
Bijapur district of karnataka is land of Saints. Sri S.S Ganapatarao Maharaj of Kannur village is prominent among them.I use the word prominent because he was one such saint who brought Spirituality, social service and love for country under one umbrella.
He was born on 18 September 1909 on the auspicious day of
Ganesha Chathurthi,so was named as Ganapathi.Since his early childhood days young Ganapati had a great inclination towards spirituality. At the tender age of 13 he was blessed and initiated by
Sri S S Siddharameshwar Maharaj. After complition of his education BSc from famous Fergusson College Pune, he decided to choose path of Spiritual sadhana , as per his guru's guidance he did rigorous tapas ( spritual practise) at banks of river Krishna.Then later he continued his intense spritual practise in some other places like Oudumbar , mahabalehswar ..etc and reached the highest goal.
In 1951 he built his ashram called
Shanti Kuteer which turned out to be Oasis for thousands of spritual aspairants to quench there thirst.He gathered thousands of devotee's from North karnataka and some part of Maharastra because of his loving, peaceful nature and enlightening discourses which came from his own expirence.His discourse were very simple ,spoken in local language ( north karnataka kannada) and sometimes in marathi but with a powerfull intensifying effect soothings hundred's of devotee's.
Maharaj found
Bharatiya Surajya Samsthe in 1993 ,mainly aiming at removing ill traits from society and bring up love, harmony sprituality in society.He was always for using country made products promoting swadehsi bhava ( love for own country ). He also started
Rama Rajya Kala Mela , which aimed at making common man understand spritual aspects and dangers of bad habit's through drama's and skits.

Once group of people from Kannur village went to puttaparthi for having Sri Sathya Sai Baba's Darshan.During darshan Baba told them "what is need for you people ( people of Kannur village ) to come here ?" , this shows advaitha relation that God and Guru are one and the same.
Maharaj is also author for number of spiritual books , some translating complex information of ancient texts into a simpler understandable concepts with his own expirence.
One of the best and highly revered book he wrote was
Sulabha AtmaJnana which i have also read.
At the age of 95 years on Monday the 20th September 2004 Shri Samartha Sadaguru Ganapatrao Maharaj left his mortal body.His samadhi is in shanti kuteer ashram itself.
Guruji and My Parents
My father and mother both are ardent devotee's of Sri S.S Ganapathrao maharaj.I can say the place where they stay is shanti kuteer, because they perform all activties daily that are routine in ashram, be it kakadarati in early morning or it can be doing bhajan.
They have taken Sulabha Atmajnana as nitya parayana granth ( Daily Reading Sacred book).
My parents have composed couple of songs on maharaj and my mother has sung those songs many times infront of maharaj.
More about Sri S.S Maharaj
Please know more about maharaj, his ashram and his achivements at
Maharaj's WebPageMaharaj's Wiki Article