Mooji

Mooji (born Anthony Paul Moo-Young, January 29, 1954) is a Jamaican spiritual teacher based in the UK and Portugal. He gives talks (satsang) and conducts retreats. Mooji lives in Portugal, at Monte Sahaja.

Biography

Mooji was born Tony Paul Moo-Young in Port Antonio, Jamaica in 1954. His mother migrated to the UK as one of the windrush generation when he was one year old. He was raised by his father and his mother's cousin (who became his father's lover and had more children). Mooji's brother Peter went on to become one of Jamaica's top table tennis players. Mooji's father died when he was eight, and he was raised by a strict uncle until he moved to London to be with his mother as a teenager.

By age 30, Mooji was working as a street artist supporting his wife and child. In 1985, Mooji's sister, Cherry Groce, was shot and paralysed during a police raid on her home, sparking the 1985 Brixton Riot. In 1987, Mooji had an encounter with a Christian which began his spiritual quest. Mooji continued to work as an art teacher until 1993, when he quit and went traveling in India, and attended the satsangs of the Indian guru Papaji.

He returned to England in 1994 when his son died of pneumonia. He continued to travel to India, each time returning to Brixton, London to sell chai and incense, as well as give away "thoughts for the day" rolled up in straws taken from McDonald's. He became a spiritual teacher in 1999 when a group of spiritual seekers became his students, and began to produce books, CDs, and videos of his teachings. On Tony Moo becoming known as Mooji, Mooji said, "What can I say, except that’s life." Mooji's brother Peter said that people had always followed him wherever he went.

Mooji continues to give satsangs at various locations around the world, regularly attracting over a thousand people from fifty nationalities. He also holds meditation retreats, sometimes with up to 850 people, each paying between €600 and €1000 for seven days, including the cost of satsang. He purchased a 30-hectare property in the parish of São Martinho das Amoreiras, in the Alentejo region of Portugal, and created an ashram