Swami Cat

Swami Cat and his trusty assistant Yoga Girl teach Yoga to children through books, music, video and workshops. He is the first cat to be published on Amazon and teaches Yoga with humor, a lot paw-sitive compassion and suggestions to help little ones remember that Yoga is not a purr-fect, it's a practice.

Swami Cat was born to a large litter in Purramus, New Jersey and named Bob. He was raised in the lap of luxury (literally in the lap of ) by a distinguished Professor of Philosophy who sparked Bob’s interest in reading the great minds of the 20th century but secretly he watched hours of Josie and the Pussy Cats. In his teenage years he was distracted by a lovely young feline performer who had just received a small role in the touring company of the Broadway show CATS. When the opportunity presented itself (the screen door was left open) Bob dropped out of Garfield High and took off as a roadie and learned many skills including how to take a cat nap anywhere, even during the showstopper, “Memories.” Bob made many friends and enjoyed his reputation as a party animal. For a while Bob was the lead singer and base player of a band he formed called Heavy Cream. They were quite successful and almost toured as a warm up band with Hot Tuna until Eric Clapton began proceedings to halt Bob’s band from using their name since it too closely resembled Eric’s band, Cream. Depressed, Bob took off on a friend’s catamaran sailing to the resort coastline of Great Yarnmouth. He pussy footed around England for the fish and chips were especially good at cheering him up. Because he was worried about his growing waste-line, Bob took up hiking and ended up becoming quite the athlete, climbing mountains and being the first domesticated cat to climb Annapurrna the 10th largest mountain in the world. He sat on top of the mountain feeling very proud of his accomplishment but then realized that he had a deep inner need to do something to help others, yet did not know what. Just then he saw a flash of a face that he had never seen before. His furry satisfied smile shocked Bob but then an overwhelming need to surrender and find this peace washed over him. Bob asked everyone if they had heard of this peaceful cat, but he had no lead until one day at a bookstore he picked up a copy of the Yoga Sutras translated by Swami Purrananda. Turning over the book he saw the same furry face, smiling and tranquil. He knew he would have to study with this man but he had no money to buy the book, and so he scratched the address of Swami Purrananda’s institute onto his scratching post and took off for the remote village of Litterahari, which loosely translates as Litter box to the Gods. Bob ran into the temple in the middle of the holy ritual of I AMs (of which one of Swami Purrananda’s disciples created a very lucrative cat food of the same name). Bob interrupted the ceremony and because all eyes were on him, he almost turned to leave out of embarrassment when Sri Swami Purranandaji saw him and said, “Ah there you are. I’ve been waiting for you.” Swami Cat was a quick study of the Vedas and soon became head of the “KT’s” (kitten trainees).