Navajyotisree Guru, the Founder of Santhigiri Ashram was born on 1st September, 1927, at Chandirur, Alapuzha district in Kerala. The birth of Guru was marked by incidents associated with divine births. After His birth, Guru became aware of a unique spiritual experience. There was certain ‘Radiance’ inside Him until the age of nine, which He identified as that of Sri Krishna. He was only a child of 14 years when He left home in search of spiritual realization. He led the life of an ascetic in the Ashram founded by Sri Narayana Guru, the well known spiritual and social reformer of Kerala who said ‘One Caste, One Religion and One God for humanity’.
During His search for truth, Navajyotisree Karunakara Guru met Khureshia Fakir, a Sufi sage, who lived near Beema Masjid at Thiruvananthapuram. The ancestors of Khureshia Fakir belonged to Pathan tribe of Afghanistan, hence he was also known as Pattani Swami. This Sufi master was instrumental in awakening rare mystical experiences present in Guru. After few years’ association with Khureshia Fakir, Guru established Santhigiri Ashram near Pothencode. In the year 1973, after a series of spiritual experiences and fulfillments, Guru’s supreme spiritual status and extra ordinary divine mission was revealed to the disciples through revelations from the Radiance of God.
On 6th May, 1999, Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru left His physical body to merge with the Eternal Light. The present spiritual head of Santhigiri Ashram is Her Holiness Sishya Poojita Amrita Jnana Tapaswini.
Guru founded a universal spiritual path based on the faith in the Oneness of God and Humanity in fulfillment of the wishes of great rishis, sages and prophets who came in the past. The teachings of Navajyotisree Karunakara Guru deal with the questions of spiritual evolution, spiritual hierarchies, cosmic time order, astral pollution, soul transmigration, purification of karmic, ancestral and spiritual errors, and the possibility of spiritual intervention from time to time in the spiritual evolution of humanity. The path of Guru can be referred as Jnana Margam or the wisdom path founded on the monotheistic principles of Sanatana Dharma.
This new era of Kaliyuga is a great age of spiritual reformation. During the past 5000 years, the Rishis of India, Sri Krishna, Sri Buddha, Mahavir and other sages took human consciousness to great heights of spiritual wisdom. A chain of masters appeared in other areas, like Abraham, Moses and John the Baptist, before the arrival of Christianity and Islam. The Masters give us the message of peace and tolerance. They believed in a spiritual concept that transcends all borders.
The Indian rishis believed in the spiritual transformation of man through a long cycle of births and deaths for the attainment of salvation through ages. However, today India has been distanced from this spiritual culture, corruptions having come into the practice and interpretation of Sanatana Dharma. Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru reinterpreted Sanatana Dharma in the light of this new age.
Guru respected the wisdom path of the sages and takes it to a new progressive track. When the mankind is in need of a spiritual renewal, a great spiritual Master appears and continues the work of spiritual renovation. This basic belief gives India the ability to respect every spiritual movement and religious tradition. However, this process never ends with a particular belief system as spiritual evolution is an endless process. It is this unique concept of Sanatana Dharma that gives India its character of religious tolerance.
Guru’s way of remedying the sufferings of individuals and families is beyond the concept of established religions. Guru spiritually empowered the people, especially the women and depressed classes and lifted them up socially and economically. Guru helped his followers to purify the pollutions in their life and belief systems. It has been revealed that His path will be known as the Vomachana Matam, i.e. the Dharma of Liberation.
Unfortunately, there is blood bath in the name of religion. But religion and spirituality has different definitions. Religious laws are a set of moral values which are common to the human race. However, regional, racial and linguistic identities and political interest make religions corrupt and make them instruments of oppression. Spirituality, on the other hand, is a continuing process of spiritual renovation and evolution of man to ultimate perfection, which can happen only through spiritual guidance. Soul gets enriched with noble qualities only through the association with a perfect Guru, or the lineage he establishes.
Guru’s approach to social and spiritual reformation touched the four pillars, i.e. the individual, family, society and the government. Negative tendencies in human beings block spiritual progress and bring down the individual to the level of a subhuman. Guru is the medium through which these negative traits are corrected.
Guru’s concern has been the family. Unless the families are morally and spiritually oriented, the corruption in society cannot be corrected. Guru said that if a woman is guided to spiritual wisdom that will lead to the betterment of the family and the society and through that the whole world gets benefitted. Guru gave women a prominent role and status in the Ashram so that she becomes the mother of a spiritually evolved society. Guru said that it is better to bring up the children with the necessary skills to face the challenges in life instead of saving money for them.
Our society is suffering from many social ills like caste system, corruption, moral degradation etc. Guru went deep into the roots of these problems and found that they are related to the fact that the society is not rightly guided on the subject of healthy spiritual practices. According to the Guru, what is required is not the blind renewal of age old practices and beliefs, but the effort to change the spiritual direction of society towards a better world order in this scientific age. Only on such a healthy spiritual foundation, the programs for development and social integration can achieve the desired result.
Guru desired that the governance of the country be combined with spiritual guidance. Religion is to be separated from the governance of the country, but not spirituality. Without spiritual direction, the nation becomes unhealthy spiritually and materially. Guru had said concerning the governance of the future world:
‘The true path towards this change would be to follow the advice of jnanis (sages) and work out a plan which will reconcile the values of religion and the goals of politics’.
The human race is in need of a major spiritual change. Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru represents this spiritual change in our times.
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