The Life of Sunyogi Umasankar
Sunyogi Umasankar is an authentic yogi of the ancient Vedic school, which is rare to find these days when yoga has lost its former glory and integrity at the expense of commercial interests. Sunyogi is a true scientist. because he has dedicated his life to the study of our physical world and nature through observation and experience, by spiritual practice and by experimenting with himself. Today Sunyogi travels the world to teach Sunyoga and spread its message of universal peace. Sunyogi is also a recognized skilled acupressure therapist, an ancient art that he has taught across the world over the years.
Sunyogi was born on June 22, 1967 in the small village of Lachhipur in West Bengal outside Kolkata in India, an area known as the birth-place of many prominent prophets and yogis. Despite growing up in a Hindu family, he never bothered which creed, color or social class we humans have, believing that what truly matters is wanting to reach agreement through peace and friendship. Early in his youth he developed deep philosophical questions like “What is the purpose of life?”
His hunger to get answers to these questions drove his spiritual zeal to understand more of the world we live in. Later, after becoming a successful electrical engineer and businessman, he was initiated by his mother in Kryia Yoga and went to Pondicherry ashram to focus 100% on finding the answers to his philosophical questions.
Sunyogi began his education at the Aurobindo ashram in 1995. His realisation started early one morning as he sat on the beach and watched the sun rays reflected in the sea water. A strong energy led him to close his eyes, thinking he had lost his sight. When he opened his eyes, he was surprised to notice that the vision had instead become much sharper, so sharp that he could even see the water molecules. He soon realized the benefits of looking into the sun’s rays and soon dared to look directly at the sun, even if it went against what he had learned from science.
Initially he was watching the sun as it was rising, then day by day he began to concentrate on it as it rose higher into the sky. He continued his meditation and after a couple of months the sun started to appear as a “clear hazy ring with soft blue sky inside”. The harsh brightness disappeared and he felt it become increasingly soothing.
As time went on, he started to see “seven bright colours radiating from the sun, slowly reaching closer to the ground”. Three months after starting his concentration on the sun, Uma Sankar Sunyogi felt these rays – the sun’s cosmic energy – touch his body, creating within him an indescribable feeling of peace and calm.
As an experiment, Uma Sankar Sunyogi stopped eating breakfast and continued concentrating on the sun. Six months later, he stopped eating his dinner, and then six months after that he stopped eating all food. From the 17th August until the 7th December 1996, Uma Sankar Sunyogi stopped eating and sleeping entirely for a period of four months, while also working 18 hours per day without the need for any sleep. His body weight remained the same and he continued his daily routine working in the ashram in a perfect state of health.
In 1997, he left the ashram in Pondicherry to continue his search of the root of human suffering. He went barefoot, with no possessions but a simple outfit to visit the entire country of India and to spread the message of universal peace and brotherhood. Visiting all Indian states took him six years and three months.
He suffered many difficult situations and his self-confidence and faith in God went through severe challenges. During his trip, he met many people who became interested in his technique to meditate with the sun, and from there he began spreading the knowledge of Sunyoga. He thus established an annual peace conference with the aim to gather all interested in Sunyoga in one place.
The conference has been held yearly ever since, a force for peace and unity that aims to connect Science, Technology, Spirituality and Religion to pursue peace. An ashram was also built in Sunyogi’s native country in Lachipur: in this place, Sunyoga practitioners can come and immerse themselves in the practice of Sunyoga, as well as carry out social work and organic cultivation.
With time, Sunyogi noticed that many people and the media focused too much on the fact that he did not need to eat or drink. He felt that the practice interfered with the message he wanted to convey, while all the good spiritual effects and health effects people experienced did not get the attention they deserved. For this reason, in 2007 he resumed eating. Surprised, he noticed that his energy now increased even more, which led him to realize that he had abused a Siddhi (a yogic super power) for 12 years, which had limited his development.
At this time, he felt that he needed to go into a deeper meditation and went to Tapovan for a two-year retreat (Gnatavasan), spending much of this time in an isolated ashram at an altitude of 4700m near the source of the Ganges, high in the Himalayas., where he stayed over the winter of 2007 with temperatures as low as -45 degrees Celsius.
Sunyogi meets Mahavtar Babaji
In December 2007, Mahavatar Babaji (the immortal prophet known from the book Autobiography of a Yogi) came to meet Sunyogi in his physical form while Sunyogi was performing a walking meditation. From Babaji, Sunyogi learned about the five elements and how the Earth and life on Earth had been created from them.
The following winter, Mahavatar Babaji again returned to Sunyogi. This time, he showed him how the Universe was created and Sunyogi experienced an expansion through all chackras (29 energy centers) that enable us to connect the micro- and macro cosmos. Sunyogi was taken to the center of the universe and got to experience the universe, the black hole, its three poles and the basic physical laws of the cosmos.
From Babaji, Sunyogi received his full enlightenment and the full knowledge of Sunyoga. Sunyoga in its purest form comes directly from Babaji and this is what Sunyogi conveys during Sunyoga courses. The ancient Vedic scriptures make small mention of Sunyoga, while the thorough knowledge of how it can be practiced has been forgotten and remained unknown to the common man for a long time. Thanks to Mahavtar Babaji and through Sunyogi, this knowledge has become available to a wider group of practitioners again.
Sun Meditation is not the only element in Sunyogi´s teaching, it is just part of the path to achieve inner peace, the very first step to bringing peace to the whole universe, which is the ultimate goal for all of us. The purpose of one’s spiritual journey, explains Uma Sankar Sunyogi, is Peace, achieved through the union of individual and universal consciousness.
Babaji’s highlight gave Sunyogi the solution to create a better future for humanity, and for all beings in the Universe. Sunyogi has travelled far and wide across the world to help thousands of people to increase their awareness, help them achieve self-realisation and set them on a mission to bring peace to the Universe. His future goal is to create a self-sustainable and independent community, an optimal environment for growth on all levels. These are the seeds he has sown for our future balanced and peaceful universe.
Book: Autobiography of Sunyogi
“Be inspired by and rejoice in the unique life of Sunyogi, the living proof we can live on sun energy alone and survive in extreme climates and temperatures with only little clothing. In search for the greatest wisdom, he went high up among the snow peaks of the Himalayas, where he had the fortune of meeting the ageless saint, Mahavatar Babaji. Despite growing up in poverty and struggling for food and education, he found answers to our deepest existential questions and acquired an unfathomable feeling of bliss and calm.
The author reveals how he discovered the technique of looking towards and connecting with the sun, a technique that can solve any problem and provide rapid spiritual progress. We are guided through all Indian states in his six-year-long barefoot walk, introducing cultures, yogis, and spiritual concepts.
Sunyogi’s adventurous life will make you journey to perilous and scarcely known places, where he fought constantly for his life against fanatics, black magicians and wild animals. His rich life-experience together with deep introspection have shaped his philosophy, from which anyone can learn fundamental teachings.”
“The author is a man in full, very intelligent, courageous, compassionate and judgment-free. His spiritual experiences are many, inspiring, humbling, and deep. Perhaps the most interesting part is the account of his travel adventures, featuring great yogis, saints and a veritable rogues gallery of brigands, black magicians, homicidal villagers, serial murderers, a shy tiger and rampaging bears. India is a very scary place, requiring constant vigilance of any would-be pilgrims.”
A software engineer from Silicon Valley