Biographical Note

Andrew Vernon was born in London in 1953. As a child, he was quiet but not introverted with an appetite for books and a preference for solitary exploration. He was educated at ordinary English schools and then went to Art College, where he graduated with a degree in Fine Art (painting) in 1975.

He joined an esoteric school in the Gurdjieff/Ouspensky (Fourth Way) tradition in 1978. The principal ideas of this tradition are Self-remembering, non-identification, and a combination of the traditional paths of knowledge, devotion, and action. He remained connected with this school for the next twenty years, living in London, Vienna, Rome, Paris, and California. Eventually, however, he became convinced that the efforts he was making to free himself came from ego and were part of the problem rather than the solution.

An experience of awakening in 1987 convinced him that everything, including spiritual seeking, happens spontaneously and naturally, without anyone “doing” anything. In 1995, he read “I Am That” by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, which confirmed these conclusions. At the beginning of 1999, he resolved to follow the teaching of Advaita Vedanta to its end, wherever it led.

In May of that year, he met Sri Ranjit Maharaj, who was giving talks in Marin County, California. He felt immediately that Maharaj would be his final teacher. He received initiation and left the Fourth Way school without any hesitation. In December, he traveled to Bombay to see Maharaj. The second night in that city there was another awakening experience, which showed that the concept “I am a person” is nothing but a false assumption. He left Bombay two weeks later and never saw Maharaj again.

He returned to Bombay the following year, but Maharaj had completed his rôle a few weeks earlier. On this visit, he made a pilgrimage in Maharashtra and Karnataka, traveling to places connected with the lineage of Sri Ranjit Maharaj, Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj, and Sri Bhausaheb Maharaj.

In July 2002, during a retreat in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, final awakening occurred, not as a dramatic revelation, but as a complete conviction of the reality of what was already there. After a few months, it was clear that the change that had occurred was irreversible.

He began to write a series of commentaries on the teaching of Sri Ranjit Maharaj in January 2003, with the aim to clarify the essential ideas and to make them more accessible. The commentaries were completed in October 2003 and are currently available on the website www.wayofthebird.com. They were first published in book form (in Spanish translation) by Ediciones Vía Directa of Valencia, Spain, in 2006.