from www.symcmiami.org/text/Bhagawan.html

Bhagawan Nityananda (d.1961) was considered by everyone who knew him to be a janmasiddha, one born in the state of enlightenment. His name, which means "everlasting bliss," is a description of his exalted state. He was born in Kerala state, in South India. He established an ashram in Kanhangad, which still exists today, maintained by his devotees. As early as the 1920s he traveled northward across Kerala and Karnataka states, gaining a reputation as a miracle maker wherever he went. Many hundreds of people gathered around him for blessings and for cures. By the mid-1930s, Nityananda had settled in the remote countryside of Maharashtra, in the village of Ganeshpuri. Almost immediately, he began to provide food for the local tribal people, who were profoundly poor, and later he established a school and programs to distribute clothing and food. He created the Balbhojan (children's food) Center, that continues to provide food to the local children on a daily basis. Bhagawan Nityananda never gave public lectures, and yet by the end of his life people of all social strata were coming by the thousands for his darshan. Today the shrine in his honor, in Ganeshpuri, is one of the most frequently visited pilgrimage sites in the area..