About This Website
John Mundahl at the Kripalu Center in Lennox, Massachusetts.
Dear Friends,
Welcome to my website, “From the Heart of the Lotus, the Life and Times of Swami Kripalu.” I met Swami Kripalu on May, 20th, 1977, at Kennedy Airport in New York City when he arrived in the United States for what was going to be a 3-month visit. The visit turned out to be an extended 4-year stay, however, as he found life in the United State conducive to his yoga sadhana.
We had two ashrams, then, the original Kripalu Yoga Ashram in Sumneytown, Pennsylvania and the Kripalu Yoga Retreat in Summit Station, Pennsylvania, both started by Yogi Amrit Desai, a close disciple of Swami Kripalu’s.
Swami Kripalu first stayed at the Kripalu Yoga Retreat in Summit Station where in the summer of 1977 he broke his many years of silence and delivered more than 100 talks on a vast array of spiritual topics to residents and guests. We taped each darshan and transcribed his words.
I stayed at the ashram from 1977-1981, the four years of Swami Kripalu’s stay, kept a diary of my time with him, and also visited India in 1982, one year after his passing.
In 2006, I received permission from the Kripalu Center in Lennox, Massachusetts to re-read the original darshans as I was interested in preserving his teachings. The result was my first book, From the Heart of the Lotus, the Teaching Stories of Swami Kripalu, Monkfish Publishing, Rhinebeck, New York 2008, in which I preserved more than 100 stories that Swami Kripalu told us from May, 1977-September, 1977, when he was speaking to us twice a day.
I then re-read the darshans, typed and edited each one, and published, A Sunrise of Joy, the Lost Darshans of Swami Kripalu, Monkfish Publishing Red Elixir, 2012. This book is far more comprehensive and includes the life story of Swami Kripalu and the majority of the teachings that he gave us during his stay in the United States.
In 2014, I published, The Swami Kripalu Reader, Selected Works from a Yogic Master, using Createspace, a free publishing service of Amazon. In addition to describing the many facets of Swami Kripalu’s life, I also preserved his written material that has been translated into English, so about 2/3rds of this book contains his translated written articles that I had saved through the years or could find. He was a prolific writer, but unfortunately little has been translated into English.
In 2016, I published, The Journey Home, Daily Devotions with Swami Kripalu, using Createspace, a free service of Amazon. This book also contains 130 pictures of Swami Kripalu, mostly from the vast archive of Umesh Eric Baldwin.
The MP3’s of His Darshans
The main purpose of this website is to preserve the tapes of his darshans, convert them to MP3s and make them available as a free download to anyone who would like to hear his voice. My two sources are my personal collection that I have saved through the years and that of Anne Hollander who also sent me her collection. If anyone else has darshans of Swami Kripalu and would like to have them saved, please feel free to send them to me, either the original tape, which I will return, or an MP3, and I will add them to this website.
Quotes from the Teachings of Swami Kripalu
These are quotes from my books. I will keep adding stories, darshans, and smaller quotes for those interested in learning about the teachings.
Books by John Mundahl
My books are available on: Amazon Books.John Mundahl. Or from Monkfish Book Publishing, Rhinebeck, New York. All royalties from my books about Swami Kripalu I give to charity, as he gave everything to us free.
Photo Gallery
I’ve included a small photo gallery on this website. These are photos I receieved from Umesh Eric Baldwin and others and are used with permission. Umesh is contructing a large website to preserve his photos and those of other photographers. The website will be available late 2015, or early 2016.
Contact: [email protected]
Welcome to my website, “From the Heart of the Lotus, the Life and Times of Swami Kripalu.” I met Swami Kripalu on May, 20th, 1977, at Kennedy Airport in New York City when he arrived in the United States for what was going to be a 3-month visit. The visit turned out to be an extended 4-year stay, however, as he found life in the United State conducive to his yoga sadhana.
We had two ashrams, then, the original Kripalu Yoga Ashram in Sumneytown, Pennsylvania and the Kripalu Yoga Retreat in Summit Station, Pennsylvania, both started by Yogi Amrit Desai, a close disciple of Swami Kripalu’s.
Swami Kripalu first stayed at the Kripalu Yoga Retreat in Summit Station where in the summer of 1977 he broke his many years of silence and delivered more than 100 talks on a vast array of spiritual topics to residents and guests. We taped each darshan and transcribed his words.
I stayed at the ashram from 1977-1981, the four years of Swami Kripalu’s stay, kept a diary of my time with him, and also visited India in 1982, one year after his passing.
In 2006, I received permission from the Kripalu Center in Lennox, Massachusetts to re-read the original darshans as I was interested in preserving his teachings. The result was my first book, From the Heart of the Lotus, the Teaching Stories of Swami Kripalu, Monkfish Publishing, Rhinebeck, New York 2008, in which I preserved more than 100 stories that Swami Kripalu told us from May, 1977-September, 1977, when he was speaking to us twice a day.
I then re-read the darshans, typed and edited each one, and published, A Sunrise of Joy, the Lost Darshans of Swami Kripalu, Monkfish Publishing Red Elixir, 2012. This book is far more comprehensive and includes the life story of Swami Kripalu and the majority of the teachings that he gave us during his stay in the United States.
In 2014, I published, The Swami Kripalu Reader, Selected Works from a Yogic Master, using Createspace, a free publishing service of Amazon. In addition to describing the many facets of Swami Kripalu’s life, I also preserved his written material that has been translated into English, so about 2/3rds of this book contains his translated written articles that I had saved through the years or could find. He was a prolific writer, but unfortunately little has been translated into English.
In 2016, I published, The Journey Home, Daily Devotions with Swami Kripalu, using Createspace, a free service of Amazon. This book also contains 130 pictures of Swami Kripalu, mostly from the vast archive of Umesh Eric Baldwin.
The MP3’s of His Darshans
The main purpose of this website is to preserve the tapes of his darshans, convert them to MP3s and make them available as a free download to anyone who would like to hear his voice. My two sources are my personal collection that I have saved through the years and that of Anne Hollander who also sent me her collection. If anyone else has darshans of Swami Kripalu and would like to have them saved, please feel free to send them to me, either the original tape, which I will return, or an MP3, and I will add them to this website.
Quotes from the Teachings of Swami Kripalu
These are quotes from my books. I will keep adding stories, darshans, and smaller quotes for those interested in learning about the teachings.
Books by John Mundahl
My books are available on: Amazon Books.John Mundahl. Or from Monkfish Book Publishing, Rhinebeck, New York. All royalties from my books about Swami Kripalu I give to charity, as he gave everything to us free.
Photo Gallery
I’ve included a small photo gallery on this website. These are photos I receieved from Umesh Eric Baldwin and others and are used with permission. Umesh is contructing a large website to preserve his photos and those of other photographers. The website will be available late 2015, or early 2016.
Contact: [email protected]
