Satyananda Yoga (also known as Bihar Yoga) is a way of teaching and practicing classical yoga pioneered by Swami Satyananda Saraswati and now continued by his successor, Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati. Swami Satyananda was a disciple of Swami Shivananda Saraswati of Rishikesh.
It is characteristic of the Satyananda yoga system that it considers the person as a whole of body, mind, emotions, psyche. There are practices for each of these aspects so that one develops integrally, not developing only the body or only the mind. It assists in the development, integration and balancing of the “head, heart and hands”, considering the mind, emotions and physical activities and behaviour. Satyananda yoga is characterized by a huge variety of techniques – physical, breathing, meditative, purifying. Each person, according to his personal characteristics (age, flexibility, state of health, goals of the practice and time at his disposal) can practice a certain set of these practices.
In terms of hatha yoga – bodywork – there are hundreds of asanas and numerous pranayama techniques in Satyananda yoga. Each of them affects certain parts of the body and energy centers in a specific way. They are systematized in a brilliant way in Swami Satyananda’s classic book “Asana, Pranayama, Mudra, Bandha”, also translated into Bulgarian.
In terms of meditative practices in Satyananda Yoga, there are a very large number of meditation techniques to guide the practitioner on the path of self-knowledge. There are techniques for both yoga beginners and more advanced practitioners. They are given quite systematically with certain stages, which allows to practice and progress over time.
Satyananda Yoga is a tried and tested system, proven to be effective by many scientific studies. The world’s first yoga university, recognized by the Indian government and UNESCO, called Bihar Yoga Bharati (BJB), is located in the ashram of this school in the town of Mungir.
Associated with BBY are several yoga academies on different continents. The one closest to us is the one in Europe – SYAE.