SWAMINI PRAMANANDA SARASWATI
Swamini Pramananda Saraswati is a spiritual guide and a co-author of the "Purna Vidya" program.
Fondly known as Ammaji, she is a respected teacher of Vedanta and is a Sanskrit scholar conducting regular spiritual retreat programs, since over twenty five years. She conducts seminars for educational and other institutions creating cultural awareness and training teachers for sharing the "Purna Vidya" program with children and adults. She received sannyasa diksha from Pujya Swami Dayananda Saraswati and has undergone study of Vedanta and Sanskrit under him.
Ammaji also conceptualized and ran a program for empowerment of tribal woman, as well as projects in healthcare and education for the poor tribal people of the hilly areas of Southern India. In 2006, she left the Gurukulam to lead a secluded life of sadhana at the Arunachala Hill, Thiruvannamalai and Uttarkashi in the Himalayas.
Today she continues to spend most of her time in retreat and tapas, but occasionally leaves her solitude to benefit small groups of seekers by sharing her vast spiritual knowledge with them. While at her retreat center, she also shares her knowledge with seekers who visit her, in addition to offering service activities to the neighboring villages.
Born in Bombay, Swamini Pramananda's interest in spiritual knowledge took her to California where she studied Vedanta and Sanskrit taught by Swami Dayananda. After completing her Masters degree in Microbiology from New York University , she worked in the same city for five years in a diagnostic research clinic and another five years as a researcher for the Institute of Basic Research.
Later Swamini Pramananda returned to India where she studied and taught Sanskrit and vedanta under her Guru ji's guidence. At the same time as teaching Vedic Heritage her interest in development work led her to run a programme for the empowerment of tribal women, as well as projects in health care and education for the poor tribal people of the hilly areas of Southern India. Swamini Pramananda has traveled extensively throughout the world and finds a marked difference in people's attitudes towards death, in India and abroad. She says, "In India, death is very much considered a natural aspect of life. Reincarnation is a much more accepted concept in India than in other countries, though there has been a steady increase in the number of people believing in reincarnation abroad".
The only permanent components of Swamini Pramananda's daily routine are her prayers and meditation. "For the rest, I readily become a part of whatever picture emerges everyday."
