Eknath Easwaran

Eknath Easwaran (December 17, 1910 October 26, 1999) was an Indian-born spiritual teacher, author and translator and interpreter of Indian religious texts such as the ''Bhagavad Gita'' and the Upanishads. Easwaran was a professor of English literature at the University of Nagpur in India when he came to the United States in 1959 on the Fulbright Program at the University of Minnesota before transferring to the University of California, Berkeley. In 1961, Easwaran founded the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation, based in northern California. In 1968 Easwaran established Nilgiri Press. Nilgiri Press has published over thirty books that he authored.

Easwaran was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi, whom he met when he was a young man. Easwaran developed a method of meditation silent repetition in the mind of memorized inspirational passages from the world's major religious and spiritual traditions which later came to be known as Passage Meditation.

His teachings inspired some of his students to create the 1976 vegetarian cookbook ''Laurel's Kitchen''.

He has been accused of sexual abuse by former residents of Ramagiri Ashram. Provided by Wikipedia