Nisargadatta Maharaj

Nisargadatta Maharaj (April 1897 - September 8, 1981) was a seller of cigarettes in Mumbai and was considered by many an enlightened being and a master of spirituality. He was very much admired for his direct and informal teaching. He is best known for the work "I Am That" that has been translated into many languages.

His father, Shivrampant, worked as a domestic servant in Mumbai and later worked as a petty farmer in Kandalgaon, a small village in the back woods of Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra. After his father died, when Maruti (his given name) was eighteen, he left the village and went to Mumbai where he worked briefly as a clerk. He then became a petty trader and later developed it into a business. In 1924 he married Sumatibai and they had three daughters and a son. He opened a bidi shop (hand rolled coarse cigarettes made from tendu leaves) and began selling them. It was not until middle age that he became overtly interested in spiritual matters.

He had a friend named Yashwantrao Bagkar who one day brought him to meet his guru, Sri Siddharameshwar. Nisargadatta was given a mantra initiation and instructions on how to meditate.

Sri Siddharameshwar died three years later in 1936. At this point Nisargadatta abandoned his family and bidi businesses and took off for the Himalayas but he soon returned and started teaching his distinct form of realization.

Bob Adamson, Steven Wolinsky, Robert Powell, and Ramesh Balsekar are several of his followers who are still alive; they all teach the wisdom of and have written books about Sri Nisargadatta. A close friend of Sri Nisargadatta and fellow disciple of Sri Siddharameshwar, Ranjit Maharaj, taught in Mumbai, Europe, and the U.S.A. until his death in 2000.

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