Early Years

Andrew was born in south India in 1952, where he lived until he was nine years old. It is this early period that he credits with shaping his sense of the inner unity of all religions and providing him with a permanent and inspiring vision of a world infused with the sacred.

He left India to attend private school in England and entered Oxford University in 1970 with a scholarship to study history.

At the age of 21, he became the youngest person ever to be awarded a fellowship to All Soul’s College, England’s highest academic honor.

Coming Home

By 1977, Harvey had become disillusioned with life at Oxford and returned to his native India, where a series of mystical experiences initiated his spiritual journey.

Over the next thirty years he plunged into different mystical traditions to learn their secrets and practices. In 1978, he met a succession of Indian saints and sages and began his long study and practice of Hinduism. In 1983, in Ladakh, he met the great Tibetan adept, Thuksey Rinpoche, and undertook with him the Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva vows.

Andrew’s book about that experience, Journey in Ladakh, won the Christmas Humphreys Award.