Nisargadatta Maharaj
| Nisargadatta Maharaj | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | Maruti Shivrampant Kambli 17 April 1897 Bombay, Bombay Presidency, British India |
| Died | 8 September 1981 (aged 84) Mumbai, India |
| Guru | Siddharameshwar Maharaj |
| Philosophy | Advaita Vedanta |
| Quotation | Establish yourself firmly in the awareness of 'I AM'. This is the beginning, and also the end of all endeavour. |
Nisargadatta Maharaj (17 April 1897 – 8 September 1981), born Maruti Shivrampant Kambli, was an Indian Guru of nondualism, belonging to the Inchagiri Sampradaya, a lineage of teachers from the Navnath Sampradaya and Lingayat Shaivism.
The publication in 1973 of I Am That, an English translation of his talks in Marathi by Maurice Frydman, brought him worldwide recognition and followers, especially from North America and Europe.
Nisargadatta was born on 17 April 1897 to Shivrampant Kambli and Parvatibai, in Bombay. The day was also Hanuman Jayanti, the birthday of Hanuman, hence the boy was named 'Maruti', after him. His parents were followers of the Varkari sampradaya, an egalitarian Vaishnavite bhakti tradition which worships Vithoba. His father, Shivrampant, worked as a domestic servant in Mumbai and later became a petty farmer in Kandalgaon.
Maruti Shivrampant Kambli was brought up in Kandalgaon, a small village in the Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra, with his two brothers, four sisters and deeply religious parents. In 1915, after his father died, he moved to Bombay to support his family back home, following his elder brother. Initially he worked as a junior clerk at an office but quickly he opened a small goods store, mainly selling beedis – leaf-rolled cigarettes, and soon owned a string of eight retail shops. In 1924 he married Sumatibai and they had three daughters and a son.
In 1933, he was introduced to his guru, Siddharameshwar Maharaj, the head of the Inchegiri branch of the Navnath Sampradaya, by his friend Yashwantrao Baagkar. His guru told him, "You are not what you take yourself to be...". Siddharameshwar initiated him into the Inchegiri Sampradaya, giving him meditation-instruction and a mantra, which he immediately began to recite. Siddharameshwar gave Nisargadatta instructions for self-enquiry which he followed verbatim, as he himself recounted later:
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