At Kumbh, Muslim saint who holds forth on Gita

HARIDWAR: With a U-shaped sandalwood paste tilak on his forehead, the traditional mark of a Vaishnavite seer, ochre-coloured shirt and sitting in front of a dhuni, Sri M seems like many of the other seers who have set up camp at the Bairagi Camp area of the Maha Kumbh. As he holds a discourse on the teachings of the Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita, it comes as a revelation to know that Sri M was born Mumtaz Ali Khan in a Muslim family of Kerala.

At the Kumbh, he has set up his own akhada, Yoga Dham, where there are daily discourses from scriptures, sadhu seva (service to seers) and chanting of bhajans. “God is known by different names — Allah, Christ, Krishna and so many others. Despite different names, God is one and the same. Once we have this knowledge, we see that everyone is seeking the same thing,” he says, eyes crinkling into a smile.

Awarded the Padma Bhushan last year for his philanthropic and spiritual work — his organisation Satsang Foundation runs schools and clinics for the underpriviliged at Madanapalle in Andhra Pradesh— the seer’s story is interesting. Born into a prosperous Muslim family in Thiruvananthapuram, he says he was drawn to the yogic way of life since childhood. At the age of 19, he ran off from home to go to the Himalayas in search of a guru, walking all the way from Rishikesh to Badrinath, a distance of around 300 km, dressed as a wandering sadhu. Eventually after a number of adventures which he has detailed in his book ‘Apprenticed to a Himalayan Master’, he met his guru, a Himalayan yogi, in a cave beyond Badrinath and was initiated into the ancient Nath sampradaya (to which UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath also belongs).

He travelled in the Himalayas with his guru for over three years during which he says his guru initiated him into the ancient scriptural teachings. He now gives talks on yoga sutras, Upanishads and other Vedanta texts combining textual knowledge with the experiences of his wanderings with his guru.

Sri M was born as Mumtaz Ali Khan in a Muslim family of Kerala