Narayana Guru Biography

Narayana Guru was a seer who visualised the Ultimate Reality in Himself. A seer is one who lives realising that one Ultimate Reality underlies the being of everything phenomenal, that the apparent world, humans included, is but part of that one Reality manifesting Itself creatively, that one alone is the Reality in the being of himself and others, that himself has no being apart from the being of that Reality. The one who visualises Reality (satya-darsin) , therefore, will naturally be the one who sees the same in all (sama-darsin) . Narayana Guru belongs to the long line of such visionaries, its 20th Century link.
Such seers are known as rishis in India, and all of them are satya-darsins and sama-darsins at the same time. Deeply immersed in Indian culture though they are, they transcend Indian-ness and show themselves to be tiny evanescent phenomena appearing and disappearing as part of human race itself, a part of the cosmic system. Only that this vision of equalness and oneness, in each rishi, finds expression, as is naturally to be expected, coloured by the historical, geographical, linguistic and other civilizational characteristics.
The style in which each rishi express himself also could vary depending mainly on his cultural background, historical exigencies, and the contemporaneous development of thought, scientific or otherwise, his own poetic talents, the languages with which he is familiar, and the like. In spite of all such variances, the Truth expounded by them always remains the same because the underlying Reality that they visualise always remains immutable. Thus seen, it would be evident to anyone that Narayana Guru was re-introducing the essential content of the wisdom imparted in the ancient Upanishads and other scriptural texts, in a way that readily appeals to the modern mind. In Narayana Guru’s vision we perceive a perfect harmony of the transparence of the vision of Reality of the Upanishads and the scientific precision of the 20th Century mind.
Narayana Guru stands apart from many of the spiritual masters, seers and prophets, at least in one respect: that he commanded the respect of the entire South India while he was still in his physical abode. Not that this recognition and honour came from people who fully appreciated the sublimity and depth of his thinking and visualisation of Reality, for such were not many.

To him, philosophical speculation and perception was not a topic for intellectual exercise, but a guideline for leading human life along its right and rightful path. Coming to know of his inclination and spiritual enlightenment, people approached him with their problems, both personal and social, and he willingly helped them solve them in his own original absolutist way. If his philosophical perception could be compared to a coin, then correct and scientific speculation, not without its own mystical touch, and its application in actual human affairs, rendering it as of high human value, were its two sides.
The solutions Guru prescribed to personal problems are less recorded than the manner in which he handles social issues. The suggestions and incentives he gave to activists resulted in an unprecedented social upheaval in Kerala causing tremendous change its legitimate place in the history of Kerala and to a certain extent in that of the Nation, especially in bringing in the problem of casteism as part of the National Movement that was gaining momentum then. It was rather this aspect that made him well-known while still living.
Guru once half-jokingly said, “If someone likes to treat us (me) as god-incarnate (avatar) , it could rather be as the one born to kill the demon called jati (casteism) ”. Casteism, in India, is a despicable social evil, supposedly having the assent of spiritual tradition, causing social separation of man from brother-humans. This phenomenon, though not dominant in city areas, is even now prevalent in village-life all over India. Kerala is the state in India where casteism has lost much of its teeth, thanks to Narayana Guru.
A few admirers of Guru feel that his main concern was casteism, and that he was attempting to draw the support from spirituality to eradicate it. But a close study of his life and works reveals that he basically was a spiritual master and he remained so till the end. And casteism was the demon he sought to destroy in the fire of wisdom-enlightenment.