Swami Swahananda

Swami Swahananda (29 June 1921 – 19 October 2012) was a senior monk of the Ramakrishna Order of India, and the minister and spiritual leader of the Vedanta Society of Southern California from 1976 to 2012. He also led the Vivekananda Retreat, Ridgely, and the Vedanta Center of Greater Washington, DC. He joined the Ramakrishna Order in 1947 and received sannyasa, full monastic ordination, in 1956.

Swami Swahananda was born on 29 June 1921 in a village near Habiganj in British India, now in Bangladesh, the youngest of three boys. His father, Nirmal Chandra Goswami, died in April 1921 at the age of 32, just two months before Swahananda was born. His mother, Pramilabala, was only 19 at that time. Swahananda's grandmother named him "Bipadbhanjan". Nirmal Chandra had been a disciple of Sarada Devi, and had received initiation from her in 1908. Swahananda received a B.A. from Murari Chand College, Sylhet, in 1943, and a double M.A. in English Literature and English Language from the University of Calcutta, in 1945 and 46.

He received initiation in February 1937 from Swami Vijnanananda, a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, and subsequently joined the Ramakrishna Order in 1947. He remained a lecturer at the Vidyamandir at Belur Math for two years, before being sent to the Ramakrishna Math, Madras (now Chennai). He was ordained a brahmacharin in 1952, and was called Brahmachari Durgachaitanya. In 1954, he joined the Mysore Study Circle. He received sannyasa, full ordination, in 1956, from Swami Shankarananda.

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