Swami Durgananda – Anniversary Lecture 30 Years of Yoga in ...

unbiased and friendly manner. I would like to thank you personally for the agreeable
living together in your house.
A description of the development of the Yoga work in the Sivananda Centre can be
understood only in the light of Swami Sivananda´s and Swami Vishnu-devananda´s
worldwide Yoga work.
After an intense education for more than ten years in the Ashram of his Master,
Swami Vishnu-devananda was sent by Swami Sivananda to the West in 1957.
Swamiji constantly emphasized that all of his steps were directed by the inner and
outer guidance of his Master. Internally by the apparently infinite energy and
inspiration which was flowing through Swamiji, externally by the enormous openness
and the large thirst for knowledge people meeting with Swamiji were displaying.
To put it with Swami Vishnu-devananda´s own words: “My path was blessed through
the lasting, compassionate, and boundless wisdom of my Master, India´s great saint
and sage, His Holiness Sri Swami Sivananda Maharaj. If the echo of his words and
his insight is able to guide the steps of seekers in the Western world using myself as
an instrument, I will have fulfilled my worldly purpose.”
And Swamiji let all of us participate in this deep communion with Swami Sivananda´s
thought energy. He made us feel that each helper was an important part in the
implementation of this great spiritual development.
Swami Ramananda (Dora von Herrnritt) who was the first (female) student to receive
the Sanyas consecration from Swamiji was a strong instrument in setting up the
Sivananda Centres and Ashrams in North America. A native of Austria, Swami
Ramananda returned to Vienna in 1972 and opened there the first Sivananda Centre in
Europe. Within a short time, Swami Ramananda had Swamiji´s ´Complete Illustrated
Book of Yoga` translated (into German). The German edition which was released for
the first time in 1974 by the Aurum Publishing House is now already in its eigth
printing. Therefore we are celebrating today also the 30 th anniversary of this splendid
book of Swami Vishnu-devananda, a work which has done a lot of intense pioneering
for the cause of Yoga.
After Swami Ramananda had rented 100 square meters in Massmannstrasse she was
commuting between Vienna and Munich. When Swami Vishnu-devananda sent me to
Munich in 1975, Yoga was still hardly known in Germany.
Due to the simplicity of the living conditions, the beginnings were both arduous and
inspiring. The sleeping place was a mattress in the Yoga hall, the richness of the
meals depended upon the generous vegetables gifts donated to us by a friendly
Turkish grocery, and there was a correspondence between the quantity of hot water
available and the number of buckets filled with coal that had been carried up to the
second floor.
Norman Zalben, a staff member from Los Angeles, was an important mainstay during
the first months of the Centre. Eric Terwilliger, a solo horn player of the Munich
Philharmonic Orchestra, and Dennis Moore, a trumpeter of the former Graunke
Orchestra, were the first serious students. They supported the Centre tremendously. I
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