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Életrajz

Ifjú évek

Niszargadatta 1897 április 17-én született egy hívő hindu házaspár, Shivrampant Kambli and Parvatibai gyermekeként, [Bombayban]. Lévén, hogy születésnapja egybeesett Úr Hanumánéval, a fiút 'Marutinak nevezték el', egyenesen Úr Hanumán után. Maruti Shivrampant Kambli Kandalgaonban nevelkedett, egy kis faluban - Maharashtra Ratnagirinevű járásában -, egy népes család és a mélyen hívő szülők társaságában. His father, Shivrampant, worked as a domestic servant in Mumbai and later became a petty farmer in Kandalgaon.

In 1915, after his father died, he moved to Bombay to support his family back home, following his elder brother. Initially he worked as a junior clerk at an office but quickly he opened a small goods store, mainly selling beedis – leaf-rolled cigarettes, and soon owned a string of eight retail shops.

In 1924 he married Sumatibai and they had three daughters and a son.

Felébredés

In 1933, he was introduced to his guru, Siddharameshwar Maharaj, the head of the Inchegiri branch of the Navnath Sampradaya, by his friend Yashwantrao Baagkar. His guru told him, "You are not what you take yourself to be...". He then gave Nisargadatta simple instructions which he followed verbatim, as he himself recounted later:

„My Guru ordered me to attend to the sense 'I am' and to give attention to nothing else. I just obeyed. I did not follow any particular course of breathing, or meditation, or study of scriptures. Whatever happened, I would turn away my attention from it and remain with the sense 'I am'. It may look too simple, even crude. My only reason for doing it was that my Guru told me so. Yet it worked!" ”

Following his guru's instructions to concentrate on the feeling "I Am", he utilized all his spare time looking at himself in silence, and remained in that state for the coming years, practising meditation and singing devotional bhajans.

After an association that lasted hardly two and a half years, Siddharameshwar Maharaj died on November 9, 1936, though by that time he had done his task. Maruti had reached self-awareness. Soon he adopted a new name, "Nisargadatta" meaning "naturally given" ("nis-arga" literally means "without parts," suggesting establishment in the unfragmented, seamless, solid Awareness). He was also appointed as the spiritual head of the Inchegeri branch of Navnath Sampradaya, the 'Nine Masters’ tradition, a place he retained through his life.

In 1937, he left Mumbai and travelled across India. Through realising the shortcomings of a totally unworldly life and the greater spiritual fruitfulness of dispassionate action, he eventually returned to his family in Mumbai in 1938. It was there that he spent the rest of his life.

Later years

Between 1942-1948 he suffered two personal losses, first the death of his wife, Sumatibai, followed by the death of his daughter. He started taking disciples in 1951, only after a personal revelation from his guru, Siddharameshwar Maharaj.

After he retired from his shop in 1966, Nisargadatta Maharaj continued to receive and teach visitors in his home, giving discourses twice a day, until his death on September 8, 1981 at the age of 84, of throat cancer.