Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati
Sadananda was born in Germany in 1908. In the early 1930s, he became a disciple of Shrila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, a prominent guru and spiritual reformer of Gaudiya Vaishnavism in the early 20th century in India. First, though, Sadananda came in contact with Swami Hridaya Bon Maharaja, a disciple of Bhaktisiddhanta, when the latter held a lecture at the Lessing Hochschule in Berlin, Germany, in 1933 during his missionary activities in Europe. In 1934 Sadananda then moved to London, where the Indian monks of the Gaudiya Mission had established a centre, and where he soon, in the name of Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, became initiated by Swami Hridaya Bon Maharaja and Swami Bhakti Pradip Tirtha Maharaja. In 1935, he eventually travelled with Swami Bon to India, where Sarasvati gave him his spiritual name Sadananda Das. After his guru's death in 1937, Sadananda worked independently of organizations, devoting himself to study the holy texts of the Hindus.