Sri M's journey from Kerala boy to Himalayan seeker and spiritual teacher

Sri M's story starts far from the Himalayan caves he later became known for. Born as Mumtaz Ali Khan on November 6, 1948, into an affluent Muslim family in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, his path toward spirituality began unusually early. He has spoken about beginning to meditate at just nine years old, without even understanding what meditation was at the time, simply lying down, closing his eyes, and enjoying the stillness. Around that same age, he described a brief but striking encounter in his backyard with a stranger who seemed different from everyone else, an encounter that would later turn out to be deeply significant. Uninterested in conventional studies and drawn instead toward a bigger calling, he left home at 19 in search of spiritual knowledge, heading toward the Himalayas.Finding the guru who was already looking for himHis journey wasn't easy.