Northern Ireland was Swami Niranjan’s first assignment, where he had to live like the tongue between two sets of teeth! There he learnt how to live life, what to expect from life and how to conduct himself if he expected to be successful in life. Every morning there was graffiti on his door: "Yogi bear lives here. Yogi bear has no hair".
—Swami Satyananda Saraswati
I was five years old when I met this boy. He was fourteen years old. He was strange, wore orange clothes, had his head shaved but, most amazing of all, he was the nicest guy I had ever met. He gave yoga classes and played with children my age. In fact, I was very confused because his classes were so serious he seemed to me to be an adult, but was a child when he played with kids like me. He was called Swami Niranjan. When Swami Niranjan moved to Colombia in 1973, a whole new world was awaiting him. Here he learnt to speak Spanish, ride horses bareback, drive cars and explore the ancient indigenous culture of South America.
—Sannyasi Gopaldharma
I have always believed that some rare people give a positive influence to everything they do, every word they utter. And this struck me the first time I ever met Swami Niranjan. He was about eighteen at that time. I remember how I was enthralled like the rest of the audience by the quality of his speech, wondering how, young as he was, he could transmit such wisdom. I could admire how through his buoyancy and joie de vivre during his lectures and outside the stage, he was endowed with the capacity to express so freely the changeless eternal essence of life. Since then I have been under the spell of a twinkle, a smile in his eyes, revealing how for a fleeting moment the harmony of opposites may be perceived, when a zest for life blends with profound insight.
—Swami Yogabhakti
At the airport I waited. Again it was quiet and four hours passed. Then the moment came. He was there a few metres in front of me. Young, tall, radiant, wearing a geru poncho and geru dhoti around his head. I clearly remember the first moment I saw him. I can recall it at any time. Then he smiled and I went to greet him and welcome him to Greece.
There is an old saying – I think most cultures are familiar with it – that it is the first impression that counts and bears great importance. Well, that impression was of colour, warmth, radiance, strength, playfulness, an iron will and, perhaps on top of all that, deep understanding.
—Swami Sivamurti