Gurumayi Chidvilasananda (or Gurumayi or Swami Chidvilasananda), born Malti Shetty on 24 June 1955, is the guru or spiritual head of the Siddha Yoga path, with ashrams in India at Ganeshpuri and the Western world, with the headquarters of the SYDA foundation in South Fallsburg, New York. Gurumayi received spiritual initiation (shaktipat) from her guru, Swami Muktananda, when she was 14, at which time he designated her and her brother Swami Nityananda as his successors. She became a renunciate (sanyassin) in 1982. Muktananda died later that year and she and her brother jointly became the heads of Siddha Yoga. They proceeded to expand the South Fallsburg ashram to accommodate large numbers of devotees. In 1985 Nityananda left the Siddha Yoga path. She has authored several devotional books, starting with the 1989 Kindle My Heart. Life and career Early life Gurumayi Chidvilasananda was born near Mangalore, India on 24 June 1955. She was called Malti as a child and was the eldest of three children to a Mumbai couple who were devotees of Muktananda in the 1950s. Her parents took her to the Gurudev Siddha Peeth ashram at Ganeshpuri for the first time when she was five years old. During her childhood, her parents brought her, her sister, and two brothers to the ashram on weekends. She received spiritual initiation (shaktipat) from Muktananda at age fourteen and moved to the ashram as a formal disciple and yoga student. At age twenty, Swami Muktananda made her his official English language translator and she accompanied him on his second and third world tours. Succession On 3 May 1982, Gurumayi was initiated as a sannyasin into the Saraswati order of monks, taking vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience, and acquiring the title and monastic name of Swami Chidvilasananda, (and later, Gurumayi; the two names being Sanskrit for "immersed in the Guru" and "bliss of the play of consciousness"). At this time Swami Muktananda formally designated her as one of his successors, along with her younger brother Subhash Shetty, whose monastic name was Swami Nityananda. Swami Muktananda died in October 1982, after which Gurumayi and Nityananda became joint spiritual heads of the Siddha Yoga path. Nityananda left the Siddha Yoga path in 1985; according to his 1986 interview in Hinduism Today, he left by his own choice, admitting to having sex with several devotees, deciding to cease to be a Siddha Yoga sannyasi but wishing