Tribute to the Most Amazing Yoga Team
Tribute to the Most Amazing Yoga Team of Pujya Swamiji Gitananda Giri Guru Maharaj and Ammaji Yogacharini Meenakshi Devi Bhavanani by Yogacharya Dr Ananda Balayogi Bhavanani in his Scintillating Saturdays #85
This was relayed Live on FB from ICYER at Ananda Ashram, Pondicherry, India on Saturday the 26th February 2022.
Dedicated with loving gratitude to the most dynamic Yogic Duo of the twentieth century, Yogamaharishi Dr Swami Gitananda Giri Guru Maharaj and Kalaimamani Yogamani Yogacharini Meenakshi Devi Bhavavanani.
A great Master of Rishiculture Ashtanga Yoga, Yogamaharishi Dr Swami Gitananda Giri was a brilliant and dynamic Guru. Known affectionately as The Lion Of Pondicherry, his influence on the modern world of Yoga is immense. He was Madathipathi of Sri Kambliswamy Madam and founded many institutions of world fame including Ananda Ashram (1968), International Centre for Yoga Education and Research (1989) and Yoganjali Natyalayam (1993).
Swamiji wrote more than thirty books on Yoga and allied subjects. Swamiji was honoured with many titles such as Father of Modern Scientific Yoga (Vishwa Unnayan Samsad, Calcutta-1992) Yoga Shiromani (From the President of India Shri Zail Singh Ji-1986) and served as Governing Council Member of the Central Council for Research in Yoga and Naturopathy (CCRYN), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India (March 1986 to December 1993).
Swamiji cooperated and served as advisor to the Pondicherry Government in organizing the First International Yoga Festival in 1993 and since then Yogacharini Meenakshi Devi Bhavanani continues to guide this annual event. The Pondicherry Government at this festival regularly and publicly appreciates the services of Swami Gitananda Giriji to the cause of Yoga in Pondicherry and worldwide.
Born in the USA, Ammaji Yogacharini Meenakshi Devi Bhavanani travelled to India to study Yoga in 1968, met her Guru Yogamaharishi Dr Swami Gitananda Giri and became his Rishipatni thus forging one of the most amazing Yoga teams of the past century. A true Indian by heart, mind and soul, she received her Indian citizenship in 1992, an event that she describes as the proudest day of her life.
Ammaji has influenced thousands of seekers worldwide profoundly and has been acclaimed as the “Living Siddha of Puducherry”. She never seeks personal recognition, nor the limelight; and has no desire for fame, fortune, or public attention. She is always there for her students, as a true and loving Guru is: watching, guiding, and above all else, demonstrating in each and every moment, through a life of absolute devotion to the teachings of yoga.
She is the resident Acharya of Ananda Ashram (ICYER) in Pondicherry, India and has in the past 50 years led a cultural revolution with more than 50,000 thousand children and youth receiving free or subsidised training in Yoga, Bharatanatyam and Classical Indian Music through the Sri Kambaliswamy Yoga and Fine Arts Programme and Yoganjali Natyalayam. An accomplished Bharata Natyam dancer and Guru, she was awarded Kalaimamani by Puducherry Government. She has directed more than 50 spectacular dance dramas covering a plethora of topics related to Indian Culture and tradition. YOGNAT has developed a very popular Bharatanatyam troupe, which specializes in the performance of the difficult acrobatic Natya Karanas, which are essentially a form of Yoga Asanas.
Trained as a journalist, she has an exquisite ability to communicate profound concepts in a practical and meaningful way; and in her satsangas, and writing her wisdom and insightful analysis of the “human condition” is so beautifully revealed. With dozens of books to her credit including two of poetry, her magnum opus the “History of Yoga for Ancient to Modern Times” has received critical acclaim from everyone in the World Yoga Community. She has served with distinction as Editor of “Yoga Life” the international journal of Ananda Ashram for the past five decades, and brought to light many publications of Swami Gitananda Giri and Dr Ananda Balayogi Bhavanani as managing editor of the Ashram’s publishing unit, Satya Press.
She is the Director of Studies for the annual six-month Yoga teacher training program and 1 year advanced courses at the International Centre for Yoga Education and Research (ICYER).This is truly a Modern Yoga Gurukula in nature, spirit and manifestation as students live with the gurus and learn to live and love yoga as a 24-hour Sadhana of life itself. Thousands of students from all over India and the world have been thoroughly trained in an intensive Yoga immersion starting before sunrise and ending long after sunset. with thousands of students having centres all over the globe. She has served on various exert committees including the National Board of AYUSH, the Central Council for Research in Yoga and Naturopathy, Pondicherry University Academic Council and was one of the key founders of the Indian Yoga Association. The list of her awards and recognitions is endless; the list of her keynote speaking engagements and seminar presentations too vast to mention.
Ammaji is grace and dignity personified and one of the brightest lights in the world of yoga today; not for all that she has done, or for all that she continues to selflessly do, but because she exemplifies, in every conceivable way, what it truly means to live a yogic life.
Sharing Ammajis beautiful expression of her life with Swamiji
