Swami Shankarananda (Swamiji) is a meditation master in the powerful ancient tradition of Shiva Yoga. He grew up in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York, the son of a well-known artist-cartoonist father and a high school teacher mother. A brilliant student, he played on the national championship chess team at Columbia University. He also received many academic awards, leading to an academic career and a teaching position at Indiana University, where he taught English literature and Renaissance poetry.

In 1970, after meeting the American guru Ram Dass, Shankarananda travelled to India, where he met many saints and stayed at the ashrams of many yogis. He practised Buddhist Vipassana meditation with Master Goenka, and hatha and raja yoga with Hari Das Baba. He spent time with Neem Karoli Baba, the great woman saint, Ananda Mayi Ma, and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

He became a student of the great Swami Muktananda (Baba). He lived with him in India for three years and studied with him for twelve. After Swamiji attained self-realisation Baba told him to awaken seekers and teach meditation. Baba wrote at the time, “He (Shankarananda) has the power to make people experience the divine presence.”

Swamiji is one of the few Westerners to be initiated into the ancient Saraswarti order of swamis. He has headed ashrams in Ann Arbor Michigan, New York, Los Angeles, and Melbourne. Swamiji has written numerous articles on spiritual topics and his book Muktananda Siddha Guru has been translated into German, Spanish, and French. He edited Siddha Meditation, a collection of Baba’s writings on Kashmir Shaivism and was the founding editor of Siddha Path magazine.

In the mid-eighties, while living and teaching in Los Angeles, Swamiji returned to competitive chess to realise his goal of becoming a US National Master and also to test his yogic theories in chess. He was successful in this and comments, “Proper mind culture can really help your chess, but only God can make you Bobby Fischer! When I first started playing again I wore my orange robes at the board, but after a while they got to know me and the intimidation factor wore off so I had recourse to civilian clothes.” During this period he met and became close friends with Jeremy, who was instrumental in helping Swamiji attain the Master level.

Swamiji has taught thousands of people to meditate, touring USA, India, Canada and Australia conducting meditation courses, workshops and Intensives. Politicians, police officers, doctors, lawyers, fire fighters, homemakers and college and university students have successfully learned to meditate with Swamiji. He is the director of the Shiva School of meditation, at the Shiva Ashram on the beautiful Mornington Peninsula near Melbourne, Australia.

Swami Shankarananda is the author of Happy For No Good Reason, an easy to use guide that enables students to have an immediate experience of meditation. The book, now in its third printing, is an Australian best seller and has become a classic meditation manual.