Tag: Nisargadatta Maharaj

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.

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).

Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj was one of the head gurus of the Inchegeri Sampradaya founded by his guru Shri Bhauseheb Maharaj, which is a branch of the Navnath Sampradaya, the 'Nine Masters' tradition in India . He is most well known as being the Guru of Advaita Vedanta teachers Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and Sri Ranjit Maharaj.

Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj was born in 1888 in the village Pathri, Solapur, India. Since his childhood he was very intelligent and had very sharp imbibe abilities. He studied at a monastery being run by his guru 'Shri Bahausaheb Maharaj' in Hinchgiri in Karnataka India, whose goal was to educate people on "Final Reality" or "The Eternal Truth". He was one of the contemporaries of Sri Ramana Maharshi.

Siddharameshwar Maharaj was a master of meditation and has spent time understanding the nature and eternal reality in Bhagevadi, and Hinchgiri with his Guru and then in Sholapur and Bhagavadi after Bhausaheb Maharaj passed over. He began spreading the teachings to his disciples in Bhagevadi, Sholapur and Mumbai in the 1930s. At that time, he also expounded the 'Birds' way for Self realisation

Siddharameshwar Maharaj died on November 9, 1936 (Ekadashi in the later half Ashwin), at the age of 48, giving his understanding to his disciples. It is said that dozens of his disciples became self-realized through his clear and lucid teaching. His samadhi shrine today exists at Banganga, Walkeshwar in Mumbai .

Sri Ranjit Maharaj was with Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj for 12 years from the young age of 12 until the age of 24 , and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj was with him for a two and a half years, 1933-1936 .

One of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj's notable Western devotees was a California woman named Jean Dunn.

Dunn edited and printed 100 copies of a booklet by Maharaj himself (the only one originally written by his own hand) called "Self Knowledge and Self Realization". It's an early work, very different from I AM THAT and the later books, and can be found for free on the internet (see links section).

Dunn had spent time with Nisargadatta Maharaj before his death in 1981, and that association led her in 1978 to write an article about Maharaj's teaching for The Mountain Path, the journal of Sri Ramanasramam. It was an article that attracted the attention of the then recently retired Ramesh Balsekar, who subsequently read I AM THAT and sought out Maharaj's talks.

Although many of Nisargadatta's students transcribed and edited Maharaj's talks and a few wrote books about his satsang, it can be said that none are better than Jean Dunn's three. They were compiled from daily talks given by Maharaj at his Bombay apartment from 1979 onwards.

Jean Dunn was a chain smoker as was Maharaj and suffered from emphasema as a result. In about 1993, when flying to Los Angeles, the partially pressurized airplane trip nearly killed her.

She told friends stories about Maharaj and the games he played with her. Her world revolved around him as befits a true Bhakta. At times he would go out of his way to ignore her by sitting where she wouldn't be able to see him or turning his back on her, or any number of other things that gurus do to challenge the ego.

Jack Kornfield and Jean Dunn appear in a video about Maharaj called “Awaken to the Eternal”.

Nisargadatta Maharaj acknowledged Jeaמ's profound understanding of his teaching and told her she was to carry on his work for him. After he left the body in 1982, Jean lived the rest of her life making the teachings available from her home in Vacaville, California. Before she passed away, she appointed a student of hers, Ngeton, as her successor.

Kadsiddheshwar Maharaj was born on 23 April 1905 (Chaitra Sankashti day) in the Linganoor Village, Kolhapur district, Maharashtra state of India. His father's name was Shri Shaigauda Patil. He was named Jaigauda Patil.

He was formally adopted by the Twenthy-Fifth Virupaksha Kaadeshwar of the Kaneri Math, Lingayat Parampara and invested as the Twenty-Sixth Mathadheepati of the Siddhagiri Kaneri Math, Lingayat Parampara in the year 1922 at the age of 17 years.

He was a master in Yoga and was known to have mastered all the difficult asanas like the Kumbhak which he could maintain for 9 minutes.

It is said that he would mediate for over 10 hours a day and from the period from 1922 to 1935, He mastered all the aspects of the Hindu spiritual tradition and philosophy.

He met his philosophical and spiritual guru, Siddharameshwar Maharaj, in 1935 and was given a new outlook on the deep philosophical concepts.

It is believed that he attained self-realization or Gyan Drishti.

Kaadsiddheswar Maharaj was known for his extensive activities with the poor laborers and farmer classes.

He renovated the Kaneri Math and renamed it as Siddhagiri Math. He constructed a 42 feet tall idol of a meditating Shiva with an equally massive Nandi, he built halls, several hostels for devotees and started a school with hostel facility for poor underprivileged students in the Math campus. He had also started an Old-Age home there.

He also established several other Maths such as in Mumbai, Mahabaleshwar, Khopi-Pedambe, Amurteshwar-Satara and Pune.

Maurice Frydman was an engineer, humanitarian and a close associate to notable spiritual teachers when he spent the later part of his life in India.

He was a Polish Jew who subsequently converted to Hinduism.

He became a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi, lived in his ashram, and took an active part in India's fight for independence. He was also very close to Nehru.

He was associated with the great spiritual teachers Sri Ramana Maharshi and J. Krishnamurti and a longtime friend to the famous Advaita guru, Nisargadatta Maharaj, who considered him a Jnani. He edited and translated Nisargadatta Maharaj's tape-recorded conversations into the English-language book "I Am That", published in 1973. Nisargadatta Maharaj was by his bedside when he died in 1976 in India.

According to David Godman, Nisargadatta Maharaj, in response to the question "'In all the years that you have been teaching how many people have truly understood and experienced your teachings?" replied: "One. Maurice Frydman".

Using his engineering skills, he made the spinning wheel that Gandhi himself used. Frydman created several new types of spinning wheels for Gandhi, which piqued his interest in finding the most efficient and economical spinning wheel for India.

He took an active part in India's fight for independence —notably in helping to draft a new constitution for the State of Aundh that became the Aundh Experiment.

Frydman came to India in the late 1930s as a Jewish refugee from Warsaw. A successful capitalist, he was managing director of the Mysore State Government Electrical Factory in Bangalore. Eventually he was won over by Hindu philosophy and became a sannyasi. Frydman was instrumental, along with Gandhi and the Raja of Aundh, in helping to draft the November Declaration, which handed over rule of the state of Aundh from the Raja to the residents in 1938-9.

He visited Swami Ramdas in the 1930s and Ramdas apparently told him that this would be his final birth. That comment was recorded in Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi in the late 1930s, decades before he had his meetings with Nisargadatta Maharaj. He was at various stages of his life a follower of Ramana Maharshi, Gandhi, and J. Krishnamurti.

A senior Indian government official told David Godman in the 1960s that it was Frydman who persuaded the then India Prime Minister Nehru to allow the Dalai Lama and the other exiled Tibetans to stay in India. Frydman apparently pestered him continuously for months until he finally gave his consent. None of these activities were ever publicly acknowledged because Frydman disliked publicity of any kind and always tried to do his work anonymously.

He was born on his family farm on Saturday 21 July 1928. His family was not religious in any way and had no interest in anything spiritual.

His early years coincided with the Great Depression. These years were difficult for the family as they had gone through the hardship of severe floods and lost their farm. They had been in the process of selling the property when the government declared that all loans be frozen. The contract of sale had been signed and was legally binding, however settlement had not taken place and subsequently the money owing was never paid to his family.

Bob didn’t take easily to classroom learning, which was all the more difficult as he was naturally lefthanded but was made to write with his right hand – a usual practice then. He was self-conscious about his handwriting and school learning became increasingly hard for him. Given Bob’s sensitive nature, his astute eye for detail and his natural intelligence, there must have been an underlying frustration at not being able to put his interior landscape into words.

In 1940 when Bob was twelve, he and his family left the Beaconsfield farm and moved to Melbourne.

In Melbourne in 1943 at 15 years of age, Bob was taken to a pub one Friday night by two slightly older boys who worked with him. Bob said that he had three drinks and he world changed for him. Later, when he tried to recapture that euphoric state, he was unable to, because he would always drink past it. This world of drinking that opened for him at this formative stage of his life would in the following seventeen years become one of darkness and despair and would almost destroy him. The precious years of his young adulthood became a blur and the social skills necessary for life had little opportunity to develop and flourish.

With the Second World War underway, Bob, like other young men, was eager to sign up for military service. His father Robert, having fought at Gallipoli in the First World War, would not give permission for his son to join up. As one of the last stand of men who held on firing while the remaining group escaped to the Gallipoli mainland, he knew only too well what war entailed. So Bob had to wait until his seventeenth birthday to apply. Four months later, in November 1945, Bob was accepted into the Navy and he became a sailor (the reason behind the "Sailor" in his name). The war had just ended but Bob was contracted for a full twelve-year term and was immediately sent off to Japan.

Bob lasted about two and a half years of his term before being discharged. The charge for his expulsion was that he was a chronic alcoholic with anxiety neurosis. He was only nineteen years old and it had been a damaging experience. His hearing was also permanently impaired as a result of gun practice.

After leaving the Navy, Bob worked on a farm in the Western District of Victoria.

He then began an extensive spiritual search, especially together with his wife Barabara. This search included a long connections with Muktananda and long visits to India. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and ultimately his guru Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Bob's search ended one day in 1976 when he was in the presence of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Ramakant Maharaj, nee Ramakant Sawant, was born in 1941 in the village of Phondaghat, Gadagesakhal Wadi, Sindhudurga District, Maharashtra, India.

During the years 1962 - 1981 he was a disciple of Nisargadatta Maharaj and was with his master until Maharaj's death in 1981. On October 2nd, 1962, he took Naam Mantra from Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Until his passing, he was the last Indian disciple of Nisargadatta who was known to be giving teachings in satsang. He spoke good English and his teachings were simple and direct and were given free of charge to anyone interested. Satsangs consisting of questions and answers were given most days when he was in Nashik. The Advaita teachings were delivered with clarity and force. They were a living expression of the wisdom of non-duality delivered within the Inchegiri Navnath Sampradaya line of teachings, understandings and practice.

He lived in Jagtap Mala, Nisargadatta Nagar, Nashik Road, Nashik, Maharashtra, where his ashram called "Ranjit Ashram" is located. This ashram was named in remembrance of Ranjit Maharaj who was a close friend of Ramakant Maharaj and a frequent visitor to the ashram. Besides Ramakant Maharaj's devotees, the local devotees of Nisargadatta Maharaj and Ranjit Maharaj would continue to attend the ashram. Nisargadatta Maharaj would occasionally visit his disciples in the area, before the ashram was built 20 years ago. Nisargadatta Maharaj has said that one day this corner, known as Nisargadatta Nagar, would be very busy with seekers from all over.

Ngeton, pronounced Nay-tone, was given her name by His Holiness the 16th Karmapa. Ngeton means “Original Mind”.

Ngeton was graced to meet many masters of various traditions from whom she received initiations, teachings, and practices.

In 1991, she met her final teacher and beloved guru Jean Dunn who was a disciple of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. Nisargadatta was a member of the spiritual lineage of the Navnath Sampradaya.

The Nath lineage is said to date back to the legendary Avadhut Dattatreya and only came to be known as the Navnath (meaning ‘nine-masters’) when in the remote past 9 masters were chosen by followers as exemplars of their sect. The word sampradaya means an established teaching propagated from master to disciple. Though the Navnath lineage is tantric, in recent times the Inchgiri branch which came through Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj's guru, Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj, has been popularized as Advaita Vedanta. Many offshoots and sub-sects of the Naths have arisen spontaneously in service to Awakening.

Though the style and methods of Navnath gurus vary, the teachings are simple and direct. Historically, teachers traveled on foot from village to village propagating the teachings until they were no longer able to. If one or more disciples were ready, they would be asked to “carry on the teachings”.

In 1980 Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj told Jean Dunn to carry on the teachings. Prior to this, at his request, she edited and published his talks in the books Seeds of Consciousness, Prior to Consciousness, and Consciousness and the Absolute. In 1995, Jean Dunn designated Ngeton to carry on the teachings.

In the free and spontaneous way of the Naths, Ngeton utilizes any teaching or method necessary for liberation.