By Swami Atmarupananda Vedanta Society of Greater Houston, Resident Minister

An American, Swami Atmarupananda, discovered the Vedanta tradition while studying as an exchange student in Sweden. He joined the Chicago branch of the Ramakrishna Order of India as a monk in 1969 at the age of nineteen and was initiated by Swami Vireswarananda, the tenth president of the Ramakrishna Order. He subsequently spent many years in India engaged in monastic, scholarly, and spiritual training. Altogether he has spent almost fourteen years in India and thirty-seven years in America as a member of the Order. He was instrumental in founding the San Diego center, the Vivekananda Retreat in upstate New York, and the Vedanta work in Puerto Rico. He has traveled to many countries giving talks and retreats, as well as engaging in inter-spiritual dialogue. From 2012 to 2017, while in India, he edited the new edition of the ten-volume Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. He was sent to be the resident minister of the Vedanta Society of Greater Houston in 2017.