THESTORYTELLINGMONK
A storyteller to help you find your way home
Yogi Sarveshwarananda Giri is a unique storyteller brimming with hundreds of tales from all times and places. A former swami (renunciate monk), his name Sarveshwarananda means Divine Joy in Everything.
Yogiji (as his students call him) has but one mission: to help us to return again to our original home, the divinity within us that is our eternal, original innocence. To this end, he shares wisdom tales, sacred chants, and mystical poetry, drawn from all the world’s religious traditions, and helps us to understand their often hidden, metaphorical meaning, and to decipher these disguised roadmaps to our divine home.
Beginnings
Born in Paris in a family of traveling teachers, Yogiji grew up in Europe, South America and Northern Africa. Raised by his poet-playwright father and artist step-mother, throughout his childhood he thrived on a diet of literary discussions, improvised plays, word games and story-telling sessions thanks to the constant stream of artists, writers, poets, actors, composers and playwrights who frequented his parents’ home.
After completing his B.A. in English and American Literature at Grenoble University, he joined the Master’s program in Information and Communication of the Centre d’Etudes Littéraires et Scientifiques Appliquées, at the Sorbonne University in Paris. Subsequently he worked as a copywriter and translator.
He later moved to San Francisco, California, where he earned degrees in traditional Chinese medicine, massage therapy, holistic health education and NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming). He founded and chaired the Immune Power Foundation, a non-profit educational organization dedicated to teaching physical, psychological and spiritual self-healing techniques to people living with AIDS or chronic immune system disorders. He also maintained a small private practice in acupuncture, massage, counseling and nutrition, as well as teach and write extensively on psychoneuro-immunology.
Meeting the master
In 1988 he met his spiritual guide Paramahamsa Hariharananda, the last living Self-realized disciple of Swami Shriyukteshwarji, who was Paramahamsa Yogananda’s spiritual teacher. It was Yogananda who introduced Kriya Yoga to the United States and the Western world in the 1920’s. Yogananda was also the author of the spiritual classic “Autobiography of a Yogi".
During his practice of holistic healing, Yogiji gradually became aware of a supreme intelligence interpenetrating all levels of life and directing every thought, word, and action. He became increasingly convinced that the answer to man’s quest for wholeness was not to be found in medicine, politics, or religion, but through meditation.
After several years spent in solitary meditation in an ashram (monastic residence), Paramahamsa Hariharananda ordained him as a swami in the Giri monastic order. He was the first ever Western swami-acharya (monk-teacher) of Kriya Yoga in this lineage.
Becoming a storytelling monk
One evening, his teacher called him to his bedroom and requested him to read aloud a passage of the Bible—the riddle of Samson (Judges 14:5-20). The preceptor then dismissed his puzzled student without further comment. That night, Yogiji suddenly awoke with a start, swept by a flood of insights regarding the metaphorical interpretation of this riddle. Unable to sleep, he wrote until morning two complete articles on the metaphorical interpretation of stories and scriptures which were soon published in the ashram’s international quarterly journal and received with great acclaim.
The preceptor had burst the dam of ego-resistance of his student, and the effortless flow of spiritual writings, storytelling, and teachings has continued unabated ever since.
In 2009 Sarveshwarananda renounced his monastic vows and entered the householder life again. He continues his service to his guru as an empowered Yogacharya and priest, and he is now known as Yogi Sarveshwarananda Giri.
When not in residence at his Art of Peace Center in Châtillon Saint-Jean, France, Yogiji travels around the world to teach the ancient spiritual science of Kriya Yoga and to help people of all religions and faiths uncover the metaphorical truths hidden in scriptures and wisdom tales. His years of immersion in the world’s wisdom tales, multi-lingualism (French, English, Spanish and Portuguese, with some knowledge of Sanskrit), irrepressible sense of humor, and accomplished musicianship, enable him to touch people from all walks of life and gently guide them back to their divinity. Yogiji has shared his stories and message of grace and divine potential with people in prison, underprivileged communities, as well as schools, universities, major corporations, social clubs, churches and web surfers around the world.
A portion of the proceeds from the sale of his books, tapes and videos are donated to the Network of Love, a group of charitable organizations he founded to providing education and shelter to poor children, widows, and senior citizens in Latin America and in the Himalayas.
For information about Yogi Sarveshwarananda’s touring schedule, click here.