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The Laughing Swami
Teachings of Swami Hariharananda
Paperback  978-0-936663-39-5: $12.00

By Swami Jaidev and Ma Devi, compilers and editors

Paperback, 108 pages, 8 color photos.

This book compiles for the first time a collection of Swami Hari's talks. For those of us who are reliving our encounters with him and those of us "meeting" him for the first time, The Laughing Swami allows us to hold in our hands one of this forest monk's precious legacies. It is noteworthy that Yes International Publishers is donating all profits from this book to Swami Hari for his work building an educational center and spiritual retreat at Malethi, India.

Swami Hari offers stories of his life in Tarkeshwar, his Gurudev, Swami Rama, and his experiences of America. Also, we receive Swami Hari's teachings on breathing, meditation, karma, mantra, and much more. Each chapter, a visit with Swami Hari, is like a hand opening to the reader, a gift set on its palm. This gift can only be the light of wisdom.

Swami Hari reminds us the "yoga is the ancient keeper of modern healthy living." Throughout his talks, he presents the yogic methods of creating and maintaining health. Also, "yoga is clear cut science." Swami Hari gives us instructions for our own experiments, reminding us that yoga is an experiential practice and no advice need be taken on faith alone - try it! Furthermore, he offers us the gold key (that "you can keep in your pocket") to the ultimate goal of uniting with the Divine. Addressing us directly, he says, "You need not search outside yourself. You are yourself a universe. Go inside."

Love is everything. Love is God. Just love. Swami Hari illustrates this tenet beautifully by pointing out that children are born knowing love; it is not taught. Children and mothers (that is, all people and the Divine) share a special bond through the language of love. The child knows "the mother is the place of milk. And why is milk there? Because the mother is the place of pure love." And through yoga, we experience that God is within and God is love and love nourishes the human spirit. So take this gift from Swami Hari, so lovingly given, and feed from it.

In his own words, "Because I am a mad monk, I have so many things to tell you!"


"A delightful and profoundly wise little book. A book to savor." -Linda Johnsen, Daughters of the Goddess, A Thousand Suns, The Living Goddess.

"A real gift for students in the yoga tradition!" -Himalayan Path.