Rammurti S. Mishra, M.D. (also known as Ramamurti S. Mishra and Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati) had an extensive background in Eastern and Western medicine. In 1955, after years of practicing and teaching medicine and surgery in his native India, he came to the West for further research and advanced medical studies. In the years that followed, he served as a resident physician at leading university hospitals in the United States and Canada. In 1958, he founded the Yoga Society of New York. Ananda Ashram, which he founded in1964 in Monroe, New York.

His life was unique and brilliant, a life of great and tireless service and enormous accomplishment. He was a medical doctor, neurosurgeon, psychiatrist and professor of medicine. Shri Brahmananda was a gifted teacher and lecturer, a recognized authority on Yoga, Sanskrit and Vedanta. He is the author of "Fundamentals of Yoga", "The Textbook of Yoga Psychology" and "Self Analysis and Self-Knowledge", a translation and commentary on Shri Shankaracharya's Atma-Bodha.