Mehr Fardoonji was born in 1930 in Lahore and grew up in Multan, India (now Pakistan), of Parsee (Zoroastrian) parents. When she was five her father died and two years later the family came to England, where she went to school, and then to university at LSE. Then she travelled overland back to India and lived in a Gandhian ashram, spending some time in the land-gift movement with Vinoba Bhave. Since 1962 she has lived in south Cheshire, running Oakcroft organic market garden and teaching in adult education.
"When my brother was dying I shouted at some God that I didn't believe in, 'Don't let him die now! Let him live a few more years, and take those years from my life!' I was talking to the God of my childhood. But at the same time I knew it wasn't possible to add and subtract like that. I was simply shouting in anguish."
"A young woman working on the land here lent me a book on Jungian philosophy by Esther Harding, and reading Jungian ideas showed me spirit as psyche, instead of spirit connected to an outside God. At last I understood that the spiritual comes in ways that can't be expressed in words. And Yoga was perfect for me because of the way it balances body, mind and spirit."