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Satchidananda Saraswati 
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Swami Satchidananda was an Indian yoga guru and religious teacher who gained fame and following in the West. He founded his own brand of Integral Yoga, and its spacious Yogaville headquarters in Virginia. Born as C. K. Ramaswamy Gounder in 1914, he grew up in a family of wealthy landowners in Chettipalayam, Tamil Nadu. He studied at an agricultural college and then began working in his family's automobile import business, learning how to weld. At age 23, he became a manager at India's National Electric Works. After his wife's sudden death, he traveled throughout India, meditating at shrines, and studying with spiritual teachers including a brief period with Sri Aurobindo. He discovered his guru, Sivananda Saraswati in Rishikesh, a holy town in the foothills of the Himalayas on the banks of the Ganges. There, he was ordained into the sannyasa in 1949 and given the name Swami Satchidananda Saraswati. In 1966, he traveled to New York and eventually stayed for five months. In August 1969, Satchidananda flew in to the Woodstock music festival by helicopter directly to the stage and gave the opening address. In 1991, multiple female members of staff made allegations of sexual manipulation and abuse, and more came forward after an initial protest. No legal complaints were filed, and Satchidananda denied all accusations.

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Swami Satchidananda was an Indian yoga master who founded the Integral Yoga Institute in 1966 in the United States. He became well-known for his teachings on yoga and his work in the interfaith movement, advocating for a blend of hatha yoga and yoga philosophy which he named Integral Yoga. Satchidananda made eight world tours and logged nearly two million miles of travel around the globe, opening branches of his institute in many places. He was an early advocate of the interfaith movement in America, collaborating with other interfaith advocates, including the Very Rev. James P. Morton of the Interfaith Center of New York, Rabbi Joseph Gelberman, Brother David Steindl-Rast OSB, and Pir Vilayat Khan, holding monthly meetings. Over the years, he received many honors for his humanitarian service, including the Juliet Hollister Award presented at the United Nations in 1996. Satchidananda passed away in 2002.