Founder
Dr. Baskaran Pillai
Founder, Tripura Foundation
Dr. Baskaran Pillai is an international spiritual leader, humanitarian and scholar-mystic from the Tamil Siddha tradition of Southern India. Recognized as a fully enlightened Master, his spiritual journey began at an early age when he received initiation into the esoteric secrets of the Siddha lineage and was blessed to teach in the West, which he has done for over two decades.
As founder of non-profit Tripura Foundation, Dr. Baskaran Pillai is committed to abolishing world poverty and relieving human suffering in all forms. His organization sponsors Girlstown and Boystown residential facilities for impoverished children, delivers feeding programs throughout India and offers other relief programs for the impoverished, mentally ill and destitute around the world.
Dr. Pillai is an unusual yogi in that he finds no contradiction in living the spiritual and material dimensions simultaneously. He is founder of several education-oriented organizations, including Vaaak Sounds, Inc., which offers meditation programs and retreats to sacred sites in India, Astroved.com Prvt Ltd, focused on the propagation of the Vedic sciences, and Mind-Sound Technology Institute which develops mindfulness programs for youth.
His most recent program, called Grace Light empowerment, is an experiential practice designed to infuse the physical and subtle bodies with greater light, incorporating esoteric principles of light and transcendence handed down from Master to student in the Siddha lineage for thousands of years.
Dr. Baskaran Pillai has been a speaker for the United Nations Conference of World Religions, hosted forums on Religion and Science, and is currently creating an Institute for Religion and Politics focused on developing a deeper understanding of how faith shapes our political landscape.
Dr. Pillai's scholarly background includes Masters degrees in English Literature and Comparative Literature from Madurai University and a PhD in Religious Studies from the University of Pittsburgh where he was both a teaching fellow in the Department of Religious Studies and Coordinator of Indian Studies program for the Department of International Studies.
He is the author of several books including Life Changing Sounds: Tools from the Other Side, Miracles of the Avatar, and One Minute Guide to Prosperity and Enlightenment, and the DVD program The Grace Light. He was also editor of the Encyclopedia of Hinduism for the India Heritage Foundation.
Currently living in the United States, Dr. Pillai spends much of his time in India and travels extensively around the world.