yoga. Among those who attended courses at the Bihar School of Yoga were students from abroad and students who subsequently emigrated from India. Some of these people in turn invited Satyananda to teach in their own countries. He lectured and taught for the next twenty years, including a tour of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, North America between April and October 1968. The foreign and expatriate students also established new centres of teaching in their respective countries. Rikhiapeeth In 1988 Satyananda handed over the active work of his ashram and organisation to his spiritual successor, Niranjanananda Saraswati, and left Munger. In September 1989 he moved to Rikhia, Deoghar, Jharkhand. There he lived as a paramahamsa sannyasin and performed vedic sadhanas including Panchagni ("Five fires"), an intense spiritual practice performed outdoors surrounded by four fires under the Indian sun. It was during the Panchagni sadhana that he claimed to have received the divine mandate "Take care of your neighbours as I have taken care of you". There too, he conducted a 12-year Rajasooya Yajna which began in 1995 with the first Sat Chandi Maha Yajna, invoking the Cosmic Mother through a tantric ceremony. During this event, Satyananda passed on his spiritual and sannyasa responsibilities to Niranjanananda. During his stay in Rikhia, he undertook the task of constructing homes for the homeless, and established the Rikhiapeeth ashram. Its activities are based on the three cardinal teachings of Sri Swami Sivananda – serve, love and give through the activities of Sivananda Math, which provides free medical care and basic amenities to the people of Rikhia and the neighbouring villages, and supplies methods for the villagers to develop their own livelihood, thus enabling the development of a self-sustained society. He entered into the state of Mahasamadhi, i.e leaving the body at will on 5 December2009 Teachings Swami Satyananda's teachings are based on the yoga teachings of Swami Sivananda. They emphasize an integral approach known as the Satyananda System of Yoga. They present yoga as a lifestyle to enhance the quality of life, including one's daily activities, interactions, thoughts and emotions, rather than reducing it to a practice or philosophy. This integral system combines six main branches of yoga. Hatha, Raja and Kriya Yoga are referred to as the external yogas, as they focus on improving the quality of body and mind, the expression of the senses and behavior. They aim at reconditioning and