Stillness
A thoughtless condition — the state of total awareness of the mind. Not the absence of thought, but the willingness to stay put while thought does what it does.
- Born
- 1974, Rampur Dhabai, Mirzapur
- Given name
- Ashok Kumar Singh
- Education
- M.Sc. Organic Chemistry
- On the path
- Since 2001
- Lineage
- Osho disciple
- Teaches
- Goa, Rishikesh & Dharamshala
The story
From a farming village near Varanasi
He was born in 1974 in a small village called Rampur Dhabai, in the Mirzapur district near Varanasi, into a farming family. His given name is Ashok Kumar Singh; Swami Ashok Samdarshi is his spiritual name. Before any of this he took a Master's degree in Chemistry — organic chemistry — which is a stranger beginning for a meditation teacher than it sounds, and one that still shows in how he explains things.
He has been on a spiritual and self-discovery path since 2001. He travelled across India and Nepal, practising higher yogic and tantric techniques, and spent a period living alone and naked in the Himalayan mountains, where he came to self-realization.
His inner journey has been shaped mainly by Osho, Patanjali, Buddha, J. Krishnamurti, Gurdjieff, etc. He is an Osho disciple, and has studied widely across the ancient vedic, yogic and tantric texts. What he teaches comes from those sources, from his own extensive meditative practice, and from years of field social work.
He integrates the spiritual teaching of Eastern philosophy with a contemporary scientific Western approach — a spiritual-scientific teaching, as he puts it. The focus is on the experiential side of meditation, on deep healing, and on transformation: helping students towards an insight into holistic meditation, and through it to their own inner truth, peace and joy.
Swami Ashok Samdarshi
What the teaching rests on
Four things it keeps coming back to
Breath
The one part of the nervous system you can address directly. Pranayama is taught as meditation, not as exercise, and treated with corresponding care.
Inquiry
Questions held open rather than answered quickly, and a scientific temperament brought to something usually discussed without one.
Service
Years of field social work sit behind the teaching. Practice that stops at your own comfort has stopped too early.
Work highlights
Teaching, and the rest of the work
Teaching
- Leading meditation workshops in many Osho ashrams across India, and in public schools and villages
- Teaching the intensive meditation course to spiritual seekers from all over the world, in Goa, Rishikesh and Dharamshala
Social work
- Founder member of a degree college in Uttar Pradesh, India
- Work with young people to raise awareness of, and prevent, drug abuse and addiction
Public speaking
- Faculty speaker at institutes and organisations across India
- Speaker at seminars and conferences on social issues
Activism
- Reducing corruption in government and the public sector, and increasing transparency
- Leading public actions on hunger and other major social issues
The path
How he got here
-
1974
Rampur Dhabai
Born in a small village in the Mirzapur district near Varanasi, into a farming family.
-
Chemistry
A scientific training
A Master's degree in organic chemistry — the habit of testing things rather than believing them starts here.
-
2001
The path begins
The start of a spiritual and self-discovery path: travel across India and Nepal, and higher yogic and tantric practice.
-
Himalaya
Alone in the mountains
A period living alone in the Himalaya, where self-realization came.
-
Today
Goa, Rishikesh, Dharamshala
Teaching the intensive course to seekers from all over the world, and guiding students long after their seven days are over.
Who teaches
The person you will actually meet
Swami Ashok Samdarshi
Meditation teacher · Spiritual guide · Energy healer
An Osho disciple on the path since 2001, with a Master's in Organic Chemistry behind him. Teaches one on one, in couples and in small groups of five to ten, from Patanjali, Shiva and Buddha, and leads the seven-day intensive in Goa, Rishikesh and Dharamshala.
Where the lines are
Four commitments, plainly put
No outcome is promised
What tends to happen, and roughly how long it tends to take, can be described honestly. Anything firmer than that would be a sales pitch, and you would be right to distrust it.
The teaching stays in its lane
This is meditation instruction, spiritual guidance and energy work. It is not medicine, and it is not clinical therapy. Where something belongs with a doctor, you will be told so plainly.
Nothing is asked of your beliefs
No conversion, no chanting you do not understand, no membership. The methods come from named traditions and that is said openly, but you are asked to test them, not accept them.
Small enough to stay personal
Meditation taught to a hall is meditation taught to nobody in particular. Swami teaches one on one, to couples, and to small groups of five to ten — never larger, because that is the only size at which the teaching can still be adjusted to the person in front of him.
Begin
This course is for anyone looking for transformation and liberation in their life.
Write to Swami-jiEvery message is read and answered personally.