(from "The Goddess and the Guru"):
Though Guruji remained genuinely excited about the possibilities of science—especially when science was wedded to love and placed in the service of humanity—his deeper passion lay in carrying that synergy further still: using science, love, and service as springboards toward liberation of the spirit.
“On a daily basis we are conditioned to believe that the world we see is the only world that exists, the only constant,” he said. “But as a species we have already moved far beyond that misunderstanding in almost every scientific field. As understanding expands, things that once seemed impossible become ordinary. Take flight: once it was an irrational fantasy; today it is a routine part of daily life for millions. Nothing mystical about it. Totally rational. What seems irrational today may become rational tomorrow.”
In this way, Guruji believed, humanity was steadily shifting the boundary between science and spirituality. “The divide between the two began crumbling with the advent of quantum physics,” he said, “when we confirmed that the observer plays a role in what is observed. You choose what to observe, and that is what appears. At the quantum level, the act of observation itself alters the phenomenon—you cannot observe without changing it. That means the observer and the observed are somehow one.”
He smiled at the implication. “For a classical physicist, this is a very hard pill to swallow. Because it suggests that each of us is capable of creating a universe—that each one of us is a creator, and that, ultimately, anything is possible. Totally irrational, right? Mystical nonsense. So says our conditioning. But that is precisely where science is heading.”
This was also the direction of Guruji’s own inquiry in his later years. Four decades after Sastry the scientist became Amritananda the guru, he remained convinced that these two currents of his life were not opposed, but convergent.
“I was never a great scientist,” he said, “but I always had a strong scientific temperament. Even now I am trying to understand myself in a way that is both spiritual and scientific—because the connections are everywhere. I oscillate, perhaps even vacillate, between those two poles. I still try to be rational: why does it have to be the way it is?” He gestured toward the world around him. “I keep questioning myself. I keep questioning everything. And that questioning keeps pushing me forward—both spiritually and scientifically.”
He admitted that it still pained him when spiritual teachers dismissed science outright. “When someone says, ‘Oh, science is just bunkum,’ it hurts me,” he said. “I know how much care, discipline and rigor go into those fields. Such people do not understand what they are rejecting.”
Yet it was the spiritual dimension that ultimately became his life’s work—specifically, the liberation and open transmission of the practices of Sri Vidya upasana in service of the Supreme Mother Goddess.
“Over time I came to understand ritual,” he explained. “And one of the finest rituals that exists today is Lalitā upasana. There is nothing comparable to it. It is vast in scope. It works simultaneously on physical, astral, and deeper levels. And it is profoundly beautiful. I wanted to teach it—not force it on anyone, but make it available to all who genuinely wished to learn.”
He pursued this work with unwavering focus for half his life. Through his largely solitary efforts, rituals, mantras, and prayers that had been hidden, restricted, or forbidden for centuries—sometimes for more than a millennium—entered ordinary life. They spread quietly into homes, ashrams, yoga studios, and temples across India and far beyond: throughout the Americas, Europe, Australia, and Asia.
Yet despite the depth of his commitment, Guruji displayed none of the usual marks of missionary fervor. He was entirely at peace with rejection—and even with the possibility that the tradition itself might someday disappear.
“Everything has a life,” he said. “It is born, it grows, it flourishes, and it dies. Why should Sri Vidya be exempt from that law? If the tradition is meant to die, it will die. If it is meant to live, it will live. The Goddess’s wisdom is far greater than ours.”
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