Swami Sivananda Radha (1911-1995) is touted as the first Western woman to go through the proper initiations and become a swami. Born in Berlin, she married but her husband Wolfgang was purportedly killed by the Gestapo for helping Jews. She travelled from Montreal to India in 1955 as Sylvia Hellman and met her guru Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh. She was initiated into sanyas in 1956 and became Swami Sivananda Radha. She founded Yasodhara Ashram, a spiritual community based in Kootenay Bay, B.C. in 1963, and led workshops in dream study for 40 years. The author of Kundalini Yoga for the West and other spiritual titles, Radha established the Association for the Development of Human Potential in the U.S, as well as many teaching centres, called Radha Houses, in North America, Mexico and England. She formed her Timeless Books imprint in 1978. In 2004, the Kootenay Bay imprint of Timeless Books reissued her 1994 book Realities of the Dreaming Mind: The Practice of Dream Yoga. Swami Radha died in 1995. Glimpses of a Mystical Affair: Spiritual experience of Swami Sivananda Radha (Timeless Books, 1997) by Julie McKay is the story of Radha, told from the perspective of her closest devotee. Her follower Margaret White, who met Radha for the first time in 1967, became known as Swami Durgananda and published journal excerpts from their 30-year association as In Durga's Embrace: A Disciple's Diary (Timeless Books, 2006).

BOOKS:

Kundalini Yoga for the West (1978)
Radha: Diary of a Woman's Search (Timeless, 1981)
Hatha Yoga: The Hidden Language (Timeless, 1987)
The Divine Light Invocation: A Healing Meditation (Timeless, 1990)
In the Company of the Wise (Timeless, 1991)
From the Mating Dance to the Cosmic Dance (Timeless, 1992)
Mantras: Words of Power (Timeless, 1994)
Time to be Holy (Timeless, 1996)
The Rose Ceremony (Timeless, 1997)
Realities of the Dreaming Mind: The Practice of Dream Yoga (Timeless, 1994, 2004 $24.95). 1-932018-00-X
The Devi of Speech: The Goddess of Kundalini Yoga (Timeless, 2005)
When You First Called Me Radha (Timeless, 2005) - poetry/CD
The Yoga of Healing (Timeless 2006)
Light and Vibration: Consciousness, Mysticism and the Culmination of Yoga. Edited by Swami Lalitananda (Timeless 2007)

Also:

Glimpses of a Mystical Affair: Spiritual experience of Swami Sivananda Radha (Timeless Books, 1997 $40). By Julie McKay

[BCBW 2008] "Religion" "Women"