Swami Nijananda (formerly Dr John Whitacre), a leading psychiatrist of Minneapolis/St Paul met his Guru Swami Rama in 1969. Several years later, he was given a very special initiation into high energies by Gurudev, with Swami Veda Bharati (then Dr Usharbudh Arya) present. Swami Nijananda took his vows of Sanyasin in 1989 at the Himalayan Institute in
Swami Nijananda is not only a psychiatrist, but a realized mystic and a very high-level scholar of western as well as Sufi mystical traditions. He has been teaching groups of people privately and at the
Here is the most recent photo of Swami Nijananda and Swami Veda Bharati at the Meditation Center taken on the occasion of Vimala Sandstrom’s (who has been serving at the center selflessly as a member for the last 35 years) Vanaprastha vows on 20 July 2008.
