Satsang: In the Footsteps of the Master, the Disciples and the Lineage
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Join these two disciples who have “walked in the footsteps” for fifty years; as they share their experiences, their stories, their aspirations and their challenges.
Swami Divyananda is one of Integral Yoga’s senior monastics and foremost teachers. Over the years she served as director at the Integral Yoga Institutes in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Coimbatore, India and as the Ashram Manager in Yogaville. Presently she teaches and conducts trainings in the US and around the world, and leads an annual tour to the sacred temples and ashrams of India.
Ramakrishna Sackett began his study of Yoga and Eastern Religious traditions in 1967, and in 1970 joined the Integral Yoga Institute of San Francisco as a founding member of the ashram at 770 Dolores St (which now celebrates 50 years of continuous service in SF). As an Integral Yoga Teacher and Community Service Director of the IYI through the early 70’s, he taught extensively, in the SF Bay Area, serving students at the IYI, in high schools, colleges, half-way houses, detention centers, Integral Yoga Retreats, on wilderness outings and a television program.
In 1972 he was a founding member of the first Integral Yoga country ashram, Yogaville West in northern California, serving as Head of Maintenance and teaching on IY Retreats until moving in 1975 with his wife Radha, to join the community of Yogaville East in Pomfret Center, Connecticut. A carpenter by trade, Ramakrishna was a key member of the maintenance and construction staff at the Ashram, and when the property in Virginia was found in 1979, he and his young family were selected to pioneer the founding of the SAYVA in rural Buckingham.
He served on the Volunteer Fire Department of Buckingham, as an EMT with the Buckingham Rescue Squad and was a leader in founding the Volunteer Fire Department of Yogaville.
He has had a role in constructing most of the major buildings at Yogaville including Ananda Kutir, Sivananda Hall, Lotus, Chidambaram, Vivekananda Vihar, Guru Bhavan and the Monastery, several private residences in the area and numerous projects in Central Virginia. His four children were born and raised in Yogaville with Jyoti #2, the first child born at SAYVA.
With his late wife, Rev Vidya Vonne, he shared a deep love of the Integral Yoga path and the community in which it grows, showing how spirituality and Yoga enter all aspects of Life. He continues in that spirit to teach and to build, to parent, dance, write poetry, climb mountains, invent new things, and to share the wisdom teachings of Swami Satchidananda and Master Sivananda….and be grateful every day.
