Tag: mystic

Baba Fariduddin was a 12th century Sufi preacher and saint of the Chishti Order of South Asia.

Farid is generally recognized as the first major poet of the Punjabi language and is considered one of the pivotal saints of the Punjab region. Revered by Muslims and Hindus, he is also considered one of the fifteen Sikh Bhagats within Sikhism and his works form part of the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh sacred scripture.

He was born in 1188 or 1173 CE (584 Hijri) at Kothewal village, 10 km from Multan in the Punjab region of Pakistan, to Jamal-ud-din Suleiman and Maryam Bibi (Qarsum Bibi), daughter of Sheikh Wajih-ud-din Khojendi . He was a descendant of Farrukh Shah Kabuli, the King of Afghanistan.

He was the grandson of Shaykh Shoaib who was the grandson of Farrukh Shah Kabuli, the king of Kabul and Ghazni. When Farrukh Shah Kabuli was killed by the Mongol hordes invading Kabul, Farid’s grandfather Shaykh Shoaib left Afghanistan and settled in the Punjab in 1125.

Farid’s genealogy is summarized below:

1. Umar Bin Khattab, second Caliph
2. Abdullah Bin Umar
3. Nasir
4. Sulaiman
5. Adham, King of Balkh and Bukhara
6. Ibrahim Bin Adham aka Abou Ben Adham
7. Ishaq
8. Abul Fatah
9. Abdullah Waa'iz Kobra
10. Abdullah Waa'iz Soghra
11. Masood
12. Sulaiman
13. Ishaq
14. Mohammad
15. Naseeruddin
16. Farrukh Shah Kabuli, King of Afghanistan
17. Shahabuddin Kabuli
18. Mohammed
19. Yousuf
20. Ahmed, died fighting Hulagu Khan
21. Shoaib
22. Jamaluddin Sulaiman
23. Baba Fareed

Baba Farid received his early education at Multan, which had become a centre for education; it was here that he met his master murshid, Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki, a noted Sufi saint, who was passing through Multan, from Bagdad on way to Delhi. Upon completing his education, Farid left for Sistan, and Kandahar and went to Mecca for the Hajj pilgrimage aged 16.

Once his education was over, he shifted to Delhi, where he learned the doctrine of his Master, Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki. He later moved to Hansi, Haryana.When Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki died in 1235, Farid left Hansi, and assumed the role of spiritual successor of his Master, though he settled not in Delhi but in Ajodhan (the present Pakpattan, Pakistan). On his way to Ajodhan and passing through Faridkot, he met the 20-year old, Nizamuddin Auliya, who went on to become his disciple, and later his successor (khalifa).

Baba Farid married Hazabara, daughter of Sultan Nasiruddin Mahmud. He died on 5th of Muharram , Tuesday, 7 May 1266 CE (679 Hijri) during Namaz. His darbar is in Dera Pindi, and his name is Khawaja Shaikh Muhammad Paak Ghareeb Nawaz. His epitpah reads, "There is only one Fareed, though many spring forth from the bud of the flower".

His descendants, also known as Fareedi, Fareedies and Faridy, mostly carry the name Farooqi, can be found in India, Pakistan and the Diaspora.

Legacy

One of Farid’s most important contributions to Punjabi literature is his development of the language for literary purposes. Whereas Sanskrit, Arabic, Turkish and Persian had historically been considered the languages of the learning, the elite and in monastic centers, Punjabi was generally considered a lesser refined folk language. Although earlier poets had written in a primitive Punjabi, there was little beyond Punjabi literature besides the range of traditional and anonymous ballads. By using Punjabi as the language of poetry, Farid laid the basis for a vernacular Punjabi literature that would be developed later.

Amongst, famous people who visited his shrine over the centuries, are famous scholar-explorer, Ibn Battuta, who visited in 1334, and Founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak Dev, who met then head of the shrine, Sheikh Ibrahim, twice, and his meeting lead to the incorporation of 122 verses, and four poems of Baba Farid, in Sikh Holy Book, Guru Granth Sahib, by the fifth Sikh Guru, Arjan Dev in 1604 .

The city of Faridkot bears his namesake. According to legend, Farid stopped by the city, then named ‘Mokhalpur’, and did penance for 40 days, near the fort of King ‘Mokhal’. The king was said to be so impressed by his presence that he named the city, after Baba Farid, which today is known as ‘Tilla Baba Farid’. The festival ‘Baba Sheikh Farid Aagman Purb Mela’ is celebrated in September, each year, commemorating his arrival in the city . Ajodhan was also renamed as Farid's ‘Pak Pattan’, meaning Pure City, which in time became its present name , though some sources suggest, it comes from its another meaning, 'Holy Ferry' .

'Faridia Islamic University', at Sahiwal, Pakistan is named after him, and in July 1998, the Punjab Government in India, established the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences at Faridkot, the city which itself was named after him .

According to a legend, it was his mother, who inspired young Farid towards prayer, by placing Shakar (sugar) under his prayer mat, and when she didn't, Farid found the sugar nevertheless, this episode gave him an unmistakable spiritual fervour and later the name, Ganj-i-Shakar, meaning 'Treasure of Sweetness' (Shakar) . Shaikh Shoaib was nephew of Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi.

Swami Lakshman Joo Raina was a mystic and scholar of Kashmir Shaivism or Trika. He was known as Lal Sahib (friend of God) by followers, who considered him a fully realized saint.

He was born into a Rajanaka Kashmiri Pandit family, the third son of father Narain Dass Raina (Nao Naran) and mother Srimati Arni Mal. He had three brothers and three sisters, including brothers Pt. Maheshwar Nath Raina, Pt. Sarwanand Raina, and Pt. Neel Kanth Raina. His great grandfather Pandit Bhawani Prasad Razdan (Bhoon Razdan) was an accomplished scholar of Persian language and culture. Cousins include Diwan Anand Kumar (Vice Chancellor of Undivided Punjab University) and also Tapishwar Narain Raina, Chief of Indian Army staff and High Commissioner to Canada. His father pioneered the construction of the first Kashmiri Houseboats to meet the needs of European visitors who could not acquire immovable property.

His parents were ardent devotees of priest and guru Swami Ram. Followers believe he was blessed before birth, when Swami Ram gave a single almond to Swamiji's mother to eat and Lakshmanjoo was born nine months later. He was named after the Ramayana epic, a reference to the brothers Ram and Lakshman, by Swami Ram who said at his birth "I am Ram; let the child be called Lakshman".

It is said that as a child he showed signs of spirituality and would become easily absorbed in his own nature from the age of three. Too young to find the appropriate yogic expression, the child described this state as "badhi bhod" which in Kashmiri means "greater than the greatest".

Up to the age of seven his spiritual progress was watched closely by Swami Ram, the family guru. When Swami Ram died he was entrusted to his disciple, Swami Matabakak.

At the age of sixteen Swami Matabakak initiated the young Lakshman Joo into the practical aspects of Kashmir Shaivism and told him that with regular practice he could experience the reality of consciousness within six months. Followers believe he approached his practice with such zeal that he had his first taste of God Consciousness within a month, at the age of sixteen. After that glimpse of the Divine he took a vow of lifelong celibacy and dedication to the realization of the highest state of God Consciousness.

In 1934, when he was twenty seven, his father built an Ashram at the foot hills of Ishbher/Gupta Ganga (Nishat). He began teaching Shaiva Sutras to his disciples there, the chief among them being Sushree Sharika Devi d/o Pt. Jialal Sopory who in later years was considered by followers to also be a saint.

During the next three decades Lakshmanjoo immersed himself in Kashmir Shaiva philosophy. He believed intellectual understanding needed to be tested with personal experience. By 1965 he had acclaim as a lineage holder of the oral tradition of Kashmir Shaivism and until his death he received a regular stream of visitors from India and abroad. He was well known then in Kashmir. He gave teachings to people of any race or religion or economic situation and did not require recompense.

The following notable authors came to study with Lakshmanjoo: Paul Reps, Lillian Silburn, Andre Padoux, Thakur Jaideva Singh, Rameshwara Jha, Prof. Alexis Sanderson, Dr. Mark Dyczkowski, Pandit Jankinath Kaul, John Hughes, Dr. Bettina Baumer,.

Abu Hāmed Mohammad ibn Mohammad al-Ghazzālī, known as Algazel to the western medieval world, born and died in Tus, in the Khorasan province of Persia (modern day Iran) was a Persian Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic.

Ghazali has sometimes been referred to by historians as the single most influential Muslim after the Prophet Muhammad. Besides his work that successfully changed the course of Islamic philosophy—the early Islamic Neoplatonism developed on the grounds of Hellenistic philosophy, for example, was so successfully refuted by Ghazali that it never recovered—he also brought the orthodox Islam of his time in close contact with Sufism. The orthodox theologians still went their own way, and so did the mystics, but both developed a sense of mutual appreciation which ensured that no sweeping condemnation could be made by one for the practices of the other.

Al-Ghazali was born in 1058 in Tus, a city in Khorasan province of Persia. His father, a traditional sufi, died when he and his younger brother, Ahmad Ghazali, were still young. One of their father's friends took care of them for the next few years. Later in 1070, Ghazali and his brother went to Gurgan to get enrolled in a madrassah. There, he studied fiqh (islamic jurisprudence) next to Ahmad ibn Muhammad Rādkānī and Abu'l Qāsim Jurjānī. Approximately after 7 years of studying, he returned to Tus.

His first important trip to Nishapur occurred around 1080 when he was almost 23 years old. He became the student of the famous muslim scholar Abu'l Ma'ālī Juwaynī, known as Imam al-Haramayn. After the death of Al-Juwayni in 1085, Al-Ghazālī was invited to go to the court of Nizamul Mulk Tusi, the powerful vizier of the Seljuq sultans. The vizier was so impressed by Al-Ghazali's scholarship that in 1091 he appointed him as chief professor in the Nizamiyya of Baghdad. He used to lecture to more than 300 students, and his participations in Islamic debates and discussions made him popular in all over the Islamic territories.

He passed through a spiritual crisis in 1095 and abandoned his career and left Baghdad on the pretext of going on pilgrimage to Mecca. Making arrangements for his family, he disposed of his wealth and adopted the life of a poor Sufi. After some time in Damascus and Jerusalem, with a visit to Medina and Mecca in 1096, he settled in Tus to spend the next several years in seclusion. He ended his seclusion for a short lecturing period at the Nizamiyyah of Nishapur in 1106. Later he returned to Tus where he remained until his death in December, 1111. He had one son named Abdu'l Rahman Allam.

Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki (Urdu: قطب الدین بختیار کاکی) was a renowned Muslim Sufi mystic, saint and scholar in the Chishti Order from Delhi, India. He was the disciple and khalifa (spiritual successor) of Moinuddin Chishti as head of the Chishti Order.

His most famous disciple and spiritual successor was Baba Farid, who in turn became the spiritual master of Delhi's noted Sufi saint, Nizamuddin Auliya, who himself was the Master of Amir Khusro and Nasiruddin Chirag-e-Delhi.

Left of the Ajmere Gate of the dargah, lies Moti Masjid, a small mosque for private prayer built by Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah I (r. 1707-1712) in 1709, an imitation of the much larger, Moti Masjid, built by his father, Aurangzeb inside the Red Fort of Delhi .

Biography

Khwaja Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki was born in 569 A.H. (1173 C.E.) in a town called Aush or Awash in Mawaraun Nahr (Transoxania)[2]. According to his biography mentioned in, Ain-i-Akbari , written by Akbar’s vizier, Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak, he was the son of Kamalu'ddin Musa, whom he lost at a young age, and came from Ush, a small town in Farghana (present Fergana Province in eastern Uzbekistan, part of historic Transoxania)

Khwaja Qutbuddin's original name was Bakhtiyar and later on he was given the title Qutbuddin. The name Kaki was attributed to him by virtue of a keramat(miracle) that emanated from him at a later stage of his life in Delhi . He also belonged to the direct lineage of the Prophet Muhammad, descending from Hussain ibn Ali. Khawaja Bakhtiyar Khaki was one and half years old when his father died . His mother arranged for his education.

When Khawaja Moinuddin Chishti went to Isfahan, before his demise, he took oath of allegiance at his hands and received the khilafat and Khirqah from him. Thus, he was the first spiritual successor of Moinuddin Chishti. Thereafter, his spiritual master asked him to go to India and stay there.

"He had no parallel in abandoning the world and suffering poverty and hunger. He kept himself engrossed in the dhikr. Whenever someone came to him he would come back to his senses after a while and was then able to talk with him. After a very brief exchange he would show his inability to continue any longer and slipped into the same state of absorption once again."

He died on the 14th of Rabi-ul-Awwal 633 A.H. (27 November 1235 CE) . The dargah (shrine) of Qutbuddin Bakhityar Kaki today, lies near Qutub Minar, in Mehrauli, Delhi.

Phoolwalon-ki-sair Festival

The Dargah shrine of Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki has also been the venue of the annual Phoolwalon-ki-sair Festival (Festival of flower-sellers) in autumn, which has now become an important inter-faith festivals of Delhi .

The festival has its origins in 1812, when Queen Mumtaz Mahal, wife of Mughal Emperor Akbar Shah II (r. 1806-1837) made a vow to offer a chadar and flower pankha at the Dargah and a pankha at the Yogmaya Mandir, also at Mehrauli, if her son Mirza Jehangir, who after inviting the wrath of Sir Archibald Seton, the then British Resident of the Red Fort, was exiled to Allahabad, returned safely. And as the legend goes he did, and so began the tradition henceforth .

Incidentally, Akbar Shah II is now buried in nearby a marble enclosure, along with other Mughals, Bahadur Shah I (also known as Shah Alam I) and Shah Alam II [1]. An empty grave also known as Sardgah of the last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, can also be found here, as he had willed to be buried next the famous shrine, as did his previous Mughal predecessors, though unfortunately after his exile to Rangoon in Burma, he never returned and died there, talks of bringing back his remains here have been raised in the past, from time to time .

Titles given to Qutbuddin Bakhityar Kaki

* Qutub-ul-Aqtaab
* Malik-ul-Mashaa'ikh
* Rais-us-Saalikin
* Siraj-ul-Auliya

Further reading

Kutbu'ddin Bakhtyar Kaki Ain-e-Akbari by Abul Fazl, English translation, by H. Blochmann and Colonel H. S. Jarrett, 1873 – 1907. The Asiatic Society of Bengal, Calcutta; Volume III, Saints of India. (Awliyá-i-Hind), Page 363.

Rudolf Freiherr von Sebottendorff (or von Sebottendorf) was the alias of Adam Alfred Rudolf Glauer (November 9, 1875 – May 8, 1945), who also occasionally used another alias, Erwin Torre. He was an important figure in the activities of the Thule Society, a post-World War I German occultist organization that influenced many members of the NSDAP. He was a Freemason and a practitioner of sufi meditation, astrology, numerology, and alchemy

Early life

Glauer was born in Hoyerswerda (located northeast of Dresden in Saxony, Germany), the son of a locomotive driver (or locomotive engineer) from Silesia. He appears to have worked as a technician in Egypt between 1897-1900, although according to his own account he spent less than a month there in 1900 after a short career as a merchant seaman. In July of that year he travelled to Turkey, where he settled in 1901 and worked as an engineer on a large estate there.

By 1905 he had returned to Dresden where he married Klara Voss, but the couple divorced in 1907. The Münchener Post (14 March 1923) reported that he was sentenced as a swindler and forger in 1909, which Goodrick-Clarke (1985: 251) insists is a misprint for 1908.

He became an Ottoman citizen in 1911 and was apparently adopted (under Turkish law) by the expatriate Baron Heinrich von Sebottendorff shortly thereafter. The adoption was later repeated in Germany and its legal validity has been questioned, but it was endorsed by the Sebottendorff family (Goodrick-Clarke 1985: 140-41) and on this basis he asserted his claim to the Sebottendorff name and to the title of Freiherr.

After fighting on the Ottoman-Turkish side in the First Balkan War, Sebottendorff returned to Germany with a Turkish passport in 1913. He was exempted from military service during the First World War because of his Ottoman citizenship and because of a wound received during the First Balkan War.

Occult and mystical influences

Glauer was initially interested in Theosophy and Freemasonry. In 1901 he was initiated by a family of Greek-Jewish Freemasons into a lodge which is believed to have been affiliated to the French Rite of Memphis.

In Turkey, he became interested in numerology, kabbalah and Sufism (including secret mystical exercises still practised by Sufis of the Bektashi order). He may well have converted to Islam, although the evidence (from his own semi-autobiographical writings) is tenuous on this point. In his autobiographical novel Der Talisman des Rosenkreuzers (The Rosicrucian Talisman), Sebottendorff distinguishes between Sufi-influenced Turkish Masonry and conventional Masonry.

By about 1912 he became convinced that he had discovered what he called "the key to spiritual realization", described by a later historian as "a set of numerological meditation exercises that bear little resemblance to either Sufism or Masonry" (Sedgwick 2004: 66).
Involvement with the Thule Society

By 1916, Sebottendorff had attracted only one follower. In that year, however, he came into contact with the Germanenorden, and was subsequently appointed the Ordensmeister (local group leader) for the Bavaria division of the schismatic Germanenorden Walvater of the Holy Grail. Settling in Munich, he established the Thule Society, which became increasingly political, and in 1918 established a political party, the German Workers' Party. This party was joined in 1919 by Adolf Hitler, who transformed it into the National Socialist German Workers' Party or Nazi Party.

By then, however, Sebottendorff had left the Thule Society and Bavaria, having been accused of negligence in allegedly allowing the names of several key Thule Society members to fall into the hands of the government of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic, resulting in the execution of seven members after the attack on the Munich government in April 1919, an accusation that he never denied. Sebottendorff fled Germany for Switzerland and then Turkey.

Later life

After leaving Germany, Sebottendorff published Die Praxis der alten türkischen Freimauerei: Der Schlüssel zum Verständnis der Alchimie ("The practice of ancient Turkish Freemasonry: The key to the understanding of alchemy"), and then, in 1925, Der Talisman des Rosenkreuzers, a semi-autobiographical novel which is the main source for his earlier life (see: "Rosicrucians").

He returned to Germany in January 1933, and published Bevor Hitler kam: Urkundlich aus der Frühzeit der Nationalsozialistischen Bewegung (Before Hitler Came: Documents from the Early Days of the National Socialist Movement), dealing with the Thule Society and the DAP. Hitler himself understandably disliked this book, which was banned. Sebottendorff was arrested, but somehow escaped (presumably due to some friendship from his Munich days) and in 1934 returned to Turkey. At one point he was trapped in an elevator for two days and resorted to drinking his own urine before being found.

Sebottendorff was an agent of the German military intelligence in Istanbul during the period 1942–1945, while apparently also working as a double agent for the British military. His German handler, Herbert Rittlinger, later described him as a "useless" agent (eine Null), but kept him on largely, it seems, because of an affection for "this strange, by then penniless man, whose history he did not know, who pretended enthusiasm for the Nazi cause and admiration for the SS but who in reality seemed little interested in either, much preferring to talk about Tibetans"
.

Sebottendorff is generally thought to have committed suicide by jumping into the Bosphorus on May 8, 1945.

There is an urban legend in Turkey which claims Sebottendorff and Şefik Hüsnü were actually the same people, but this claim has no backing.

Ab'ul Hasan Yamīn al-Dīn Khusrow (Persian: ابوالحسن یمین‌الدین خسرو; Hindi: अबुल हसन यमीनुद्दीन ख़ुसरो) (1253-1325 CE), better known as Amīr Khusrow Dehlawī (امیر خسرو دہلوی; अमीर ख़ुसरो दहलवी), was an Indian musician, scholar and poet of Persian descent. He was an iconic figure in the cultural history of the Indian subcontinent. A Sufi mystic and a spiritual disciple of Nizamuddin Auliya of Delhi, Amīr Khusrow was not only a notable poet but also a prolific and seminal musician. He wrote poetry primarily in Persian, but also in Hindavi.

He is regarded as the "father of qawwali" (the devotional music of the Indian Sufis). He is also credited with enriching Hindustani classical music by introducing Persian and Arabic elements in it, and was the originator of the khayal and tarana styles of music.The invention of the tabla is also traditionally attributed to Amīr Khusrow. Amir Khusrau used only 11 metrical schemes with 35 distinct divisions. He has written Ghazal, Masnavi, Qata, Rubai, Do-Beti and Tarkibhand.

A musician and a scholar, Amīr Khusrow was as prolific in tender lyrics as in highly involved prose and could easily emulate all styles of Persian poetry which had developed in medieval Persia, from Khāqānī's forceful qasidas to Nezāmī's khamsa. His contribution to the development of the ghazal, hitherto little used in India, is particularly significant.

Early life and background

Amīr Khusrow was born in Patiali near Etah in northern India. His father, Amīr Sayf ud-Dīn Mahmūd, was a Turkic officer and a member of the Lachin tribe of Transoxania, themselves belonging to the Kara-Khitais. His mother was the daughter of Rawat Arz, the famous war minister of Balban, a king of the Mamluk dynasty (Slave dynasty) (1246-87) who belonged to the Rajput tribes of Uttar Pradesh.
Career

Major life events in chronological order

1. 1253 Khusro was born in Badaun near Etah in what is today the state of Uttar Pradesh in northern India. His father Amir Saifuddin came from Balkh in modern day Afghanistan and his mother hailed from Delhi.
2. 1260 After the death of his father, Khusro went to Delhi with his mother.
3. 1271 Khusro compiled his first divan of poetry, "Tuhfatus-Sighr".
4. 1272 Khusro got his first job as court poet with King Balban's nephew Malik Chhajju.
5. 1276 Khusro started working as a poet with Bughra Khan (Balban's son).
6. 1279 While writing his second divan, Wastul-Hayat, Khusrau visited Bengal.
7. 1281 Employed by Sultan Mohammad (Balban's second son) and went to Multan with him.
8. 1285 Khusro participated as a soldier in the war against the invading Mongols. He was taken prisoner, but escaped.
9. 1287 Khusro went to Awadh with Ameer Ali Hatim (another patron).
10. 1288 His first mathnavi, "Qiranus-Sa'dain" was completed.
11. 1290 When Jalal ud din Firuz Khilji came to power, Khusro's second mathnavi, "Miftahul Futooh" was ready.
12. 1294 His third divan "Ghurratul-Kamal" was complete.
13. 1295 Ala ud din Khilji (sometimes spelled "Khalji") came to power and invaded Devagiri and Gujarat.
14. 1298 Khusro completed his "Khamsa-e-Nizami".
15. 1301 Khilji attacked Ranthambhor, Chittor, Malwa and other places, and Khusro remained with the king in order to write chronicles.
16. 1310 Khusro became close to Nizamuddin Auliya, and completed Khazain-ul-Futuh.
17. 1315 Alauddin Khilji died. Khusro completed the mathnavi "Duval Rani-Khizr Khan" (a romantic poem).
18. 1316 Qutb ud din Mubarak Shah became the king, and the fourth historical mathnavi "Noh-Sepehr" was completed.
19. 1321 Mubarak Khilji (sometimes spelled "Mubarak Khalji") was murdered and Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq came to power. Khusro started to write the Tughluqnama.
20. 1325 Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq came to power. Nizamuddin Auliya died, and six months later so did Khusro. Khusro's tomb is next to that of his master in the Nizamuddin Dargah of Delhi.

Khusro the Royal poet

Khusro was a prolific classical poet associated with the royal courts of more than seven rulers of the Delhi Sultanate. He is popular in much of North India and Pakistan, because of many playful riddles, songs and legends attributed to him. Through his enormous literary output and the legendary folk personality, Khusro represents one of the first (recorded) Indian personages with a true multi-cultural or pluralistic identity.

He wrote in both Persian and Hindustani. He also spoke Arabic and Sanskrit. His poetry is still sung today at Sufi shrines throughout Pakistan and India.

Amir Khusro was the author of a Khamsa which emulated that of the earlier poet of Persian epics Nezami Ganjavi. His work was considered to be one of the great classics of Persian poetry during the Timurid period in Transoxiana.

Amir Khusro and the origins of the Sitar and the Tabla

Amir Khusro is credited with fashioning the tabla as a split version of the traditional Indian drum, the pakhawaj.

Popular lore also credits him with inventing the sitar, the Indian grand lute, but it is possible that the Amir Khusro associated with the sitar lived in the 18th century (he is said to be a descendant of the son-in-law of Tansen, the celebrated classical singer in the court of the Mughal Emperor Akbar). See Origin Of Sitar and About Sitars.

Maria Gemma Umberta Pia Galgani (March 12, 1878 – April 11, 1903) was an Italian mystic who is venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church.

Early life

Maria Gemma Umberta Pia Galgani (or Gemma Galgani as she became commonly known) was born on March 12, 1878 in the hamlet of Borgo Nuovo in the provincial town of Capannori. Gemma was born into the world as the fifth of eight children by Enrico Galgani, a prosperous pharmacist.

Soon after Gemma's birth the familiy relocated north from Borgo Nuovo to a large, new home in the Tuscan city of Lucca in a move which was undertaken to facilitate an improvement in the childrens education. Aurelia Galgani began to suffer from tuberculosis and so Gemma was placed into private nursery school which was run by Elena and Ersilia Vallini at two-and-a-half years of age and become noted for being a highly intelligent child.

The Galgani family suffered a large number of deaths. Their firstborn child, Carlo, died at an early age. On September 17, 1885, Aurelia Galgani succumbed to the tuberculosis from which she had suffered for five years. Gemma's beloved brother Gino, while studying for the priesthood, died from tuberculosis and her little sister Giulia also died at a young age.

Education

Gemma went on to study at Santa Zita. Gemma was not accepted by the Passionists to become a nun because of her poor health and visions. At age 20, Gemma developed spinal meningitis, but was miraculously healed, attributing her extraordinary cure to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the intercession of Saint Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows, and Saint Marguerite Marie Alacoque.

Gemma was orphaned shortly after she turned 18, making her responsible for the upbringing of her younger siblings, which she did with her aunt Carolina. She declined two marriage proposals and became a housekeeper with the Giannini family.

Stigmata

According to her biography, written by her spiritual director, Venerable Father Germanus Ruoppolo CP, Gemma began to display signs of the stigmata in 1899 at the age of twenty-one. She stated that she had spoken with her guardian angel, Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and other saints (especially Saint Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows, a Venerable at that time). According to her testimonies, she sometimes received special messages from them about current or upcoming events. With her health in decline, her spiritual director told her to pray for the disappearance of her stigmata; she did so and the marks ceased.

Public reception

Gemma was well-known in the vicinity of Lucca before her death, especially to those in poverty. Opinions of her were divided: some people admired her extraordinary virtues and referred to her as The Virgin of Lucca out of pious respect and admiration; others mocked her (including her younger sister, Angelina, who apparently used to make fun of Gemma during such experiences and during Gemma's canonization process was deemed as 'unfit' to testify due to accusations of attempting profit from Gemma's reputation), and in light of the extraordinary events surrounding her life, some skeptics thought that she had a mental illness. She was often treated with disdain by some church hierarchy; even her own confessor was at times skeptical of her mystical gifts. Her spiritual director, Venerable Father Germanus Ruoppolo, CP, was initially reserved, but after a thorough and prudent examination of the ongoing events surrounding her, he became completely convinced of the authenticity of her mystical life. After her death, he wrote a detailed biography of her life, and was responsible for gathering all her writings, including her diary, autobiography and letters.

Sainthood

In early 1903, Gemma was diagnosed with tuberculosis, and thus began a long and often painful death. There were numerous extraordinary mystical phenomena that occurred during her final illness. One of the religious nursing Sisters who attended to her stated "we have cared for a good many sick people, but we have never seen anything like this." At the beginning of Holy week, 1903, her health quickly deteriorated, and by Good Friday she was suffering tremendously. She died in a small room across from the Giannini house on Holy Saturday, April 11, 1903. After a thorough Church examination into her life, she was beatified in 1933 and canonized in 1940. Her relics are housed at the Passionist Monastery in Lucca, Italy.

As one of the most popular saints of the Passionist Order, the devotion to Gemma Galgani is particularly strong in Italy and Latin America. She is a patron saint of students (said to be top of her class before having to leave school) and of pharmacists.

Max Heindel - born Carl Louis von Grasshoff in Aarhus, Denmark on July 23, 1865 - was a Christian occultist, astrologer, and mystic. He died on January 6, 1919 at Oceanside, California, United States.

Early infancy

He was born of the royal family of Von Grasshoffs, who were connected with the German Court during the lifetime of Prince Bismark. The father of Max Heindel, Francois L. von Grasshoff, migrated, when quite a young man, to Copenhagen, Denmark, where he married a Danish woman of noble birth. They had two sons and one daughter. The oldest of these sons was Carl Louis Von Grasshoff, who later adopted the pen name of Max Heindel. The father died when the eldest son was six years of age, leaving the mother with her three small children in very straitened circumstances. His infancy was lived in genteel poverty. His mother's self-denial was carried to an extreme in order that the small income would suffice that her sons and daughter could have private tutors so that they might take their place in society as members of nobility.

Life experience

At the age of sixteen years, refusing a foreseeable future among the nobility class, he left home to enter the ship-yards at Glasgow, Scotland in order to learn the engineering profession. He was soon chosen as Chief Engineer of a trading steamer, position which took him in trips all over the world and gave him a great deal of knowledge of the world and its people. For a number of years he was Chief Engineer on one of the large passenger steamers of the Cunard Line plying between America and Europe. From 1895 to 1901, he was an ill luck consulting engineer in New York City and during this time he married, the marriage being terminated by the death of his wife in 1905. A son and two daughters were born of this marriage.

In 1903, Max Heindel moved to Los Angeles, California, in order to look for a job. Meanwhile, due to his earlier years that had been full of sorrow and to sad events in his own life, an increasingly intense desire to understand the cause of the sorrows and sufferings of humanity began to grow within him, as well as a desire to help alleviate them. Giving a new course to his life, he became interested in the study of metaphysics and, after attending lectures by the theosophist C.W. Leadbeater, he joined the Theosophical Society of Los Angeles, of which he was vice-president in 1904 and 1905. He also became a vegetarian and began the study of astrology, which he found to his delight gave him the key by means of which he found he could unlock the mysteries of man's inner nature. At this time, he met Augusta Foss who was also interested along similar lines of research and in astrology; she would become his future wife. However, overwork and privation brought on him a severe heart trouble in 1905 and for months he lay at the point of death but upon recovery he was even more keenly awake to the needs of humanity. It is said that much of the time during this illness he spent out of the body, consciously working and seeking for the truth as he might find it on the invisible planes.

From 1906 to 1907 he started a lecture tour, in order to spread his occult knowledge, in San Francisco and then in Seattle and in the northern part of the country. After a course of lectures in that city he was again forced to spend some time in a hospital with valvular heart trouble. Still undaunted, he once more took up his work of lecturing in the northwestern part of the United States.

In the fall of 1907, during a most successful period of lectures in Minnesota, he travelled to Berlin (Germany) with his friend Dr. Alma Von Brandis, who had been for months trying to persuade him, in order to hear a cycle of lectures by a teacher in the occult field called Rudolf Steiner. During his short stay at Germany, he developed a sincere admiration of the personality of this knowledgeable lecturer, as latter shown in the dedication of his magnum opus ("esteemed teacher and value friend"). He sat in on several lectures and had one or two interviews with Steiner and he could learn about occult truth from the founder of later Anthroposophy, but at the same time he understood that this teacher had little to give to him. It was then, with his mind already made up to return, feeling that in vain he had given up a big work in America to take this trip, that Heindel reports to have been visited by a Spiritual being (clothed in his vital body).

The highly evolved entity that visited Heindel eventually identified himself as an Elder Brother of the Rosicrucian Order, an Order in the inner worlds formed in the year 1313 and having no direct connection to physical organizations which call themselves by this name. As he afterwards mentions, the Elder Brother gave him information which was concise and logical and beyond anything he was capable of writing. Later, he found out that during a previous visit of the Elder Brother, he was put to a test to determine his worthiness to be messenger of the Western Wisdom Teachings. He recounts that only then he was given instruction how to reach the etheric Temple of the Rose Cross, near the German/Bohemian border, and how at this Temple he was in direct communication with and under the personal instructions of the Elder Brothers of the Rose Cross. The Rosicrucian Order is described as being composed of twelve Elder Brothers, gathered around a thirteenth who is the invisible Head. These great Adepts, belonging to human evolution but having already advanced far beyond the cycle of rebirth, are reported as being among those exalted Beings who guide mankind's evolution, the Compassionate Ones.

Heindel-Steiner connection

Current research on the connection between the two seers Max Heindel and Rudolf Steiner, bearing some similarities to the Shakespeare-Bacon authorship in the literary field, describes that "he[Heindel] felt that what Steiner was doing was not appropriate for America where pragmatism and clear linear thinking is predominant" and "that he did not find what he was looking for there (a Western oriented spirituality that was accessible to the general public)".It is also described that Heindel's magnum opus [see following section] having a "more far-reaching body of Teachings" contains "information not otherwise available in the public domain or available without supersensible perception of an advanced degree".This body of Teachings, Western Wisdom Teachings, was further developed in Heindel's subsequent investigations and works and it is not available in Steiner or any other source as it contains material and specific clairvoyant accounts "not be found elsewhere in any occult sources"; thus, it is concluded through the available sources that "The similarities are due to a common source to both men (Rosicrucian influences and teachers)".

Magnum opus

Heindel returned to America in the summer of 1908 where he at once started to formulate the Rosicrucian teachings, the Western Wisdom Teachings, which he had received from the Elder Brothers, published as a book entitled The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception in 1909. It is a reference work in the Christian mysticism practice and in the Occult study literature, containing the fundamentals of Esoteric Christianity from a Rosicrucian perspective. The Cosmo contains a comprehensive outline of the evolutionary processes of man and the universe, correlating science with religion.

From 1909 to 1919, suffering a severe heart condition and with an adverse financial situation, but with an indomitable will and great energy, Max Heindel was able to accomplish the great work for the Brothers of the Rose Cross. With the help, support and inspiration of his wife Augusta Foss, to whom in August 1910 he was joined in marriage, he gave successful teaching lectures; he sent correspondence lessons to the students, who formed groups in many of the larger cities; he wrote volumes which are translated into many languages all over the world; he founded The Rosicrucian Fellowship in 1909/11 at Mount Ecclesia, Oceanside (California); he published the Christian Esoteric magazine Rays from the Rose Cross in 1913 and, above all, he launched the Fellowship's Spiritual Healing service.

It is described that, at his death, his body dropped slowly as if loving hands were holding him and laying him down gently; as he looked up, smiling into Mrs. Heindel face, he spoke his last words: "I am all right dear".

Last, it is worthy of mention that the work prepared by Max Heindel, has been, since then, continued through students of the Western Wisdom Teachings who, as Invisible Helpers of mankind, assist the Elder Brothers of the Rose Cross to perform the Spiritual Healing around the world. This is the special work in which the Rosicrucian Order is interested[4] and is provided according to the commands of Christ, namely, "Preach the gospel and heal the sick."

William Quan Judge was a mystic, esotericist, and occultist, and one of the founders of the original Theosophical Society. He was born in Dublin, Ireland. When he was 13 years old, his family emigrated to the United States. He became a naturalized citizen of the USA at age 21 and passed the New York state bar exam, specializing in commercial law.
William Quan Judge

Although merely a young man, he was among the seventeen people who first put the Theosophical Society together. Like H.P. Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott, he stayed in the organization when others left. When Olcott and Blavatsky left the United States for India, Judge stayed behind to manage the Society's work, all the while working as a lawyer.

Judge wrote theosophical articles for various theosophical magazines, and also the introductory volume, The Ocean of Theosophy in 1893. He became the General Secretary of the American Section of the Theosophical Society in 1884, with Abner Doubleday as President.

After Blavatsky died in 1891, Judge became involved in a dispute with Olcott and Annie Besant over his allegedly forging letters from the Mahatmas. As a result, he ended his association with Olcott and Besant during 1895 and took most of the Society's American Section with him. He managed his new organization for about a year until his death in New York, whereupon Katherine Tingley became manager. The organization originating from the faction of Olcott and Besant is based nowadays in India and known as the Theosophical Society - Adyar, while the organization managed by Judge is known nowadays simply as the Theosophical Society, but often with the specification, "international headquarters, Pasadena, California." In 1898, Ernest Temple Hargrove, who had initially supported Tingley, left with other members to form the Theosophical Society in America (Hargrove) Branch. Other new organizations fissioned from his, including the Temple of the People (whose library bears his name) during 1898 and the United Lodge of Theosophists or ULT during 1909.

It is very difficult to write anything about the Great Saint Maniram Baba. “Yatra wacha nivartante buddhen manasa saha” One's mind, intelligence and the power of speech is impossible to reach to the stage where ‘Atmadnyani’ saints could be described.

Why all great saints would visit Maniram Baba’s place is a difficult to understand for we ordinary lay men. The great saint Shri Gajanan Maharaj of Shegaon, siddha purush of Jodmoha saint Khateshwar Maharaj and so many other saints visited Baggi to meet Maniram Maharaj. Baggi is the place in Chandur Railway Taluka in Amravati district of Maharashtra State. Sant Maniram Baba entered samadhi in the year 1915, however, nothing is known about his birth and the place. It was guessed by the people that he was Kanya Kubja Brahmin of Uttar Pradesh. Why he chose Baggi to be his place for living is unknown. He entered Baggi and asked for a room for living. One Ramji was enough fortunate that he could provide accommodation to Sant Maniram Maharaj. Ramji became ardent devotee of maharaj and he then became saint himself after the anugrah (reward) from maharaj.

After coming to Baggi he worked with a rich man as a servant keeping his cows. However, soon the rich man came to know that Maniram was not an ordinary man.

Once so happened that somebody reported to rich man that Maniram do not care for the cows and let them graze; he sits below a tree reading a holy book. Rich man got annoyed and caught Maniram red handed reading the book. He thrown the book in to nearby stream full of water.
Maniram rushed and brought the book from the river. Surprizingly there was not even a drop of water attached to book and the book was not wet at all. This opened the eyes of rich man and in place of employer, he became the devotee of maharaj.

Maniram would stay in the river water for days to gather without food. Many insects and fishes would literally eat his flesh but he was not aware. He look at the Sun from morning till evening without taking away eye from the Sun. Many people have found him many times in Khand Yoga, i.e. he looked to be divided into pieces. Many such yoga ordeals are described in the biography.
The present author has confirmed these fact from his own Guru who was contemporary.

People saw him at many places at the same time. He was a miraculous saint. He cured many people from the diseases like leprosy, he solved the family problems of many people. People saw him reviving the dead animals like dog.