Teaching Saranagati (A Dialogue with Her Holiness Sri Sathguru Swami Gnanananda Saraswati)

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Once a Householder always a Jivan Mukta.

The divine descent happened at Annakara near Guruvayur on the 14th August, 1929, into an aristocratic, affluent and a respected family. She` received her education at the St. Joseph is European Girls High School and the Holy Cross College at Tiruchi. Her communion with the Divine began from an early age. She had rare spiritual experiences and visions from the tender age of seven years.

At the age of eighteen, She was married to Shri Paliath Divakaran Achan, eldest son of the Yuvaraja of the Cochin Royal family. While living as an ideal grahasta — a loving, selfless mother and a devoted wife — She led a we of great austerity guided by the ideal that a householder was to be a sanvas in at, She performed intense spiritual sadhana, involving the severest tap as and continuous communion with the Divine, demonstrating to the world that one could live of a householder and yet be a Jivan Mukta, a liberated soul to tall established in the Divine. She received a Divine Command to take Sanyasa and took Vidwat Sanyasa in 1975 receiving the name of Sri Sathguru Swami Gnanananda Sarasvathi.

Sri Sathguru has been tirelessly propagating the path of Saranagati, as taught in the Srimad BhagwadGita as being the most appropriate for the present age. Sri Sathguru established the Sri Gnana Advaitha Peetam in September: 1975. Renovation of old, dilapidated places of worship, reviving ancient traditions, spreading the special message of total detachment and self surrender to desiring and deserving souls — all are Sri .sathguru’s efforts to put humankind onto the path of self realisation.

Charles S.J. White (Ph.D. University of Chicago) is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and religion at the American University in Washington D.C. USA. He is the author of the caurasi Pad of Sri Hit Harivams Ramakrishna’s Americans and co-author of the Religious Quest and Joseph Campbell transformation of Myth through time. He contributed Indian developments sainthood in Hinduism to Sainthood. Its Manifestations in world religions and mother guru Jnanananda of Madras India to Unspoken worlds. Women’s religious lives he has published numerous journal an dencyclopedia articles including. The Hindu Holy person Structure and the History of religions some Bhakti Examples Swami Muktananda and the Enlightenment through Shakti Pat. The Sai baba Movement approaches to the study of Indian saints Krsna as divine child Bhakti and Sufism in Hindi literature. Most recently his publications include. The remaining Hindi works of Sri Hit Harivans and the Mystique of Aryan Identity and Mircea Eliade’s History of religious.

Dr. Charles S.J. White ’s article "Mother Guru: Jnanananda of Madras" in Unspoken Worlds edited by Nancy Auer Falk and Rita M. Gross has been for many years the main source of information about Sri Sathguru for researchers, scholars and sadhakas in the western world.

Dr. White first had darshan of Sri Sathguru in 1976 and subsequently had darshan and a few interviews in 78-79. Using that material he wrote the article in Unspoken Worlds, which was published in 1980 by Harper and Row. His dedication, love of truth and philosophy made it easy for Sri Sathguru who is normally reclusive, to explain to him Her life and teachings.

In 1998, when Sri Sathguru resumed giving Darshan after a long period of seclusion, Dr. White had two dialogues with Sri Sathguru to gather sufficient material to bring his article up to date for the new edition being brought out by Wadsworth/Thomson Learning. The dialogues have been edited by him and are now being brought out in their entirety. They are a companion to his article and should be read along with it. Sri Sathguru speaks of Her beliefs, the many deities in Hinduism, Her Ishta Daivam, samadhi, early experiences and life after death.

It is hoped that this little volume will bring as much pleasure and enlightenment to the readers as it did to Dr. White and the devotees who worked on it.