Founder Dev Samaj

“I want to make this world a Paradise. I want to usher in the system of Dharma, here in this world, that would sound Death-Knell of all sins and evils and make people so truthful and trustworthy in their relations…… that human life becomes fully Sweet and Blissful. My mission is to infuse new life in man, to redeem him from evil life and so to purify his relation with others that he becomes an heir to the blessings of the true life of the Dharma.”

Introduction:

The Dev Samaj is a purely Religious society mainly devoted to the cause of serving humanity along with social, educational, moral, and higher life-building lines, irrespective of caste, creed, color, or country. It was founded on 16th February 1887 by the most worshipful Bhagwan Dev Atma.

The Most Worshipful Founder

The Sacred name of the most worshipful founder of the Dev Samaj was Shri Satyanand Agnihotri. He was born on 20th December 1850 at Shri Akbarpur, Distt. Kanpur is endowed with the germs of those extraordinary psychic powers which we call Dev Shakties. They are three kinds viz:-

  • Complete and all-sided love for all that is true in all departments of Nature.
  • Complete and all-sided love for all that is good in all relations of Nature
  • Complete and all-sided hatred for all that is false or antagonistic to goodness or is positively evil or sinful in all cosmic relations.

Bhagwan Dev Atma
Founder Dev Samaj

His autobiography shows that from His very childhood, these unique and highest hereditary forces began to demarcate the course of his life. After completing his Civil engineering education at the engineering college at Roorkee in 1866, at the age of 23, He came to Lahore and served in Punjab Education Department. Besides the official duties, He undertook various public activities and soon came into prominence as a Journalist of great repute and a speaker of matchless eloquence who could sway vast audiences and keep them spellbound for hours, a powerful missionary of the Brahmo Samaj, a great social reformer, political leader and a person of marvelous character.

His philanthropic activities absorbed His time and attention to such an extent, that at the prime age of 32, His highly developed love for the service of others made it imperative for Him to renounce his very honorable government post, and to embrace His unique Life-Vow, which when epitomized, runs thus:-

“May beautiful truth and goodness, My foremost aim represent;
And in the service of the world, My life be fully spent.”

He took this Life-Vow on 20th December 1882. From that day up to the last day of His life on this planet, he dedicated not only his whole life but also all and everything which He owned for the best and the highest good of others. He devoted Himself wholly and exclusively to furthering the unique cause of the highest service of the world which consisted in eliminating, as far as possible, all untruth and evil in all relations of man and establishing the kingdom of Truth and Goodness on this earth. In order to successfully achieve this unique mission, He established the unique Society of Dev Samaj duly registered under the Societies Registration ACT and gave to the world, nearly three hundred books and pamphlets, a monumental work called the Dev Shastra in four Volumes on the philosophy of Human Soul and True Dharma. He passed away on 3rd April 1929.