Life & Legacy
Born C. K. Ramaswamy Gounder in 1914 in Chettipalayam, Tamil Nadu, Satchidananda worked in his family''s businesses and in the film industry before the death of his young wife turned him decisively toward spiritual life. In 1949 he was initiated into sannyasa in Rishikesh by Swami Sivananda, in whose ashram daily kirtan was prescribed like medicine, and he spent years teaching in Sri Lanka before the artist Peter Max brought him to New York in 1966. The visit became a life: the Integral Yoga Institute he founded that year grew into centers across the Americas and Europe.
On August 15, 1969, he was helicoptered onto the stage at Woodstock to deliver the festival''s opening invocation, telling the crowd that America was helping the whole world with music, and leading some 400,000 people in chanting "Hari Om" — for many, their first taste of mantra. He went on to found Yogaville in Virginia and the Light Of Truth Universal Shrine (LOTUS), dedicated to all faiths, and gave the opening prayers at institutions from Carnegie Hall to the U.S. Capitol. Chanting remained his signature teaching to the end: simple sound, he taught, could settle the mind faster than any argument.