Who we are
Our Masters
Aurobindo, Ramana y Sivananda
“In our school we should cultivate the practice of Swami Sivananda, the theory of Aurobindo and the spirituality of Ramana Maharshi” Swami Asuri Kapila Ramana Ashram 1939

In 1934 the International School of Yoga was founded in Montevideo, Uruguay at the Ramana Ashram by Swami Asuri Kapila, direct disciple of Ramana Maharshi. Swami Asuri Kapila was born in Paris, France in 1901. In 1932 the school was symbolically founded in Arunachala, Tamil Nadu, India. Swami Sauri Kapila, direct disciple of Ramana Maharshi, born in Paris, France in 1901. Swamiji was a friend of Aurobindo, Sivananda and Lucien Ferrer.

Swami Asuri Kapila

Our founding Master is Swami Asuri Kapila who taught us his own Integral Yoga (Purna Yoga or Sarva Yoga) and Maha Yoga.Asuri Kapila is the father of our yoga lineage and the pioneer of yoga in the Americas. Asuri Kapila’s family was French and Italian. He was introduced to yoga thanks to Constant Kerneiz (Felix Guyot), the first Frenchman to teach yoga and Alexandra David Neel.

In his youth he travelled to Pondicherry, the French Colony of India where he personally met Sri Aurobindo and became friends with a french lady, Mirra Richard, who was known as The Mother and was Aurobindo´s successor. Swami Asuri Kapila was impressed by Aurobindo´s idea of integral or purna yoga, which was not only a tool for inner transformation, but also for social transformation.
 
From there he travelled to Arunachala where he met Ramana Maharshi, with whom he shared several years of his life along side Swami Annamalai practicing the Maha Yoga.  It was in the south of the country where he personally met Shankaracharya of Sringeri and the Buddhist leader Anagarika Dharmapala, the founder of the Maha Bodhi Society.    
 
It was Shankaracharya himself who confirmed him as a Swami (Master of himself) several years later. Swami Asuri Kapila travelled to the north of India, Nepal and Tibet, where he studied Kashmir Shivaism along side Swami Vidyadhar who named him Kashmir Shivaist Swami. He studied Tantric Buddhist or Vajrayana with Lama Dorje, which graduated him to the dharmachari.
  
In the Himalayas he met Swami Viswananda Saraswati (Swami Sivananda´s Master) from whom he recieved diksha, and the honorary title of Swami (Master of himself).

But his interest in Ramana Maharshi and Sri Aurobindo attracted him  back to the South of India.  It was there precisely where he met two future yoga masters who shared his interest in Ramana and Aurobindo: Swami Sivananda and Swami Lakshman Joo, who became his spiritual friends. 

In 1932 the International School of Yoga was founded, with Ramana Maharshi´s blessing.  Its central center was inaugurated in 1934 in Montevideo, Uruguay.  In 1935 they began to give teacher training courses, yogatherapy, ayurveda, samkhya, vedanta, and buddhism classes.  In 1938 the school was called the Free University of Yoga. Working for it was Yogacharini Padma, Yogacharini Lakshmi, Yogacharya Vayuananda, Dr Orestes Bernardi, Dharmacharini Upasika, Swami Sevananda, Swamini Sadhananda and Swami Sarvananda.  Swami Asuri Kapila founded the Ramana Ashram and the Maha Bodhi Shanga in Montevideo. 

The honorary members of the International School of INTEGRAL YOGA are: Sri Aurobindo, The Mother, Swami Sivananda, Swami Annamalai, Swami Vishwananda, Anagarika Dhamapala, Lama Dorje, Swami Sevananda, Lucien Ferrer, and others.
 
Ramana Maharshi was the first honorary president of the School and the Ramana Ashram, that was personally directed by Swami Asuri Kapila. 
 
Swami Asuri travelled to Argentina and Brazil training disciples and giving classes in the Teosophic Society.  The school was the first to give teacher training courses in the West, and Swami Asuri trained the first yoga masters and yoga teachers in South America. 

Inspired by Swami Asuri Kapila´s school and his teacher training courses in South America, his friend Lucien Ferrer, one of Kerneiz´s students, founded the Western Accademy of Yoga in Paris (Académie Occidentale de Yoga). And Swami Sivananda founded the Forest Vedanta Academy in Rishikesh for give also yoga teachers trainging courses.

Swami Asuri Kapila was the yoga master of Swami Sevananda (the director and founder of the Suddha Dharma Mandalam in Uruguay and Argentina), as well as the Swami Sadhana and Swami Sarvananda who later in 1953 founded an Ashram in Resende, Rio Janiero and the Sarva Swami Order of Brazil.

In 1955 he left his physical body and entered in mahasamadhi. The teachings of gurudev were transmited by his direct disciples Yogacharini Padma, Yogacharini Lakshmi and Dharmacharini Upasika who divulged the teachings in Uruguay and Argentina, while direct disciple Yogacharya Vayuananda did so in Argentina and emigrated to Brazil.

In 1963 Vayuananda later founded his branch of the school at his own yoga academy in Copacaba, Rio Janerio, Brazil.

Yogacharya Vayuananda

In this school the principal yoga masters of Brazil were trained in the year 1963.  They belonged to the Brazilian Association of Yoga Teachers and the Brazilian Yoga Federation. In 1986 Vayuananda (Yoga Federation of Brazil) and Swami Maitreyananda (president of the Uruguayan Yoga Association), diagramed the restructuring of the International School of Yoga in Uruguay and Argentina. As well they restructed the Latin American Yoga Union and the future Argentine Yoga Federation, along with Gerard Blitz the leader of the European Yoga Union. 
In December of 1986, Sri Vayuananda (Yogacharya Carlos Oviedo Trotta) was named the honorary president of the International Yoga School, and his new director was Swami Maitreyananda.  In 1987, a little after the first Latin American Yoga Congress that Sri Vayuananda was going to preside over in Uruguay, he left his physical body.  Since 1987 Swami Maitreyananda was the successor and the contiuer of Swami Asuri Kapila leaving him in front of the school.
Swami Maitreyananda was trained in the Sivananda Ashram with a traditional yoga training with his guru who was Swami Vishnudevananda (a maximum world-wide authority in Raja Yoga, Hatha Yoga, Vedanta Yoga, and Sivananda Yoga), with whom he obtained the level of Yoga Teacher in the Forest Vedanta Academy of the Sivananda Ashram.

Swami Vishnudevananda

Later his guru was Yogavatar Krishna Kisore Das, the president of the World-wide Yoga Counsel, with whom he obtained the yogacharya or yoga master level in India and the honorary tittle of Swami and Dharmachari.

Yogavatar Krishna Kisore Das

In 1989 Maitreyananda presided with Swami Sarvananda the World Wide Yoga Conference and Congress in the Blue Room of the Government Palace of Montevideo. He recieved the title of Sarva Swami from the part of Swami Sarvananda and the succession of the lineage. 

Maitreyananda was at Aurobindo Ashram for study Purna Yoga and take buddhist Diksha as dharmachari with his guru in Buddhism: L. Ariyawansa Nayaka Mahatera at Maha Bodhi Society

Swamiji specialized himself and graduated in Yogatherapy and Ayurveda. In 1988 Yogavatoar Krishna Kisore Das, the president of the World Wide Yoga Counsel, was named the honorary president of the International Yoga School of "Yoga Integral".
Mataji Indra Devi asked Swami Maitreyananda to give the yoga teachers training course in her foundation in Buenos Aires and Maria Helena Schmidt in Brazil. The School was established in Argentina and Brazil. The Argentine Yoga Federation was founded to begin to integrate and institutionalize yoga in Argentina and South America. Therefore, the national associations were created in each country.

The School established its delegations in India (Asia), in Europe and America. From here it proliferated in various cities and countries. Swami Maitreyananda, who is considered one of the most reknowned and biggest Yoga Masters of the present day, was elected the president of the International Yoga Federation in 1989 - 1992 and from 2002 - 2005 he was elected the Patron of the European Yoga Alliance, Indian Yoga Conferedation, also become Yogavatar Krishna Kisore Das´ successor as President of the World Wide Yoga Council.

Swamiji trained the majority of the present-day yogacharyas (genuine yoga masters) and yoga leaders. This makes him like various other trainers and capacitators of yoga teachers in the whole world. Swami has trained thousands of yoga teachers and instructors. His school came to be one that trained over 17,000 yoga students in its 76 years history, a number that multiplies each year around the world. Maitreyanandaji stopped training yoga teachers in 2003, leaving this work in the hands of the new yoga masters. 


Yogavatar Krishna Kisore Das, Swami Vishnudevananda and Swami Maitreyanandaji are the three inspiring masters for our school, along with three other paramgurus: Swami Asuri Kapila, Aurobindo, Ramana and Sivananda.  Today the school is considered internationally as one of the best in the world.  The school was recognized as the best world wide training in yoga in the 2005 World Wide Yoga Counsil, and it recieved the same award from the International Yoga Federation, Indian Conferation of Yoga, The Latin American Yoga Union, and other continental groups.  It is the only school in which a future master or yoga teacher can be trained in yoga´s totality and in the yoga methods and their different styles.  This idea was concieved by Swami Asuri Kapila who proposed the paths of his two masters Sri Ramana and Sri Aurobindo, and his friend Swami Sivananda´s path, for the school.   

Since 1934 when the school started, it has developed more than yoga, but also yogatherapy, ayurveda, ayuryoga, indian culture studies, Hindu culture, and Buddhist culture.  Presently, the school is directed in various parts of the world by big yoga masters.  Presently the directors of the International School of Yoga Integral are yogacharyas and the directors of the ashrams are Ashramacharyas.  The schools and ashrmas are annonymous and the directors conform to the counsel of Yogacharyas and Ashramacharyas.  Among them are: Swamini Lakshmi Yogamatananda, Swamini Kali, Yogacharini Dharmacharini Durga, Dharmacharini Swamini Taraji, Swamini Gauri Dharmacharini, Dharmacharini Swamini Nilavani, Swamini Dayananda, Swamini Parvati, Swamini Uma, Yogacharya Surya, Swamini Yogashakti, Swamini Ganga, Swamini Padma, and others.   

Presently, the masters around the world come to perfect their practice at the school; specifically masters who came to be trained from: Germany, Austria, Argentina, Belgium, Bolivia, Brasil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croacia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Equador, Spain, Scotland, USA, Finland, France, India, England, Italy, Israel, Guatemala, Greece, Holland, Hungary, Lebanon, Morraco, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland, Venezuela, Ukraine, and Uruguay.   


Presently, the School is conducted in Buenos Aires from 2002 by Swamini Lakshmi

Swamini Lakshmi

Swamini Ganga	Swamini Yoga Shakti

“In our school we should cultivate the practice of Swami Sivananda, the theory of Aurobindo and the spirituality of Ramana Maharshi”

Swami Asuri Kapila
Ramana Ashram 1939