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Haṭha Yogi Sri Sri Sri Veerananda Swamiji

The Turning

Sri Veerananda Swamiji was born in Gauribidanur Taluk. He first entered gṛhasthāśrama — the householder's life — and lived it in accordance with dharma.

It was from that ordinary life, the account records, that puṇya-phala led him to a cave at Kuntavarapalli in Bagepalli Taluk, and to the darśana of Sri Swami Chidghanananda Maharshi.

From that Guru he received Jñāna Yoga dīkṣā, and took up the practice of Haṃsa Kuṇḍalinī Yoga.

The Search for Solitude

As the yogānanda deepened, it could no longer be held within the body's ordinary rhythms. He resolved to remain established in that state without interruption — and for that, he began to search for ekānta sthāna, places of absolute solitude.

The Caves and the Silences

What followed was a life measured not in years but in dīkṣās:

• ✦The Narasimha Swamy cave where Kaivara Thatha had performed tapas — here Sri Seetappa Swami became his disciple
• ✦Khichenahalli Matha, Chikkaballapur Taluk — two years in garbha dīkṣā
• ✦Santhebailu, Gauribidanur, near the Ishwara temple — one hundred and three days in bhūgarbha samādhi
• ✦A matha near his native region — one maṇḍala of mauna dīkṣā
• ✦Kammaganahalli, Chikkaballapur Taluk — where devotees offered one acre for an ashrama, and he took forty-eight days of bhūgarbha dīkṣā
• ✦Ramadevara Betta cave, Thyakalahalla, Gudibande Taluk — one maṇḍala dīkṣā, and the siddha paṭṭa
• ✦Chowdeshwari temple, Vanturu village — invited by Sri Munisiyachari for the temple's upliftment, forty-eight days of mauna dīkṣā in the hermitage there
• ✦Dattatreya Matha, Chikkaballapur — twelve years, during which annadāna and jñānadāna flowed without pause
• ✦Nandi Betta cave — forty-eight days of mauna dīkṣā

The Voice at Chinnarayaswamy Betta

At Chinnarayaswamy Betta he entered a cave intending it to be his last. For nine months he remained there, having resolved on laya — dissolution — and having left written instruction for what should be done with the body.

The Guru's sanction did not come.

Instead, the account records an aśarīravāṇī — a voice without form — asking whether one who had lived his whole life in the forests should depart leaving no mark behind for those who would come after.

Some karma, he understood, remained.

Vishwakundali Ashrama, Rajaghatta

Devotees from Rajaghatta had been coming to him, speaking of a Veeranjaneya sthāna near their village.

He went to see it. In that place he perceived the yoga of a great kṣetra yet to come — and there he finally settled.

He established the Vishwakundali Ashrama at Rajaghatta, dedicated to viśva-kalyāṇa, the welfare of all. For its flourishing he undertook a mauna vrata of one full year.

And the karma that had held him back revealed itself: he founded an orphanage for boys at the ashrama, giving them annāhāra, vidyāhāra and jñānāhāra — the nourishment of food, of learning, and of wisdom — sustained by the devotees who gathered around him.

A yogi who had spent twelve years eating nothing spent his last chapter making sure children were fed.