NEW YORK, NEW YORK, August 21, 2002: Swami Satchidananda, initiated into the sannyasa (Hindu monasticism) by Swami Sivananda on the banks of the Ganges River, July 10, 1949, died Monday in Madras (Chennai), South India. Swami arrived in America on the crest of a wave of fascination with India in the 1960’s, as sitar music, meditation and incense became standard features of college dormitory life. With a gift for irony, a mischievous sense of humor and a disarming way of ending his sentences with a slight “hum,” he gave lectures that were part of the fun. Peter Max, the artist of psychedelia, invited him to the United States in 1966, and his disciples included celebrities like the singer-composer Carole King, the jazz musician Paul Winter and the actors Jeff Goldblum and Laura Dern. The article goes on to detail the swami’s work in America.
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