One of My Teachers
- Cariel Quinly
- Nov 30, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Dec 7, 2024
Swami Shankarananda
Swami Shankarananda was one of my spiritual teachers with whom I study for almost 20 years in Baltimore and I loved him. While the Divine Life Church was being renovated in 1974, the Divine Life Church services were held in my home in Baltimore. I left Baltimore in 1993 to come to California.
In 1974, his teacher, Swami Premananda, blessed the inauguration of what was then called Divine Life Church of Absolute Monism where I met Swami Shankarananda, known as Acharya Peter, at the time, in 1971.
His teacher, Swami Premananda, was a disciple of Swami Yogananda.
Adi Shankaracharya is credited with reordering the ancient Swami Order of India centuries ago. The Swami Order is an ancient monastic order that continues to the present day through an unbroken line of teachers. The Swami Order has 10 subdivisions, or dasanamis, including the Giri, Sagar, Bharati, Aranya, Tirtha, and Saraswati branches.
In 1995, Swami Shankarananda created the Universal Swami Order, which continues the Ancient Swami Order but now includes women as well as men, married as well as unmarried devotees.
The tradition teaches " Truth is one, we call it by various names." The Divine and Kriya yoga are taught. Kriya yoga is ancient spiritual technique that combines meditation and breathing techniques to attain self-awareness and establish a deeper connection with the Divine.
Swami Shankarananda left the body on November 24, 2014.
The current, Baltimore's Awake Yoga Meditation Community started in February 2018. The community's talks are based on sacred teachings that were prepared by meditating and then spoken spontaneously without notes.
Dive into the mystic path of liberation from the base of the spine as Swami Shankarananda explores the first of the “centers of unfoldment” in our body: muladhar, the root chakra.
Learn how Kundalini energy works with meditation to help us master our attachments, always receive answers to our prayers, and be guided through our every difficulty.
Each talk in the series entitled Kriya Yoga: Inner Path to God describes the function of each of the seven chakras in the process of self-unfoldment and shares some specific techniques that you can use right now to either enhance your existing meditation practice or prepare for your own Kriya Yoga journey.
