Maharshi Mehi Paramhans is a saint in the tradition of Sant Mat. He is usually known as 'Gurumaharaj'. He was the guru of 'Akhil Bhartiye Santmat Satsang'. He studied Vedas, main Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Bible, different sutras of Buddhism, the Quran, saint's literature and from this assessed that the essential teaching contained in all of these is one and the same. He gave one and easiest method to attain 'Moksha'. They are 'Satsang' and 'Dhyan'(Meditation). Mehi was a direct disciple of Baba Devi Sahab of Muradabad, Uttar Pradesh.
Early life
Maharshi Mehi was born on , in a small village of Bihar, Majhua (Khoskhsi Shyam), India. He studied from early age alone and then with Baba Devi Sahab, in 1909. As directed by his teacher, Mehi spent many years in intense meditation in an ashram located in Manihari of the Katihar district.
Life
Maharshi Mehi was born on at his maternal grandparents’ home in Khokhsi Shyam Village, in Saharsa, Bihar, India. His grandmother's home was in Shikli garh Dharahara, Banmankhi, in the Purnia district. There was a cave in which he used to go there for meditation. His father was called Babujan Lal Das.
The family astrologer named him Ramanugrah Lal Das based on his astrological charts, a name that is also found in Mehi's school records. His adopted name Mehi means lean and thin and also sharp or subtle. About two decades later when Ramanugrah La Das came into contact with his guru, Baba Devi Sahab, the latter, impressed by his exceptionally sharp intellect, also started calling him "Mehi".
Mehi's mother, Janakwati Devi, died when he was four years old. His elder sister was very kind to him and she and his father took very good care of him. He was admitted to the village school when he turned eight. At this school, learning was imparted in the local Kaithi script. At home he saw his father reciting regularly from the great epic the Ramcharitmanas composed by the poet Sant Goswami Tulsidas Ji. His father often turned very emotional while reciting and at times burst into tears. This made Mehi curious to know the contents of the epic. As the epic was printed in the Devanagari script he could not read it at first. However, he labored to correlate the alphabets of Devanagri from those of Kaithi and soon he could learn Devanagri script as well. The Ramcharitmanas left a deep impact on his mind and several of its quartets and couplets became known to him by heart. He also learned English, Urdu, and Persian languages at secondary school.
In his childhood days, Maharshi Mehi Paramhans was a worshipper of Shiva, but his method of worshipping was unique: he would drive a nail into the ground, make it an offering of water and then sit in its front in meditation. As a teenager, he was a very good soccer player. Impressed with his skills at dabbling the ball, his friends made him the team captain. However, very soon he began to lose interest in playing as well as formal studies even as he developed an intense fondness for the study of religious scriptures like the Sukhsagar and the Mahabharat apart from the Ramcharitmanas. He would very often retire into solitude while his friends were busy playing to study these books. His disinterest in schooling and formal studies kept waxing progressively and reached its climax on 4 July 1904. Half-yearly exams of Class X were on and it was the second paper – English. The first question read: "Quote from memory the poem ‘Builders’ and explain it in your own English." Answering the question, he quoted the first four lines, as reproduced below, and began to explain these. The lines of the poem were:
"For the structure that we raise, time is with material's field, our todays and yesterdays, are the blocks with which we build." - Maharshi Mehi
While explaining the central message of the above lines he got overwhelmed with such a strong surge of the emotion of renunciation that he stood up and asked the invigilator, "May I go out, Sir?" Thinking that he wanted to go to the toilet, the invigilator granted the permission but little did he know that this young lad was not merely going out of the examination hall briefly but had decided to bid adieu to the very household life for good. In fact, Mehi had made already three unsuccessful attempts to flee home, but this time his determination was rock solid and he was never to look back again.
Gurus
Baba Devi Sahab was the main spiritual Guru of Mehi. However, before he met Baba Devi Sahab, his intense yearning for true emancipation led him to three other gurus (spiritual teachers).