Satyanda Yoga (Bihar School of Yoga)

The Bihar School of Yoga and the International Yoga Fellowship were founded in 1964 by Paramahamsa Satyananda Sarasvati (b. 1923).

Aged nineteen, Satyananda took samnyasa initiation from Svami Sivananda at the Sivananda Ashram at Haridvar in 1943. The Bihar School of Yoga teaches both householders and renunciates, and has programmes of research on the treatment of mental and physical ailments.

Its main centre is the Ganga Darshan Yogashram at Munger, which is in the state of Bihar (another branch is at Rikhia in the state of Jharkhand).

In this school, those who wish to participate in the full training programme, which is quite rigorous, are usually required to shave their heads and adopt the orange/brown cloth of the renunciate.

The traditional philosophy of yoga and Vedanta is supplemented with a significant component of Tantric philosophy and physiology. The Satyananda system is also called Integral Yoga (which should not be confused with the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, which is a different system, based primarily on meditation.)

Satyananda and his disciple Niranjanananda have published many articles and books on yoga, Tantra and Indian philosophy.

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