My tradition is not the guru-disciple tradition, but the family tradition. My mother inherited the hatha yoga tradition from Nepal. When I say Nepal, I mean the Natha yogis like Gorakhnath, Matsyendranath. They are called the nine yogis who are supposed to be the founders of hatha yoga.
Gorakhnath was a Nepali sadhu, sannyasin, yogi. His guru, Matsyendranath, the founder of the hatha yoga tradition in our times, was also from Nepal.
Another tradition of mine, which comes from my grandmother, is from Tibet because she was Tibetan. I inherited the Buddhist tradition of hatha yoga from her. In western countries, the Buddhist tradition of hatha yoga, of 84 yoginis and yogis, is not known at all. Milarepa, was also linked with that tradition, as was Naropa and Tilopa; all these great yogis (84 in number) in the Tibetan tradition are known as Master Yogis.
The third tradition which I received was at the age of sixteen, when a yogini, a lady sannyasini, came to our family and stayed with us for a period of over six months. She initiated me in the practical side of hatha yoga and into every practical aspect of tantra.
It is through these traditions that I have been teaching hatha yoga to everyone, even after having read other books. In hatha yoga there is a tradition: if the book says one thing and guru tells you another thing, you go by guru and not by the books. I have always gone through the traditions to which I am directly linked – Nepal, Tibet and that yogini.
After that, the fourth tradition came into my life – my guru. Swami Sivananda was my guru, for he gave me the deeper and abiding understanding of life, matter and everything. He pulled me through the quagmires of life; he pulled me through the limitations of life, and gave me a deeper understanding of Vedanta, the non-dual aspect of the whole creation. So he is my real guru.
2 March 1985, Dulwich, England