प्रणाम
Teachers of One Heart
The saints and sages whose grace, wisdom, and love have shaped these satsangs. Each one a universe unto themselves, each one an independent flame that has lit the lamp of this offering.
“I find myself falling fully in love with Hanuman Prasad Poddar Ji, with his family of sages like Swami Ramsukhdas Ji, Radha Baba, while I continue in very deep gratitude to Guruji (Sri Mooji Baba) as well.”
Ananta, in satsang
राम भक्ति
The Path of Devotion
Ram bhakti & the Gita Press tradition. Surrender, the Divine Name, and the grace of God
गोस्वामी तुलसीदास
Goswami Tulsidas
c. 1532 – 1623
The saint-poet who composed the Ramcharitmanas in Awadhi, opening the gates of Ram bhakti to every soul regardless of caste or learning.
One Heart
“Siya Ram may sab jag jani, karahu pranam jori jug pani. All this world is pervaded by Sita and Ram. With folded hands, I bow to all.”
जयदयाल गोयन्दका
Jayadayal Goyandka
1865 – 1965
A Rajasthani merchant who lived 100 years, founded Gita Press, and made the Bhagavad Gita available to every household in India.
One Heart
“God is not attained through the intellect. God is attained when the heart is purified and turned wholly toward Him.”
हनुमान प्रसाद पोद्दार
Hanuman Prasad Poddar
1892 – 1971
Revolutionary-turned-saint who edited Kalyan magazine for 45 years, refused the Bharat Ratna, and attained the highest state of waking samadhi while hiding himself as a simple Rajasthani householder.
One Heart
“The purpose of all scripture is to bring the heart to that point where it can say: I am Yours.”
राधा बाबा
Radha Baba
1913 – 1992
A polyglot Sanskrit scholar who abandoned intellectual Vedanta for the path of pure love, signing his writings only as “Ek Sadhu” — One Ascetic.
One Heart
“The Name of God and God Himself are not two. Where the Name is, God is.”
स्वामी रामसुखदास जी
Swami Ramsukhdas Ji
1904 – 2005
Made a sadhu by his mother at age four, he lived 102 years in complete renunciation while authoring the landmark Sadhak Sanjivani commentary on the Bhagavad Gita.
One Heart
“God is not far away. He is the nearest of the near. The difficulty is only that we are looking for Him somewhere else.”
आत्म विचार
The Path of Self-Inquiry
Advaita Vedanta. The direct recognition of one's true nature as pure, unchanging awareness
रमण महर्षि
Ramana Maharshi
1879 – 1950
The sage of Arunachala whose spontaneous awakening at sixteen and lifelong silence drew seekers from around the world to the sacred hill of Tiruvannamalai.
One Heart
“The Heart is the hub of all sacred places. Go there and roam.”
निसर्गदत्त महाराज
Nisargadatta Maharaj
1897 – 1981
A householder and small shop owner who, through a brief but complete practice following his guru’s instruction, realized the absolute — and spent his remaining decades pointing seekers toward the truth beyond the “I am.”
One Heart
“The real does not die, the unreal never lived. Once you know that death happens to the body and not to you, you just watch your body falling off like a discarded garment.”
पापा जी
H.W.L. Poonja
1910 – 1997
A direct disciple of Ramana Maharshi who spent his later decades in Lucknow pointing seekers — with the directness of a lion and the tenderness of a father — toward the freedom that is always and already here.
One Heart
“Keep quiet. Do not do anything. This quiet is what you have always been looking for.”
मूजी
Mooji
Born 1954
A Jamaican-born teacher of Advaita whose satsangs — marked by warmth, humor, and unflinching directness — have introduced millions worldwide to the recognition of the self as pure, unchanging awareness.
One Heart
“You are the unchanging awareness in which all activity takes place. Always at rest, always at peace, this is what you are.”
Carmelite
The Path of Interior Prayer
The Carmelite mystics. Mapping the soul's journey through darkness and silence into union with God
San Juan de la Cruz
St. John of the Cross
1542 – 1591
The Carmelite friar and poet who mapped the soul’s passage through darkness into union with God, giving the world the phrase “dark night of the soul.”
One Heart
“In the inner wine cellar of my Beloved I drank, and when I went out through all this plain, I knew nothing, and lost the flock I followed before.”
Santa Teresa de Jesús
St. Teresa of Ávila
1515 – 1582
The Carmelite reformer who mapped the interior castle of the soul — seven mansions of prayer leading to the innermost chamber where God dwells.
One Heart
“Within the innermost mansion of the soul, the Lord Himself dwells. Here the soul and God enjoy each other in the deepest silence.”
Frère Laurent
Brother Lawrence
c. 1614 – 1691
A Carmelite lay brother whose simple practice of maintaining continuous awareness of God’s presence — while washing dishes and mending sandals — became one of the most beloved spiritual texts in the world.
One Heart
“We need only to recognize God intimately present with us, to address ourselves to Him every moment.”
Sainte Thérèse
St. Thérèse of Lisieux
1873 – 1897
A Carmelite nun who died at twenty-four, leaving behind a spiritual autobiography that revealed the “Little Way” — a path of childlike trust and surrender that has touched millions.
One Heart
“My vocation is love. In the heart of the Church, my Mother, I will be love.”
Sainte Élisabeth de la Trinité
St. Elizabeth of the Trinity
1880 – 1906
A French Carmelite nun who died at twenty-six, whose burning insight that the Holy Trinity dwells within the soul as a living sanctuary transformed her short life into one of the most luminous mystical testimonies of the modern era.
One Heart
“I have found my heaven on earth, for heaven is God, and God is in my soul.”
Orthodox & Hesychast
The Path of Sacred Stillness
The Desert Fathers, Hesychasts, and Christian mystics. Silence, the Jesus Prayer, and the uncreated light
Преподобный Серафим
St. Seraphim of Sarov
1754 – 1833
A Russian Orthodox monk who spent decades in solitary prayer and silence, then emerged radiating such joy that he greeted every visitor with “My joy! Christ is risen!”
One Heart
“Acquire the Spirit of Peace, and thousands around you will be saved.”
Αββα / Abba
The Desert Fathers
3rd – 5th century
The early Christian monks who withdrew into the Egyptian desert seeking God in silence, solitude, and radical simplicity — founding the entire tradition of Christian contemplative life.
One Heart
“Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.”
Γρηγόριος Παλαμάς
St. Gregory Palamas
1296 – 1359
The Athonite monk and Archbishop of Thessalonica who defended the Hesychast tradition and articulated the theology of the uncreated light — that human beings can directly experience God’s own radiance.
One Heart
“The heart that has been purified by unceasing prayer beholds the uncreated light of God.”
Συμεών
St. Symeon the New Theologian
949 – 1022
A Byzantine mystic who insisted that every Christian must have direct, conscious experience of God — not merely faith, not merely sacraments, but the living encounter with divine light.
One Heart
“He who possesses the Holy Spirit within, even in the smallest measure, possesses the whole of Christ.”
Странник
The Pilgrim
19th century
An anonymous Russian pilgrim whose account of learning to pray without ceasing — through continuous repetition of the Jesus Prayer — became one of the most beloved spiritual texts in the Orthodox world.
One Heart
“The ceaseless Prayer of the Heart opened for me the interior kingdom.”
Αγιος Νεκτάριος
St. Nektarios of Aegina
1846 – 1920
The most beloved modern saint of the Greek Orthodox Church — a bishop unjustly slandered and stripped of his post, who responded with absolute silence and humility, and who in his final years on the island of Aegina became a vessel of thousands of miraculous healings.
One Heart
“The Kingdom of Heaven is within you. Seek it in the depths of your heart.”
Meister
St. Mary of Egypt
c. 1260 – 1328
A Dominican friar and the most radical mystic of the medieval West, whose sermons on detachment, the Godhead beyond God, and the birth of the Word in the soul anticipate Advaita Vedanta by seven centuries.
One Heart
“It was not I who crossed. It was the grace of God carrying what remained of me.”
Sufi
The Path of Marifa
The Sufi sages. Fana, divine love, the wine of gnosis, and the annihilation of self in the Beloved
مولانا رومی
Jalal ad-Din Rumi
1207 – 1273
The Persian poet-mystic whose Masnavi — six books of ecstatic verse on divine love — is called “the Quran in Persian” and remains the best-selling poet in the English-speaking world eight centuries after his death.
One Heart
“The lamps are different, but the Light is the same. It comes from Beyond.”
رابعة العدوية
Rabia al-Adawiyya
c. 717 – 801
A former slave who became the first Sufi to teach that God should be loved for God’s own sake alone — not from fear of hell or hope of paradise — establishing pure, disinterested love as the highest station of the mystic.
One Heart
“O God, if I worship You for fear of Hell, burn me in Hell. If I worship You in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise. But if I worship You for Your own sake, grudge me not Your everlasting Beauty.”
ابن عربی
Ibn Arabi
1165 – 1240
The Andalusian Sufi metaphysician whose doctrine of Wahdat al-Wujud — the Unity of Being — is the closest Islamic parallel to Advaita Vedanta, teaching that there is only one Reality manifesting as the apparent multiplicity of the world.
One Heart
“My heart has become capable of every form: a pasture for gazelles, a convent for Christian monks, a temple for idols, the Ka’ba for the pilgrim, the tablets of the Torah, the pages of the Quran. I follow the religion of Love.”
The Vessel
Gita Press, Gorakhpur
Founded 29 April 1923. Over 141 million copies of the Bhagavad Gita. 108 million copies of the Ramcharitmanas. No advertisements, ever. Publications sold at cost or below, so that the poorest home in India can hold the word of God.
Recipient of the Gandhi Peace Prize, 2021