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 Jørgen 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.