Gunatitanand Swami - As A Sadhu

As A Sadhu

By 1809, Mulji had been in contact with Bhagwan Swaminarayan for many years yet his goal of becoming a sadhu still remained unfulfilled. Mulji continued working on his farm in the hope that he would be initiated into the Sadhu fold at the earliest. On 21 November 1809, Mulji had a vision that Bhagwan Swaminarayan wanted to meet him. Mulji immediately left for Gadhada and learnt of Bhagwan Swaminarayan’s desire to initiate him as a sadhu. On 20 January 1810, at a grand yagna in the village of Dabhan, Swaminarayan initiated Mulji as a sadhu and named him Gunatitanand Swami. On this occasion, Swaminarayan again publically confirmed that Gunatitanand Swami was the incarnation of Akshar, declaring, “Today, I am extremely happy to initiate Mulji Sharma. He is my divine abode – Akshardham, which is infinite and endless.”

Over the next few years, Gunatitanand Swami continued serving under Bhagwan Swaminarayan and became a core member of the 500 Paramhansas, a group of sadhus respected for their spiritual enlightenment and renunciation of worldly pleasures. He further gained renown as a preacher and a summary of his teachings would later be published under the title Swamini Vato. One of his legacies was the famous temple at Junagadh. He played a prominent role in its construction, served as the mahant for forty years and provided a template for the administrative development of future religious establishments in the Swaminarayan Sampraday. Gunatitanand Swami also had a central role in propagating the tenets of the Akshar-Purushottam Upasana, which included the identification of Bhagwan Swaminarayan as Purushottam firstly through various discourses and spiritual teachings and secondly through his identification of Bhagatji Maharaj as the next personal form of Akshar.