today is November 9th, that is the day when 17 years ago Swami Vishnu-Devananda attended mahaSamadhi and left this earth life.

it is said that one who is enlightened [as many also refered to as the state of Nirvana] you can in your sadhana [spiritual practice] choose to leave your body and when your spirit leaves the physical body dies, this is called MahaSamadhi, consiously leaving the body in Samadhi.
so Samadhi you can attain many times, it is the last step in the wellknown Ashtanga [8 limbs] of RajaYoga in the scripture YogaSutras.
but mahaSamadhi can only be done once.

so when it is time to leave a great master takes mahaSamadhi to go on in his life circle/ samsara until sometime when he can go inte Moksha wich is the liberation of rebirth. [I would say that this is actually what is called Nirvana].

Swami Vishnu-Devananda was a close disciple to the great Swami Sivananda, "Swami Vishnu" was the one starting the yoga school/tradition that we now call Sivananda Yoga wich is one of the biggest schools, especially in India and also around the world but not to much here in northern Europe.
He was often called the flying Yogi as he flew a plane over troubled places and places of war and let out flowers and notes with peace mantra "Om Namo Narayanaya" since he was deeply wooried about the state of the world.

today there is over 20.000 individuals who has attanded the teacher training of Sivananda Yoga, and their TTC is known for giving a wide yogic knowledge, and most of their courses are done aswell at their ashrams around the world wich gives a chance to understand easier the path of not being in need of all materalistic things..
sleep on simple beds, cold showers, sitting on the floor eating with your right hand, selflessly helping others in KarmaYoga, spiritual practice in a place made for this with a lot of positive energy etc

so today we give a extra thankfull thougth to Swamiji for spreading the knowledge to west since he already 1957 was sent over here to spread his knowledge by his Guru Swami Sivananda.

Om Namo Narayanaya