page_title: Vishnudevananda Saraswati
section_title: Peace missions
hierarchical_section_title: Vishnudevananda Saraswati / Peace missions
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Swami Vishnudevananda - Der fliegende Swami bei einer seiner Friedensmissionen
context_page_description: Vishnudevananda Saraswati was a disciple of Sivananda Saraswati, and founder of the International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres and Ashrams. He established the Sivananda Yoga Teachers' Training Course, one of the first yoga teacher training programs in the West. His books The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga and Meditation and Mantras established him as an authority on Hatha and Raja yoga. Vishnudevananda was a tireless peace activist who rode in several "peace flights" over places of conflict, including the Berlin Wall prior to German reunification.
context_section_description: In reaction to a vision of a world in peril, Vishnudevananda began his peace mission. The first act was to create the Sivananda Yoga Teacher Training Course in 1969, as he felt the need to train future leaders and responsible citizens of the world in the yogic disciplines. Later he conducted peace flights over the world's trouble spots, earning himself the name "The Flying Swami".
  On 30 August 1971, Vishnudevananda flew from Boston to Northern Ireland in his Peace Plane, a twin-engine Piper Apache plane painted by artist Peter Max. His Vedantic message, "Man is free as a bird", challenged all man-made borders and mentally constructed boundaries. Upon landing, he was joined by actor Peter Sellers and they walked through the streets of Belfast chanting a song called "Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself." Later that same year, on 6 October, he took off with his co-pilot Bren Jacobson, who had been with him during the entire trip, from Tel Aviv to fly over the war-ridden Suez Canal and was buzzed by Israeli jets. The same thing happened with the Egyptian Air Force on the other side of the Canal. He continued eastward, "bombing" Pakistan and India with flowers and peace leaflets.
  On 15 September 1983 Vishnudevananda flew over the Berlin Wall, from West to East Berlin, in a highly publicized and dangerous mission to promote peace. Vishnudevananda returned to Berlin when the Wall fell in 1989, staging a peace festival and a brief meeting with then-East German leader Egon Krenz to thank him for allowing the events to unfold peacefully.
  In 1984, Vishnudevananda and his students toured India in a double-decker bus, conducting programs to awaken the Indian people to their ancient tradition of yoga. In February he tried to mediate between the Hindu and Sikh factions in Amritsar, entering the Golden Temple to speak to the Sikh leaders who had sought refuge there.
  Over the years, Vishnudevananda met regularly with other spiritual and religious leaders to promote interfaith dialogue and understanding. He organized yearly symposia on such topics as yoga and science, the possibilities of the mind, sustainable living and nuclear disarmament.
  Vishnudevananda died on 9 November 1993. His body was then placed into the Ganges at the Sivananda Kutir, and the rite named jalasamadhi was performed, merging the abandoned body with the water.
caption: As "The Flying Swami" in his Piper Apache
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