Ronela Vainio

Ronela Vainio was born in Finland in 1978. As a teenager, she was curious about Yoga and other Eastern spiritual traditions, although at that time she did not go deeply into them. Later, living and travelling in India in 1999-2000, she met Swami Vivekananda Saraswati in Rishikesh, which became a major turning point in her life. She was amazed at Swami’s power and wisdom. All the teachings she received made so much sense and suddenly the missing pieces in the puzzle of her understanding of life came together and formed a beautiful picture: a pathway to God. Endless wanderings came to an end, and life opened up with a new light and a meaning to truth. Ronela has a background in theatre studies and comparative religion. She has been studying and practising in Asia under the direct guidance of Swami since 2002.


Thomas English



Growing up in Ottawa, Canada, Thomas was deeply aware that there was much more to this life than the physical, instinctual existence it seemed all around him were living. At the age of 21 he began searching for answers to the meaning of life and existence. It was then that he met his first spiritual teacher, who began to unfold for him some of the mysteries of the traditional cultures and philosophies of mankind. By the age of 25, in 1999, feeling the need for a more practical spiritual understanding, he set off for India where he met Swami Vivekananda Saraswati and discovered Yoga. He has been studying and practising Yoga under the direct guidance of Swami ever since, discovering along the way many answers to the deepest questions of his soul. In particular, he has realised that the universal Consciousness is something internal, ever-existing, and within the heart of every being.


Swami Vivekananda Saraswati

Swami Vivekananda Saraswati, a university-educated engineer born in 1962, has been teaching Yoga for nearly 25 years. A member of Mensa who speaks five languages, he first explored parapsychology and the science of the mind at age 16, before beginning an intense and extensive education in Yoga three years later. In 1990, he left his native Romania for Copenhagen to found NATHA, now Denmark’s largest Yoga school. Eight years later, he journeyed to India to take the Swami order oaths and in Rishikesh opened Agama Yoga, which has since grown into an international school, with branches in Thailand, Rishikesh, Israel, and Greece.