Anandmurti Gurumaa

Anandmurti Gurumaa teaches from the Rishi Chaitanya Ashram at Gannaur, in the Sonepat district of Haryana, and travels widely to hold meditation retreats and give talks. She began asking about the nature of reality as a child, and her teaching comes out of what she describes as her own self-realisation rather than out of a role she was appointed to.

She keeps a deliberate distance from religion as an allegiance. Her ashram states plainly that theists, atheists and agnostics are equally welcome, and she is direct about her opposition to blind faith. One of the lines she returns to is "Be an explorer, not a blind believer." What she does teach from is the source texts: commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita, the Sri Guru Gita, the Gurbani and several Upanishads, alongside talks on Buddha, the Sikh Gurus, Kabir, Meerabai, Sahjobai, Rumi and the Zen masters. A good deal of her work is also about ordinary difficulty — the mind, emotions, stress, health — put in plain language.

She composes and records extensively, and much of the material is published as books, recordings and through the ashram's own Amrit Varsha app. Alongside the teaching she leads Mission Shakti, a non-political and non-sectarian effort to give underprivileged girls education and the skills to earn independently, and the ashram organises relief work after floods, drought and earthquakes.