrams

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