SWAMI TURIYANANDA

Harinath Chattopadhyaya, (1863-1922), later Swami Turiyananda, was a monastic disciple of Sri Ramakrishna.  In 1884, he went to the Dakshineswar temple, where Ramakrishna lived for many years, and became a devotee. 

In1887, he joined Ramakrishna’s monastery at Baranagore, after which he made a number of pilgrimages in northern India. 

Accompanying Swami Vivekananda to America in 1899, he worked first in New York, and after a short visit to Los Angeles, in San Francisco.  He was the founder of the Shanti Ashrama, a retreat in the San Antonio Valley of northern California.

He returned to India in 1902, dividing his time between the headquarters of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission in the village of Belur, and the holy sites of Kankhal, Almora, Puri, and Varanasi.

It was Harinath who recommended that Prabhavananda be sent to the United States, rather than to Singapore as originally planned, to establish a Vedanta center.  After stops in San Francisco and Portland, Prabhavananda founded the Vedanta Society of Southern California.