Swami Kripalvananda, also known as Kripalu, was born in 1913 in Gujarat, India, into a traditional Hindu family of modest means. From early childhood he was immersed in a conservative religious environment in which temple worship, devotional singing, and reverence for scripture and saints formed the fabric of daily life. This setting cultivated in him a natural orientation toward bhakti, or devotional love of the Divine, and a deep respect for renunciants and holy persons. His given name in youth is recorded as Dada, and he was sometimes referred to as Dadaji or Dada Maharaj before he became widely known as Kripalvananda.

His formal education appears to have been basic and traditional, yet his real passion lay not in academic or worldly pursuits but in spiritual practice. As a youth he was drawn to solitude, prayer, and contemplation rather than social life or conventional ambitions. Stories of saints and yogis, whether heard orally or encountered through religious literature, stirred in him a powerful aspiration for God‑realization. Over time, this inner pull led him to seek out holy places and spiritual practitioners, gradually loosening his ties to ordinary household life.

As he moved from adolescence into early adulthood, his inclination toward renunciation became more pronounced. He increasingly distanced himself from the typical goals of family, career, and social status, orienting himself instead toward a celibate and ascetic way of life. This moral rigor and devotional intensity prepared the ground for the more demanding disciplines that would come later. One can see in this phase of his life a kind of inner apprenticeship, in which character, devotion, and will were being refined in advance of formal initiation.

A decisive turning point came with his meeting a highly advanced yogi, remembered as Swami Gandhianand, who became his guru. Under this teacher’s guidance, he was initiated into a path of intense yogic sādhanā that took the form of what he later presented as a Shaktipat‑based Kriya Yoga. The devotional and ethically disciplined upbringing of his earlier years enabled him to endure long periods of silence, strict celibacy, and solitary meditation. Through this convergence of early devotional formation and later rigorous practice, he emerged as a deeply disciplined yogi and a recognized master within the Kriya Yoga tradition.