The Pragmatic Guru

"Openness is a total teaching towards enlightenment; the practice leaves the ego empty and the heart open."

~ Prem Vishrant

Vishrant has been guiding seekers towards finding higher consciousness and discovering their true nature since his awakening in 1999. He points people towards a direct path to truth with a crystal clear, no-nonsense approach. His pragmatic style cuts through the egoic mind, helping seekers reveal and remove the obstacles to experiencing freedom.

Vishrant embodies a total dedication to truth and heart, living in openness and teaching The Way of the Heart, a noble path, to be in service to all he comes in contact with.

Those who have known Vishrant for years are continuously inspired by his totality, from getting hands-on in day to day operations running the Vishrant Buddhist Society, to the way he simply and succinctly communicates the highest of teachings pointing towards inherent peace within.

As an enlightened being, Vishrant carries a presence of unconditional love and profound peace. In this energy field, known as a Buddha Field, a seeker can experience this profound reality that exists before and beyond the mind, which is often called satori.

Vishrant provides daily support to his students in assisting them to develop the skilful means to further prepare the mind for enlightenment by diminishing the ego’s filters through various practices.

The Search & Being in Service

"The least trodden path is the path of the Heart."

~ Prem Vishrant

Vishrant became involved in consciously developing self-awareness through encounter groups from the age of 19, which changed the course of his life. He started to see and remove what he later referred to as default failure patterns. He was determined to remove these patterns, which caused so much suffering. He was grateful for the courage and clarity of his teachers to point out to him these patterns, starting with anger, worry and procrastination. His active involvement with encounter groups continued as a seeker until the many obstacles in the way of enlightenment had been allayed.

Through great curiosity and the sense of aliveness brought to Vishrant through 9 years of personal growth and business training, Vishrant became a sannyasin of Osho Rajneesh at the age of 28 and started to investigate the Buddhist, Taoist, Sufi and Hindu teachings of higher consciousness and enlightenment. He became an avid meditator and used every opportunity that life presented to him to practice openness and surrender.

Vishrant travelled around the world to be involved with mystery schools and actively sought out teachers to help him remove the obstacles in the way of his higher consciousness.

After a near death experience being lost at sea for 18 hours in 1987, Vishrant experienced a heart awakening. He realised that love is the only thing of value in this life, and that all his wealth was not really worth anything. At the age of 33, he considered himself broke because his heart was closed.

Shortly after his experience of heart awakening, Vishrant gave his companies away to his staff and walked around Australia for 4 years in search of heart. He dedicated his life to serving heart and trained as a naturopath, masseur and later a psychotherapist in his search for better ways to be in service.

In the presence of various travelling Advaita Vedanta Satsang teachers (Isaac Shapiro, Gangaji and Vartman) in the late 1990s, Vishrant started to experience multiple awakenings or satoris.

On May 31st 1999, his awakening stabilised and he has since been living as beingness, our true nature, ending his search for enlightenment. He has since dedicated his life to helping others find the indescribable beauty of beingness.

Enlightened Teachers who influenced Vishrant

Vishrant was dedicated to seeking what was beyond the mind, to fully recognise and embody what had been discovered through multiple satori experiences.

He would meet with enlightened teachers upon their travels to attend Satsang and rest more deeply into the presence of pure awareness and is ever grateful to this grace of being and the openness of these teachers including Nisargadatta Maharaj, Ramesh Balsekar, Robert Adams, Gangaji, Isaac Shapiro and Shanti Mayi.

Entrepreneurial Businessman

“Remember, wealth does not make you happy or free.”

~ Prem Vishrant

Vishrant recognised his aptitude from an early age for having an entrepreneurial flair while at boarding school. These talents developed upon leaving school as he demonstrated natural leadership qualities, had an attitude of caretaker and showed strong business acumen.

In the 1970s, Vishrant made his way into the world of business as a publisher. He applied absolute totality and focus to the running of his business and cared for his staff like they were family. Consequently, he became very successful and as a result acquired wealth, property, luxury vehicles – a Rolls Royce and Porsche, along with a fly-bridge cruiser to keep him entertained.

By 1982, Vishrant had basically retired at the age of 28. He had reached the pinnacle of success materialistically and was in search for another mountain to climb.

Humble Beginnings

“You have to be your own best friend. Self-acceptance is the foundation of higher consciousness.”

~ Prem Vishrant

Born in 1954 as Vincent William Cooper, Vishrant was raised as a Catholic and grew up in a middle-class family in Perth, frequently spending time at his grandparents’ home in Bunbury.

He had his first satori at the age of 11 in a school play, when he suddenly experienced himself without an ego. Of course, the young Vishrant had no context for such experience until much later in his life.

He attended Aquinas College as a boarding student from the age of 12 and was an altar boy. At school, he learnt to self-accept and learnt to become his own best friend. Vishrant teaches today that self-acceptance is the foundation of developing a healthy self regard and higher consciousness.

Vishrant developed a love for being in the present moment from an early age. He enjoyed how present to reality he became when he was practicing martial arts, riding motorcycles, boating and deep-sea diving. Little did he know that he was developing the sharp present moment awareness of a meditator.

Vishrant had tremendous courage as a child. Discovering that he had a phobia for heights, he would repeatedly climb to the top of the 10-metre-high diving tower at his local swimming pool, with his legs turning to jelly, and jump off. He adopted the attitude to not obey fear from an early age.

Vishrant’s love for the unknown would lead him into the world of higher consciousness and eventually to his search for heart and true nature.

Osho Rajneesh

"Liberation cannot be desired because desire is the bondage. When you are desireless, you are liberated."

~ Osho

Osho was one of the most well-known spiritual teachers of the 20th century. His teachings introduced many westerners to Eastern spiritual practice and the path to enlightenment, leaving a lasting impact on the world that is still felt today. Over 650 books are credited to Osho, available in more than 60 languages from over 200 publishing houses. His teachings emphasised meditation, love, courage, creativity, humour and the celebration of life in the quest for super consciousness or enlightenment.

Osho’s Life

Osho Rajneesh was born in 1931 in Central India. He was a charismatic and gifted speaker who became the leader of a worldwide spiritual movement. It is claimed that he attained enlightenment at the age of 21. At the time, he was studying philosophy at the University of Saugar. He became a professor at the University of Jabalpur, teaching philosophy for nine years.

As well as teaching, he also began to attract a significant number of disciples. In 1966, he decided to leave his teaching post and give full attention to his role as a spiritual master. In 1974, he moved with his disciples to Pune, India, where an ashram was established. Many young Westerners were attracted to Rajneesh’s teachings and went to reside in his ashram at Pune. In their quest for spiritual enlightenment, Rajneesh's followers took new names as sannyasins, dressed in orange and red clothes, and participated in group sessions. By the late 1970s, the six-acre ashram was so overcrowded that Rajneesh sought a new site to relocate to.

In 1981, Rajneesh relocated to the United States, settling on a large ranch in central Oregon. There, Rajneesh and his sannyasins started building a large ashram called Rajneeshpuram. There was often friction between the local townspeople and the ashramites due to a clash of cultures and the local townspeople feeling threatened by the influx of devotees. Controversial activities involving Rajneesh sannyasins eventually led to him leaving the United States and returning to India in 1986.

During the next few years, he continued to teach and renamed himself Osho, but his health began to decline. On January 19, 1990, he died of heart failure at one of his few remaining communes in Pune, India.

Following his death, the commune was renamed the Osho Institute, and then later the Osho International Meditation Resort, which is currently estimated to attract as many as 200,000 visitors a year. Osho's followers also continue to spread his teachings from hundreds of Osho Mediation Centers that opened in major cities across the globe.

Osho’s Impact on Vishrant’s Path to Enlightenment

Osho or Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is considered by Vishrant to be his spiritual father, as Vishrant took sanyas in 1983 and entered into the master & disciple relationship. Prem Vishrant was given his name by Osho which means to relax or be restful in love.

Osho had a profound effect on Vishrant when he found himself in the presence of someone who was carrying the profound energy field of enlightenment. His presence silenced and expanded Vishrant’s mind. The encounter with Osho was Vishrant’s initiation on the path to awakening. The seed had been germinated.

As an ardent seeker, Vishrant participated in Osho’s spiritual mystery schools in America in 1984 and 1985 and in India in 1989, attending Satsangs held by Osho. He put Osho’s teachings into practice daily with a totality and dedication as he practiced the active Osho Kundalini and Dynamic meditations recommended. These active meditations support releasing repressed energy that people carry from daily life, preparing the mind and body for silent sitting meditation.

Osho’s teachings on surrender & openness brought Vishrant who was a dedicated and successful businessman to deeply recognise what was not still and relaxed within. This sharp contrast focussed Vishrant and he dedicated his life to mastering the spiritual quest to enlightenment, which established itself in May, 1999.

Today, Vishrant reminds his students that the only way for anyone to raise their consciousness levels is through the totality of practice.

Vishrant also encourages his students to celebrate life, an attitude which Osho taught. To do this, one must step through fear and limiting beliefs to openly and consciously move through the world. Vishrant will also ask his students to develop a greater capacity for maturity and self-responsibility as they raise their consciousness levels.

Ramana Maharshi

"The question ‘Who am I?’ is not really meant to get an answer, the question ‘Who am I?’ is meant to dissolve the questioner."

~ Ramana Maharshi

Ramana Maharshi’s Life

Ramana Maharshi was a guru of international renown from southern India who taught during the first half of the twentieth century.

As a youth, Ramana was largely disinterested in school and absent-minded during work. He had a marked inclination towards introspection and self-analysis. He used to ask fundamental questions about identity, such as the question “Who am I?”. He was always seeking to find the answer to the mystery of his own true identity.

In the summer of 1896, Ramana went into an altered state of consciousness which had a profound effect on him. He experienced what he understood to be his own death, and later returned to life.

He also had spontaneous flashes of insight where he perceived himself as an essence independent of the body. During these events, he felt himself to be an eternal entity, existing without reliance on the physical body or material world.

Ramana was nearing the end of high school when a criticism describing him as a person not fit to be a student jarred him into making a final decision to leave school. He had been reading a book on famous Tamil saints and resolved to leave home and lead the life of a religious seeker. He planned to go to Arunachala, the place which was the focal point of all his religious ideals.

When he was seventeen years old, Ramana left for Arunachala, arriving after four days of mostly train travel. He went directly to the central shrine at the temple and addressed the Shiva symbol (linga) stating he had given up everything and come to Arunachala in response to the god’s call.

Ramana spent ten years living in temples and caves meditating, and pursuing spiritual purification, keeping the disciplines of silence and non-attachment. At this point, his reputation as a spiritual master began to grow and seekers began to visit him. His disciples, some of whom were learned individuals, began to bring him sacred books. He became conversant with the religious traditions of South India.

Early disciples had a difficult time learning about Ramana’s background and even his native language because he was silent and refused to speak. As time passed, he ceased his ascetic phase and began to live in an ashram setting. Many people came to visit him with a variety of questions, from both India and abroad.

Ramana’s disciples constructed an ashram and temple, and space to accommodate the many visitors. All ate the same food and Ramana sat with the rest of the people during meals and did not expect special treatment. The ashram was a sanctuary for animals and Ramana had great fondness for the cows, monkeys, birds, and squirrels that inhabited the grounds.

Ramana was not a guru in the classic sense of a teacher who gave instruction on a regular basis. In fact, if the seeker wanted to practice repetition of a mantra other than the “who am I?” method of self enquiry, he recommended repeating the pronoun “I” or the phrase “I am” rather than repeating sacred Sanskrit words or the names of gods. This focused the person’s mind on “being itself” or the mystery of their own awareness rather than an external object or word.

However, Ramana did give informal initiations using a special glance, or touch. Ramana also initiated people by gazing intently into their eyes.

Ramana later developed cancer and when his devotees voiced concerns about losing him, he responded with the statement “I am not going anywhere, where shall I go? I shall be there where I am always.” He died in April 1950, sitting in lotus position. The final word that passed from his lips was the sacred syllable OM.

Ramana Maharshi’s Impact on Vishrant’s Path to Enlightenment

Bhagwan Sri Ramana Maharshi was one of Vishrant’s main inspirations as a seeker.

Ramana was an Advaita Vedanta teacher, the essence of his teaching directing seekers towards discovering their true nature through the methodology of self enquiry, asking the question “Who am I?”.

Ramana taught that the methodology of self enquiry is to be practiced until there is no “I” left to enquire, and also that it was a methodology for someone at the end of the path, who had already prepared their mind for enlightenment.

Vishrant practiced self enquiry extensively, using both Ramana’s and the Zen Buddhist methodologies. Vishrant’s teachings on the practice of self enquiry are consistent with Ramana’s.

For the first 14 years of Vishrant’s awakening, he was teaching Advaita Vedanta and later developed teaching methodologies to also include The Way of the Heart.

Papaji

"Whatever comes, let it come. Whatever stays, let it stay. Whatever goes, let it go."

~ Papaji

Papaji’s Life

Sri H.W.L. Poonja, lovingly referred to as Papaji, was one of the most well-known Indian gurus of the twentieth century.

He had his first direct experience of the Self at the age of nine. He met his Master, Sri Ramana Maharshi, in 1944. Shortly afterwards he realized the Self in the presence of his Master. Being a householder, he continued to work and support the many members of his extended family until his retirement in 1966.

After extensive travel Papaji settled down in Lucknow, India, where he received visitors from around the world. He was a teacher of Advaita Vedanta and advocated self enquiry as a methodology towards enlightenment. Like Ramana, he taught that silence is the best teacher.

Papaji died on September 6, 1997.

Papaji’s Impact on Vishrant’s Path to Enlightenment

Vishrant was drawn to Papaji as he was a devoted disciple of Ramana Maharshi who had awoken with his Master. As a businessman and family man, Vishrant resonated with Papaji’s ability to be totally devout to Truth and maintain his working life supporting family and others, for this situation was a direct mirror of Vishrant’s own life.

As Vishrant progressed in his practices, he had the opportunity to attend Satsang with travelling Advaita Vedanta teachers whom were taught by Papaji, they included Gangaji and Issac Shapiro. These connections reinforced Vishrant’s love and dedication to Papaji’s teachings.

As a seeker, Vishrant drew inspiration from Papaji’s teachings of non-duality and advocacy of the practice of self enquiry, just as Papaji had drawn from his teacher, Ramana Maharshi.

Gautama Buddha

"If you truly loved yourself, you could never hurt another."

~ Buddha

Gautama Buddha’s Life

Siddhartha Gautama, who would one day become known as Gautama Buddha or Buddha (“enlightened one” or “awake one”), lived in Northern India during the 6th to 4th century B.C.

Siddhartha sat under a Bodhi tree, vowing to not get up until the truths he sought came to him, and he meditated until the sun came up the next day. He remained there for several days, purifying his mind, seeing his entire life, and previous lives, in his thoughts. And soon a picture began to form in his mind of all that occurred in the universe, and Siddhartha finally saw the answer to the questions of suffering that he had been seeking for so many years. In that moment of pure enlightenment, Siddhartha Gautama became the Buddha (“he who is awake”).

Armed with his new knowledge, the Buddha was initially hesitant to teach, because what he now knew could not be communicated to others in words though he had to try and coming across the five ascetics he had practiced with for so long, who had abandoned him on the eve of his enlightenment. To them and others who had gathered, he taught his first sermon (henceforth known as Setting in Motion the Wheel of the Dharma), in which he explained the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, which became the pillars of Buddhism. The ascetics then became his first disciples and formed the foundation of the Sangha, or community of monks.

For the remainder of his 80 years, Buddha travelled, teaching the Dharma (the name given to the teachings of the Buddha) in an effort to lead others to and along the path of enlightenment.

The Buddha, or “enlightened one,” was born Siddhartha (which means “he who achieves his aim”) Gautama, a prince in northern India in the 6th century BC. His father was a king who ruled an Indian tribe called the Shakyas. His mother died seven days after giving birth to him, but a holy man prophesized great things for the young Siddhartha: He would either be a great king or military leader, or he would be a great spiritual leader. To keep his son from witnessing the miseries and suffering of the world, Siddhartha’s father raised him in opulence in a palace built just for the boy and sheltered him from knowledge of religion and human hardship. According to custom, he married at the age of 16, but his life of total seclusion continued for another 13 years.

The prince reached his late 20s with little experience of the world outside the walls of his opulent palaces, but one day he ventured out beyond the palace walls and was quickly confronted with the realities of human frailty: He saw a very old man, and Siddhartha’s charioteer explained that all people grow old. Questions about all he had not experienced led him to take more journeys of exploration, and on these subsequent trips he encountered a diseased man, a decaying corpse and an ascetic. The charioteer explained that the ascetic had renounced the world to seek release from the human fear of death and suffering. Siddhartha was overcome by these sights, and the next day, at age 29, he left his kingdom, wife and son to lead an ascetic life, and determine a way to relieve the universal suffering that he now understood to be one of the defining traits of humanity.

For the next six years, Siddhartha lived an ascetic life and partook in its practices, studying and meditating using the words of various religious teachers as his guide. He practiced his new way of life with a group of five ascetics, and his dedication to his quest was so stunning that the five ascetics became Siddhartha’s followers. When answers to his questions did not appear, however, he redoubled his efforts, enduring pain, fasting nearly to starvation, and refusing water.

Whatever he tried, Siddhartha could not reach the level of satisfaction he sought, until one day when a young girl offered him a bowl of rice. As he accepted it, he suddenly realized that corporeal austerity was not the means to achieve inner liberation, and that living under harsh physical constraints was not helping him achieve spiritual release. So he had his rice, drank water and bathed in the river. The five ascetics decided that Siddhartha had given up the ascetic life and would now follow the ways of the flesh, and they promptly left him. From then on, however, Siddhartha encouraged people to follow a path of balance instead of one characterized by extremism. He called this path the Middle Way.

Gautama Buddha’s Impact on Vishrant’s Path to Enlightenment

Siddhartha Gautama Buddha created a vehicle for higher consciousness, today known as Buddhism, and devoted his life to teaching the truth (or Dharma) every day of his life after his awakening. He also worked closely with his disciples in helping them to identify and remove the causes of suffering in themselves.

These actions of the Buddha are reflected in Vishrant’s teachings and style today in creating The Vishrant Buddhist Society as a vehicle for higher consciousness, dedicating his life to serving truth and working closely with seekers who are interested in raising their consciousness levels.

Many of the Buddha’s teachings are relevant today and Vishrant makes use of them to guide people towards a more noble and joyful life. Vishrant advocates Buddhism as a beautiful way of life based on heart and truth.