[5][6] 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 monastic name of Swami Chidvilasananda, or bliss of the play of consciousness.
[10] A different version of the events was reported later, that there had been a battle for succession,[4][11][12] in which Gurumayi "denounced and deposed" her brother "for allegedly participating in antinomian sexual rituals".
Pechilis writes that Gurumayi's purity is highlighted to show that she continues the guru tradition, and that she is a suitably pure person to be the spiritual leader of the organization.
Pechilis comments that while purity may have been an implicit credential for her predecessor gurus, one point of view is that it became "explicit and greatly emphasized during the succession dispute and is now a primary lens"[15] for understanding Gurumayi's spiritual path.
[18] In the 1980s and 1990s, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda gave lectures and conducted Siddha Yoga Shaktipat Intensives in India, United States, Europe, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, and Mexico.
[25] The mission of Muktabodha, based on Gurumayi’s original intention for the organization in 1997, is "to preserve endangered texts from the religious and philosophical traditions of classical India and make them accessible for study and scholarship worldwide.
"[27] Celebrities including Meg Ryan, Melanie Griffith, Isabella Rossellini, Diana Ross, Lisa Kudrow, and Lulu publicly became devotees and frequented the South Fallsburg ashram.
[30] The titles of her autobiographical books such as Ashes at My Guru's Feet and Growing up with Baba emphasize the importance of lineage in Siddha Yoga, placing her as the third of its spiritual masters.
[4] In 2020, in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic, Gurumayi started appearing in frequent live video satsangs streamed on the Siddha Yoga website.
[31] The scholar of religion Andrea Jain states that Gurumayi has adopted "a strategy of denial" that presents Muktananda as essentially perfect, in order to maintain the Siddha Yoga mission.
[13] The scholar Karen Pechilis notes that female celibacy has caused conflict within the families of gurus such as Ammachi and Gauri Ma, but that it is not reported as an issue in biographies of Chidvilasananda.
[36] Sharing her shaktipat experience, Gurumayi wrote: "At one point during the pattābhisheka, the ceremony during which Baba Muktananda passed on to me the power of his lineage, he whispered So’ham [I am He] and Aham Brahmāsmi [I am of Brahman] in my ear.