Dr. K. C. Varadachari, born on 14th August, 1902, had a distinguished academic career. Having graduated with a B.A.(Hon.) Degree, securing Gold medal, he took Ph. D. from the University of Madras in the year 1932. After occupying several important positions he ended his active professional life with the Vivekananda Professorship on comparative religion, ethics and philosophy at the University of Madras in 1966.

He has written profusely on the Visistadvaita system of philosophy of Vedanta, Sri Aurobindo and later on the System of Natural Path, the new system of Raja Yoga propounded by Sri Ramchandraji Maharaj of Shahjahanpur, U.P., India. Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh considered: "With a disarming simplicity and an effortless dignity that characterizes his written works Dr. K. C. Varadachari has consistently and persistently yoked the services of his philosophical acumen towards the errors of a purely intellectual approach of life, and has sought to defend and advance with adequate persuasion and power the claims of higher and spiritual values both for the attainment of deeper philosophical insights into the nature of the individual, the world and the Ultimate Reality as also for the perfection and integration of the individual personality in a scheme of living that results in the fullest enjoyment of the prizes of this world and the gifts of the world beyond."

Dr. K. C. Varadachari's talks on the system of Sri Ramchandra's Raja Yoga carry a depth of understanding of the subject and deep concern and commitment to the persons to whom they were addressed. In his own words, as recorded in his diary, his understanding of the system led him to remake himself in a new way. His approach to the system and the subject is best expressed by himself.

"Thus I found myself made to abjure the old theoretical ways of approach. I had to remake myself in a new way. I had to take stock of my whole past. All sectarian and caste conceptions had to be rethought. Philosophies help bind people to set notions. Thus I was to meet the challenge of the New.

It happened that I should meet Shri Ram Chandraji. Firstly his views were clearly different from my whole past.

• The conception of the Ultimate as Zero was quite against my philosophic inclination. Having failed with the positive concept it is time to experiment with this - Is it likely to be true? The Zero has to be understood as the Beginning or Origin of all possibilities being nothing of what it becomes.
• The concept of Invertendo shows how the deformation of evolution is natural and the power inherent in Zero (Nirguna). I began understanding the meaning of Vivarta. All flow necessitates the inversion and it is natural.
• The formations of the descent are clearly on this principle of inversions.
• The vast Brahman extends up to our knowledge of it. Thus Truth, Consciousness and Bliss themselves are attributes which get transcended in higher approaches. Saccidananda are not the Ultimate Reality, they too being terms of knowing - Sankara too gets transcended.
• The individual is continuous with the Universal and the Ultimate, and is not abolished. The Pralaya or mergence is cosmic and supracosmic and then all are withdrawn into the Ultimate.
• The individual ray of the Ultimate has created for itself an organic organization of physical-vital, mental and supramental centers and organs. These may well be the knots which have demarcated the several systems known as the physical, vital, mental or the bonal, muscular, circulatory, alimentary, hormonic, nervous, supranervous, and psychic etc. They have become autonomous in a sense but have to be opened up for higher control. This is possible only by bringing down the highest power of the Centre and not merely the higher power just above the human. It is the necessity to mould the lower in terms of the highest through the higher which has also to mould itself to receive the highest. That leads to going beyond Sri Aurobindonian Vijnana - moulding of the mental, vital and physical.
• This is done by means of the transmission or descent of the highest consciousness or condition (Zero) itself into the lowest region of the human heart or the organism as it is.
• The yogic process is this transmission from the Ultimate which alone can shape the entire being, of the abhyasi for the experience and realisation of one's oneness with the Ultimate and experience it in one's own physical, vital, mental and supramental levels - called by Shri Ram Chandraji, the Pinda, Brahmanda, Para Brahmanda and Central Regions working under the direct force of the Centre".

He was Director of the Sahaj Marg Research Institute started at Tirupati in 1965 and continued in that capacity till his Maha Samadhi on 31st January 1971. According to Sri Ramchandraji Maharaj he has attained a state of negation and was in total mergence with his Master.

Please click here to visit the website of Pujya Dr. K.C. Varadachari.

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