Swami Jyoti

Swami Amar Jyoti was born on May 6, 1928 in a small town in northwestern India, not far from the banks of the Indus River. His childhood interests were many: science, math, music, writing, cycling, drama and sports, and He brilliantly excelled in all of these. His college education was temporarily interrupted by the partition of India in 1947,but He soon transferred to a college in Mumbai (Bombay). Much beloved by family and professors, He shocked everyone with the decision to leave home a few months before graduation, saying, “I’d like to read an open book of the world for my education.”

At the age of nineteen, without money or any particular destination, He took the first train to Calcutta.It was 1948. Refugees were pouring over the border of East Bengal (now Bangladesh) into West Bengal by the thousands each day. Living on a railway platform near the border of India and Bangladesh, He soon headed the entire volunteer corps there, working tirelessly 20 hours or more each day. After about ten months, the flood of refugees subsided and He returned to Calcutta.