Swami Shraddhananda, who was head of the Vedanta Society of Sacramento from 1964 until his passing in 1996 was born in East Bengal in 1907. While a teenager, he organized a group to study Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda and to sing devotional songs. Both of these disciplines, philosophy and music were to remain lifelong interests of the Swami. From 1925-1937 he spent most of his time at The Calcutta Students' Home, first as a student and later as a monk and worker. On Buddha Purnima day in 1930, at the age of 23, Swami Shraddhananda joined the Ramakrishna Order and spent the first seven years under the close guidance of Revered Swami Shivananda. In 1937 he was sent to Mysore to study at the famed Mysore Study Circle. In 1939 he received Sannyasa from Swami Virajanandaji whom he served as private secretary for the next twelve years. At this point he became the editor of Udhodhan magazine, the Bengali-language journal of the Ramakrishna Order. In 1957 revered Swami Shraddhanandaji was sent to the United States to serve as assistant minister of the Vedanta Society of Northern California under Swami Ashokananda. He served as acting head of the Vedanta Society of Sacramento, and in 1970 when the center was made independent, he became the Swami in charge, a post he held until his passing in 1996.

During his long life, Swami Shraddhanandaji wrote many books in Bengali, including The Story of an Epoch which tells the story of the early years of the Ramakrishna Order and the life of Swami Virajanandaji, and many articles for journals in America, Europe and India.

Mantra yoga is the spiritual practice that unites the individual with God through the repitition of a mantra. A mantra is a holy name or a word formula signifying God with or without form and attribute.

After a spiritual aspirant has received spiritual instructions and a mantra from a teacher, the aspirant has to repeat the mantra day after day with unfaltering faith, patience, and perserverance. Japa may be practiced with the the fingers or with a rosary or mentally.

As love for japa increases, the quality of the mantra's sound undergoes a change. The mantra then no longer comes from the tongue or throat but is felt to be originating from the depths of the heart.

With continued practice, the sound of the mantra increasingly assumes subtler forms. Coming from the depths of the heart, the mantra begins to flow through the bloodstream, pervading the entire body. The heartbeat seems to become one with the sound of the mantra. The movement of the mantra goes to other areas such as breathing, nerve action and muscular activity. All of these activities are expressions of spontaneous japa. Japa begins to be unceasingly repeated in every part of the body, and then japa becomes a total unifying process which involves the whole physical body.