This article does not cite any sources. Sivananda Saraswati, and founder anti gravity yoga retreat the International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres and Ashrams.

He established the Sivananda Yoga Teachers’ Training Course, one of the first yoga teacher training programs in the West. Vishnudevananda was born in Kerala, a state in South India, on 31 December 1927. His family were members of a Nair caste. His father was a Brahmin named Panchanatham. He was particularly inspired by these words: «An ounce of practice is worth tons of theory.

At his second visit, he and others waited as Sivananda ascended the stairs from the bank of the Ganges to the ashram. When Vishnudevananda declined to prostrate, Sivananda surprised him by prostrating before him. This lesson in humility was the first given to Vishnudevananda by his guru. Vishnudevananda entered the Sivananda Ashram in Rishikesh in 1947 at the age of twenty. In this capacity, he trained scores of Indian and Western students.