John Ransley is interviewing Alakh Analda (used with John’s permission)
John
When you took sannyas in 1976, what were you doing at the time, and what sort of things impelled you to take sannyas? Or did you do it in stages? Was it a sudden decision, that sort of thing?
Alakh
I was living a business life, married, and working with my husband. We both ran our own companies, which we directed in England and then Australia. I got involved with yoga almost by accident. My brother was working in what they call a yoga ashram, and we didn’t even know what an ashram was. The young Swami, whoever he was, had arrived from India and was teaching them, and they were working voluntarily up there on this little piece of… well, it was a big piece of land that only had a little hut on it, and I actually used to only go up there on weekends to see him because I’d been working for five years in England. During that time, he left school and became a university student. He actually finished university, and I’d been overseas for about six years altogether, so we hadn’t seen one another. I used to go to catch up with him. So that is how I got into yoga, and after some time, I was initiated into sannyas.
