As soon as my wife Sreelakshmi and I entered the verandah of Shankar Prasad Foundation, an ashram situated in the temple town of Gokarna, Karnataka, an elderly woman (clad in saffron churidar-pyjama) with a childlike face greeted us with a warm smile and heartfelt hugs. Soon, the septuagenarian, Swami Yogaratna Saraswati, like a grandmother, put us at ease enquiring about our journey and whether we had taken any food and then led us to a modest cottage to take rest. At once, we felt as if we are in our ancestral home after so many years.
Born in 1952 in Paris to Australian parents and raised in India, Swami Yogaratna is a direct disciple of Swami Satyananda of the Bihar School of Yoga (BSY) and has dedicated her life to the research and practice of different aspects of spirituality and yoga. After joining the Bengaluru branch of BSY in 1984, the following year, on Maha Shivaratri day, she embraced sannyasa (renunciation). Considered an expert in Yoga Nidra, Swamiji (as she is reverentially addressed), after serving the Bengaluru branch for over two decades, with her guru’s blessings to “be free as a sannyasi (renunciate),” established the Shankar Prasad Foundation in 2004 in a century-old heritage house located on two acres of coconut grove, a few kilometres away from the holy Gokarna temple and beach.
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