Sri Oleg M. Mogilever, affectionately known in Sri Ramanasramam as OM, was born in 1939 in the city of Kharkov and graduated from two universities in Leningrad, where he defended his Ph.D. thesis. In 1968 he married Nadezhda V. In 1979, he read Arthur Osborne’s The Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi in His Own Words, the book that would bring him to Bhagavan. In 1991, after the publication of his first book on Sri Ramana, OM visited Ramanasramam for the first time. Two years later, he organized a group study of the Maharshi’s teachings which came to be known as The Arunachala Center for Self-Knowledge, a small ashram in St. Petersburg. Under OM’s patronage various members visited Ramanasramam in the years that followed. He translated numerous books into Russian: Collected Works, Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Letters, Day by Day, Maha Yoga, Vivekachudamani, Guru Ramana, The Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi in His Own Words, Be as you are and Sri Ramana Gita.
Oleg’s wife passed away in 2007. As he had already been suffering a degenerative condition that affected his ability to walk, his daughters took care of him from that time forward and though his mobility was limited, he managed to come and stay in the Ashram for two months each year. After a long illness, Oleg Mogilever passed away in Jerusalem on 9th February 2024 at the age of 84. He is survived by two daughters and five grandchildren and will be remembered among devotees in Ramanasramam for the forbearance with which he conducted his sadhana, and made the trip each year to Tiruvannamalai, even reenacting with his crutches Bhagavan’s advent to Arunachala on foot.
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April 2024
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April 2024
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