Biography of Swami Narayan
Narayana Guru also seen as Sree Narayana Guru Swami, was a Hindu saint and social reformer of India. Narayana Guru was born on 22 August 1854, in the village of Chempazhanthy near Thiruvananthapuram, the son of Madan Asan, a farmer, and Kutti Amma. The boy was dotingly called Nanu. Madan was also a teacher (“Asan”) who was learned in Sanskrit and proficient in Astrology and Ayurveda. He had three sisters. As a boy, Nanu would listen to his father with keen interest when he narrated stories from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata to the simple folks of his village.
As a child, Nanu was very reticent and was intensely drawn to worship at the local temple. He would criticise his own relatives for social discrimination and the apartheid-like practice of segregating children from, supposedly, lower castes. He preferred solitude and would be found immersed in meditation for hours on end. He showed strong affinity for poetics and reasoning, composing hymns and singing them in praise of God. He lost his mother when he was 15. Nanu spent the most part of his early youth assisting his father in tutoring, and his uncle in the practice of Ayurveda, while devoting the rest of his time for devotional practices at the temples nearby.
Nanu found the life affected by an intolerable restlessness. One of his friends took him to Chattampi Swamikal. The two were attracted to each other at the first sight. Nanu’s keen intellect and imperturbability astonished Chattampi Swami and he took Nanu to his own guru Thycaud Ayyavu Swamikal. Nanu became his disciple and got from him advanced training in yogic practices. Later, Nanu moved to his deep inside the hilly forests of hermitage Maruthwamala, where he led an austere life immersed in meditative thought and yoga and subjected himself to extreme sustenance rituals. This phase of solitude lasted for 8 long years. After an unpretentious life of over thirty years abounding in knowledge and harsh experiences, this epoch is considered the culmination of the meditative recluse; the point at which Narayana Guru is believed to have attained a state of enlightenment.
In 1913, he founded the Advaita Ashram at Aluva. Sree Narayana Guru had many followers and disciples. Nataraja Guru, a notable disciple of Sree Narayana Guru, introduced Guru’s visions and ideals to the western world. He established Narayana Gurukulam in 1923 in the Nilgiri Hills with the blessings of Narayana Guru. Guru became seriously ill in September 1928. He remained bedridden for some time. On 20 September 1928, Guru died.
