Babaji’s Kriya Yoga Acharya, President and founder of Order of Acharyas, Lineage holder
Marshall Govindan (“Satchidananda”) has practiced Babaji’s Kriya Yoga intensively since 1969.
He studied and practiced Kriya Yoga in India for five years with Yogi S.A.A. Ramaiah. He also assisted him in the establishment of 23 yoga centers around the world during an 18 year period. During this period he practiced Kriya Yoga for eight hours per day on average, and as a result attained Self-realization. While in India he studied the Tamil language and the works of the Tamil Yoga Siddhas. In 1980 he assisted in the collection and publication of the complete writings of Siddhar Boganathar.
In 1986 he administered the construction of a rehabilitation hospital dedicated to Yoga therapy and physical therapy in Tamil Nadu, India. In 1988 he was asked by Babaji Nagaraj, the founder of Kriya Yoga to begin teaching. This followed the completion of certain rigorous requirements to initiate others in the 144 Kriyas given to him by Yogi Ramaiah five years earlier.
In 1991, he wrote the best selling book, Babaji and the 18 Siddha Kriya Yoga Tradition, now published in 16 languages. In 1992 he established Babaji’s Kriya Yoga Ashram in St. Etienne de Bolton, Quebec. Classes, seminars and retreats are offered there year round. Since 1989 he has personally initiated over 12,000 persons in Babaji’s Kriya Yoga in a series of intensive sessions and retreats in over 20 countries. In 1995, he retired from a 25 year career as an economist and systems auditor to devote himself full time to teaching and publishing in the field of Yoga. In 1997 he founded a lay order of teachers of Kriya Yoga: Babaji’s Kriya Yoga Order of Acharyas, a non-profit educational charity, incorporated in the USA, Canada, India and Sri Lanka, presently with 31 members.
He is the author of the book and DVD Kriya Hatha Yoga: 18 Postures, The Wisdom of Jesus and the Yoga Siddhas, and Kriya Yoga Insights Along the Path. His book, the Kriya Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and the Siddhas, has been critically acclaimed, and for the first time demonstrates the close connections between Classical Yoga and the Siddhars. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Govindan
In October 1999 he was blessed with the darshan of Babaji Nagaraj near his ashram in Badrinath, in the Himalayas. Since 2008 he has been building an ashram there.
Since the year 2000 he has directed a team of scholars in a large scale research project encompassing the whole of the literature related to the Yoga of the Tamil Siddhars. Six publications have been produced by them to date.
He is a graduate of Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He is married to Durga Ahlund.
He received the “Patanjali Award” in 2014 for outstanding service to the field of Yoga from the International Yoga Federation/Yoga Alliance International, the oldest and largest international association of Yoga teachers.
Marshall Govindan Satchidananda is not only the most famous Yoga Master of Kriya Yoga in the world, he also has done an amazing job for Kriya Yoga, I can only compare with Paramahansa Yogananda. Govindan Satchidananda is the spirit of Babaji
Swami Maitreyananda
president of World Yoga Council of International Yoga FEDERATION” (November 5, 2012)