October 1973 was to be a very fateful month and year for me. This was the time of the Bihar Yoga School Golden Jubilee convention in Monghyr, Bihar State. The function drew ten thousand devotees, many international.

I was there, invited by Paramahamsa Satyanandajii, and one of the two people initiated into Sannyasa that year. With that not so simple gesture he sealed my karma and destiny for this incarnation - I don't think I have ever recovered and I am not complaining!

He launched a steep learning curve for me and in the next ten years I encountered more about the best and worst of myself (and everyone else) than I could have experienced in several life times.

In 1973 Monghyr was an unbelievable site, for the BSY - the original Ashram was set between the cremation ground and a village of peasants, or 'rural friends and neighbors' as Swamijii would call them now.

As a consequence of the location of the Ashram complex, daytimes produced the litany of endless funeral processions and evenings resonated with the sounds of a squealing pig, accompanied by drums and merrymaking all night - or at least some nights! The 'rural' neighbors periodically stuck a pig in the neck with a spear and would leave it to run through the village until it bled to death - a preliminary to barbecuing it for a party!

Below are Swamis Chidananda, of the Divine Life Society; Anandakapila, from Australia and Janakananda, from Scandinavia at the Golden Jubilee of Yoga, 1973, in the Sadhana Room of the old Bihar School of Yoga, Monghyr, India.

Swami Janakananda has a jet black beard and Dr Mumford has black beard and black glasses.

On the walls in the background are the original artworks which formed part of the Tantric Art on display during the Golden Jubilee of Yoga.

The Golden Jubilee convention was an amazing experience! The Ashram catered lunch for at least five thousand people daily and we would sit in long rows (very long indeed) with a banana leaf in front of us and an army of swamis would come by plopping dollops of rice and sabji squarely on the banana leaf. The system worked!

Ten thousand people sat under a special single Marquee erected for the event. You could look down this endless sea of rows with the men sitting on the left and the women sitting on the right. This seemed confusing until I realized that the dignitaries and speakers at the front platform are equivalent to the 'Murti' in a temple and the woman are really stage left of the deity.

At least half the lectures were in English and Swamijii presided from morning until evening over the entire function.

Outside the function gates 'Chai' and Coca-Cola vendors proliferated and we Westerners would rush for the Coca-Cola, until one day Swamijii gave a lecture about how hopeless we were as aspiring Yogis if we could not even resist Coca-Cola, not to mention cigarettes and other unmentionable diversions.

One speaker was a Professor of Biology from an Indian University (I wish I could remember his name) I have never forgotten some of the things he said:

"Man is the only dispensable organism in ecology and is the most dependant upon the sentient life of other kingdoms. We pay attention to the wrong kinds of plants: i.e. Thermo-nuclear, Petrol etc. All philosophy is to 'sustain' and 'abstain' (Epitectus)."

He also stated "Ecology is derived from the Greek 'ecos' which means house". This later enabled me to appreciate the skeptics dictionary definition of "earth" which is "the planet we treat like dirt".

Then there was the long, tiring day when Swamijii prefaced the evening session by commenting to the assembled throng of ten thousand:

"I started out in life to be a Veterinarian Surgeon and days like this make me feel I am still an animal Doctor!"

Every morning at 4 am we would meditate with Swamajii. There were times in the monsoon season when we would walk through water up to our knees to reach the meditation room within the Ashram. At this 4 am session Swamijii introduced us to the most amazing techniques that were unknown in the West at that time. For me personally these early mornings with him were a revelation. The impact and effects were comparable with the Kriya yoga sessions that he personally taught each afternoon.

One morning he introduced us to Swara Yoga practices, "Swara" being the sound made by the breath. I had never encountered anything like this before as these sessions predated the books explaining his teachings.

Over six days we spent half an hour each morning focusing on one of the aspects of Swara Yoga:

Awareness of which nostril is open and the accompanying sensation of the breath moving in and out.

Awareness of the difference in temperature between the left and right nostril - generally the breath in the left nostril is perceived as cooler while the breath in the right nostril is perceived as hotter.

Awareness of the colour of the breath in the dominant open nostril. Awareness of the length of the exhaled breath from the tip of the nose to the area outside the face.

Awareness from the length of the breath from the nose tip to the eyebrow centre (Ajna Chakra).

Awareness of the flow of breath in the dominant nostril, ie. floor of the nostril or ceiling of the nostril.

Awareness of "Who am I?" (Ko ham) the mantra aligned with the natural inhalation and exhalation through the nostril.

The beneficial result and the insight gained from this training (just half an hour in the early morning) has stayed with me ever since.

Westerners who have not experienced the preciousness of the guru-chela relationship can never comprehend how the heart overflows with gratitude and the eyes with tears.

The Official Indian site of the Bihar School of Yoga may be visited at "Yoga Vision" or by clicking the "Official Satyananda Yoga Site" at the top of this page.

This site contains comprehensive information about the Bihar School of Yoga, Bihar Yoga Bharati, Sivananda Math, Yoga Research Foundation, Sri Panchdashnam Paramahamsa Alakh Bara and International Yoga Fellowship centres all over the world.