Indian saints
God loved as a living presence · wisdom that became a body
There is a path on which you need not become a scholar. You need only to love. Truly, with your whole heart.
This is the path of the Indian saints. Of those who did not merely know the truth, but became it, in body and in presence. The name of this path is ancient.
Sanatana dharma. The eternal way. And its heart is bhakti.
Love for God, as for one who is living, dear, and near. These saints lived only recently. Ramakrishna at the temple of the Goddess in Calcutta.
Yogananda, who brought yoga to the West. Neem Karoli Baba on the dusty roads of the mountains. They did not prove God with words.
They loved him so deeply that the love overflowed and touched everyone near them. What is their method? It is as simple as a child calling for its mother.
Repeat the name of the Beloved. Quietly, in the heart, again and again. Until it becomes your breath.
Give him everything. Your deeds, your pain, your very self. Do not cling to yourself – offer yourself whole.
And then a warmth kindles in the heart that is not of this world. And in the deepest depth, samadhi opens – the silence where the boundary vanishes between you and the one you love. What does a person feel on this path?
At first the heart is dry and closed. This is no misfortune. Love comes to the one who keeps calling.
Then come the tears – warm, bright, the kind that make it easier to breathe. And behind them, peace and tenderness, in which it is no longer frightening to live and no longer frightening to depart. This tradition I am learning together with Artur – the one who gathers wisdom for this School.
He goes to the living keepers, to where knowledge is still passed from mouth to mouth. So that he may bring it to you pure. You can help him arrive – with a subscription to the School, or with any gift.
Every offering brings nearer the day he returns with this knowledge and opens it to you. Thank you for being here.
There is a path on which you need not become a scholar.
You need only to love – truly, with your whole heart. This is the path of the Indian saints: those who did not merely know the truth, but became it, in body and in presence.
The heart of the path is bhakti, love for God as for one who is living, dear, and near. Not an idea in a book, but one whom you call by name and feel beside you.
I have brought this path just as it reached me. Hear where it comes from – and how love alone collapses every distance to the Beloved.
Not a book. A living human being.
This lineage is as ancient as India herself – yet in our age it blazed up in living people. In Ramakrishna, who at the temple of Kali in Calcutta would fall into God-intoxication and see the Mother in all things.
In his disciple Vivekananda, who carried that flame across the world. In Yogananda, who gave the West yoga as a science of love. In Neem Karoli Baba, whose blanket of ochre cloth warmed thousands of hearts.
And in the silent Sarada Devi, and in the poet-saint Jnaneshwar seven centuries ago. The lineage is not of books – it is passed by touch, by a glance, by the saint's very presence.
The Name and the surrender
The method is as simple as a child calling for its mother. Repeat the name of the Beloved – quietly, in the heart, again and again, until it becomes your breath.
And give him everything. Your deeds, your pain, your very self. Do not cling to yourself – offer yourself whole to the one you call.
Then a warmth kindles in the heart that is not of this world, and in the deepest depth samadhi opens – the silence where the boundary vanishes between you and the one you love.
At first the heart is dry and closed – you call, and there seems to be no answer. So it must be. Love comes to the one who keeps calling, asking for no reward.
Then come the tears – warm, bright, the kind that make it easier to breathe. Do not be ashamed of them: on this path they are the very sign that the ice has begun to thaw.
And behind them – peace and tenderness, in which it is no longer frightening to live and no longer frightening to depart. You will not earn this love by effort – you will remember that you were loved all along.
As many faiths, so many paths. All rivers flow to the same ocean. Call him by whatever name you love – and walk.– Ramakrishna
Voices of the tradition — a living transmission
The voices that carried this tradition. Tap any of them — I'll open their transmission: the essence of the teaching here, the full transmission through Wisdom of the Masters.
The map within — branches and practices
On this path there are no timed exercises – there is one movement of the heart, repeated a thousand times. I will open it to School members: how to call the name so that it becomes your breath, and how to give yourself so that in the giving you are not lost but found.
Japa · the name of the Beloved
The heart of the path: to repeat the name of God until it becomes breath.
Samarpana · surrender
To offer yourself whole to the one you call.
This love cannot be taught – it can only be entered.
And for now – breathe with what is already open. In the Atlas of Breath, eight practices are freely available. Enter the School, and I will lead you along the path of the name and the surrender, step by step, beside you, in voice.
From poet-saints to living teachers
- 13th centuryJnaneshwarCarried the secret of the Gita to ordinary people, speaking of God in their own language.
- 19th centuryRamakrishna and Sarada DeviGod-intoxication at the temple of Kali, and beside it an all-accepting motherly love.
- the turn of the centuryVivekanandaCarried the flame into the world: service of man as direct worship of God.
- 20th centuryYogananda · Neem Karoli BabaBrought devotion to the West – through the science of yoga and a simple love for all.
- todayPrana carries it onwardHere this path is gathered just as it reached us. From heart to heart.
Nearby on the map — kindred traditions
Advaita Vedanta
Non-duality: you are consciousness itself. One question, "who am I?", that dissolves the seeker.
enter the world → the same heartBhakti
The path of pure love and devotion. God loved as one who is living, dear, and near.
enter the world → a neighbor on the mapYoga
The joining of body, breath, and mind as a road to that same union with the divine.
enter the world →