A Profile of Sri Bhagavan and Sri Amma

Who is this man who is having such an extraordinary impact upon the world? Who is Amma, his wife? Were they born avatars? When did Bhagavan first become aware of his mission? And Amma of hers? How do they propose to enlighten the world? What are the limits of their capabilities?

I had often imagined what it would have been like to know someone like Jesus personally, to walk with him, to witness his miracles, and to be able to ask him these questions. Little did I know that I would one day be led to the Golden City and witness a revolution in human consciousness perhaps unparalleled in our entire human history!

Who is Bhagavan? For some time formerly, he was being known as 'Kalki', or 'Kalki Bhagavan'. In the Hindu tradition Kalki is referred to as the tenth incarnation of Vishnu, depicted as a rider on a white horse, flaming sword in hand, riding forth at the end of time to destroy illusion and to renew the world.

Many traditions have similar prophecies of one who comes at the end of the Age to help us transition into the next cycle of evolution. The Christians speak of the Second Coming of Christ, the Muslims of the Imam Mehdi; the Buddhists of Maitreya, the Mayans speak of the Return of Quetzalcoatl, and the Sioux of the Return of White Buffalo Woman.

He had never claimed to be this Kalki himself, but some of his disciples had this vision of Kalki when they saw him, and somehow the name stuck. He is now actively disassociating himself from this title because he would rather not create controversy around this nor does he want to put himself into any kind of exclusive spiritual box. He emphasizes that if he is a Kalki, then so is everyone who also works for the service of humanity and the Earth. Consequently he has now legalized his name as simply, 'Bhagavan'. "Anyone in India can call himself a Bhagavan," he says humorously, "and there is no need for controversy around this."

He does acknowledge himself as an Avatar, however. "An avatar comes to Earth in response to humanity's call. He comes when there is a certain level of stagnation, and he comes with a specialized mission. An avatar is the descent of higher consciousness. It need not necessarily be a spiritual being. For instance, Gandhi was an avatar of non-violence, and Einstein was an avatar of physics. Any higher consciousness taking birth can be called an avatar." He refers to himself as the Avatar of Enlightenment. His mission is to give enlightenment to the world.

Many consider Bhagavan to be a 'Poorna Avatar', a total embodiment of divinity. Throughout the ages, avatars have descended to kindle the forces of enlightenment in a few people, but Bhagavan's mission is to kindle a collective manifestation of divinity in the mass consciousness of the planet. I believe that Bhagavan is not just an individual, but also a collective consciousness, the same consciousness that is known variously as Christ consciousness, Buddha consciousness, or Unified consciousness.

Bhagavan was born on March 7, 1949 in a village in Tamil Nadu called Natham. He was given the name Vijay Kumar. Ever since he was a young child of two or three he has been aware that he was a descent of divinity here on Earth to serve humanity. He tells of how his parents would take him to the temple when he was young and circumambulate around the images of various gods and goddesses. All of a sudden he would find himself inside these images and have to stop moving. People would ask him why he was not moving and he would say, "I am inside this god looking out, how can I move around myself?"

He did not experience suffering and was always in a very happy state. At first he thought everybody was like him, but when he saw that they were only experiencing suffering he realized that his job was to bring them out of suffering. This knowing was very deep within him already at the age of 4 or 5.

One of the games played by the village children was where they would enact some of the ancient stories. He was always chosen to play Krishna or one of the gods, and would be asked various boons, and they were always granted. Even the elders of the village would come up to him and put some grains in his hand, and he would bless the grain and they would have good crops.

It was at age 9 or so that the golden ball began to appear to him. He realized it could be used to send into people and help them to awaken, but he was not able to activate it at first. After working with it for a long time certain chants would come to him, and as he chanted these words, it would begin to activate. He continued working with this golden ball through adulthood, experimenting in many ways to see how it could be used to help people.

When he was 28 or so some mutual friends introduced him to his future wife, Padmavati, now known as Amma. She was born on August 15, 1954 in a village called Sangam. She was a mystic and would go into deep states of samadhi from early childhood. She too was deeply concerned for humanity, and felt that she was here to liberate people from suffering. From the time she was little, she let her parents and childhood friends know that she would only marry God, and would know him when she saw him. Strange as they thought this was, they accepted this.

When Vijay and Padmavati were introduced to each other, they immediately recognized each other and knew that they were meant to be together and work together. Their marriage took place on June 9, 1976.

Amma had already become quite well known for her mystic powers, and her ability to grant boons and perform miracles. She was regarded in her village as an aspect of the Divine Mother. There is a story that after their marriage some people saw her picture taken along with Bhagavan and became furious. How dare this man sit beside her! They eventually reconciled themselves to the idea that since she said she would marry God that this must be God. So that was how it began for many of the villagers!

There was a time when Bhagavan was the director of a school in Karnataka State known as Jeevashram. He realized that many of our social ills stemmed from a faulty educational system, and was interested in helping to create a new model of education partly based on some of J. Krishnamurthy's teachings.

It was during this time that the miracle of enlightenment first happened. Bhagavan had always known that he was able to help people in various ways, grant them boons, heal their illnesses, and so on, but he wasn't able to liberate them yet. One day his son, Krishna came bounding into the classroom very excitedly saying that a golden ball had entered into him, and was causing him to experience all kinds of wonderful states of consciousness.

"All right," said Bhagavan very composedly, "see if you can pass it on to someone else." So he passed it on to another classmate of his and she had the same experience of being able to enter into cosmic consciousness and experience all these other lokas, or dimensions. The girl, Samadarshini, is now one of the foremost disciples of Bhagavan, along with Anandagiri, who was also a student in the same school.

This was back in 1989, and was the beginning of Bhagavan's experiments with giving enlightenment to people. It quickly spread like wildfire. Many students started experiencing these enlightened states and all kinds of strange things started happening. They could make the winds start and stop, they could make the rains come and go, they could enter into other times and lokas, they could enter in and out of pictures, and they could heal people with a touch. Not only that, people simply walking or driving by the road outside Jeevashram were also beginning to spontaneously experience all kinds of mystical phenomena.

But soon the parents began to get upset. What is happening to my child, they wondered. Bhagavan realized he would have to take it slower, and withdrew these powers. Eventually, at the repeated requests of his students he agreed to create an order of disciples, with the only requirement being that they joined with their parents' permission and blessing.

This order of disciples has grown over the years and now numbers about 180 members/guides. During the first few years of the order, Bhagavan was still not very sure about giving enlightenment to the masses. This shifted in the middle of 2003. Up until that time he did not know for certain whether this grand experiment of global enlightenment would succeed in time to avert global catastrophe. After this point, it felt like something had shifted, and he knew with absolute certainty now that his mission would succeed, and that humanity would make it. We were divinely destined to successfully move into the Golden Age, and mass enlightenment could now take place.

With the first guides, the deeksha was given directly by Bhagavan himself. The work was still very experimental, and the results were not always predictable. Some of these first guides went into non-functional states of nirvikalpa samadhi for months. It was a blissful divine state, but not very useful as far as actively working in the world.

Gradually, he was able to modify it so that a person could experience high states of samadhi and still remain functional in the world. As he continued experimenting with the transfer of power coming through him and acting upon the neurobiological circuits in the brain to create the conditions for enlightenment, he realized at a certain point that anyone, and everyone, was capable of becoming enlightened. It was only after this realization that he began his work with the masses, for he didn't want anybody to feel that they were incapable of receiving it.

Many of the first guides had been experiencing cosmic states of consciousness over the years that he had been working with them. Few of them, however, had attained the permanent state of enlightenment. In June 2003, Bhagavan called them together, and had them go through 42 days of intense sadhana, during which he personally gave them deeksha. Each of them became enlightened.

As the work proceeded, the power of the deeksha grew. In the early stages, he would have people go through 18 months on a fruit only diet to heighten the sensitivity of their subtle bodies. This is no longer necessary now. He found that what was taking 18 months to prepare for was now taking two months, and then three weeks, and then ten days. He began training the enlightened guides to do the deekshas themselves. As they attuned to his consciousness, and transferred the golden ball to others, he was able to follow the energy of the deekshas and do the necessary work of surgery. In later phases, he found that he was able to do this entirely from a distance.

It was after this that the floodgates of enlightenment began to open. He now began to give deeksha to larger groups of people, both Indian and Western. The first public deekshas for enlightenment were given on the occasion of Amma's birthday, on August 17, 2003. A few days later, the first weeklong deeksha course was given for Westerners. Grace and I were among this group. At this same time he also started giving deeksha to masses of Indian devotees, including entire villages. Many hundreds began coming every day from all over the country for one-day programs - a short teaching followed by a deeksha - which has now been extended to 6-day programs.

In early 2004, longer courses started being offered to lay people from all over the world Several 10 day courses were offered, along with even more profound 21-day courses designed to take people into the state of oneness deeply enough so that they themselves could transfer the deeksha of enlightenment to others. Many all over the world have now been prepared to give this deeksha. A continually updated list of deeksha givers can be accessed on the websites listed in the back of this book.

The work is continuing in leaps and bounds. Every time one person receives enlightenment, it makes it easier for everybody else. There is a certain astrological configuration which Bhagavan refers to as a window of opportunity for the mass enlightenment of humanity. It is called the Venus transit and refers to the planet Venus crossing directly across the path of the Sun. It happened on June 8, 2004, and will happen again on June 6, 2012. This transit takes place regularly, but Bhagavan intends to use the energies of love generated by this particular transit to give a powerful boost to his work on the planet.

Since Amma's birthday on August 15, 2004, not only is the power of the mukti deekshas continuing to grow but an entirely new phenomenon has begun. Known as the 'phala deeksha', this process is designed to put participants into a state where they can directly meet Amma and Bhagavan in their cosmic body, and ask them to fulfill whatever desires they may have, whether it is for health, enlightenment, finances, or other circumstances in life.

Unlike ascetic notions of God found in various religious traditions, Amma and Bhagavan believe that material realities have a valid place on the spiritual journey. After all, will a person whose sole concern is for survival have the energy required to seek after enlightenment? The difference between their two approaches is a matter of degree. Amma tends to be somewhat more focused on speedily granting people their wishes. Bhagavan's focus tends to be on first getting people enlightened.

I am told that Bhagavan is only manifesting a tiny fraction of his power at this time, some say only one percent. He could turn up the volume to 100% any time he chooses, but it needs to proceed in stages. He recognizes that to unleash too much shakti at once could be painful and destructive, and so he is holding himself back. As the work grows, and the morphogenetic field of enlightenment gets stronger, more and more of his power will be revealed, until all structures of human separation will collapse in the face of this rising tide.

It is expected that as the strength of these morphogenetic fields continues to grow, more and more people will begin to move into permanent states of enlightenment with just a single deeksha. Soon, it will become possible for anyone who has received deeksha to give deeksha to anyone else and give them enlightenment as well. Eventually, the individual deeksha will not be required anymore.

The state will be transferred through a glance, through a touch, through a prayer. It will happen through dance, music, and art. It will happen as people in the healing professions go about their daily work. It will happen as people fall in love. It will happen as people open their hearts and eyes to suffering humanity. It will happen spontaneously as an unstoppable tide of grace coursing through our collective consciousness.

Already, spontaneous combustive awakenings are beginning to happen all over the world. Perhaps the morphogenetic field is already strong enough for those whose souls are ready. It is a feedback loop. The more people that become enlightened, the stronger the morphogenetic fields of enlightenment become. This in turn causes the DNA of the human species to positively mutate, which then modifies our nervous systems to naturally receive enlightenment.

In the years to come, spiritual seeking and striving may become totally unnecessary, and ultimately counter-productive. A state of gentle, relaxed openness may be more effective, as we open ourselves to an evolutionary force that is so much bigger than anything we know. What is coming is truly unimaginable and will not easily fit into the spiritual and intellectual boxes we have defined for ourselves. All teachings and practices will become irrelevant as the power of this wave sweeps through our collective being.

Bhagavan is clear that this is the age of the collective avatar. The new cosmic creation emerging in our midst is too vast to be manifested through a single embodiment. He is a major point of descent for the Supreme One, but ultimately it will descend everywhere, through everyone. His mission is to prepare the way so that all of us together, as a group avataric force, become the architects of a new cosmic cycle. Once this happens, he says, his own work will be done!

This is not a passive event, but a co-creative act. As we become collectively enlightened, we become this avataric force. It will be an order of enlightenment far beyond anything we are now able to experience as separate enlightened individuals. The human family will begin to experience itself as one global entity, one rainbow of many colors, one planetary self with many pairs of eyes, one planetary brain composed of 6 billion central nervous systems!

What this will look like in the years and decades to come is beyond our wildest imaginings. This will be the new dawn so many have long awaited in every age and tradition. This will be the day when the gates of eternity will be opened to all, and God's dream will be realized. Or perhaps it does not yet exist even in the mind of God, and is being dreamed into existence, co-creatively, moment by moment. This is why Bhagavan has taken incarnation. This is why we have taken incarnation. These are truly the times we are born for!