Early life
Swami Bodhananda was born in a quiet village called Mattatur, 36 miles north-east of Kalady in Kerala — the birthplace of Adi Sankaracharya. From early childhood he showed great interest in reading and discussing issues pertaining to his country, culture and geopolitics.
He spent long hours either in solitude or in dialogue with friends, teachers and wandering monks. The young mind was disinterested in the ordinary, and sought the Light that was beckoning him. He walked. He meditated. He kept silent. He read.
Every day the young boy walked ten miles to school, eager for classes and to devour books in the public library. By fourteen he had read Nehru's Glimpses of World History and the complete works of Swami Vivekananda and Mahatma Gandhi; by seventeen, Marx's Das Kapital, Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man, Debray's Revolution in the Revolution and Camus' The Rebel.
A brilliant student, he graduated on a government scholarship from Christ College, Irinjalakuda, and chose economics and political science for post-graduation. Economics remained his favourite subject; his favourite teacher, Fr. Vivian, taught him economics.
In the Himalayas
Gurudev spent several years in the Himalayas in silence, watching the embodiment of ultimate truth — the snow-clad mountains — and in meditation, absorbed in the non-dual basis of existence, Brahman.
His enlightenment is marked by compassion, love, and a crystal-clear vision that illumines even the darkest corners of the human mind.
Teacher of Vedanta
In the early eighties Swami Bodhananda spent several years teaching in Ernakulam, and his students at that time included very well-known community and social leaders of the day.
From 1987 to 1990 he was the Mukhyacharya at Sandeepany Sadhanalaya in Kasargode, north Kerala, inaugurated in September 1987, and taught a complete course of Vedanta to its first batch of Brahmacharis. The two-and-a-half-year course, with a syllabus to master the mind as well as the scriptures, produced many of today's well-known sannyasins — among them Swami Adhyatmananda, who now heads Sambodh Kerala.
The teacher today
Swami Bodhananda is a teacher of keen observation, sharp analytical thinking, subtle perception and an integral vision, all marked by unconditional compassion for anyone and everyone who comes to him. Whether an issue is of geopolitical importance, philosophical abstraction or psychological complexity, his analysis brings nuanced clarity and a connected, unified presentation. Those who meet him find their question retold in an exhaustive, lucid and connected manner — and in that retelling, an enlightening response.
Gurudev believes in the fundamental unity of life, and in freedom of the individual as the uncompromisable value.
Visionary leadership
It is Gurudev's vision and inspiring spiritual guidance that gave rise to the idea of the Bodhananda Research Foundation for Management and Leadership Studies in 1988 — to foster human potential development, and to develop leadership through dialogue, in management. BRF-ML was formally registered as a Trust in 1990.
Swami Bodhananda is the spiritual guidance and inspiration for Sambodh and its sister institutions in India, North America and the rest of the world. Programmes and projects for the study and propagation of the Vedantic scriptures; research on Indian management, contextualising it in today's economic and geopolitical context; ashrams to set our minds high and meditate in unison with the harmony of Mother Nature, living with nature; social service for minorities and the underprivileged — all these are blooms of his divine vision, flowing through his devotees and associates in different parts of the world.
Management thinker and author
Apart from his erudition in Vedantic texts, Swami Bodhananda is a well-known management guru. He is an avid reader, well versed in the contemporary challenges that corporate leadership and corporate management face.
He is the author of several books, among them Indian Management and Leadership, The Gita and Management, Meditation: The Awakening of Inner Powers, Happiness Unlimited, Seven Hindu Spiritual Laws and Management and Mahabharata. He has also written two books in conversation — one with a scholar of consciousness studies in India, and the other with a young Indian-American lawyer in the United States: Dialogues: Philosopher meets Seer (2001) and Irreverent Spiritual Questions (2004).
Writings and messages
The range of topics Swami Bodhananda addresses extends from human potential development, managerial excellence and leadership studies to the experience of “absolute peace in the midst of dynamic activity” — in papers and thoughts written on various occasions, travelogues, thematic notes, letters and discussions with devotees, public interviews and media reports, and messages on occasions of spiritual and cultural importance.
Read his messages and writings
The sacred footsteps
The divine and spiritual presence of our Guru invokes an inner and self-giving motivation in us to come out of ruts and stereotypes, conflicts and dilemmas, and to experience the full flowering of the spirit.
To follow the sacred footsteps, the divya-pāda, of the Guru is to travel to the abode of the Ultimate Truth.
The Sambodh logo
The logo of Sambodh is made of three arcs and three birds: two trapped within and one flying out. The three arcs represent the three bodies — gross, subtle and causal — identifying with which infinite consciousness has become finite.
The two trapped birds stand for finite consciousness caught in samsara, the world of change, and for every kind of duality: seeker and sought, God and world, body and soul, good and bad, matter and spirit. The bird flying out into the infinite space of consciousness is the enlightened, integrated person who has resolved all duality and dis-identified with the three bodies and the three gunas.
The motto, uttiṣṭhata jāgrata nibodhata — arise, awake and realise — is from the Katha Upanishad: an exhortation to awake from material slumber through inquiry and discrimination.