Mirtola

Yashoda Ma (née Monika Devi) [7] was the wife of Gyanendra Nath Chakravarti, the first vice-chancellor of Lucknow University, who was a well-known theosophist.[8]

Meanwhile, Ronald Henry Nixon, a young English fighter pilot in the World War I, who later took a degree from Cambridge University, came to India in 1921, after he took up a job as a lecturer at the Department of English at the newly opened Lucknow University, it was here that became close to the Chakravartis.[9][10] In 1927, when Monika Devi moved to the hills on doctors' advice, Ronald Nixon, followed his Guru, and together they stayed in Almora for a while.

Later, in 1928, Monika Devi took the vows of sannyasa (renunciation), under the name 'Sri Yashoda Ma',[11] and a shortly afterwards, Ronald Nixon under the name, 'Sri Krishna Prem'; he was later known as Gopal Da, at the Ashram, which they together established in 1930. Amongst its early inhabitants were Moti Rani (Yashoda Ma's youngest daughter) and Major Robert Dudley Alexander, who retired from his post of Principal, Lucknow Medical College prematurely, to be with Shri Krishna Prem. In October 1943, noted Indian saint Sri Anandamayi Ma, visited the Mirtola Ashram.[12]

Sri Krishna Prem went on to take over the running of the Ashram, after Yashoda Ma's death in 1944, Gopal Da himself passed over on 14 November 1965; before that he wrote books like, The Yoga of the Bhagavad Gita and The Yoga of the Katho-panishad, amongst others and handed over the working of the Ashram to Sri Madhav Ashish in 1955.[13] He has the distinction of being the first westerner, to be included in the Vaishnav form of Hinduism,[14] he also was fluent in Hindi and Bengali.[15]

Sri Krishna Prem (Gopal Da), was followed as a guru, by his disciple, 'Sri Madhav Ashish' (Ashish Da), previously 'Alexander Phipps', was an English aircraft engineer assembling Merlin engines, who came to India during the Second World War in 1942, and met Sri Krishna Prem at Mirtola in 1946, and soon became his disciple. In the following years, they together wrote many books including their two-part work on the Stanzas of Dzyan, contained in the Book of Dzyan, 'Man, the measure of all things: In the stanzas of Dzyan', and 'Man, Son of Man'. Mirtola Ashram became a pilgrimage for Indian theosophists and started working extensively with the local communities pioneering hill farming techniques which he encouraged them to adopt,[16] a work for which Sri Madhava Ashish was awarded the Padma Shri in 1992 by the Indian government,[17] he later died on 13 April 1997,[18] succeeded by his disciple, Sri Dev Ashish.

Rainwater harvesting at Mirtola Ashram, 2017

Over the years, the Ashram evolved a unique philosophy based on Eastern mystical thought from the Bhakti traditions, ideas of Shri Nisargadatta and western philosophies like that of G. I. Gurdjieff, Theosophy of Madame Blavatsky, and Jungian dream work, among others. Thus a large number of Gurdjieffians visited the ashram, including Olga de Hartmann, Phillipe Lavastine, Lizelle Reymond, Laurence Rosenthal, James George, and Bernard Courtenay-Mayers; even Jeanne de Salzmann met Ashish Da in Delhi 1971.[19]

Memorials of Yashoda Ma, Krishna Prem and Madhav Ashish at Mirtola Ashram

Amongst the noted disciples of the 'Mirtola Ashram' are, Seymour B. Ginsburg, the co-founder of the Gurdjieff Institute of Florida; Karan Singh,[20] former Indian Ambassador to the US and present Member of the Indian Parliament, the Rajya Sabha, and travel-writer Bill Aitken.[21] Besides that, many followers of Gurdjieff teachings continued to visit the Ashram for several decades [22]