Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati: Today is a day of great happiness for all of us, for today we accomplish one mission to fulfil the vision of our master, Sri Swami Satyananda.
Many years ago, when I came here in 1983 to take over the management of the Bihar School of Yoga, as Sri Swamiji was stepping down from being the head of the institution, he told me, “Yoga is a vidya, and it should be shared with all.” He told me to propagate this vidya freely to everybody. An instruction that he gave in 1983 is being fulfilled today.
The Munger Yoga Symposium is being held five years after the World Yoga Convention. The Convention represented the end of a chapter and the Symposium represents the beginning of a chapter. As prasad of the Munger Yoga Symposium and as an inspiration for the second chapter of yoga, we offer you Satyam Yoga Prasad.
Do you know what is Satyam Yoga Prasad? You have visited the Satyam Yoga Prasad pandal and seen the collection of books, CDs and DVDs there. The same wealth of knowledge is today being launched in cyberspace.
This is part of the jnana yajna initiated by Sri Swami Sivananda in Rishikesh, which was the method to disseminate spiritual knowledge. At first Swami Sivananda used to write small pamphlets, have them printed and distribute freely. Then he started writing small booklets on every conceivable topic and distributed them freely. Then, with the advancements in the ashram, books written by him began to be printed. But he had a nature: nothing was ever sold. He would give everything freely to the aspirants, to the libraries, to the departments of human resources where people could read and understand about human life and spiritual life, about what our tradition says on evolving in life. He was a prolific writer and knew every subject in the world. In his life, Swami Sivananda wrote about 300 books and never cared for any kind of royalty or return. His books were translated in many languages and published around the world right from the forties. Yet he always used to give everything away, saying, “You want it, take it, because it will help you.”
Sri Swamiji also followed in the footsteps of his guru. Prior to coming to Munger, during his travelling days he would publish five-page or ten-page booklets of chants, kirtans and spiritual anecdotes, and distribute them to everybody in the Yoga Fellowship. When the ashram was established, Sri Swamiji inspired people to write books on yoga, not because they knew how to write or had any knowledge of yoga, but because it would inspire and encourage them to deepen their own understanding by researching, practising and writing. He would give a topic to a disciple and say, “You study this subject, discuss with me, discuss with other knowledgeable people, and write.” In this way he would teach the person the depth of yoga. That is why you will find that in the books here, the author may be someone else, yet it says, ‘Under the guidance of Swami Satyananda Saraswati’.
In the early days, the books became the means through which Sri Swamiji would help yoga aspirants deepen their understanding of yoga. It was his wish that the spiritual knowledge, the jnana yajna that was initiated by Swami Sivananda, should continue as a tradition of the Bihar School of Yoga, the centre which he dedicated to his guru and walked away from, for it was the mandate of his guru, not his own creation.
Today, the Bihar School of Yoga is proud and pleased to present Satyam Yoga Prasad as a continuing tradition in the lineage of Sri Swami Sivananda and Sri Swami Satyananda.
Through this effort, the entire library of BSY books and teachings are now available on the internet. There are separate sections, beginning with videos. There you will find130 videos, lectures and satsangs of Sri Swamiji given in Munger, in other parts of India and the world. There are a few videos of the next generation as well. Then there is a section on events, in which DVDs of different programs that have been conducted at BSY, including the World Yoga Convention, have been placed. There is a category of music, chants and mantras, containing all the music produced by BSY, including Sri Swamiji’s Tapovan Sangeet and other bhajans sung by him. There is a section on practices, and the highlight here is the section on yoga nidra. One standard yoga nidra of Sri Swamiji has been presented in 28 major languages of the world. The section on e-books is divided in two parts: ‘first chapter books’ and ‘second chapter books’. In the first chapter books, at present there are 144 titles in multiple languages. There is also the e-mag section, where the Yoga and Yoga Vidya magazines from the year 2012 up to present are available. This is the vision of Sri Swamiji which is being launched today in cyberspace, and it is just the beginning.
As the prasad of this occasion, we have produced a tablet called ‘Bihar Yoga tablet’, which contains five apps of Bihar Yoga: Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha, Bihar Yoga, Yoga magazine in English, Yoga Vidya magazine in Hindi, and the link and app of Satyam Yoga Prasad. This is the prasad to initiate the second chapter.
In addition, a special project has been undertaken: Bihar Yoga Wiki, an online encyclopaedia of the Bihar Yoga– Satyananda Yoga system, with the aim to make the yogic teachings available to all in an accessible and easily understood way. On this wiki, we will present the teachings of our masters, Sri Swami Sivananda, Sri Swami Satyananda, and also the classical scriptures and scientific views that emerge in relation to yoga. This will be an on-going collective effort.
Thus, Satyam Yoga Prasad, Bihar Yoga tablet, and Bihar Yoga Wiki are the three prasad of the Munger Yoga Symposium, dedicated to our guru, for it is his vision and his mission.
27 October 2018, Munger Yoga Symposium