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Hindu Saints and Philosophers Details

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Hagiography

Swami Janakananda Saraswati is a highly respected yoga and meditation teacher, as well as a writer. He has played a significant role in spreading the practice of yoga and meditation in Scandinavia and Northern Europe, and has been a major influence in this field. With a long history of teaching and practice, Swami Janakananda Saraswati is considered the oldest active sannyasin disciple of Satyananda Saraswati in Europe. His teachings and writings have helped to make yoga and meditation more accessible to a wider audience in this part of the world.

Swami Janakananda Saraswati was born as J&oslash;rgen Dreiager on June 13, 1939, in Copenhagen, Denmark. He was introduced to yoga at a young age by his medical doctor and continued to practice it during his teenage years and twenties. In the early 1960s, he was part of a professional pantomime group, where he learned how to use physical yoga for creative expression and concentration.

In 1968, Swami Janakananda Saraswati met Satyananda Saraswati, who became his teacher. Satyananda initiated him into Kriya Yoga and other advanced tantric practices. For two years, Swami Janakananda Saraswati lived with Satyananda in his ashram in Bihar, India, and traveled with him throughout the country for several months. These experiences helped to shape his teaching and practice of yoga and meditation.

After his experiences in India, Swami Janakananda Saraswati returned to Denmark in 1970 and founded the Scandinavian Yoga and Meditation School, which was the first yoga school in Copenhagen. The school quickly grew in popularity and expanded to 12 independent branches across Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Germany, and France. Today, the Scandinavian Yoga and Meditation School is the largest yoga school in Scandinavia and a renowned institution of the Satyananda Yoga tradition in Europe. It trains thousands of students every year in classical yoga and meditation, making it a significant contributor to the dissemination of yoga and meditation practices in Northern Europe.

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Janakananda has been teaching yoga and meditation in Northern Europe for the past 40 years, primarily at the H&aring;&aring; Course Center and other branches of the Scandinavian Yoga and Meditation School. He has also taught in various locations around the world, including New York, Sydney, Singapore, and London. Janakananda is known for teaching the full sequence of 22 kriyas in Kriya Yoga during periods of silence at retreats, and he believes that this practice should only be taught in an ashram under strict conditions. He has also taught the Yoga Nidra technique for deep relaxation and organized an international yoga congress in Stockholm in 1977. Although he briefly taught tantric sexual rituals in the 1970s, he later discontinued this practice in favor of more traditional methods of tantra. Janakananda has also collaborated with scientific researchers to study the effects of yoga on the brain and has written a book on Yoga, Tantra, and Meditation in Daily Life, which has been translated into nine languages.

Janakananda uses a variety of mediums to teach, including art, technology, and science. He collaborated with the tantric poet and painter Sohan Qadri to promote yantra meditation in the West. Janakananda has also worked with various universities and research institutions, such as the University of Cologne and the Karolinska Institute, on scientific research related to yoga. He has facilitated a study on the effects of Kriya Yoga on the brain, which was published in Bindu, a yoga magazine for which he also writes. Janakananda has authored a book, Yoga, Tantra and Meditation in Daily Life, which has been translated into nine languages. He has also guided a tantric meditation called &quot;Returning&quot; to a national radio audience in Denmark.

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