Bhagawan Nityananda was from the southern part of India, in Kerala state. He was an Avadhut, a person born in the state of enlightenment. From his early years he became widely known as a divine being with sacred healing powers, and it is said that he was always immersed in the state of unity consciousness. His name means "bliss of the eternal,"
Details of his early life are difficult to verify, but from the 1920s until his passing, he was surrounded by an ever-increasing number of disciples and devotees.
Nityananda's mother abandoned him as an infant. He was found by a woman who worked as a maid for a lawyer called Ishwar Iyer. Upon the woman's death Mr. Iyer adopted Nityananda (then known as Ram). Even in childhood, Nityananda seemed to be in an unusually advanced spiritual state, which gave rise to the belief that he was born enlightened. He was eventually given the name Nityananda: "always in bliss".
Before the age of twenty, Nityananda became a wandering yogi, spending time on yogic studies and practices in the Himalayas and other places. By 1920 he was back in southern India, where he had a fleeting encounter with a boy who would later become Swami Muktananda.
As an adult in the late 1930s, he migrated to Maharashtra state, settling in what was at the time a tiny jungle village with natural hot springs known as Ganeshpuri, a place where sages had done spiritual practices for generations. Seekers came from far and wide to have his darshan, to be in his powerful presence, receiving his blessings and making offerings of gratitude.
For most of his life he maintained silence, speaking only briefly on occasion. He was a renunciate with few possessions, usually wearing just a loincloth. The village of Ganeshpuri grew larger after his arrival, and subsequently he established an ashram and hospital in the village.
Nityananda never explicitly identified himself with a particular spiritual practice or tradition.
Bhagawan Nityananda left his body on August 8, 1961.
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and Bhagawan Avadhut Nityananda
The connection between Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and Bhagawan Avadhut Nityananda goes back to the 1950’s, and was relayed to Stephen Wolinsky twice, first by a brother disciple of Nisargadatta Maharaj, Alexander Smit. In a conversation with Maharaj, Smit asked him, “Did you ever meet Nityananda?.” Maharaj replied, “Yes”. Smit asked, “What did you think of him.” Maharaj replied, “Not a day goes by that I don’t think of him.”
The second connection between Bhagwan Avadhut Nityananda and Nisargadatta Maharaj revealed itself, when S. K. Mullarpattan, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj’s primary translator in the years 1976-1981, told Stephen Wolinsky that Bhagawan Avadhut Nityananda, as a young man used to stay with Mullarpattan’s family quite often, and that Mullarpattan used to go and see Baghawan Nityananda frequently in Ganespuri, and that he still does his mantra japa, (repetition). More interestingly, both Nisargadatta Maharaj and Bhagwan Avadhut Nityananda gave the same mantra diksa (initiation), and taught the same unique way of repeating the mantra (japa).
