Shri Vethathiri Maharishi was born on 14 August 1911 in the village of Guduvancheri, south of Chennai, India, into an indigent weaver's Sengunthar Mudaliar family.[1] After spending several years in various minor employment, he established a textile concern that grew to employ over 2,000 workers on a profit-sharing basis. Maharishi regularly participated in intense meditation and introspection, which he claims brought him full enlightenment at the age of thirty-five. At the age of fifty, he closed his commercial ventures and devoted himself solely to spiritual service. However, he remained a "householder", i.e. he did not break his family ties or take vows of renunciation, but rather lived in the indigenous Siddha tradition, maintaining family ties.