Tag: Advaita

Radha Ma was born in Hyderabad and later moved to Bangalore where she got married and according to some accounts may have been working in accounting (some even claim that she was a chartered accountant).

At some point, she decided to renounce the worldly life. For some time she conducted a life of a female sadhu, sleeping in the streets while moving from Bangalore to the area of Tiruvannamalai in Tamil Nadu, the city of Ramana Maharshi, at the foot of the sacred Arunachala Hill, where she remained until her death.

Soon, devotees began to be attracted to her and urged her to move from the streets to a house that was rented for her. Her husband himself became one of her devotees.

Radha Ma lived during her recent years in a house together with a very few selected three sannyasins, one of them her husband. The house is located off the Pradakshina road on the Northwest side of the Arunachala Hill near the Sparsa resort.

She has also purchased a land on the south edge of Lake Samudra and was planning to build there five cottages for devotees and a large prayer / meditation hall but the plan has never been materialized.

She used to claim that she was born in that "state" that she is in, and has always been in it. In the same way, she sometimes denied it as, for example, in her facebook post a few weeks before her death.

Until 2009, Radha Ma used to give occasional satsangs at Sri Kannappa Temple on the Prodakshana road during the season (late September-March). In 2010 Radha gave no public satsangs. In 2011 she gave one last satsang in January 25.

In early Ocober 2009, Radha Ma conveyed a special message phrased as a poem to be published exclusively on GurusFeet.com. Later, she personally responded to users' comments there.

Over the years, rumors as well as testimonies by past devotees spread that Radha Ma has been occasionally involved with black magic (Sidhis).

On the night of March 5, 2011, Radha Ma poured kerosene onto herself and set herself on fire in her residence in what seems to be an act of self immolation. She was rushed to a hospital by her sannyasins with 90% burns and died there the day after at 15:15 on March 6, 2011.

Her body was not cremated since she was a sannyasin. She was interred into a samadhi on March 7, 2011, at her residence.

The tragic act came after some controversial cases she was presumably involved in that had taken place the months before.

Sri Ramana Maharshi was born on December 30, 1879 in a village called Tiruchuli about 30 miles south of Madurai in Tamil Nadu in South India. His middle-class parents named him Venkataraman. His father died when he was twelve, and he went to live with his uncle in Madurai, where he attended the American Mission High School.

At age 16, he became spontaneously self-realized following what looks like a near-death experience. Six weeks later he ran away to the holy hill of Arunachala in Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu. He lived on and subsequently near Arunachala for the rest of his life, never leaving the place physically.

For several years he stopped talking and spent days in samadhi. When he began speaking again, people came to ask him questions, and he soon acquired a reputation as a sage. In 1907, when he was 28, one of his early devotees named him Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi, Divine Eminent Ramana the Great Seer.

With the years, he became world-famous and an ashram was built for him to which many westerners used to come.

He died of cancer in 1950 at the age of 70.

Mooji was born on 29 January 1954 in Port Antonio, Jamaica. In 1969, he moved to the UK and he is presently living in Brixton, London.

Mooji is a direct disciple of Papaji, the renowned advaita master.

For a long time, he was well known as Tony Moo, but is now affectionately known as Mooji (Moo - his original family name, ji - a suffix in hindi expressing respect and affection).

Early Years

After moving to the UK and settling in London, Mooji worked in London's 'West end' as a street portrait artist for many years, then as a painter and a stained glass artist, and later as a teacher at Brixton College.

It appears that at some point, Mooji got married and had several children. His eldest son died of pneumonia in 1994.

Radical Shift in Consciousness

In 1987, a meeting, by chance, with a Christian mystic was to be a life-changing encounter for Mooji. It brought him, through prayer, into the direct experience of the Divine within. Within a short time, he experienced a radical shift in consciousness so profound that outwardly, he seemed, to many who knew him, to be an entirely different person. As his spiritual consciousness awakened, a deep inner transformation began which unfolded in the form of many miraculous experiences and mystical insights. He felt a strong wind of change blowing through his life which brought with it a deep urge to surrender completely to divine will. Shortly after, he stopped teaching at the Brixton College, left his home and began a life of quiet simplicity and surrender. A great peace entered his being, and has remained ever since.

Living in a State of Spontaneous Meditation

For the following six years, Mooji drifted in a state of spontaneous meditation oblivious to the outer world he formally knew. During these years, he lived almost penniless but was constantly absorbed in inner joy, contentment and natural meditation. Grace came in the form of his sister Julianne, who welcomed Mooji into her home.

Meeting Papaji

In late 1993, Mooji travelled to India and soon after arrival went in November to Lucknow to meet Papaji. It was to be an auspicious and profoundly significant experience on his spiritual journey. He gradually came to recognize that Papaji was his Guru. Mooji stayed with Papaji for several months. During one particular satsang meeting, Papaji told him: “If you desire to be one with truth, 'you' must completely disappear.” On hearing this, great anger arose within his mind, full of judgement and resistance towards Papaji. He decided to leave the master's presence for good, but later that day a huge dark cloud of anger and rebelliousness suddenly lifted, leaving his mind in a state of such peace, emptiness and a love towards the master, so intense, that he knew he could not leave. Through 'Papaji's' grace, his mind was pushed back into the emptiness of source.

In 1994, with his Master's blessings he travelled down to Sri Ramanasramam in Tiruvannamalai. This is the ashram at the foot of Arunachala, the 'Hill of Fire', where Sri Ramana Maharshi, the Sage of Arunachala and Papaji's Guru, had lived and taught. Mooji felt very happy and at home in Tiruvannamalai. He stayed there for almost three months before returning to sit at Papaji's feet once again.

Mooji visited Papaji again in 1997. It was to be his last meeting with his Beloved Master, who had by now become ill and frail in his movements, but whose inner light and presence remained undiminished. A month after returning to London, Mooji received news that the Master had passed away. Of this Mooji declares: "That Principle that manifests as the Master is ever HERE NOW. The True Master never dies, it is the mister that dies. The true Master, that Sat Guru* within, alone is the Real".

Becoming a Spiritual Teacher

Since 1999, Mooji has been sharing satsang in the form of spontaneous encounters, retreats, satsang intensives and one-to-one meetings with the many seekers who visit him, from all parts of the world, in search of the direct experience of truth.

His style is direct, clear, compassionate and often humorous. Once caught in the grip of his questions, there seems to be no place to hide.

Nisargadatta Maharaj was a petty uneducated shopkeeper and a realized teacher who lived and taught in a small apartment in the slums of Bombay. Following the publication of the English translation of the book 'I Am That' which contained the transcripts of his early talks, many spiritual seekers from all around the world traveled the globe and sought him out in his unpretentious home to hear his talks and seek his guidance. He is considered as one of the most prominent Non-duality teachers in recent centuries.

Early life

Sri Nisargadatta was born on April 17, 1897, at break of dawn, the full moon in the month of Chaitra, to Shivrampant Kambli and Parvatibai, in Bombay. The day was also the birthday of Lord Hanuman, hence the boy was named 'Maruti', after Lord Hanuman himself. Maruti Shivrampant Kambli was brought up in Kandalgaon, a small village in the Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra, where he grew up amidst his family of six silblings, two brothers and four sisters, and deeply religious parents. His father, Shivrampant, worked as a domestic servant in Mumbai and later became a petty farmer in Kandalgaon.

In 1915, after his father passed away, he moved to Bombay, to support his family back home, following his elder brother. Initially he worked as a junior clerk at an office, but quickly opened a small goods store, mainly selling bidis – leaf-rolled cigarettes, and soon owned a string of eight retail shops.

In 1924 he married Sumatibai and they had three daughters and a son.

Awakening

In 1933, he was introduced to his guru, Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj, the head of the Inchegeri branch of the Navnath Sampradaya by his friend Yashwantrao Baagkar. His guru told him, "You are not what you take yourself to be...". He then gave Nisargdatta simple instructions, which he followed verbatim, as he himself recounted later:

My Guru ordered me to attend to the sense 'I am' and to give attention to nothing else. I just obeyed. I did not follow any particular course of breathing, or meditation, or study of scriptures. Whatever happened, I would turn away my attention from it and remain with the sense 'I am'. It may look too simple, even crude. My only reason for doing it was that my Guru told me so. Yet it worked!

-- I Am That, Chapter 75, p. 375.

Following his guru's instructions of concentrate on the feeling "I Am", he utilized all his spare time looking at himself in silence, and remained in that state, for the coming years, practicing meditation and singing devotional bhajans.

After an association that lasted hardly two and a half years, Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj, his guru, died on November 9, 1936, though by that time he had done his task, Maruti had reached self-awareness. Soon he adopted a new name, 'Nisargadatta' meaning 'the one who dwells in the natural state'.

In 1937, he left Mumbai and travelled across India. Though realizing the shortcomings of a totally unworldly life and the greater spiritual fruitfulness of dispassionate action, he eventually returned to his family in Mumbai in 1938. It was there that he spent the rest of his life, working as a bidi vendor at his nearby shop, and giving teachings at his home.

Later years

Between, 1942-1948, he suferred two personal losses, first the death of his wife, Sumatibai, followed by the death of his daughter. He started taking disciples in 1951, only after a personal revelation from his Guru Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj.

Sri Nisargadatta continued to live the life of an ordinary Indian working-man together with conducting daily meetings with seekers discussing his teaching. The meetings of the early years are documented in his master-work "I Am That" . Devotees traveled from all over the world to hear Nisargadatta's unique message until his death. Maharaj left his body in 1981 after suffering from throat cancer.

Thuli Baba is an impressive traditional guru.

His manner of speaking is more like a quiet song - melodic and fast. Though he looks stern, when he smiles, it's a radiant and contagious smile that there is no doubt about what he says. And he almost always smiles.

He doesn't speak English but his words are translated to English simultaneously.

He was born in Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu and was instructed spiritually on the path of Advaita by his father, Vadivel Swamigal.

He lives with his devotees and gives satsangs in his Anbin Kudil ashram at Komboor village near Nerinji Pettai.

Adyashanti was born in 1962 in Cupertino, California. His given name is Stephen Gray.

At the age of nineteen, he came across the idea of enlightenment in a book, and it ignited a desire to experience that ineffable state. He built a hut in his parents’ backyard and practiced meditation there with all the vigor of a competitive athlete, training under the guidance of Zen teacher Arvis Joen Justi. When he was twenty-five, he experienced an awakening, which he describes as “a realization of the underlying connectedness and oneness of all beings.”

For the next eight years he continued to meditate — though he says that all sense of effort and anxiety vanished — and work in his father’s machine shop. In 1996 Justi encouraged Gray to start teaching on his own. He gave his first talks in his aunt’s spare room above a garage to just a handful of students. Sometimes no one would show up. Over a few years the small gatherings grew, until there were hundreds of students in attendance each week. During this time Gray took the name “Adyashanti,” Sanskrit for “primordial peace.”

These days Adyashanti gives talks and weekend “intensives.” He also leads five-night silent retreats, which have become so popular that registration now takes place by random lottery. The nonprofit organization Open Gate Sangha supports his work and sells his books and recordings of his talks.

Adyashanti is married and lives with his wife in the Bay Area, not far from his childhood home.

Papaji was born in Gujranwalla, in western Punjab, which is now Pakistan. His mother was the sister of Swami Rama Tirtha, one of the most famous saints of India.

Childhood

At the age of eight, he experienced a state of intense happiness, joy and bliss and could not talk nor communicate for days. This, he realized later on, was the experience of the SELF. He was persuaded by his mother that he could reconnect to this experience by practicing devotion to the Hindu God Krishna, and so he gave himself over to Krishna Bhakti (devotion) with vigor. He proved to be a prodigy of sorts and while still a boy he began to have visions of Krishna, so strong that he could physically touch him. This is known in the Vaisnava tradition as receiving the "Darsana" of God. Playfully interacting with His visions of Krishna while simultaneously experiencing the bliss of spiritual union, e spent his youth in intimate relationship with Krishna as His Friend.

Adulthood

As an adult he led an apparently normal life, married, raised two children and even joined the British army, while secretly His love for Krishna (and His visions of Him) continued. Pursuing the life of a devotee he was not satisfied with having sporadic visions and was deeply troubled when Krishna did not appear. He became obsessed with a longing to have the experience of seeing God all the time, and traveled throughout India asking sages if they could show Him god.

Meeting Ramana Maharshi

After all his attempts had failed, he returned to his family in Lyalpur. A sadhu appeared at the door soon after that, and Poonjaji invited him in and asked him the question he had asked swamis throughout the country: "Can you show me God? If not, do you know of anyone who can?" To his surprise, the sadhu told him that there was a person, Ramana Maharshi, who could show him God. Further, the sadhu provided detailed instructions on how to find this Ramana Maharshi at Tiruvannamalai in southern India. At the soonest opportunity, Poonjaji traveled to Tiruvannamalai to meet the sage Ramana Maharshi. It was 1944, and Poonjaji was thirty-one years old. In His first visit with Ramana, Papaji told Him that he could could no longer bring his mind to think of God, do japa or any other spiritual practice. Deeply concerned, he asked Ramana for help and was told that this was not a problem, that all his practice had carried him to this moment and it could be left behind now because it had served its purpose. On hearing this and bathing in the silent gaze of his guru, Poonjaji felt his body purified and remade atom by atom, totally transforming him as if he were being given a new body one atom at a time and he saw inside His heart, the Spiritual heart and inside that a bud, opening, the flowering of His Spiritual heart. However, this was not enough to convince Papaji that Ramana could "show Him god'. So Poonja went to the Adiannamalai side of the mountain and spent His time playing with his Krishna.

Realization

At the end of the period with Ramana Maharshi, When Papaji came to say goodby to Ramana before leaving to return to Madras, Ramana pointed him in the direction of his own Self. He pointed out that gods who appear and then disappear are not continuous, only the One who was aware of those gods was continuous. He encouraged Poonjaji to find the One who had seen the Visions of God because that One ( Consciousness ) does not come and go. He told Poonjaji to find out who the seer is. Poonjaji had a deeply profound experience when he heard this, and under Ramana's gaze he suddenly understood what he was and always already had been. He became aware of the SELF, and that he, Poonjaji, was the same Self as Ramana.

After his transformation he stayed in southern India until 1947, when during the partition of India, despite Poonjaji's fierce longing to stay with His master, Ramana sent him to his old home in the Punjab (then in the new country of Pakistan) to bring His family to the safety of Lucknow, India. Ramana's last words to Him were: “I am with you wherever you go.”

In the following years, Poonjaji worked to earn money to support his family, while seeing devotees and traveling as his jobs required.

A Teacher

In 1966 he retired and went again back to Lucknow, Having married off His children, Poonjaji was free to travel. He traveled throughout India, Europe and the Americas, teaching meditation, opening schools for children and giving Satsang. By the late 1980's, with His health causing Him to stay in Lucknow more, the "Westerners" found Him It was from His home and then His daughter-in-law's house where he gave Satsang, to an increasingly growing number of "seekers" from around the world, until a hall was built, Satsang Bhawan, to hold the 200-300 seekers daily who attended Poonjaji's Satsangs. Papaji gave Satsang up to the minute of His leaving His body. He took Mahasamadhi on September 6, 1997.

Cesar Teruel was born in Venezuela to a wealthy family in 1969 and was profoundly interested in spirituality since childhood.

He had been leading a regular life that included working in the family business in Venezuela and having a wife and children when in 1998 he felt that he must persue his spiritual enquiry and decided to leave his wife and children and embark on a spiritual trip to India. There he met Sathya Sai Baba who sent him to Ramanaashramam - the Ashram of Ramana Maharshi in Tiruvannamalai. According to his account, there, in front of the statue of Ramana Maharshi, he experienced a deep and spontaneous shift in consciousness.

A few months later, returning to the ashram of Sathya Sai Baba, Caesar met Sri Ratan Lal, a devotee of Sathya Sai Baba, and decided to stay with him and follow him as his teacher.

Sri Ratan Lal became his mentor and during this period with him, Sri Ratan Lal used to test and work on Cesar's ego and pride. As for example, he used to call him "stupid" and instruct him to rub his feets for hours.

According to Cesar, Sri Ratan Lal guided him to regain the same experience that he had in Ramana Maharshi Ashram through the question "Who am I?" or Self Enquiry. He says that after that his old sense of self based on identity with the body and the mind or personality vanished and he established his Self in his true nature, Consciousness.

He says that since then his sense of individuality gradually melted away until its ultimate extinction.

Since July 2005, after his teacher passed away, following his teacher’s request, Cesar has been conducting public Satsang six days a week in south India, both in Puttaparthy and Tiruvannamalai. He also travells to Europe and conducts satsangs there, mainly in East Europe.

In his satsangs, he shares his experience and knowledge with other seekers of truth, helping them to realize their true Self.

Cesar does not charge for attending his satsangs but strictly lives on donations only.

He does not belong to any religion and is not associated with any spiritual organization.

Ramesh S. Balsekar worked as the General Manager of a leading nationalized Bank and retired as its President in 1977. Soon after his retirement he met the well-known sage, and his Guru, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. The total understanding that 'no one does anything' happened in 1979. Ramesh began translating most of the daily talks held by Nisargadatta Maharaj at this time. He himself began teaching in 1982. The 'command' to talk was given by his Guru. These talks or 'conversations' began on the day when an Australian man showed up at his door early one morning. The next day, this Australian returned with a few of his friends. Gradually, the number of visitors who came to listen to Ramesh began to grow. Since then, he wrote over 20 books and held several seminars in Europe and the USA and, while he was alive, the talks continued every morning at his residence. As Ramesh used to say, "No one is invited, and everyone is welcome."

Ramesh, was married and a father of three children, and was widely regarded as a 'householder' Guru. He elaborated his own concepts with those of his Guru Nisargadatta Maharaj, the Buddha, Ramana Maharshi, select Hindu scriptures as well as the teachings of Taoist Masters and Wei Wui Wei. All serve as pointers to the Truth - The Ultimate Understanding.

Ramesh S. Balsekar left his body on September 27 2009, after a brief illness.

Stephen H. Wolinsky, PhD is one of the few direct living disciples of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj living in the United States.

Wolinsky is a founder of Quantum Psychology, integrating Western Psychology, Advaita-Vedanta’s Non-duality, Quantum Physics, Neuro-Science, and Buddhism. In 2002, he founded Post-deconstruction, a scientific approach beyond Postmodernism. He is the author of fourteen books, audio tapes and a DVD series, I Am That I Am.

Wolinsky presently resides in Aptos, California.

Stephen, has a PhD. in Clinical Psychology and began his psychotherapy practice in 1974. From 1975 to 1985 he met over thirty different Gurus, Teachers, Rinpoches, and Meditation Masters. In January 1977, he journeyed to India to study meditation, and remained there for almost six years. Stephen continued traveling back to India for months at a time, over the next four years. In the mid-1980’s he went to Nepal to study three of the six Yogas of Naropa . Later he realized the identical nature of the teachings of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, and Madhyamika, (Middle Way) Buddhism Founder, Nagarjuna, and his Eight Negations.

His Spiritual Journey

In the mid 1970’s, Avadhut Bhagawan Nityananda appeared to Stephen as he spontaneously entered Samadhi. Upon receiving initiation (shaktipat diksa) Bhagawan Nityananda, became his Initiation Guru. A few months later he met Swami Muktananda, a disciple of Nityananda who told him “come to India”. In January 1979, after living in India for two years and studying I AM THAT, he met his Teacher (Acharya) Guru Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Stephen says it was Bhagawan Avadhut Nityananda that guided him to Nisargadatta Maharaj, and that it was Sri Ramana Maharshi that acted as a portal or doorway to Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. Nisargadatta told Stephen to visit Ramana’s Ashram in Tiruvanamalai, which he did in 1983.

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 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 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).