The Team

Swami Haribrahmendrananda Tirtha

At age fifteen, he travels, 3,500 km to Uttarkashi in the Himalayas in search of spiritual wisdom and a scriptural teacher. Not only he found a great scriptural teacher (acharya), but a few months later, the young boy received sannyasa, under the aegis of this acharya. Henceforth, the boy would be known as Swami Haribrahmendrananda Tirtha. He, because of his age at the time, was also known as Kutti Swami, meaning, child swami. The acharya, was none other than the accomplished spiritual teacher of the time - Swami Chaitanyananda Sarasvati - a direct disciple of Swami Sivananda Sarasvati of Rishikesh and a student of the famed Swami Tapovan ji Maharaj of Uttarkashi, who was also the acharya for Swami Chinmayananda of Chinmaya Mission, spread all over the world. Swami Chaitanyananda, was blessed, to study for years, with Mahamandaleshvar Swami Vishnudevananda Giri ji also, who was the sixth pontiff of the famed Kailas Ashram. As an acharya, he was a towering scholar of scriptures and Sanskrit. As an individual he was very loving and very simple. He had about him a touching humility. Swami says, “I basked in his loving presence of matchless wisdom and boundless humility.” The young Swami’s own guru, Shrimat Swami Brahmendrananda Tirtha, had appeared in his disciple’s life, at a tender age, much before the disciple had arrived in Uttarkashi. Haribrahmendrananda, felt ever guided and protected by his Guru.