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Hariwansh Lal Poonja (; born 13 October 1910 (or later) in
Punjab Punjab (; ; also romanised as Panjāb or Panj-Āb) is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia. It is located in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising areas of modern-day eastern Pakistan and no ...
,
British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...
– 6 September 1997 in
Lucknow Lucknow () is the List of state and union territory capitals in India, capital and the largest city of the List of state and union territory capitals in India, Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and it is the administrative headquarters of the epon ...
,
India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
) was an Indian
sage #REDIRECT Sage {{redirect category shell, {{R from other capitalisation{{R from ambiguous page ...
. Poonja was called "Poonjaji" or "Papaji" by devotees. He was a key figure in the
Neo-Advaita Neo-Advaita, also called the Satsang-movement, is a new religious movement, emphasizing the direct recognition of the non-existence of the "I" or "ego," without the need of preparatory practice. Its teachings are derived from, but not authorised ...
movement.


Biography


Early life

At the age of eight, he claimed he had experienced an unusual state of consciousness:


Meeting Ramana Maharshi

However, rather than giving another vision of God,
Ramana Maharshi Ramana Maharshi (; ; 30 December 1879 – 14 April 1950) was an Indian Hindu Sage (philosophy), sage and ''jivanmukta'' (liberated being). He was born Venkataraman Iyer, but is mostly known by the name Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. He was b ...
pointed him in the direction of his own self:


Transformation

He found that he could no longer bring his mind to think of God, do
japa ''Japa'' () is the meditative repetition of a mantra or a divine name. It is a practice found in Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Buddhism, with parallels found in other religions. ''Japa'' may be performed while sitting in a meditation posture ...
or any other spiritual practice. He asked Ramana for help and was told that this was not a problem, that all his practice had carried him to this moment and it could be left behind now because it had served its purpose. Poonja recognised this as the same state he experienced when he was eight years old, but this time it was permanent.


Teaching others

Poonjaji met two other men "who convinced me that they had attained full and complete Self-realisation.", a Muslim Pir and an unknown sadhu whom he met by the side of a road in Karnataka. At the end of 1968 Poonja met in
Rishikesh Rishikesh, also spelt as Hrishikesh, is a city near Dehradun in the Indian state Uttarakhand. The northern part of Rishikesh is in the Dehradun district while the southern part is in the Tehri Garhwal district. It is situated on the right bank ...
Geneviève de Coux (born 1947), — later known as Ganga Mira — a young Belgian seeker, who became his disciple and with whom he would form a new family, after the ancient Vedic polygamic tradition. Their daughter Mukti was born in 1972. Poonjaji later settled in Lucknow where he received visitors from all around the world. Some well-known students of his and later self-appointed gurus of
Neo-Advaita Neo-Advaita, also called the Satsang-movement, is a new religious movement, emphasizing the direct recognition of the non-existence of the "I" or "ego," without the need of preparatory practice. Its teachings are derived from, but not authorised ...
included Eli Jaxon-Bear,
Gangaji Gangaji ( ; born Merle Antoinette Roberson in Texas, 1942) is an American Neo-Advaita spiritual teacher and writer. Early life Gangaji was born Merle Antoinette Roberson in Texas in 1942, and grew up in Mississippi. After graduating from the ...
,
Mooji Mooji (born Anthony Paul Moo-Young, January 29, 1954) is a Jamaican spiritual teacher of Advaita based in the UK and Portugal. He gives talks (satsang) and conducts retreats. Mooji lives in Portugal, at Monte Sahaja. Biography Mooji was born T ...
, and Andrew Cohen, who later distanced himself from Poonja.
Sam Harris Samuel Benjamin Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American philosopher, neuroscientist, author, and podcast host. His work touches on a range of topics, including rationality, religion, ethics, free will, determinism, neuroscience, meditation ...
also visited Poonja several times in the early 1990s.
David Godman David Godman (born 1953) is an English writer. He has written on the life, teachings and disciples of Ramana Maharshi, an Indian sage who lived and taught for more than fifty years at Arunachala, a sacred mountain in Tamil Nadu, India. In the l ...
, a devotee of Ramana Maharshi, moved to Lucknow in 1992 to spend time around Poonja and stayed until 1997. Godman wrote prolifically about Poonja, including ''Papaji Interviews'', an anthology of interviews, and ''Nothing Ever Happened'', a three volume 1,200-page biography.


Teaching through silence

His teaching emphasises that words can only point to ultimate truth, but never are ultimate truth, and that intellectual understanding without directly realising the truth through one's own investigation is not enough. Like Sri Ramana he stressed that teaching through silence was more important than teaching through words. Once, when a French seeker informed Poonja that he was learning Sanskrit to better understand ancient scriptural texts, Poonja replied:


The process

Poonja mentions several events in his own life which "illustrate, in a general way, how the process of realisation comes about." # "There must be a desire for God, a love for Him, or a desire for liberation. Without that, nothing is possible." # "This desire for God or realisation is like an inner flame. One must kindle it and then fan it until it becomes a raging fire which consumes all one's other desires and interests." # "If this inner fire rages for long enough, with sufficient intensity, it will finally consume that one, central, overwhelming desire for God or the Self." # The presence of the Master is the final ingredient: "When the Maharshi’s gaze met my vasana-free mind, the Self reached out and destroyed it in such a way that it could never rise or function again. Only Self remained."


Self-enquiry

His message, like that of his teacher Sri Ramana, was always that the Self is already enlightened and free. Like Sri Ramana, he taught
self-enquiry Self-enquiry, also spelled self-inquiry (Sanskrit ''vichara'', also called ''jnana-vichara'' or '), is the constant attention to the inner awareness of "I" or "I am" recommended by Ramana Maharshi as the most efficient and direct way of discove ...
, which involved locating a person's sense of "I" and focusing on and investigating this directly. Famous for eschewing all forms of practices or ''sadhana'', Poonja nonetheless recommended self-enquiry as the only practice one should take up, but he didn't want people to take it up as a form of meditation. He would say, “Do it once and do it properly, and your spiritual quest will be over instantly."


Liberation

According to Poonja, Self-realization is in itself liberating from karmic consequences and further rebirth. According to Poonja "karmic tendencies remained after enlightenment, utthe enlightened person was no longer identified with them and, therefore, did not accrue further karmic consequences." According to Cohen, Poonja "insisted that the realization of the Self had nothing to do with worldly behavior, and he did not believe fully transcending the ego was possible." For Poonja, ethical standards were based on a dualistic understanding of reality and the notion of an individual agent, and therefore were not indicative of "nondual enlightenment: "For Poonja, the goal was the realisation of the self; the illusory realm of relative reality was ultimately irrelevant."


Works

* * *


References


Sources


Printed sources

* . * . * . * .


Online sources


Further reading

* Account of his relationship with H. W. L.Poonja. * A three-volume biography. * * Contains an interview with H. W. L. Poonja.


External links


Papaji's Avadhuta Foundation
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Poonja, H. W. L. 1913 births 1997 deaths 20th-century Indian non-fiction writers 20th-century Indian philosophers Advaitin philosophers Indian Hindu spiritual teachers Indian spiritual writers Neo-Advaita teachers Nonduality teachers Writers from Lucknow Ramana Maharshi