spiritual4u

The Library Of Spiritual Science

BIOGRAPHY

Mooji was born on 29 January 1954 in Port Antonio, Jamaica. In 1969, he moved to the UK and he is presently living in Brixton, London.

Mooji is a direct disciple of Papaji, the renowned advaita master.

For a long time, he was well known as Tony Moo, but is now affectionately known as Mooji (Moo - his original family name, ji - a suffix in hindi expressing respect and affection).

Early Years

After moving to the UK and settling in London, Mooji worked in London's 'West end' as a street portrait artist for many years, then as a painter and a stained glass artist, and later as a teacher at Brixton College.

It appears that at some point, Mooji got married and had several children. His eldest son died of pneumonia in 1994.

Radical Shift in Consciousness

In 1987, a meeting, by chance, with a Christian mystic was to be a life-changing encounter for Mooji. It brought him, through prayer, into the direct experience of the Divine within. Within a short time, he experienced a radical shift in consciousness so profound that outwardly, he seemed, to many who knew him, to be an entirely different person. As his spiritual consciousness awakened, a deep inner transformation began which unfolded in the form of many miraculous experiences and mystical insights. He felt a strong wind of change blowing through his life which brought with it a deep urge to surrender completely to divine will. Shortly after, he stopped teaching at the Brixton College, left his home and began a life of quiet simplicity and surrender. A great peace entered his being, and has remained ever since.

Living in a State of Spontaneous Meditation

For the following six years, Mooji drifted in a state of spontaneous meditation oblivious to the outer world he formally knew. During these years, he lived almost penniless but was constantly absorbed in inner joy, contentment and natural meditation. Grace came in the form of his sister Julianne, who welcomed Mooji into her home.

Meeting Papaji

In late 1993, Mooji travelled to India and soon after arrival went in November to Lucknow to meet Papaji. It was to be an auspicious and profoundly significant experience on his spiritual journey. He gradually came to recognize that Papaji was his Guru. Mooji stayed with Papaji for several months. During one particular satsang meeting, Papaji told him: “If you desire to be one with truth, 'you' must completely disappear.” On hearing this, great anger arose within his mind, full of judgement and resistance towards Papaji. He decided to leave the master's presence for good, but later that day a huge dark cloud of anger and rebelliousness suddenly lifted, leaving his mind in a state of such peace, emptiness and a love towards the master, so intense, that he knew he could not leave. Through 'Papaji's' grace, his mind was pushed back into the emptiness of source.

In 1994, with his Master's blessings he travelled down to Sri Ramanasramam in Tiruvannamalai. This is the ashram at the foot of Arunachala, the 'Hill of Fire', where Sri Ramana Maharshi, the Sage of Arunachala and Papaji's Guru, had lived and taught. Mooji felt very happy and at home in Tiruvannamalai. He stayed there for almost three months before returning to sit at Papaji's feet once again.

Mooji visited Papaji again in 1997. It was to be his last meeting with his Beloved Master, who had by now become ill and frail in his movements, but whose inner light and presence remained undiminished. A month after returning to London, Mooji received news that the Master had passed away. Of this Mooji declares: "That Principle that manifests as the Master is ever HERE NOW. The True Master never dies, it is the mister that dies. The true Master, that Sat Guru* within, alone is the Real".

Becoming a Spiritual Teacher

Since 1999, Mooji has been sharing satsang in the form of spontaneous encounters, retreats, satsang intensives and one-to-one meetings with the many seekers who visit him, from all parts of the world, in search of the direct experience of truth.

His style is direct, clear, compassionate and often humorous. Once caught in the grip of his questions, there seems to be no place to hide.

TEACHINGS

This emptiness is not a trivial thing. It's the most supreme state. But in the consciousness there is this itching, and I use this term: the athlete's foot mind. In the mind the thought is coming, there is this itching, and it feels it needs a scratch, you know. Like a question arising, something more to be solved, or resolved. But I say: only stay as this, and that itchiness will subside. When this itchiness is there, there is the temptation to start to scratch it, but it just makes it more bloody and awful. So just take note of that for the moment. But stay as you are. Because you cannot improve this emptiness. So many of the beings are longing to be this emptiness, to return to this emptiness, you see, consciously. When you go to sleep, you leave all your cares and your concerns about yourself and your life. And you love to be without these concerns. How much money we spend on the bed, on the bedroom, to get the best sleep so you can forget everything ! And when the waking arises there is refreshment in the being, you see, because it puts away all these concerns. This emptiness that you speak of now seemed eclipsed by your concerns and where you put your attention, and while you're attending to your concerns and activities and affairs of life, then you're being disturbed actually. So a little bit of meditation or self-enquiry returns you to this affirmation in yourself, this recognition: all there is is just a sort of emptiness, beyond the concept of empty even.

On Enlightenment:

In truth it is not possible to become enlightened as you put it because no one is there as such to become enlightened in the first place. The firm recognition or realisation that there isn't a 'somebody' in reality to gain enlightenment, and that there can never be an entity at any time, either now or in the future, to gain any such state, is what amounts to enlightenment. This direct realisation occur and become revealed, confirmed and convincing truth through the process of self enquiring. 'Self-enquiry', also called atma-vichara, is one effective means of exposing the unreality of the 'I-concept', or ego, ordinarily felt to be the fact of oneself, leaving the pure immutable Self as the single an perfect reality. This is the ultimate truth.

On "Whatever you can perceive cannot be you":

You are total unicity beyond duality. That you are. You are so one with yourself that you cannot perceive yourself. You can only imagine that you are other than that. It is like a knife that can cut so many vegetables but cannot cut itself because it is one with itself, or the scale which can weigh so many objects but cannot weigh itself. It is the same with the one supreme Self- the sole Reality, being ever One with itself, it cannot perceive that which it Is; it can only perceive what it is not.