Wake Up and Roar: Satsang with Papaji

Wake Up and Roar is Eli Jaxon-Bear's edited compilation of satsang dialogues with H.W.L. Poonja — known to students as Papaji — held in Lucknow in the early 1990s. This was the period during which a Western generation of spiritual teachers first encountered Papaji as the last living direct disciple of Ramana Maharshi. Among those drawn to Lucknow were Jaxon-Bear himself, Gangaji, Mooji, and Andrew Cohen, each of whom would go on to build their own teaching work. Originally published in two volumes in 1992 and 1993 by Pacific Center Press, the dialogues were later combined by Sounds True in a single collector's edition (2007) with previously unreleased photographs and a new foreword by Gangaji.

The exchanges are structured as question and answer — the classical satsang form — and return repeatedly to self-inquiry, the nature of the mind, the trap of seeking enlightenment, and the teacher-student dynamic that Papaji navigated with unusual directness. The book is treated inside contemporary Advaita as one of the cleanest records of the Ramana Maharshi lineage in live transmission: Ramana's own students were largely gone by the 1990s, and Papaji was, for a brief and intensely documented period, the living link. The wider history of the Lucknow scene — including later schisms and contested confirmations of enlightenment documented by scholar David Godman — is part of the book's ongoing context.

Contents

Reception

Treated inside contemporary Advaita as one of the cleanest available presentations of the late-Ramana-lineage transmission Papaji embodied — Ramana's own students were largely gone by the 1990s and Papaji was, briefly, the live link. The book itself is highly regarded; the wider history of the 1990s Western Lucknow scene includes the well-documented schism around Andrew Cohen and a complicated legacy in which Papaji's confirmations of multiple Western "enlightenments" have been variously interpreted. Internal critique inside the lineage (notably from David Godman) is the principal scholarly conversation.

Frequently asked

Who is Papaji?

H.W.L. Poonja (1910–1997), known to students as Papaji, was an Indian sage and the last prominent direct disciple of Ramana Maharshi. Born in Punjab, he spent decades traveling and teaching across India before Western seekers began arriving in Lucknow in the late 1980s and early 1990s, making that period the most widely documented phase of his teaching.

What makes Wake Up and Roar different from other Advaita texts?

The book captures a live transmission context — recorded dialogues rather than edited treatises — at a moment when Papaji's students had not yet dispersed into their own teaching lines. It is the primary source document for what the Lucknow scene felt like in the early 1990s. Papaji's style is notably direct and often paradoxical, working to collapse the question rather than answer it.

What is the relationship between Papaji and teachers like Gangaji and Mooji?

Gangaji and Mooji are among the best-known Western teachers who received Papaji's transmission in Lucknow. The satsangs compiled in Wake Up and Roar took place during precisely this period. Both have acknowledged Papaji as their root teacher. The teacher-student dynamic, and Papaji's practice of confirming students' realization, is itself a theme addressed in the dialogues.