Sri Krishna Prem (1898-1965) – Gopalda to his pupils and friends – was born in Cheltenham, England, and christened Ronald Nixon. He went to Taunton School and won a scholarship to Cambridge University. When the First World War (1914-18) broke out, he enlisted in the Royal Flying Corps. As a fighter pilot he was subject to intense pressure – for most members of the services, the life expectancy was said to be fifteen days – and had several near-escapes from death.

After demobilization he took an Honours degree from Cambridge. These undergraduate years were seminal, for he met many people who were exploring subjects like Theosophy and Buddhism. ‘Men who have had the contemplation of death forced upon them by war will often turn to enquiry into the meaning of life,’ wrote his pupil and successor Sri Madhava Ashish. This group included Christmas Humphreys, who became one of the major figures who introduced Buddhism to the West, and Robert Alexander, who became a lifelong friend and eventually became a sannyasi at Mirtola.

Feeling that he might find the answer to his quest in India, Ronald got a job as a professor of English at Lucknow University. He took to India as a duck to water, made many lasting friendships, including with Dilip Kumar Roy, blithely disregarded the condescending conventions of the British Raj, and eventually learnt Urdu, Hindi, Bengali and Sanskrit. At the time of his death he was learning Persian in order to read Rumi in the original.

His closest friendship was with the Vice-Chancellor of Lucknow University, Dr Gyanendranath Chakravarti, who was Secretary of the Indian branch of the Theosophical Society and a close friend of Annie Besant (President of The Theosophical Society from 1907 to 1933, and at one time President of the Indian National Congress). Gradually ‘Professor Nixon’ became something like an adopted member of the family, discovering that behind Mrs Chakravarti’s sophisticated social persona lay a true mystic. He had found the teacher he had sought.

When Mrs Chakravarti taught him Hindi by making him read from a simplified version of the Srimad Bhagavat, he saw that when she interpreted the stories, she spoke of Krishna as a figure who was utterly real – in the next room, as it were – and he realized that she was speaking from visionary experience.

When Dr Chakravarti retired and moved to Banaras, Professor Nixon took a job at Banaras Hindu University, accepting a large salary cut to continue being with the family. Eventually, it was agreed that Mrs Chakravarti would take holy orders (sannyas) and build the Krishna temple she had dreamed of since childhood. As Sri Yashoda Ma, she later conferred the sannyas vows on Professor Nixon, with the name Sri Krishna Prem, but he was always fondly called Gopalda by all those who knew him.

The temple was built at Mirtola near Almora during the years 1929-1931. A small band of disciples gradually collected, including Moti Rani,Yashoda Ma’s daughter, and later Sri Madhava Ashish, and Sri Dev Ashish.

As the years passed Gopalda and Ashishda taught in an increasingly direct, less religious mode. One can trace the shift through the increasing number of disciples from across the world, and through the several books he wrote – Initiation Into Yoga, The Yoga of the Bhagavad Gita, The Yoga of the Kathopanishad, and (with Sri Madhava Ashish) Man The Measure of All Things.

Gopalda passed away in 1965 after an illness of which he said to a friend, Gertrude Emerson Sen: ‘Thakur has two strings to his bow. Sometimes he pulls the up string, today he is pulling the down string.’

His disciple, well known author Bill Aitken, writes: ‘As his ship sailed away on the lake of the Devi in Nainital, his parting lesson came as a calm reassurance: “Bill my dear, real things do not die.” Having experienced the love Gopalda embodied, neither I nor anyone who knew him has ever for a moment doubted it.’

‘The radiance Gopalda’s being shed burned even brighter the day he left his body in November 1965. The villagers with their axes hewed branches for his bier and bore their “Tul Maharaj” lovingly to Dandeswar in a procession more triumphal than funereal.’