‘Gnanavallal’ Paranjothi Mahan
His Holiness ‘Gnanavallal’ Paranjothi Mahan was born on 2 May 1900 in a village called Kansapuram, Virudhunagar District previously it was in the district of Ramnad in South India.
Although His Holiness was not at the reach of formal education in his younger age, he still had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. His foremost quest was to seek the Truth of life. He therefore sought many places of worship and devoted his time to religious practices in the hope of finding the “Truth”. Mahan attained his wisdom on 11 Nov 1911 at 11:11 am.
When he turned 16, he travelled to Rangoon where he worked with his uncle. In 1933, he started his own business. However, his quest for knowledge never left him and he continued to visit many Yogis, Buddhist monks and spiritual leaders hoping to master adequate knowledge from them as answers for his search.
On the 7th January 1938, he met his Guru, Haribullah Kamil Syed Ibrahim who initiated him into the Tantric system of Yoga. This was the turning point in his life and he felt a great change come over him. He devoted more time to the practice of meditation on research basis and soon attained the state of enlightenment.
He put himself into strenuous test to come to a conclusion that the after-effect he experienced through continual practice is not from his physical body but beyond that. Then he started to preach his self-realisation and knowledge to others just as he experienced. Later he simplified the process of meditation which attracted many people to accept and follow. He is the pioneer in the field of Kundalini meditation who delivered this unique meditative process by touch for the first time to many more people abundantly. Because of his simplest principles, his admirers and disciples called him “Paranjothi Mahan” which means “The illuminated personality of the Universal Energy” with a prefix “Gnanavallal” meaning ‘abundant giver of Wisdom’
Gnanavallal Paranjothi Mahan left his business and returned to India where he started his first centre in 1939 naming as ‘Paripoorna Paranjothi Uyar Gnana Sabai’ in a small place in Madurai.
Later on he renamed it as Universal Peace Sanctuary. His teachings soon spread far and wide and reached foreign countries. After Aadhi Sankara Gnanavallal Paranjothi Mahan is the one who re-established the ‘Advaitha’ philosophy and also gave the exact meaning of the God. He appointed many Guru appointees to spread the unique philosophy extensively.
He attained Samathi on 7th January 1981 in Pondicherry, South India.