GURU NITYA CHAITANYA YATI 1924–1999
A well-known poet, philosopher, mystic, psychologist, and author, Guru Nitya Chaitanya Yati was born on November 2, 1924, the first son (named Jayachandran) of Vamakshi Amma and Pandalam Raghava Panicker in Vakayar, a beautiful village with rice paddy fields and running brooks surrounded by verdant forests and green hills, in Kerala, south India. The land itself, as well as both parents, guided his growth. Vamakshi Amma, a pious, austere, forgiving and generous woman, was the daughter of a powerful feudal landlord. She encouraged and lent support to young Jayachandran’s journey to become a renunciate. Pandalam Raghava Panicker was a poet and professional teacher who hailed from a family of poets and scholars, and his ancestors had taught in traditional gurukulas. He was a progressive, modern educated man with an egalitarian outlook towards the world.
Through the guiding hand of the Tao, he was led to Dr. Mees, also known as Sadhu Ekarasa, a Dutch disciple of Bhagvan Ramana Maharshi who was researching in comparative traditional psychology and sharing his findings through writing his three-volume The Revelation in the Wilderness. Through typing this manuscript Jayachandran was introduced to a wide vista of the boundless riches of the spiritual and cultural heritage of the world.
In 1951, he accepted Nataraja Guru—founder and head of the Narayana Gurukula—as his spiritual preceptor. The guru-sishya relationship proved to be immensely valuable for both. In Guru Nitya’s own words: “When I remember what life was like with him during those years, I think more of the transcendent quality of each day than of any particular day. Only a small bit of Nataraja Guru was ever relating with the world, and a great amount of him was always relating with the Unknown, with the mystery of the uncertain, the chance factor, the Tao, or the never exhausting wonder of life. He found mystery in every field—music, theater, and even in cooking. To him, mythology was as valid as science. Thus, he had a continuous search that arrived at conclusions in the great uncharted waters of consciousness, the oceans of the numinous.”
Nitya Chaitanya Yati spent a period of eighteen months in the mid-1950s in secluded silence, during which he pondered over the meaning of each verse of Narayana Guru’s Atmopadesa Satakam, and experienced release from the compulsions of the mind to hook memories onto thoughts and to answer every arising question. He returned to Nataraja Guru’s irresistible love, philosophical excellence, and life in the Gurukula, with sojourns in Bombay (Mumbai), Sri Lanka, the Himalayas (with Nataraja Guru), New Delhi, Singapore, Australia, and the United States.
In 1973 he followed Nataraja Guru as guru and head of the Gurukula, a world community of spiritual seekers. In that role, his life example and teachings revealed the light ever-shining at the core of all to sincere seekers from around the globe.
Between 1970 and 1980 he taught courses in psychology, philosophy, yoga sastra, and aesthetics at universities such as Portland State in Oregon, Sonoma State and Stanford University in California, and University of Hawaii, as well as giving seminars in the U.K., the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, Australia, and South India. He also completed commentaries on Narayana Guru’s Atmopadesa Satakam, Darsanamala, Svanubhavagiti, Siva Satakam and several shorter works.
Punctuated by travel in Europe and significant visits to Gurukulas in the US, Singapore, and Australia, as well as frequent stays in Kerala, from the mid-1980s on, Guru Nitya settled primarily in his beloved Narayana Gurukula at Fernhill, where he focused on writing books and essays for journals and magazines, speaking to and counseling people from all walks of life, mentoring young aspirants of spiritual life, often guiding them to seek their natural vocation (svadharma), and enabling many people to recognize and tune in to the symphony of their inner silence. He completed his commentaries on Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, Isavasya Upanisad, and Mandukya Upanisad in English and Malayalam, as well as on the Bhagavad Gita and Patanjali’s Yoga Sastra, and a number of other books and compilations of essays.
Guru Nitya published over 120 books in Malayalam and 80 books in English, as well as countless articles on philosophy, psychology, social ethics, and aesthetics. He also functioned as the chairperson of the East-West University of Unitive Sciences and as the Commissioner for World Education. His writings combine rare insight and profound wisdom with an ability to communicate in terms readily understood by students everywhere.
His own autobiography, Love and Blessings, offers precious further insights into his life and teachings. Guru Nitya Chaitanya Yati attained mahasamadhi (the great absorption or merger) on May 14, 1999, at Fernhill.
