Eknath Easwaran

Eknath Easwaran was an Indian-born spiritual teacher, author, translator, and interpreter of Indian religious texts such as the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads. Easwaran was a professor of English literature at the University of Nagpur in India, and in 1959 he came to the United States as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Minnesota before transferring to the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught courses on meditation-the first in the country offering credits. 

In 1961, Easwaran founded the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation and Nilgiri Press, based in northern California. Nilgiri Press has published over thirty books that he authored. Easwaran was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi, whom he met when he was young. As a result, Easwaran developed a method of meditation – silent repetition in the mind of memorized inspirational passages from the world's major religious and spiritual traditions – which later came to be known as Passage Meditation.

Easwaran's written works may be grouped into several major categories—primarily books but articles in newspapers and other periodicals. Most of his books have been reviewed by spiritually oriented publications, websites, or nationally known media such as The New Yorker or the New York Post. In addition, many of Easwaran's recorded talks have been published in video and audio formats.

A variety of influences on Easwaran's life and work have been documented. For example, Easwaran's students, inspired in part by his teachings about compassion and stewardship for the environment, published a well-known vegetarian cookbook, Laurel's Kitchen (1976), later republished in revised form as The New Laurel's Kitchen (1986). The book contained extensive nutritional information from a scientific point of view and sold more than a million copies.

Easwaran's teachings or practices have sometimes been taught as part of traditional college courses or as tools for self-management by health professionals. Outside of the US, Easwaran's life and teachings were profiled, along with those of a variety of other spiritual teachers, in a book published in India entitled Meditation Masters and their Insights.

Easwaran's words have been included in collections of wisdom teachings, such as ones recently published by Chang (2006) and Parachin (2011). In addition, quotations from Easwaran's translations have been used many times by both scholarly and famous writers.

Easwaran's other writings have also been quoted by various authors, including writers of novels and short stories,[68] popular spirituality, and articles on management theory. For example, psychiatrist Aaron Beck and his colleagues quoted Easwaran's commentary on the Katha Upanishad. The NAPRA ReView wrote, "The volume of [Easwaran's] work and the quality of his discourse suggests a man who has had a profound impact on the spiritual lives of many."

Easwaran has been listed about works on spiritual and religious leaders. For example, in his survey of commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita, Nadkarni described Easwaran as "respected worldwide as one of the most profound writers and orators on religion and spirituality."