Swami Janakananda Saraswati was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1939. Already as a child he had learned to use simple yoga poses, and realised when he was 19 that he wanted to be a yogi. This dream was not fulfilled immediately, but in the years that followed he began to explore the possibilities of using yoga on himself - body and mind - with great enthusiasm and dedication. In 1968 he met Swami Satyananda and followed him to India. After the preliminary intensive training he decided to stay and, among other things, travelled around India with his teacher. On his return to Denmark in the summer of 1970, Swami Janakananda founded the Scandinavian Yoga and Meditation School. The first school in Copenhagen grew quickly and branched out to other places. Together with the teachers he has educated, he has strongly influenced the use of yoga and meditation in Northern Europe. The success is to a great extent due to his and his colleagues' regular use of meditation in daily life, particularly Kriya Yoga and Karma Yoga, as well as to his ability to limit himself creatively within a very rich tradition, namely the Tantric tradition. Swami Janakananda lives in Sweden where, apart from teaching meditation, he collaborates with various scientists, researching the benefits of yoga and meditation. His clear way of showing how even advanced yoga can be used as a tool for people in society today, inspires many. What makes his teaching so special is that he uses the situation here and now and the way you are, without demanding that something should be changed first. He has published several guided meditation and relaxation tapes and Cd's, most recently the deep relaxation Experience Yoga Nidra and is a writer on the periodical, Bindu. His book, Yoga, Tantra and Meditation in Daily Life - up to now translated into nine languages - has made him internationally acknowledged as an independent and consistent guide in yoga. He often travels outside Scandinavia giving courses and speaking at conventions, mainly in North and South America, England, Germany, Israel, Australia, New Zealand and India. At the Haa International Course Centre in South Sweden, Swami Janakananda teaches Kriya Yoga each year on the 1- and 3-month sadhana courses.
