Satyananda Saraswati was a Sanyasi, yoga teacher, and guru who founded the Bihar School of Yoga in 1964. He was a student of Sivananda Saraswati, the founder of the Divine Life Society. Satyananda Saraswati was born in 1923 in Almora, Uttaranchal, India, into a family of farmers and kshatriyas, the warrior caste. He claimed to have had spiritual experiences at the age of six, which led him to saints of that time such as Anandamayi Ma. At age eighteen, he left his home to seek a spiritual master and in 1943 met his guru Sivananda Saraswati. Sivananda initiated him into the Dashnam Order of Sannyasa on 12 September 1947 on the banks of the Ganges, and gave him the name of Swami Satyananda Saraswati. In 1964, he founded the Bihar School of Yoga at Munger, with the intention that it would act as a center of training for future teachers of yoga as well as offer courses on yoga. In 1988 Satyananda handed over the active work of his ashram and organization to his spiritual successor, Niranjanananda Saraswati, and left Munger. In September 1989 he moved to Rikhia, Deoghar, Jharkhand, where he lived as a paramahamsa sannyasin and performed vedic sadhanas including Panchagni ("Five fires"). He died at midnight on 5 December 2009.

Swami Satyananda's teachings on yoga emphasize the importance of an integral approach to yoga, which encompasses the physical, psychological and spiritual aspects of the practice. The Satyananda System of Yoga combines six main branches of yoga, including Hatha, Raja and Kriya Yoga, which focus on improving the quality of body and mind, and Karma, Bhakti and Jnana Yoga, which are concerned with cultivating a positive attitude towards life's situations and the expression of creativity.

The Satyananda system aims to integrate the physical, psychological and spiritual dimensions of yoga into each practice, addressing the qualities of head, heart and hands – intellect, emotion and action. Swami Satyananda's widely-used and much-translated work Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha presents Hatha Yoga based on classical texts of Hatha yoga and his personal experience.

Swami Satyananda is also closely associated with the modern form of yoga nidra, a deep relaxation technique. Yoga nidra is a powerful tool for stress relief and relaxation, which involves deep relaxation and conscious awareness of the different layers of the self, from the physical body to the subtle energy centers. Swami Satyananda's teachings on yoga nidra emphasize the importance of using this technique as a tool for inner exploration and transformation.