09/07/2026
In Kalady, the birthplace of Adi Shankaracharya, Hinduism’s greatest thinker, scholar and philosopher saint.
Jagad Guru Adi Shankaracharya (788-820 CE) was born in Kerala and achieved samadhi in Kedarnath, traversing the length of India in his search for the ultimate truth.
In his brief life of thirty two years, he not only revived Sanatana Dharma, known today as Hinduism, and systemized the diverse teachings on Advaita Vedanta (the non-dualistic philosophy asserting that the self and the absolute are one), but also established the four cardinal monasteries or mathas, which acted as the organizational structures for perpetuating the teachings.
By the age of sixteen he had made monumental contributions, writing commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads and the Brahma Sutras. But the most audacious of all his philosophy was the conceptualisation of Brahman as the absolute reality permeating the whole universe.
Adi Shankaracharya’s advaita philosophy and modern quantum theory share striking conceptual parallels regarding the non-dual, interconnected nature of reality. Stephen Hawkins could well have been a disciple of Shankaracharya!
So you can imagine the gravity of this moment and my emotions, as I stood on the ground where he was born, over 1,200 years ago. This was a home-coming in many ways for me. My father was born 3 hours from Kalady, and I visited family here.
My lineage traces back through Swami Sivananda to the Sringeri Matha, one of the four mathas Shankaracharya himself established.
Standing there, that lineage became a tangible place. Twenty seven years of teaching led me to this ground, and I am humbled and privileged to continue the line and bring these teachings to my students in New York and beyond.
In deep gratitude 🙏🏽
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