It gives me a sense of soul elevating wonder to know that Akhand Jyoti, the Beacon Light and source of Inspiration to millions of Gayatri Pariwar members worldwide, completes 65 years on Vasant Parva 2003. A divinely motivated seeker of truth and a social reformer, with meager means, started a hand-printed Hindi magazine on hand-made paper in January 1938 from Agra. He began with 250 copies of its first issue and sent it to his selected 250 acquaintances. Taking guidance and inspiration from the Eternal Lamp symbolizing Supreme Enlightenment that he had lighted in 1926, at the tender age of 15 years, he kept on pursuing his objective of spreading the message of the Perennial wisdom of the ages with single-minded perseverance. Three years later he shifted his center of activities to Mathura, and he got settled in Ghiyamandi locality of the town where the present office of "Akhand Jyoti" is still located. The seed that was sown in 1938 sprouted; went on growing luxuriously and by the time of his Mahasamadhi in 1990, the subscription figure had swelled to 350,000. A monthly periodical with no allurement of advertisements, containing only healthy and wholesome spiritual nourishment continued its progress and now the Hindi circulation alone is about 650,000. In addition, its editions in Gujarati, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi and Oriya add up to around 600,000.

A wake-up call of the Eternal Spirit went forth through the pages of "Akhand Jyoti" and a collective soul-awakening odyssey began to take shape. This message has now spread to over 10 million souls across the globe, making them a member of an ever increasing family of seekers of Light "Akhand Jyoti Pariwar". Two attempts made, first in 1970s and another in the 1990s to start publishing the English edition of "Akhand Jyoti"; but the efforts could not be sustained. But now at the dawn of new Millennium, with a determined will and inspiration from our sublime guiding light - whom we know as our sadguru Pandit Shriram Sharma Acharya (1911 - 1990), we are starting afresh with full hope to continue it. Revered Acharyaji was the pioneer of this unique magazine, which has been carrying his message of Hope, Harmony, Peace and Light Divine to seekers of truth in all corners of the globe. He wrote more than 3200 small and large books on the true art of living, synthesis of science and spirituality and myriads of social and global problems that are threatening the very existence of Mother Earth. He has been a seer-sage-saint and savant rolled into one - who literally WALKED HIS TALK.

A devout Sadhak of "Gayatri Mantra" which symbolizes the essence of the Vedas, he wrote an encyclopedia on the science of Gayatri (Gayatri Mahavigyan). Gayatri bestows righteous knowledge and pure intelligence, Yagya (Yagna) is another pillar of the Indian culture that gives us the skill of how to perform righteous actions and refine our souls. The novel exposition of Gayatri and Yagya by Acharyaji is most relevant to our times. His propagation of Mother Gayatri as the main deity along with its devata ' the Sun God ' and Yagya as the means for performing the Vedic sacramental rites and samskars, has become so popular over the past 65 years that millions of people around the globe are now members or admirers of the "Global Gayatri Pariwar"

When our Gurudev started teaching the Gayatri sadhanas as revealed to him by his Gurudev there were many taboos and myths about the chanting of the Mahamantra prevailing in the society. He pronounced that Gayatri was the Yug Shakti (divine power that is going to transform the era) and made Gayatri Sadhanas available to all irrespective of caste, creed, gender and religion. His teachings have prepared a platform from which we, his spiritual progeny of the 21st Century can carry forward this Torch of Supreme Knowledge to all corners of the earth....