Sri Sri Acharya Jnaneswar Dev was born on 16th of February, 1931(Bengali calendar year 3rd Falgun of 1337) on Monday on the auspicious day of Shib Chaturdashi at 10 P.M.  to an impoverished family at a village called Duilya(Panchpara), at Howrah district of West Bengal.  Father Sri Puran Chandra Dhara and mother Srimati Kali Debi named him Shibchandra after Lord Shiva.

After having attended 3rd standard he could not continue his studies due to the miserable financial condition of his family which did not provide enough to buy books and other necessary things for his education. There was nothing to do but to roam around the street for the thin and weak child. At the age of only nine years he lost his beloved mother. After his mother’s untimely death his maternal grandmother took responsibility of the whole family. But even at such a tender age he had to look for job to sustain his family, earned one paisa per day as a helper by ploughing field which he religiously handed to his grandmother at the end of the day. But this job of his as an assistance was not a daily job. So he had to search other jobs to meet his daily needs and found one such job as a helper at a blacksmiths shop to fire the heating chamber near the Ram RajaTala Railway station of Howrah district. The lean bodied teen would traverse a distance of six Km. everyday across the railway tracks sometimes running to reach to his place of work. It was a usual practice of running to keep his body warm as he had no warm clothes to cut off the winter’s chill. After a hard day’s exhaustive work he found solace as he laid his head on his grandmother’s lap. Throughout his struggle for sustenance he grew up in the affection and discipline of his grandmother.  Sickness used to often affect the lean boy. But he grew healthier as he ran to work in the winter to give his body the needed exercise. A great opportunity came to him and he started  yoga, physical exercises, asana, wrestling, stick rotating etc. Just like the great Ekalavya his spiritual journey began from Sri Ram Mandir and Shankar Math at Ram RajaTala. When he was fourteen he lost his adorable sister. From now on he started to devote his attention to the hammering process related to the job at his work place. But his earnings were meagre from his job which was insuffient for his brother’s education. Hence to make up for this inadequacy he had to look for another job. He fortunately got a better paying job at “Port Engineering (André will) Company” at Nazirgang , Shibpur, Howrah. Due to his honest, professional efficiency, humbleness, rigidity, compassionate, simple, righteous, calm and cool nature he soon became famous at the company, his neighbourhood and his yoga centre. Only at an age of seventeen he grew stronger like steel due to his great attentiveness  towards physical exercises and asana .He represented an ideal human being by his strong will power, his long arms that stretched to his knee, muscular  physique, broad chest and a narrow waist. He won prizes one after another by taking part in competitions like Body building, wrestling, Arm wrestling and stick rotating. At the same age he devoted attention for women’s education. He used theatre as a medium to impart education to the women folk through embodiment of pious lady characters. At the age of 22 on 8th March, 1953 he won the first place at a Body building competition held at Burdwan town and was awarded a silver sword gifted by the Maharaja of Burdwan (see the picture). With his earnings  through Body building competition and bending steel rods he use to upgrade his yoga centers in and around his neighbourhood. He adorned simple clothes like knee length Dhoti, white loose shirt and slipper made out of old used tyres. In one such occasion two British Gentlemen Mr. Rock and Mr. Talker who happened to be his Bosses wanted to gift him for his extracurricular activities, strength performances and proficiency in yoga. When asked what he wanted, audiences thought he would beg for better wages or a stable job for his unemployed brother but instead he asked for installation of an iron pathway to cross a ditch for conveyance of the villagers for security and safety purpose. This prayer was granted. He strengthened a road out of bricks and concrete from Nimtala to Panchpara with the help of the local youths. At that time he had about seven hundred students training under him. He charged one rupee per head from his yoga students for implementing social works. He encouraged youth for the development of a healthy body housing a healthy heart and mind. A lot of youngsters inspired by his ideal to serve the mankind became his followers. His heart ached to see illiteracy, superstitions, oppression and tyranny in the human society. Therefore he planned various activities along with the youth of the nearby locality. He went on to establish a lot of night centre for which the elderly came forward to help, thus began the great Mission. He laid foundation of ” Pallimangal Samity “ and a charitable fund aided by donations. The vision of this Samity was to build egalitarian society free from exploitation, poverty alleviation by offering partial financial assistance to enlarge the scope of self employment. It intended to create a congenial environment so that everybody in the society could live with broad humanity and prosperity. Its objective was to improve the standard of living, standard of health and education providing welfare amenities to the poor, starved or nearly starved and underprivileged peoples. He donated locally Rs. 25 per family to motivate them to start handicrafts or low investment business as a result of which many family became self reliant. At that time the locality became highly spirited and vivacious with enthusiasm. They intensely loved and helped each other to form a greater family. Among all these he began teaching people about the discovery of the Truth. He used to show the practical demonstration on how to do everyday work as the service of God. The yoga continued as usual. At the age of 22 he won the Prestigious title of “Howrah Shree” and “Mr. East India Shree” . He was then noticed by the famous body builder Monotosh Roy, Kamal Bhandari and Vishnu Charan Ghosh. They proposed to fund his expenses for “World Title” from their reputed centre. When he understood that unwanted fame and fortunes were following him, he stopped taking part in competitions forever and so he displayed his final show one day. From then on he broadened his vision toward character building and spiritual realization. At 24 years he got married and began his family journey. He fulfilled his obligations at his work place attentively. At the same time he distributed the hard-earned blissful jewels of spiritual life amongst his followers. He changed his work place to Bally town at factory of Gajen Ghosh. His followers increased one by one and he became familiar amongst his followers as ‘Thakur’ for his unsullied purity and love. In this manner he gradually came to known as ‘Sri Sri Acharya Jnaneswar Dev’ and thus started the human character building and spiritual realization organization called Jnaneswar Ashram. Side by side he gave a practical embodiment of ‘Spiritual Truth’ through service of mankind. His spiritual teaching does not make any discrimination in respect of caste,creed, race, dogma and doctrine. He said humanity does not belong to any specific sect. He founded the ‘Samabaya Engineering’ factory where he implemented that his disciple worker should keep harmony between work and spiritual upbringing. On 21st May, 1973, Jnaneswar Ashram was registered under West Bengal Society registration Act XXVI of 1961 with registration no S/13023 of 1973-74. From then on all followers started austere ascetic practices in the realm of core as a result of which the applied science of spiritual practices in the material world was expressed as ‘Social Work’. From the philosophy of Jnaneswar Ashram  their way of activities could be easily understood.

Since 1973 keeping these Aims and Objectives we have rendered innumerous services for the welfare of mankind and greater humanity. During this period society registration Act and Audit of Ashram have been completed and updated till date. On 2nd April, 1996(Bengali calendar Year 19th chaitra,1402), Tuesday, our beloved Acharya Deb left for his heavenly abode. Then His disciples, followers intended to continue His Honourable ideals and to enhance His service for humanity with greater intensity. This noble work was helped greatly by the donations of His disciples and commoners and the tireless efforts of His ardent devotees. Now the Ashram is working with full effort to spread its activities in different fields and plans to include more scope on it activities.