Sannyasa
The most important person in Swami Atmananda’s life was her guru, Swami Satyananda Saraswati, who founded Bihar School of Yoga.
She saw him in Mumbai when she was a young girl, when he was travelling around India, and although her father initially opposed her wish to follow him, she was determined.
Eventually she left the family home with her father’s blessings, renouncing marriage and family life.
Mira writes: ‘Swamiji resisted her family’s efforts to get her married. She would say, ‘I got married in so many lifetimes before. This life I would like to dedicate to serving my Guru.’ Father was not in favour of her leaving home. However, he soon accepted the inevitable fact.’
This was a most courageous and unusual step for a woman to take, in that society. Swami Atmananda later encouraged others to follow their dream or their chosen career, against opposition from family and society.
A young Singaporean girl told us that she would not have taken up nursing if it had not been for Swami Atmananda’s encouragement, as her community considered it an unsuitable profession for a young woman.
Swami Atmananda took initiation from Swami Satyananda into the sannyasa tradition, symbolically dying to the world, the old life and its attachments. She lived with him in the early days of Bihar School of Yoga in 1963, working hard in the ashram. It was an austere lifestyle without any comforts.
Swami Satyananda trained her with great love, and also strictly. He trained her in the way she, in turn, trained her own students: with intense awareness, deep concern and without sentimentality.
She could be stubborn and rebellious – she used to tell how Swamiji would throw her out of the ashram, and she would sit outside the gate, waiting until he let her back in! But she was receptive, absorbing much of her knowledge of yoga and meditation simply by watching Swami Satyananda conduct the yoga seminars.
Although some of us thought of Swami Atmananda as a guru, she never considered herself as such, and shunned praise and hero-worship. All acclaim she directed back to Swami Satyananda, feeling herself to be of no intrinsic value, except insofar as his virtues shone through her, through her own transparency.
She was utterly devoted to him, in thought, word and deed, until the day she died; she lived for him and in him, always, with every breath, with every beat of her heart.
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