When You First Called Me Radha

When You First Called Me Radha: Poems renders the spiritual concepts of yoga into simple poetic verse. From commentary on organized religion to divinely inspired love poems, this book holds the most personal recordings of a woman, swami and spiritual leader. The poems follow the arc of Swami Radha's life story, starting with her journey to India in 1955 - where, as Sylvia Hellman, she was initiated into sanyas by her guru, Swami Sivananda, and became Swami Sivananda Radha. What unfolds are her experiences on the lifelong spiritual path. Her past, present and future are all here.

Included are her early poems, originally written in German, her meditations on the Kundalini chakra and her late material focused on Divine Light, inspired in part by her interpretation of the ancient texts of Kashmiri Saivism.

The book also comes with a CD recording of Swami Radha reading her poems. These were recorded at Yasodhara Ashram in British Columbia, Canada in 1991.

Swami Sivananda Radha (1911-1995) is regarded as one of the most profound and practical spiritual teachers of our time.

After immigrating to Montreal, Canada, where she worked as a professional dancer, Swami Radha traveled to India in 1956 to meet her guru, Swami Sivananda, who initiated her into sanyas. She then returned to Canada and spent the next forty years passionately committed to teaching yoga. Her knowledge of Kundalini Yoga is based on personal experience, direct teachings from Indian and Tibetan masters, and research into original texts.

Swami Radha is the author of eleven books on yoga philosophy and one book of poetry, and the founder of Yasodhara Ashram, ascent magazine and a number of yoga centres in North America and Europe. Her work continues in the spirit with which it was created, with the quality and integrity that were the essence of her life.