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Life is a mystery, and its deepest hidden treasure is happiness. In the infinity of the universe, all beings are eternally hungry seekers of it. Rare are those who are able to raise to the surface that pearl of happiness from the ocean of life—the pearl of Paramānanda, complete and everlasting bliss. That blissfulness is the crown of self-realization, which is rooted in God-realization. Those who are rich with that treasure we call sages, self-realized saints. It is a great privilege to know such a divine beacon as Dharma Samrāṭ Paramahaṁsa Śrī Svāmī Madhavānandajī. His image and his words enriched our lives unforgettably. This life is priceless, and God has blessed us with it. Through this, the soul is purified by God. Śrī Svāmī Madhavānandajī, who is forever in our hearts as our holy Gurujī, was born on the 11th of September 1923 in India, in Rajasthan, the country of heroes and saints, in the village of Nepal. His father, Śrīla Caṇḍājī Garg, who lived the life of a Brahma Ṛṣi, and his pious mother, Śrīmatī Sarasvatī Devī Garg, gave him the name Tekcanda Garg. Young Tekcanda grew up here, in the harsh and severe beauty of the Rajasthan desert. He was brought up with his mother’s stories about Lord Kṛṣṇa and her never-forgotten words: that to love God is more important than life itself. When Tekcanda was seventeen, his deep prayers and thirst for God brought him face to face with the divine ocean of mercy, with Bhagavān Śrīdīp Nārāyaṇa Mahāprabhujī. Looking at Śrī Mahāprabhujī, this young man saw the magnificent divine form of Śrī Kṛṣṇa. The depth of the experience of that moment, Gurujī has explained with these words: "My eyes filled with tears, and I fell to my knees. I knew I had found the everlasting light of my life. I was home at last." From that moment, he became a śiṣya, a true disciple, who completely devoted his body, his mind, and his soul to his master. Simply and forever, Mahāprabhujī became his life. Mahāprabhujī’s image, Mahāprabhujī’s words, and Mahāprabhujī’s name represented to him the embodiment of the divine. When Tekcanda was nineteen, he became a Hindu monk. Mahāprabhujī initiated him into sannyāsa, an order of those dedicated to God and service of all beings. That was not a common initiation, but a Paramahaṁsa Sannyās Dīkṣā, the highest spiritual initiation. During this most high and honored ceremony, the aspirant, guided by his Gurudev, instantly attains samādhi, the highest consciousness of self-realization. His life beside Mahāprabhujī was a gradual but permanent establishment of Paramahaṁsa Mādhavānandajī in the highest spiritual experience. Here in Kathu Ashram, and for many years here in Bola Guda Ashram, holy Gurujī was refined under the guidance of Śrī Mahāprabhujī through the nectar of his mercy and the fire of austerity. So Paramahaṁsa Madhavānandajī, the divine swan, the Nara of Brahman, the witness and messenger of the unity of God and man, soared under the merciful wing of Śrī Mahāprabhujī. In 1963, when Śrī Mahāprabhujī left this world, entering into Mahāsamādhi—his last and irrevocable merge with his divine nature—Śrī Madhavānandajī, as his spiritual successor, took care of the āśrams in Kailāśa, Bologudha, and Kathu. These places are filled with an unforgettable memory of his life beside his divine master. Following the instructions of Śrī Mahāprabhujī, he built this āśram in Nepal and established āśrams in Jaipur, Jādan, and New Delhi. With the fullness of his guru-bhakti and steadiness of his meditation, holy Gurujī continued to spread the light of his Gurudev. He preached the glory of Ātmā and Paramātmā from village to village, from town to town, from continent to continent. The spiritual joy of saints is completed when they have someone they can share it with. Svāmī Gurujī was a tireless messenger of tolerance, respect, and understanding among nations, cultures, and religions as real forces of world peace. All humans belong to one religion, and that is humanity. He was a mighty voice of Advaita, non-dualism. Like Mahātma Gāndhījī, Gurujī preached the ancient Vedic truth, ahiṃsā paramo dharma: non-violence is the highest religion. As an accomplished singer, he often expressed these teachings in the form of bhajans, songs which sing the glory of the highest spiritual realization. Strength and inspiration for teaching and serving mankind, holy Gurujī drew from the depths of meditation. A central point of meditation was his mantra, the divine name of his Gurudev. Every movement of these beads sang Gurujī’s love for Mahāprabhujī. More than eighteen hours every day, absolutely every day, he prayed and repeated the name of God. Such commitment, such devotion is not possible without Parabhakti, love without reservation. Only love of such purity and intensity overcomes all obstacles and removes all the curtains between us and God. Only such glorious love, without any calculation, saves one from the torture of ego and the agony of ignorance. Such a saint does not belong to himself anymore. He belongs to God. He does not have himself anymore, but he has everything. He has God. Śrī Madhavānandajī is an eternally living personification and testimony that it is possible. Out of that realization, Gurujī wrote a biography of his Gurudev under the title Līlā Amṛt. This book describes a part of an eternal story of divine presence on this planet through his spiritual lineage: Śrī Alakpurājī, Śrī Devpurījī, and Śrī Mahāprabhujī. For his spiritual achievements and his service to mankind, holy Gurujī received the title of Dharma Cakravartī, the one who keeps the wheel of spirituality moving. At the Mahākumbha Melā in Allahabad in 2001, Sumeru Peṭṭādhiśvara Śaṅkarācārya honored him with the title of Hindu Dharma Samrāṭ, the Emperor of Dharma, the Emperor of Religion. That is how the physical body of Śrī Mādhavānandajī became the living temple and the living testament of Paramātmā. Holy Gurujī spent eighty years as a living blessing in his physical body. After his eightieth birthday came the inevitable, what comes to everything shaped in time and space. Gurujī’s immortal, divine ātmā left its mortal dwelling. On 31st October 2003, His consciousness merged into the cosmic consciousness. On the day of the final farewell, the ashram filled with thousands of people, thousands of bhaktas from all continents. In this way, together, it was easier to deal with the personal pain caused by the loss of Gurudev. This divine body, this divine temple in which the saint lived, in which Gurudev lived and taught, was on its last journey through this ashram. Sitting straight and with dignity, magnificent in death as he was in life, holy Gurujī, surrounded by a crowd, was on his way along the familiar paths. Every step lavished with flowers, every step full of memories. Memory is filled with pain caused by the loss of the transitory, but also filled with gentle gratitude for the permanent acquired through the transitory. The love and joy of belonging which Gurujī had with his Gurudev, he received from his disciple Swāmī Māheśvarānandajī. Śrī Māheśvarānandajī was thirteen when he became irrevocably bound with holy Gurujī. Then he turned over the clean bowl of his own childlike being to his master, to fill it with the divine nectar of immortality. The great power of Gurujī’s devotion, discipline, and realization found in Swāmijī a perfectly ready and willing soul. Infinitely rare are disciples who can devote themselves completely, who can sense, not to mention understand, the immeasurable greatness of the treasure possessed and offered by Gurudev. Swamiji, as an incarnated Mahātma, perfectly complemented Guruji’s world, not only because his awakening was swift and complete—which every master wishes for his disciple—but because Mahāśvarānandajī is the incarnation of service. Thanks to Svāmijī, in the final years of his life Gurujī could peacefully live, being submerged in his Viśva Dīp, the divine light of the universe, knowing that his disciple is spreading the wisdom of yoga and the glory of Mahāprabhujī, with his immeasurable will of a Mahāyogī and inexhaustible love for all beings, without sparing himself or his life. Gurujī’s mālā and Swamijī’s work perfectly completed the dharma of both. In that way, they made each other complete, and they made this world better. It was a great joy for holy Gurujī to bestow his blessing and transmit the divine light to Śrī Māheśvarānandajī. So through Māheśvarānandajī, the spiritual lineage of Śrī Devapurījī and Mahāprabhujī continued its divine mission. The air vibrated with mantras, prayers, and bhajans. Thousands of bhaktas gave relief to their pain in that way. Slowly, we arrived at the place where Gurujī’s body was going to be laid to rest. Carried in the hands of his sannyāsīs, whose guru and perfect example he was, Gurujī was placed in his samādhi. The sannyāsī, who did not want anything, and the vairāgī, to whom everything but God was insignificant, was placed on his royal throne as an embodiment of a pure spirit that lived and was realized in this human body of Śrī Madhavānandajī. In death, in Mahāsamādhi, holy Gurujī remained infinitely beautiful and magnificent. As such, he will remain in the memory of his bhaktas and his successors. The final moments under the leadership of Śrī Śaṅkarācārya. A moment of stillness and silence to the eternal glory of the one who blessed our lives so plentifully. Bhagavān, Hindu Dharma Samrāṭ, Dharma Cakravartī, Paramahaṁsa, Śrī Svāmī Madhavānandajī Purī, has gone to eternity. We are staying in the present, deeply deprived by His departure, but infinitely rich with what He has given us. Holy Gurujī, who spent all his inner and outer life in front of an altar, became an altar himself. He became a divine mirror with a clear and eternal message: "I am the body" is ignorance. "I am pure consciousness" is wisdom.