Swami Krishnananda was born on the 25th of April, 1922 into a highly religious and orthodox Brahmin family, and was given the name Subbaraya. At an early age, he had become very well-versed in the Sanskrit language and its sacred texts. The longing for seclusion pulled him to Rishikesh, where he arrived in the summer of 1944. He met Swami Sivananda, who initiated the young Subbaraya into Sannyasa on the sacred day of Makara Sankranti, the 14th of January, 1946, and gave him the name Swami Krishnananda.

Gurudev Swami Sivananda found that this young Swami Krishnananda was well-suited to general writing tasks, the compiling and editing of books, and other sorts of literary work. Eventually Gurudev asked his disciple to do more serious scholarly work. Swami Krishnananda’s first book, The Realisation of the Absolute, was written in a matter of weeks when he was still only a young man in his early twenties.

Swami Sivananda nominated Swami Krishnananda as General Secretary of the Divine Life Society in 1959, which position he held until his resignation in 2001 due to poor health. Swamiji is the author of over forty works covering a wide range of subjects.

Swami Krishnananda was a rare blend of Karma yoga and Jnana yoga and a living example of the teachings of the Bhagavadgita. He was a master of practically every system of Indian thought and Western philosophy. “Many Sankaras are rolled into one Krishnananda,” Swami Sivananda would say of him. Swamiji continued his service to the Ashram for forty years as it grew from a relatively small organisation into a spiritual institution widely known and respected throughout the world. Swami Krishnananda attained Mahasamadhi on the 23rd of November, 2001.