About The Author

Dada Bhagwan (November 7, 1908 – January 2, 1988), born Ambalal Muljibhai Patel was a spiritual leader and the founder of the Akram Vignan movement. Ambalal Muljibhai Patel (A.M.Patel) was born in Tarsali, Gujarat, India, and raised in the Gujarati village of Bhadran by Vaishnav parents Muljibhai and Javerba Patel. A.M. Patel credited his mother for instilling within him an early appreciation of the values of nonviolence, empathy, self-less generosity, and spiritual penance.He was also influenced by the writings of Shrimad Rajchandra. He married a local village girl named Hiraba and was a contractor by profession. He claimed to have attained Self-realisation in June, 1958 at Surat railway station while sitting on a bench at platform number 3. However this was not revealed initially by him.

After A.M. Patel’s Self-realization experience, a close relative began to address him by the spiritual name of Dada (a Gujarati term for “Revered Grandfather”) Bhagwan (Lord) became his spiritual name.

Dada Bhagwan formed a movement which he termed Akram Vignan. Unlike the step-by-step purification according to Jain principles, Akram Vignan promises instant salvation through the grace of Lord Simandhar Swami, for whom Dada Bhagwan serves as a medium. Flügel regards the movement to be a form of Jain-Vaishnava syncretism, a development analogous to the Mahayana in Buddhism.

He lived in Baroda for about fifty years and later traveled to the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Kenya and spread a doctrine known as Akram Vignan. He died at the age of eighty in the year 1988.

Dada Bhagwan is recognized as a spiritual leader within Gujarat, India. He was portrayed in a 2011 independent film titled “Desperate Endeavors”. Also He was honored as Spiritual Scientist/Master of the 20th and 21st century in the Spiritual Science Museum.