In this section of our temple’s website, we have built a collection of 545 early morning meditation talks given daily by Swami Atmaswarupananda at The Divine Life Society (Sivananda Ashram) in Rishikesh, India. The special value of these talks is that they express traditional Vedic teachings in a way that both touches the heart and is easy for the modern mind to understand. Each talk should take no more than a few minutes to read but will provide inspiration for the entire day and longer.

Canadian-born Swami Atmaswarupananda (called Bill Eilers before he entered the monastic life) came to Sivananda Ashram in 1974 at age 49 at the suggestion of his guru, Swami Chidananda, the then president of The Divine Live Society. He has remained there ever since. After he had spent twenty years living a life of study and reflection, he was requested by his guru to give a brief talk each morning at the conclusion of the early morning meditation gatherings at the Ashram. Swami Atmaswarupananda has given these daily talks in the sacred Samadhi Shrine of Swami Sivananda since 1995 and continues to do so to this day. His daughter Swami Amritarupananda, who has been at the Ashram since 1980, records, transcribes, and edits them. We are grateful to both of them for granting us permission to post the talks.

For one year, from July 30, 2007 to July 29, 2008, we posted one talk each day. Starting in August 2008, we switched to a weekly posting, completing the series with talk number 545 on January 1, 2012. In these talks, “Gurudev” refers to Swami Sivananda (1887-1963) and “Pujya Swami” refers to Swami Chidananda (1916-2008).