David Godman - in Lucknow With Papaji

In Lucknow With Papaji

In 1992 David Godman began to visit Papaji (Sri H. W. L. Poonja) a disciple of Sri Ramana Maharshi who had made many visits to Sri Ramanasramam in the 1940s, and who later became a teacher in his own right. In 1993 David Godman moved to Lucknow, the city where Papaji lived, and spent the next four years chronicling his life and teachings. In 1993 he edited Papaji Interviews, an anthology of interviews that various journalists and visitors had had with Papaji in the early 1990s. Later that year, in cooperation with Jim Lemkin, he brought out Call Off The Search, a documentary that focused on Papaji, his devotees and his teachings. An extensive filmed interview that Godman had with Papaji, entitled Summa Iru (Keep Quiet) was also brought out as a separate documentary that year.

In late 1992 Papaji asked Godman to be his official biographer. Over the next four years Godman did extensive research on Papaji’s life and the result was Nothing Ever Happened, a three volume 1,200-page biography. In 2007 David brought out a new volume of Papaji’s teaching dialogues entitled The Fire of Freedom.