Dr Bibudharanjan

Dr Bibudharanjan was born, raised and educated in Puri, and lives there still. He hoped to study medicine, read political science instead, and later earned a doctorate for research on Gandhi’s thought and Sarvodaya. He worked at UCO Bank and retired in 2014.

He is a married householder. He has practised meditation and Kriya Yoga for some forty years, in the line of Lahiri Mahasaya, Sri Yukteswar, Yogananda and Hariharananda Giri. The trust’s brochure calls him a Kriya yogi who reached samadhi while living a family life, and says he tests every teaching against his own experience before he accepts it.

He calls Jagannath Kalu. He dates their first conversation to the Nabakalebara of 1996, which led to his book on it. In 2000, he says, Kalu asked him in meditation for a place in his home and a share of the family’s food, so he built a shrine at home. He speaks of Kalu as a living friend and an elder of the household.

He has written about 70 books: on Jagannath and Puri, on Netaji, on saints, and on meditation. His 2005 book on Gandhi, Michha Mahatma, brought a police case and months in hiding, which he later wrote about. See the books he has written.

After retiring he taught meditation and ran camps at Tulsidas Ashram by the Birupa River near Cuttack, where his younger brother Brahmachari Satya Chaitanya is a monk. In 2026 a villager gave land near Jagatpur for an ashram of his own. The trust was registered on 31 March, and the ground was broken on Akshaya Tritiya. He named it Soonya Swami Dhyana Peetha, and says the name Soonya Swami came to him from Kalu in meditation. Read about the ashram.

He has spoken about Jagannath, saints, meditation and his own experiences in more than 400 videos on his YouTube channel. He also shares them on Facebook.