About the Teacher

Dharmanidhi was born in Chicago in 1962, moved to New York before the age of two, and lived in New Jersey and New York until the age of 21. As a young boy he was interested in spirituality, religion and philosophy, and began studying yoga, breathing and meditation at seven years of age. By the time he was twelve, he had read and studied the teachings of Christ (both the standard Bible and the gnostic gospels), the Tao Te Ching, the I Ching and the teachings of the Buddha. These teachings gave orientation to his practices of yoga and meditation.

At age 13, he had a life-transforming event as he practiced breath meditation (performing a kriya) in the martial arts hall where he was a student. With eyes open, he experienced an absolute oneness with the world and a cessation of the mind so profound that his experience of the world, life and himself was permanently changed. From this experience onward he knew that the purpose of life was to experience that ultimate state of Awareness and Unity as a moment-to-moment reality, and he made it his goal in life to realize this state.

His martial art masters exposed him to Taoist teachings and practices as a teenager. At sixteen, he met a teacher who would have a great impact on his spiritual search. Father Al Gorayeb was a mystic Byzantine Catholic priest who taught Dharmanidhi to control his brain wave patterns and to use the states of consciousness reflected by the various brain wave frequencies to develop psychic powers such as distant viewing, psychic diagnosis of illness, contacting deceased sages, attaining photographic memory, etc. These were useful skills, but did not give the deeper realization that he was looking for.

After high school, Dharmanidhi studied biology and psychology at Trenton State College in New Jersey. He also apprenticed to Dr. Zofchak, a renowned herbalist and naturopath who lived in Pennsylvania. In 1982 he entered New York Chiropractic College, continued his studies in esoterica with his eastern masters, and studied with Dr. Pasquale Cerasoli who was a chiropractor with supra-normal skills of diagnosis and miracle healing.

Dharmanidhi transferred to Palmer Chiropractic College in Iowa, where he also studied Japanese acupuncture. He graduated in 1986 with a degree in Chiropractic and a certificate in physical therapy. That year he moved to Australia to buy a chiropractic clinic. Through a series of misfortunes, he found himself out of work, in debt, on the streets and hungry. All previous concepts of security gained from money, status, intellect and spiritual training dissolved. Dharmanidhi realized that with all of his training and personal practice in spirituality, he had not yet been able to realize the ultimate state as a moment-to-moment reality.

At this time he was plunged deeply into shunya, or the "void." Through this immersion, the experience of the ultimate freedom of non-attachment and the clear knowledge of the true nature of reality began to awaken. He began to long deeply to meet a true master to take him beyond. That year he met a disciple of a great Tantrik Yoga master Paramahamsa Satyananda Sarasvati. Through studies with this disciple, he went deeper into yogic training of Hatha Yoga, Kriya Yoga and meditation. Later that year Dharmanidhi, in a moment of ecstasy, recognized Satyananda Paramahamsa as his spiritual father, his Sat Guru. Formal initiation followed in 1987. This began a very intimate mystical relationship to his guru and resulted in Dharmanidhi undertaking a one and one-half year practice retreat.

From 1994-1997 Dharmanidhi deepened his training in the Tantrik Yogas of his guru. In 1997 his guru's chosen successor, Paramahamsa Niranjanananda Sarasvati, conferred the transmission of the lineage to him and gave him the mandate to form a new sect of Tantra for westerners to teach the classical Tantra and Yoga of India which had become debased and commercialized in the west.

In 1998, at his guru's behest, Dharmanidhi moved back to the USA and founded Tantric College of America (now known as Trika Kula) and Wisdom Fire Inner-Work School (Jnanagni Kula) to educate westerners about classical Tantra and related studies, and to initiate people into the classical Tantrik path. At this time he also began his formal studies of Ayurveda with Dr. Vasant Lad of the Ayurvedic Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Over the next three years he completed basic and advanced studies in the US and in India, while serving on the faculty of the Institute teaching Vedic and Tantrik philosophy.

In January of 2001 he established a center for Tantric College of America and Jnanagni Kula in Berkeley, California. He taught at this center as well as in Canada, Europe, Australia and India.