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Concept
Dayananda Saraswati (Arsha Vidya)
Summary
Swami Dayananda Saraswati (15 August 1930 – 23 September 2015) was a renunciate monk of the Hindu Saraswati order of sannyasa. Pujya Swamiji as he was fondly known was a renowned traditional teacher of Advaita Vedanta, and founder of the Arsha Vidya Gurukulam in Pennsylvania, USA and Coimbatore. He was also the spiritual Guru of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan posthumously for his exemplary service to the nation in the field of spiritualism in 2016.
His Holiness, Pujya Sri Swami Dayananda Saraswati was born as Natarajan in Manjakkudi in Thiruvarur district of Tamil Nadu on 15 August 1930 to Shri Gopala Iyer and Smt Valambal. He was the eldest of four sons. His early schooling was at the District Board School in Kodavasal. His father died when he was only eight years old, which meant Natarajan had to shoulder a big responsibility in the family alongside his education. After the completion of his education, Natarajan merely seventeen years old came to Chennai for earning a livelihood, where he learnt English and began his career as a journalist for the weekly magazine ‘’Dharmika Hindu’’ run by T. K. Jagannathacharya (TKJ). However, there was only a subsistence income, so the young Natarajan, at the behest of a friend Rangachari, enrolled in the airforce as a fighter pilot in Bangalore with the GTS Ground Training Station as a combatant. However, he was underweight and could not qualify but was allowed to continue. Family duties being his Father’s shraddham caused him to leave the airforce besides he “did not like the rigidity. There was no freedom, I felt they were trying to control my mind. I have never allowed anybody to ever control me at any time, no one. That is why I think I am a Swami.”
Natarajan resumed his career briefly with TKJ before joining a news agency, The Lens run by Shri Rajagopal.
He also worked for the erstwhile Volkart Brothers (now Voltas Limited) for sometime. He decided to be a fighter pilot at one point and joined the Indian Air Force, but left after six months as he felt suffocated by the regimentation there.
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