Ekkirala Bharadwaja

About Sri Ekkirala Bharadwaja

Sri Ekkirala Bharadwaja (1938–1989) Affectionately called by his followers as 'Mastergaru' is a well known personality and is considered as one of the greatest of all time spiritual explorers. He is the pioneer in introducing Shirdi Sai Baba in a major scale to Andhra Pradesh. He deeply studied the lives of many saints of all the religions, and personally met several saints who are alive at his time.

Brief Life sketch

He is the youngest of the four sons to a great scholar of the time, Sri Ananthacharya whose writings like 'The Vision of Aryan Glory' which is once the non detail subject in German Universities.His mother died when he is just four years and he grew up under the guidance and care of his father. He has shown his genius attitude from his childhood. At the age of 15 or so, loss of his beloved brother's son has made him think about life and god. After five years of rigorous thought process he suddenly experienced a state of completeness where all his questions were met with answers. After few years, he just accompanies his brother to Shirdi. He experienced Samadhi sthithi before Shirdi Sai Baba's statue.. Ever since he oriented towards saints and their lives. He personally met many true saints (called Avadhutas) and told about them to normal people who can not recognise them. Initially he met pakalapati guruji and learnt some aspects of dhyana. Later he spent significant amount of time(about 4–5 years) in Jillellamudi Divine Mothers Ashram. He used to participate in the literary activities of ashram and became quite close to the mother. But one question of having a live guru remained unanswered. In the later part of his life he starts his life as a lecturer in Vidyanagar (Nellore District) and keeps doing satsang with the local college students. It was this period when he interacted with so many younger/older people and preached them about Sai Baba. In the mean time he happened to visit naimisaranya and attended the satsangs of saints there. One of the saint raised a critical question there regarding the necessity of Guru for a spiritual aspirer. He stressed that people who took samadhi can only fulfill the wishes of devotees and a guru in human form is a must for reaching the spiritual completeness. Till that point he never thought about this aspect of sai baba and he never experienced the kind of happiness he got near baba anywhere else. So he is totally disturbed by this and kept on asking other saints about these doubts. After few days he went to meet vasudevananda saraswathi of Pune and he surprisingly calls him Saibaba ka beta and gives him the Guru Charitra and asks him to read it. After he did a parayan of this 3 times, Sai Baba appears in his dream and tells him "Do not worry, I will guide you". This is peak of any thirsty desciple. He writes all these things in the preface of Sai Baba the Master. He is well prepared for ascetic life, but forced to get married by few avadhutas, who assured him of his spiritual endeavours even after the marriage. He put great efforts in works, in preparing life history of Shirdi Sai Baba and various other valuable spiritual books. He married Alivelumanga while working in Vidya Nagar. With the good support of wife Smt. Alivelumanga, he restlessly worked to preach people about Baba and what Baba actually want people to do. He built a temple of Baba in Vidyanagar which was a symbol of his spiritual endeavor. Vekaiah Swami also has given his divine blessings near this temple. He later moved to Ongole and dedicated his life fully to Baba's Seva by organizing the Baba magazine. He attained samadhi in 1989 (around 51 years of age). Till he attained samadhi his life is dream for any spiritual sadhaka as it has every possible twist. His path is full of difficulties and hardship which he was able deal so easily because of his utmost unflickering faith and his phyilosophical thinking. He wrote wealth of books dealing with diverse issues which are lingering in every spiritual aspirant's mind. They question the readers thinking process again and again(pariprasna) and elaborately discusses the foundations of all religions. His literature is translated into various other languages and read and appreciated by each reader.