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A. K. Mozumdar

Akhoy Kumar (A.K.) Mozumdar (July 15, 1864 - March 9, 1953) the son of an attorney, was born in a small village about twenty miles north of Calcutta, India. He was the youngest child, with eight older brothers and one sister. The Mozumdars were a well-established, high caste family. Mozumdar's mother was very devout and seemed to foresee her youngest child's career as a spiritual teacher when she named him Akhoy Kumar, meaning "Son of God." Mozumdar was a dynamic teacher, lecturer, and writer of the New Thought Movement in the United States during the first half of 20th-century. He exhibited a deep knowledge of God - and taught what he called, the "Cosmic Creative Principle." After leaving his family home, he spent time traveling throughout India, then traveled to Bethlehem in search of enlightenment about Christianity. He spent several years in China and Japan but realizing that his destiny was to teach in America. He immigrated to the United States, arriving in Seattle, Washington in 1903. He began attracting the interest of Americans who wanted to hear his message. In 1905 Jennie and Charles Clark, leaders in Seattle's Queen City Theosophical Society, reported in the Theosophical Quarterly Magazine that Mozumdar, 'a Hindu Brother. . . has spoken for us for several weeks to full houses.' The Clarks wrote that Mozumdar "calls his teachings 'universal truth. In 1910, Mozumdar had just began to present a lecture on The Bhagavad Gita in Spokane, Washington when suddenly he left his podium and raced down the isle stopping in front of a man exclaiming, “Where have you been? What has kept you? I have been waiting for you.” Mozumdar had come to America at the mandate of his own renowned Guru, the Master Arumda, with whom he had studied since the age of eight. After 25 years Arumda had informed his devoted disciple that his real dharma was to serve the ‘Great Plan’ in America. When Mozumdar arrived in the United States he had immediately began looking for the one waiting for his teachings. He had known immediately where Ralph M. de Bit was located as he explained to him later: “"I found you very soon. But it was two years before I could bring you out of your forests." According to DeBit's biographer, Richard Satriano, Forest Ranger DeBit had just left his job in the Bitter Root Mountains in Montana after being told by an unseen voice “Come out of the woods to the city. Come out and begin your work.” Mozumdar and deBit remained together as student and teacher for nearly seven years. During that time Mozumdar bestowed upon the student he had traveled to the United States to find, the name of “Vitvan”, Sanskrit for “one who knows.” DeBit studied with his teacher, A K Mozumdar until 1918 when he began his own career as a lecturer and writer.