John (Sudarshan)
Nayaswami Sudarshan Simpson was born in Southern California in 1948. His mother’s family were California and Nevada pioneers, and his father’s family were Colorado miners and ranchers. His Mom is a writer and his Dad (deceased) was an executive at Douglas Aircraft Corporation.
Sudarshan graduated from the University of California, San Diego with a bachelor’s degree in Biology. He first visited Ananda Village in May 1974, joined the Sacramento Ananda meditation group, and moved to the Village in February 1976. He met Nayaswami Savitri Simpson at the Ananda Meditation Retreat and they were married in 1980. They currently live in a geodesic dome home in the Village’s Ranikhet housing cluster.
He did maintenance work at the Meditation Retreat, managed the Ananda Print Shop, was minister at Ananda’s Ocean Song community, and San Diego center, and minister and community manager at Ananda Mountain View Community. At Ananda Village, Sudarshan has worked for Ananda Design and Construction and Ananda Property Services in a wide variety of construction areas including plumbing, electrical, mechanical, and site utilities for Ananda buildings.
Sudarshan’s interests include meditation, seclusion, writing, and poetry, communing with God in nature, acting, storytelling, teaching classes, spiritual counseling, being a divine friend, and developing creative solutions to material world problems. He wrote a booklet for beginners on the practice of seclusion which has proved useful to numerous people over many years.
Nayaswami Sudarshan is an Ananda Lightbearer and a Sevaka Life Vow member of Ananda’s Sevaka Order.