Well it is I of course — your favorite infinity in a nutshell. Munching on a thousand cookies, happily herding a hundred cats, streaming from beyond the Elysian Fields. From the outer limits of consciousness, bundled into this goofy little microcosmic sphere. Here I am, embodied for your entertainment, in service to whatever that matters. Some call me Mr. Ananda. Others call me whatever else. Pleased to meet you.

It'd be appropriate here to spare a few words, written in third person, humbly describing my elaborate spectrum of excellences. Written as if I were someone else, sounding most objective. But alas, I have not the poker face for that. I'd giggle too hard writing it, possibly vomit reading it. So here goes nothing. The background story as it is.

It still isn't a very brief story. If you're in a mad rush, then here's the kernel:

• Born into a life of curiosity. Digging into mythical, technological, transcendental. Whatever that explains.
• Mantra-head, monk student, book peddler. Meditation and ceremonies, Sanskrit and gurus, cultie flavors.
• Looking for the roots in India. Esoteric depths and exports. Dead-ends, disillusionments, step beyond forms.
• Free roaming pilgrimage. Reorientation on the peaks and trails of Nepal. Life recovery and core reintegration.
• Composting and synthesis in Europe. Brief tech career. Deep inner processes and early integral emergence.
• Life in Java and manifold mysticism. Imperative of embodied wisdom. Real life and return to whatever that is.

If you have a bit of time to spare, then here's the longer short version. Covering the gist of whatever that unfolded between 1980 and 2025. It has all been meaningful for me. It may not mean anything for you. What are you even doing on this website.

In the Beginning There Was the Womb ¶

In the beginning, I was born. Before that, I was simply unborn, or perhaps at the tail end of another life. Those lives, if they existed, are a tale for another time. In this life, I undertook the process of growing up, filled with curiosity as to what's actually going on. I did love nature — I still do. I am also still curious to know what's actually going on. In this world, and in general.

So the world as we learn it wasn't much to my liking. School was great and all, but a lack of depth in application to what seems to really matter left a hollow space in the heart and the head. There was a heavy metal phase somewhere in the early teens, mostly digging the more epic genres, the sort that dive into the mythical, the legendary, the ancient. Something real to it all.

Computers were a thing from the start. Dad's colleague was a pioneer code genius, and I ended up inheriting his 1984 vintage MSX. Said to not just play games but get coding, because this stuff is the future. True that. Sure it was just linear BASIC in the beginning. A humble start that evolved into a good grasp of software paradigms. Good for the mind, systems are good.

Whatever they had in the libraries, I was digging to broaden my education. Philosophies, mythologies, you name it. A neo-hippie phase followed, a crew of contemplators musing on the depths of all things. From the dark side of the moon, wiring up our controls for the heart of the sun — such crazy little diamonds we were. There was definitely more to life than more bricks for the wall.

Magic Mantra and Monk Business ¶

I remember the long bus rides, enjoying the lull of the journey — a fine opportunity to contemplate. On, like, whatever. We had no gadgets back then to sabotage our day-dreaming pastimes. One day then, a spontaneous mantra presented itself for potential contemplation, and contemplate I did. It was an interesting experiment, Hare Krishna Hare Rama down the road. Why not.

Not too long after that, I came upon a nun peddling Hindu literature in downtown Helsinki. Handed me a flyer for their Sunday Love Feast. Hymns, philosophy, and exotic food. I was soon a regular visitor, scored a rosary for the mantra too. They told me the monks do it for two hours a day, so I matched the standard. Walking down the streets, blissfully mumbling for transcendence.

Wrapping up my primary school a bit short of 16, I joined the ashram. It turns out we were more of a missionary movement than a broody convent of monks. Society was veiled in illusion right. I too became one of the radiant book peddlers roaming across the towns and villages of Finland, educating the muggles about Vedic philosophy, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and the merits of absolute devotion in bhakti-yoga. Met countless thousands of people from every walk of life in the process.

A strict monastic lifestyle with wake-ups well ahead of the rooster, ceremonies and mantras abound. Sure enough there was plenty of study involved, memorizing bucketfuls of Sanskrit verse for an arsenal of authentic references. Met my first guru too. Having one wasn't really optional in those circles, and it was a cool thing hey. A high-grade intellectual with a flair for the eccentric. A bit of an escapist. Ended up resigning in the end, in wake of a racket I raised over what's appropriate.

Quest for the Roots in India ¶

It wasn't the end of the path, it was just the beginning. Got married in the ashram exit process. Novice monks can do that, and it was a good move for the time. We were both done with the kindergarten missionary movement and started digging deeper. Met an elderly Indian guru with plenty more access and insights to share. From the turn of 2000 onwards, I facilitated the Finnish flock of that particular lineage. It was a short-lived romance, with borrowed threads hinting at a path deeper into the roots.

Over the five years that followed, pursuing the origins of Sri Chaitanya's tradition of mystic devotion, I ended up moving to India. Lived near a sacred pond around the Govardhan hill, the sanctum sanctorum of that lineage. Initiated once again, this time with the full works including esoteric meditation systems, I did some significant work in aggregating and making accessible the tradition's teachings to foreign audiences. In time, I let the projects have their own life, entering more seclusive practice.

Then there was yet another guru, an inspired and clever fellow, who in time turned out a bit full of himself. This led to a rift in our marriage, amicably wrapped up in the interest of each pursuing their deeper callings. I roamed with the old school ascetic babajis for a season, eating almsfood from the villagers and chanting way too many mantras per day. Still, with all that intensity, and with the tradition's authentic resources at my disposal, a dead-end of the scene was looming in the horizon.

I had found some inspiration with Swami Sivananda on the side. It was time to move on and beyond, I concluded, with preps to vanish somewhere into the high Himalayas. Possibly for good. On the final day before my scheduled takeoff, yet another guru turned up. Sent by God, so he said, to teach and take care of me. Well why not then, what an epic twist. He turned out a conman magician playing the siddha's role. That proverbial last nail. Holed myself into a little hut atop a shrine to revisit the gameplan.

Hut to the Top of the World ¶

My hut hermit days were enriched by internet access. Anything and everything, e-books and Wikipedia, that's remotely relevant for fresh and clear bearings. I liked Ramana Maharshi, I liked the Buddha in many flavors. One with lucid simplicity, another with unfathomable depth. As it happens, I ended up encountering both in the course of the yonder road. First destination Varanasi, meeting a rag-tag crew of Buddhist pilgrims. On foot from Bodh Gaya toward Lumbini, reopening the ancient circuit.

We ended up first visiting Ramana's basecamp Mt. Arunachala with the good monk. I ended up at the highest boulder atop the mountain in the middle of a thunderstorm. A most fine jump-start for the long walk to Nepal. A walk mostly spent in quiescent contemplation, walking without a real walker present. In the end a bus ride to Kathmandu, into a rich landscape of exposure to diverse dharma-traditions. As the monks and nuns moved on, I shifted into a solitary cave at Shivapuri peak for the time being.

With the help of some hostile forest rangers, destiny brought me back to the common realms. Hanging out not with monks caught up in their traditions, but actually with real people, dreamers and movers, alive and inspired. It was a period of vivid rediscovery and reintegration. Bridging a certain narrow transcendent awareness back into the vastness of the spectrum of life, recovering potentials left by the wayside a long long time ago. A return to the wholeness of all that I carry to consummate.

Composting and Synthesis ¶

It was time to head back to India with visa and passport constraints. Soon enough, it was also time to head back to Europe. Four years underground in Denmark, dodging the military draft in Finland. I did not mind the prospect of jail, in fact I was explicit in demanding solitary confinement in my letter of objection — but alas they never came to collect me. So there I was in rural Denmark, dwelling on the attic of an olden blacksmith's house, marveling and digesting the accumulations of my life.

As the economic imperative raised its head, not as much from my needs as those of a shared habitat, I took upon coding more seriously once again. I programmed a modular CMS platform for an Irish tech startup, pulling actually crazy hours much of the time. Our venture never became the Silicon Valley flip for fortunes, more a flop in marketing, but it did do my back in with a reasonably painful osteoarthritis. Exit from the professional world, a rather deep plunge into inner ventures.

My major initial focus was on syndicating and integrating all that had passed, and for good measure whatever more that might pass, into a singular reconciled system of insight. Major influences from Taoist thought, really mostly with the "binary magnetism" of the permutations of yin and yang, the abstract building blocks of consciousness and composite existence. A significant lot of profound writing and creative expression during those years, at times with a healthy mania churned from the inner mandalas.

It was surely a kind of madness that unfolded, an end-game of consciousness that had to be iterated. Fine sessions over many seasons — from the pits of the abyss to the luminous roots of awareness, crucified and through the crown into elemental essence, into whatever yonder and back again, holding on to the silver threads of sanity in actuality. In time, as with all things, the chapter in Europe reached its terminus. A visit to Finland revisiting my early trails, then onward to Australia for a family visit.

Decade of Java in Progress ¶

Indonesia was the first in line on a journey into the broader Indosphere. And as far as I ever reached, so the fates had it for me. Bali and Java both have their significant trunks of dharma. Early branches from the Indian tree, from perhaps a more pristine era, with the Javanese tradition a cross-breed with animistic-shamanistic and Islamic influences. I landed in Yogyakarta at the dawn of 2014 for a course in traditional medicine, and onward into whatever mystico-spiritual digs of significance.

Immanent spirituality and integration of nature are central to the native mystic spirit. My year at Mt. Lawu in 2017 in a rural Hindu village, hosted by the local wise elder and the high priest, was a significant passage. The transcendence of dissociated spirituality was being downloaded into present embodiment, all things abstract condensed into a living world of practicality. I did have a sense of all that, the need to "incarnate" the yonder above. That whisper of a calling turned into a vibrant imperative.

Married since 2018, living on the high hills west of Yogyakarta, I peddle not in the disconnected. Building a house, cultivating the land, scooping up cat excrement. Living a hands-on life, chiseling timber and tinkering a bit of this and a bit of that, growing with the joys and trials of a relationship. All of this is fundamentally meaningful as is, the prime wares of conscious evolution. Can I spin that living essence into a hundred fantastic tales? Weave it into progressive systems of mystic cultivation? Sure why not.

There are some among you who enjoy what I have shared. Thence, this here portal to share whatever that's been crafted. If I have something that belongs to you, then make your claim and take it from my mouth, rip it from the tips of my fingers. These sorts of matters are shared when there's a receiver with a pattern that clicks. Where I have something that belongs to that pattern, it must emerge when invoked. Where there is no sync, there is no point, and there is no need. I return to shoveling shit then.

Summary and Credentials ¶

You may have noticed that I didn't name any of the living teachers here. If you must know, then ask. It really doesn't matter much. They were all experiences, gurus in the positive and the negative. Mostly the latter. Disillusionment is a thing if you're a sincere fanboy that in the end cares more about truth than spectacles and communities. It's not that we must remain muppets of the godmen, or that our authenticity must be sanctioned by a formal lineage. Reality of consciousness is broader than that.

I've also steered clear of any other classic credential claims. This little egologue is not about establishing myself as a credible source of information — or as being fit for any particular purpose. It's simply the narration of a particular story, providing context to the materials at this portal. We are all the sums of our experiences. Knowledge is brought to life by, well, life itself. If anything in here serves to stimulate a living experience of insight and meaning for you, then good. That is your merit, not mine.

Life is full of joy and shock and wonder. Life as it happens is a revelation. Embrace it, don't escape it — with an open mind free of projections, as a mirror leading you to greater self-awareness. Experiencing all things as they are, the bitter and the sweet as your necessary nutrition. You are whatever that you are, right now, and what's beyond you will find when you cross over, and over again. If you can do that, guided and guarded by the calling of naked authenticity and absolute truth, we're all good. That's all, folks.