When he was 14, the family farm was sold and he
entered four years of apprenticeship in horticul-
ture. He had jobs in France and Italy and settled in
England in 1911 and took up gardening on large
estates. At one of those estates he met Rabindra-
nath TAGORE, who was impressed with the quality
of Emmanuel’s silence. Tagore invited the young
Dane to visit Shanti Niketan, Tagore’s school in
India, to “teach silence.”
Sorensen arrived in India in 1930 at the age
of 40 and began to teach. Immediately he was
given the titles of BABA, saint, and GURU, but
his gift to the people he met was not captured
by these titles. In the four decades he spent in
India, he traveled widely and offered his gift of
“being” to those who went to him. In 1936 he
met RAMANA MAHARSHI (1879–1950) at Arunach-
ala and noted Ramana’s quality of self-radiance,
which nourished all around him. Ramana later
called Sorensen a “rare-born mystic.” On his
third visit, Sorensen received a telepathic mes-
sage from Ramana, “We are always aware SUN-
YATA.” Sorenson wrote that he experienced the
words as a “recognition, initiation, MANTRA, and
name.” Sorensen thereafter referred to himself
and his hut as sunyata (a Buddhist term for void
or emptiness). He acquired Indian citizenship in
1953.
Sunyata first lived in Haridvar, on a small
island in the GANGES River, but eventually built
himself a stone hut in the foothills of the HIMA-
LAYAS near Almora. He accepted a small sum
from the Birla Foundation in New Delhi, whose
purpose is to assist saints and SADHUS (spiritual
aspirants). He knew many teachers and saints of
his day, including Lama Anagarika Govinda, Wal-
ter Evans-Wentz, Mohandas Karamchand GANDHI,
Jawaharlal Nehru, Yashoda Ma, KRISHNA PREM, Sri
ANIRVAN, J. KRISHNAMURTI, ANANDAMAYI MA, and
NEEM KAROLI BABA. He remained uninterested in
power, fame, or money, preferring nature, his own
company, and silence. He did not heal, was not
psychic, and did not perform miracles. He simply
reminded all he met of the identity of each person
and the divine in the words Tat tvam asi—thou
are That.
Sunyata’s dog Sri Wuji (Chinese for “a full
emptiness”) was his constant companion. The
saint Anandamayi Ma accepted the dog along with
Sunyata into her ashram with the words “Wuji is
not a dog.”
In 1973, a group of Americans from the Alan
Watts Society invited Sunyata to California. At
age 84, he arrived in California, where he gave
DARSHAN (blessings) at Esalen and Palm Springs. In
1978 he moved to California permanently at age
88 and spent the last six years of his life there. At
age 93, in 1984, he was struck by a car in Fairfax,
California, and died soon afterward on AugustSunyata (1890–1984), Danish sadhu and teacher
(Courtesy Sunyata Society)Sunyata 427 J