Swami Vagishananda is a senior disciple of Swami Dayananda Saraswati and has devoted the past 35 years to studying and teaching Vedanta and Vedic Chanting. As a teenager, he was drawn to mystical poetry and non-dual philosophies, and at the age of 19 he was accepted into a traditional course of study with Shree Swami Dayananda Saraswati in 1975. He left college and traveled to India to begin this path.
He completed an intensive three-year residential program in Vedanta, Sanskrit, and Vedic chanting. During this period, he studied the Major Upanishads, Bhagavadgita, Brahma Sutras, Sanskrit Paniniya Grammar, and Shiksaa Phonetics one on one with Vedic Pandits. He also practiced Sri Rudra Prasnam, regarded as one of the most revered and exalted Vedic prayers, along with the main Vedic Suktas, mantras, and Upanishads in the traditional way, under Swami Paramarthananda, a fellow student and master of Vedic Chanting.
Later, while living and teaching in a Hindu temple in Flint, Michigan, he received daily private instruction in Sanskrit phonetics and advanced chanting for two years from the renowned Vedic pandit Ganapathigal Ravichandran Aiyar. After perfecting the South Indian Krsna Yajur Vedic style of his Guru, he was formally given permission to teach all that he had learned.
He also served as a staff member in four additional three-year courses taught by Swami Dayananda in the United States and India, teaching Vedic chanting to resident students while supporting his teacher in many ways. Throughout this time, he continued studying and teaching Sanskrit and advanced Vedanta texts.
Over the years, he has traveled widely and led many children’s camps, adult seminars, and Vedanta classes in the United States, Canada, England, Australia, and Brazil. A master of Sanskrit and an accomplished teacher of Vedanta in the traditional Sampradaaya methodology, he carries forward the qualities of his revered Guru in both his presence and his teaching style.