His Holiness Yogiraj 108 Shri Swami Kailashanandaji Maharaj was born Kailash Nath Gupta in Kanpur United Provinces into the royal Gupta family that had ruled India centuries before, during its Golden Age. As a youth he received his education in law and became a successful practicing lawyer in one of the high courts of India. Even though he relished his work, he relinquished this mundane connection and shortly thereafter, he entered the Order of Sanyasa (ordained Monk) and was renamed by His Guru, Swami Kailashananda. Practicing abstinence and austerity, he gained perfection in nine major forms of yoga while studying with His Guru in the Himalayan forests of India where he engaged in prayer, pilgrimage, fasting, Hatha Yoga and meditation.

In 1954 he was invited to speak at a Health Convention held at the Morrison Hotel in Chicago. Yogi Gupta writes “that he had doubts whether he should accept this invitation as he was already burdened with being a Director of the Yoga Vedanta Forest University and editor of their monthly journal publication, in edition to being a guiding instructor to sadhakas, or spiritual seekers”. Amidst these doubts, he remembered a promise he made to his own Guru that upon completion of his studies he would go forth into the world as a missionary. His Guru told him that the opportunity to go abroad and teach those in poor health and unhappy state of mind was now. To ease his trepidations about such a travel to a different culture, His own Guru comforted him with these words “After your training here, your penances, fasting and your long pilgrimages, nothing will distract you. You will hold your head high like the hoary Himalayas themselves, among all the distractions of the cities of the West. Go forth, my son, since there are many who will want to listen to you.”

And thus He went. He was not at all prepared for the immense interest shown by the people who heard his talks. For the next 56 years he travelled between America and India, spreading his teachings at first on Hatha Yoga, and then offering courses in Meditation, Kundalini Yoga, Auyervedic healing principles, and all types of occult sciences. At the Age of 90 He was honored with a unique, special lifetime achievement award by the Kanpur Bar Association for His life's work in America as the Divine messenger of the liberating spiritual Truths. He is a Self-Realized Great Master, and as such He is in constant God-consciousness. Although He has departed this Earth, through Maha Samadhi on May 6, 2011, He continues His ministry to the world and to America in particular, through the teachings of His senior disciples.