Swami’s lessons remain relevant
By Atención staff

Film
Living Yoga: The Life and 
Teachings of Swami Satchidananda
Mon, Aug 31, 7pm
Teatro Santa Ana
Biblioteca Pública
Relox 50A
60 pesos

Marcela Andre was Swami Satchidananda’s official photographer to whom he gave the title “Jewel of the Guru’s Teachings.” She was the temple manager at the Virginia funeral after his passing on August 19, 2002.

Now, Andre serves as the Swami’s principal representative in Mexico, and she will give a 15-minute introduction with pictures and Sanskrit peace chants before showing the film, Living Yoga: The Life and Teachings of Swami Satchidananda.

Find out how the ancient teachings of Yoga were brought to the West by seeing this documentary that informs, entertains and provokes self-inquiry. It outlines the far-reaching effects on society of the modern Yoga movement and how it became part of Western culture.

Yoga is over 5,000 years old, yet is relatively new to the world outside its Indian roots. Just 40 years ago, the philosophy and practices of asanas (Yoga postures) that originated in India were initially popularized in the US by Swami Satchidananda, whose Sanskrit name means “Truth-Knowledge-Bliss.”

Artist Peter Max was the principal instrument in bringing Satchidananda, one of the first Yoga masters who expertly presented the classical practices of Yoga traditions to the West. The impact was far-reaching and included hundreds of thousands of young people at the 1969 Woodstock Music and Art Fair, while also earning the great esteem of the United Nations and diverse councils of world faiths and culture.

At Woodstock, Satchidananda serendipitously delivered the official opening remarks after being flown in by police helicopter with a special invitation that plucked him last-minute out of his abode in Manhattan, responding to the organizers’ plea to come talk to the crowds about “peace,” as they heard he did every Friday with 1,000 students at St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue and 53rd.

Swami Satchidananda’s obituary in The New York Times in 2002 ultimately used his old moniker, “The Woodstock Guru.” This was the ultimate honorary title because of the dazzling transformation that took place in people’s lives—with sixties hippies on drugs turning into dynamic teachers, physicians, artists, engineers, writers, musicians and scientists, to name a few of the paths taken by those “hippies” who formed an important core of his first disciples in America.


Satchidananda named his teachings Integral Yoga®, trademarked early on to clearly outline the practices as a combination of the classical yoga techniques and concepts. It influenced a generation and spawned a worldwide Yoga culture that is flourishing today like so many branches on a tree of life.

Integral Yoga® International (IYI) has 50 centers in the world and a solid international coordinating center with a worldwide teaching infrastructure, a fantastic book distribution service and independent teachers who were taught by Swami Satchidananda.

The teachings of Swami Satchidananda have spread into the mainstream and thousands of people now teach Yoga. This movie addresses a sense of history to this transformation.

Yoga has been instrumental in: medical therapy applications and breakthroughs proven by Dr. Dean Ornish to reverse heart disease, with new studies in prostate cancer underway; improvement in grades, attitude, focus, flexibility and adaptability of children, including special needs; peacemaking efforts bringing people of all faiths together in respect and understanding of an underlying unity within religious and ideological diversity.

These breakthroughs in consciousness and others areas are brought to light in Living Yoga, a film written and co-produced by Joshua M. Greene and directed and co-produced by Shiva Kumar. Find more information at www.livingyogamovie.org  or write to yogaplanetjewels@mail.com. 

Swami Satchidananda’s principal representative in Mexico is Marcela Andre, his official photographer to whom he gave the title “Jewel of the Guru’s Teachings.” She resides and teaches Integral Yoga® at YogaPlanetJewels, San Francisco 7.