Swami Muktananda
Swami Muktananda was born Krishna Rau in 1908 in Karnataka State, India. At age 15, he met Bhagavan Nityananda. He traveled through India on foot and studied for 20 years before meeting Nityananda again and receiving shaktipat initiation from him. In 1956 Nityananda gave him land near Mumbai, where Swami Muktananda built an ashram. He led the first Shaktipat Intensive in 1974 in Aspen, Colorado, founded the Siddha Yoga Ashram in Oakland, California in 1975, and the Shree Muktananda Ashram (originally named Shree Nityananda Ashram) in upstate New York in 1979. He traveled extensively and wrote many books, including his spiritual autobiography, Play of Consciousness (1978). He died in 1982, having established hundreds of ashrams and meditation centers around the world.
