Saccidananda Ashram, Shantivanam

I offer this blog to share my ongoing experience of connection with Saccidananda Ashram in South India and with the three prophetic ones who initiated it — Jules Monchanin (Swami Parama-Arubi-Ananda), Henri Le Saux (Swami Abhishiktananda), and Bede Griffiths (Swami Dayananda). My name is Thomas Matus, and I have a name given me by Swami Chidananda Maharaj of Rishikesh: Jyotirmayananda, "one who finds bliss in the Absolute Light."

In this blog you will find news of an upcoming publication: Ashram Diary: In India With Bede Griffiths, to be available in the spring of 2009 from O-Books. You will also find thoughts, memories, and quotes from the ongoing diaries I kept at the Ashram after the passing of Dom Bede in 1993. I will also explain some practices of Kriya Yoga into which I was initiated fifty years ago.

Other posts on this page: photos of the Ashram and India, of monasteries in Italy and California where I have lived, of persons loved and other places seen; quotes from writers about, and experiencers of, India and many other realities; you will hear music; and enjoy YouTube videos from myself and others.