Nitya Chaitanya Yati

Nitya Chaitanya Yati was a philosopher, psychologist, author and poet. His writings have made him one of the world’s leading exponents of Advaita Vedanta including how it dovetails with modern scientific discoveries.

Biography

Nitya was born as Jayachandran Panicker on 2.11.1924 ^[1] in the matriarchal compound of Vakayar, near Konni, Kerala, South India, as the first son to Vamakshi Amma and her husband, the poet Raghavan Panicker. As a youth, Nitya left home and wandered India for eight years as a mendicant, meeting and studying with Sufi, Jain and Buddhist teachers, as well as [Mahatma Gandhi] and Hindu masters such as [Ramana Maharshi] and Nityananda. After attaining his master's degree in social psychology at Bombay University, he continued his spiritual search in earnest. Among other posts, he served as director of the Indian Foundation for Psychic Research in New Delhi in the mid-1960s, charged with investigating the claims of yogis and fakirs. In 1951, he had accepted Nataraja Guru as his spiritual preceptor and after Nataraja Guru died in 1973, he became the Guru of the Narayana Gurukula. Throughout his life he has been instrumental in sustaining Narayana Guru's legacy as the emancipator of women and eradicator of caste distinctions, as well as interpreting his unsurpassed mystical vision for the modern seeker of truth. He traveled throughout the world as a teacher, with a special flair for the meaning of the Bhagavad Gita and the Bible, and continued to welcome seekers of truth to his retreat at the Fernhill Gurukula, near Ooty, until his death on 14.5.1999.

Legacy

Nitya published over 120 books in Malayalam and more than 20 in English, as well as a number of articles on philosophy, psychology, social ethics and aesthetics. He established numerous Gurukulas in India as well as two in the US, in Portland, Oregon and Bainbridge Island, Washington. He was the founder-chairperson of the East-West University of Brahmavidya, and also worked as the Commissioner for World Education and as a sponsor of the World Government of World Citizens. Of world citizenship, Nitya wrote:

The term 'world citizen' can be better understood with a negative definition than with a positive one. If a citizen of a state with political frontiers is expected to pay allegiance to the government of the state to which he or she belongs and is expected to take arms against aliens who might invade the territory of the state, a world citizen recognizes the entire world as one's state and in principle does not recognize any member of one's own species as an alien to the world community to which oneself belongs. Such a person recognizes the earth as one's sustaining mother, the innate inviolable laws of nature as one's protecting father, and all sentient beings as sharing one's home. The world citizen's allegiance is to the foundation of truth, the universality of knowledge and the fundamental ground of all values.^{[citation needed]}

Nitya believed that mysticism should be brought to bear in the everyday world as a force for justice and understanding between people. He addressed many meetings convened between Christian, Muslim and Hindu leaders to help them diplomatically work out their differences. Some credit him, as the torch-bearer of Narayana Guru’s wisdom, with being a major force for peace in South India, which has been relatively free of the violence plaguing the North.

Selected books in English

• That Alone, the Core of Wisdom
• Love and Blessings (Autobiography)
• Meditations on the Self
• Psychology of Darsanamala
• Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
• In the Stream of Consciousness
• Saundarya Lahari
• Bhagavad Gita
• Living the Science of Harmonious Union

See also

• Muloor S.Padmanabha Panicker
• Ramana Maharishi

Notes

1. ^ Yathicharitham,autobiography,Malayalapatana gaveshanakendram,Thurissur,2003,p inner cover 2.

Further reading

• Love and Blessings: The Autobiography of Guru Nitya Chaitanya Yati. Narayana Gurukula. 2003. ISBN 9780970654915. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LrVb4g5_dIsC.