Spiritual Master Mohanji has his domicile in Slovenia.
Mohanji is a new rising star of spirituality. His teachings are followed by thousands of people from around the world. He is a guru or, in other words, a spiritual master. He calls himself an ordinary man. People who follow his teachings describe him as modest and humble. He is known to be a humanitarian who helps people in need with his foundations and volunteers from around the globe – they’ve planted a large number of trees, the most recent ones being fruit trees on his property in Sv. Ana pri Lenartu, where he is constructing a centre and a home with his wife Devi and daughter Mila.
The 56-year-old Mohan Kesavan Mohanji from Kerala (India), with a Master’s degree in English literature, was ‘sentenced’ to success at birth. He was born in India into a family of a higher class. His father was a successful orthopaedic surgeon, and, by tradition, his mother took care of the family. His brother is also highly educated. Their lives have followed a certain order and tradition, as in all ‘good’ Indian families.
His wife was chosen for him by his family, he was happy with the choice, got married, and their daughter was born three years later. They named her Ammu. At that time, he was working in the shipping industry and was very successful in his work. When he was 35 years old, he was already in a position that people with a lot of experience usually get somewhere around the age of 50. He had everything that could be bought with money, but on the inside, he felt empty.
The tragedy that changed everything
The bright spot in his life was his daughter Ammu. Mohan loved her, and he enjoyed being a father. She taught him about the deep unconditional love that can overcome all obstacles. Then came August 23, 2000 – the day he will never forget. At the age of five, Ammu died in a tragic car accident. That day everything changed for Mohan. His life lost meaning.
He felt paralysed when so many people expressed their condolences. “They were telling me that they were sorry for my loss, but I felt false compassion. What I had lost could not be returned by anyone – it was lost forever.” The worst time of his life came, everything around him began to crumble. He fell ill; his financial investments began to fall; he and his wife divorced after a few years. He became more and more immersed in himself and thought deeply about the meaning of life. His friends began to leave him. He was at the bottom.
Himalayas
He knew deep inside that something had to change. Never in his life has he followed the teachings of gurus, but he knew that he had to find a solution within himself. He just did not know how. He visited the silence of the Himalayas in the year 2000. There he sat in a cave, immersed in thought. He thought about life. He did not know of any medical technique to practice. The first time, he stayed there for two months. “I felt good there. Nobody cared who I was or what I was; it was not important how I was dressed; if I wore shoes or not. I felt the freedom, the simplicity of life. I go the feeling I was home.”
After two months, Mohan went back to work, but he kept returning to the Himalayas. “In the beginning, I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. I don’t know how to say this; I was looking for something permanent, something that has always been and will never pass.” When he sat in his Himalayan cave, he started focusing on his spine. He was always thinking of it.
Meditation and exploring the inner world became his passion and an everyday routine. He reorganised a room in his house so that it looked similar to the cave. There was a small lamp in the corner. During meditation, his eyes stared at the gleam of light – his mind focused on the spine. For six years, he woke up at 02:30 every morning, took a bath, and sat in a room and meditated – every day, for five hours!
When the noise ends, silence takes over
“I was living a normal ‘outdoor’ life. I was working, many times, business meetings dragged on late at night, but that didn’t distract me from my routine. Despite going home late, I was up at half-past two in the morning,” he says.
After six years, he heard an inner voice telling him to write. So, he wrote. He wrote about everything except religion and politics. His hard work bore fruit. He started feeling silence on the inside – silence which brings deep peace and thus contentment to a person. He continued his meditation and focus, working on how to transfer the awareness of this inner silence he had discovered within himself into daily life.
This is also the biggest problem for all spiritual seekers, who somehow reach the silence within themselves, but do not know how to keep it. In everyday life, peace and silence disappear. Spiritual masters are a great help in the search, and I do not know anyone who could find the holy grail within themselves. Mohanji says that a person could explore on their own and come to the ‘divine’ within themselves if they focus and develop the habit of regularly meditating. He is the best proof of that. But, in my opinion, this is a much harder path.
What does it mean for a human to find the silence within or the divine in all of us? Mohanji describes an event that happened to him while he was working. “It was a very chaotic day. We were saving a sinking ship as big as the Titanic. There was chaos on the scene, a lot of people; everyone was under terrible stress. There was screaming; rescue machines were working at full steam. The noise was unbearable; we worked for 48 hours – in short, a chaos of epic proportions! And in the midst of that excruciating noise, I heard the silence within me, complete peace surrounded me, and I kept working.”
Why do you not bring the peace home?
One of Mohan’s habits used to be visiting the Himalayas every holiday. There he found peace within. “I was happy,” he reminisces. But then it suddenly dawned on him – why doesn’t he take the peace home with him? What’s the point of searching for it in the Himalayas? It was a reversal when he realised that neither peace nor inner silence is in the Himalayas, but in him, in each of us!
He began digging deeper and deeper; strange things were happening to him. The condition that befell him is difficult to describe without the man seeming ‘crazy’. He recounts that he somehow spilt over all the obstacles, landing in some void. “I remember sitting in a room; the computer turned on. There were no social networks at the time; we only used Messenger to communicate – and it sent me a notification.
My former yoga teacher, with whom I haven’t been in contact for a long time then, asked if I was there. He told me that the “emptiness would be gone in a month”. I called him to ask what that meant. How did he know what was happening to me if we haven’t spoken in years?! He answered that his late spiritual master called him during meditation and told him to call me to deliver the message. I know it sounds like I’m making it up, but it really happened that way.” It took Mohanji ten years to settle into the world of silence and become one with it.
Spontaneous, without resistance
Mohanji has given himself over to life. Today, he knows that his path has been charted since time immemorial. He says there is no need to worry; it is vital to walk the path of life. He has let go of things that were not ‘his’. He knew now that there was freedom in him, that there was freedom in each of us.
People began to gather around him. “I never invited anyone; it all started happening spontaneously.” He was convinced that he would stay single for a long time, and he had no desire for a new relationship. However, he crossed paths with Devi, a kind and beautiful Croatian woman interested in the same things as Mohan. She became his wife, and Mila, their daughter, was born. Mohan says that he was a very shy man and did not even dream of speaking in front of a crowd. He does exactly that today. It was not his plan to do anything that he is doing today. It all happened spontaneously, he says – he just walked his path.
Slovenia
Mohanji’s organisation is becoming huge – his foundations are active on all continents, in 18 countries. “I wasn’t planning on all of this to happen, but it happened. Hundreds of volunteers from around the world are helping me, and Devi is my right-hand woman,” says Mohan.
We also talked about the fact that negative rumours can be heard about almost every guru. “It’s true; I’ll just list what people accuse them of -manipulation, sex, and money! When gurus become world-famous, a lot of people gather around them. I have some negative experiences myself. It can happen that someone passionate about you, for example, opens a page with your name online. They can post anything that comes to mind, which usually has nothing to do with my teachings. When I demand responsibility, such a person usually turns against me. Or a fangirl who tries everything to get in touch with you. After being rejected, she turns against you and triggers a wave of negative rumours.
I am very aware of all these pitfalls, so we are very consistent in all our foundations when it comes to money: not even a cent of donated money is received without a proper certificate. Not a cent goes without it. All the money business of our foundations is transparent; all the money is traceable. Everything we do is also documented and photographed. I can also show my bank account at any time,” Mohan is very determined.
Once, it even happened that a man who was enthusiastic about his teachings opened an ashram in Delhi on Mohan’s behalf. Mohanji had no idea! “There will always be rumours, I’m aware of that. But I’m also aware that I’m not perfect; if someone is looking for perfection, I’m not the right teacher for them. And I always say – find yourself, not me!”
He travels around the world a lot, so he wants to settle in one place with his wife Devi and daughter Mila. They’ve decided to build a home in Slovenia. Why Slovenia, I was curious. “Because of the number of airports (Zagreb, Benetke, Dunaj, Brnik). I can go anywhere in the world from here. You have a good education system, and Mila can go to school on foot. It is a safe and beautiful country. Besides, the local mayor had offered me a hand so we could buy the old homestead and the land, on which we will be able to build our home and the centre. A few days ago, friends helped us plant some fruit trees. The Sv. Ana pri Lenartu village in Slovenia will become our home.”
Slovenians do not have a particularly good opinion of themselves; even today’s politics does not unite us, but instead divides us, that we are growing increasingly distant from each other. Compassion and mutual help are losing value. That is why I am sincerely glad that a philanthropist, who proves with his way of life that the world could be different, has come among us. It is pure grace to have a spiritual master among us who spreads much-needed light and can help us realise that everything is already within us—deep peace and freedom.
Something about Mohanji’s teaching and his organisation
He teaches
- how to live freely;
- how to calm the mind through awareness;
- self-acceptance and nurturing of the universal truth, purity of thought, compassion, nonviolence, and unconditional love.
All of the above is taught to get people to create a better world together. The motto of the organisation is ‘Adding value to the world’.
Mohanji’s foundations are located in 18 countries around the world on five continents. His centres are in cities across the globe where meditations and transformation programs are regularly conducted. They bring together like-minded people and strive for positive change in their lives and, consequently, their communities.
More information can be found at www.mohanji.org.
Translated from Slovenian by Paula Vouk