NITYA CHAITANYA YATI

Nitya Chaitanya Yati was in born in 1924, with the name Jayachandran, in what is today the Pathanamthitta District of Kerala State. After completing his high school education in 1940, he took posts working for the Indian Royal Air Force and the Indian Army during the War. Then in 1946, he spent nearly six months as a volunteer of Mahatma Gandhi’s organization Harijan Sevadal. The same year he met Dr. G.H. Mees in Varkala, thereafter spending five years with him as student, also serving as assistant in writing books on traditional mythology and cosmology. In the meantime, one Christian priest also galvanized him to get a university education. During these college days he chanced to briefly meet Nataraja Guru. His studies culminated in earning a M.A. title on Philosophy at Kerala University, Trivandrum in 1952. In 1948, he met Ramana Maharshi at his ashram in Thiruvannamalai, and would come to visit him on and off, eventually taking sannyasa in the Marharshi’s presence. It was then that Jayachandaran became Nitya Chaitanya Yati. He was also present at the ashram when Ramana Maharshi attained of mahasamadhi. In 1951 he started to have serious contact with Nataraja Guru, and in 1952 became his disciple.

While a young disciple of Nataraja Guru, he worked for a time at the Vivekananda College, Madras and at S.N. College, Quilon. For some time he also studied at the University of Bombay. Between 1964 and 1967 he took the job as Director of the Institute of Psychic and Spiritual Research in New Delhi. Relinquishing this position, he took full charge of the Narayana Gurukula headquarters at Varkala, also becoming the editor of Gurukulam monthly. In 1971 he worked as chief coordinator of the Parliament of Religions, Quilon. In 1973, Nitya Chaitanya Yati became the Guru and Head of Naryana Gurukulam upon Nataraja Guru’s attainment of mahasamadhi.

Thereafter, Nitya Chaitanya Yati began travelling and teaching at various universities in the United States, Australia and Europe. He returned to India 1985 and settled down at the Gurukula Fernhill in the Nilgiris. He continued to travel while based at Fernhill, and was constantly engaged in teaching and writing. He authored more than a hundred books in both English and Malayalam. In these works, Guru Nitya revealed himself as a poet and philosopher in his own right. His major commentaries include a three volume, extensive commentary on the Brhandaranayaka Upanisad, one on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, The Psychology of Darsana Mala, and two commentaries on Narayana Guru’s Atmopodesa Satakam, respectively entitled Neither This nor That but AUM and That Alone, the Core of Wisdom.

While at Fernhill, he was constantly publishing poems and articles on various issues in certain Malayalam periodicals which brought him to the attention of many. In 1982, he conducted a semester entitled “Self Discovery through Cottage Industries” at East-West Universe, Varkala. When travelling abroad and living at Fernhill, Guru Nitya Chaitanya Yati attracted and helped many devotees by his mysterious powers of love and insight. He attained mahasamadhi in 1999 at Fernhill.