Selection of Letters of Sayagyi U Ba Khin to S.N. Goenka

Sayagyi U Ba Khin had a very strong belief in the ancient prediction that 2500 years after the time of the Buddha the technique of Vipassana would again return to India. Once it had been again established in the country of its origin it would from there spread around the world. Sayagyi had a great desire to travel to India himself and participate in reestablishing Vipassana there but he could never obtain a passport from the Burmese government.

After Goenkaji left Burma in June of 1969 and began teaching Vipassana in India he wrote to Sayagyi frequently and informed him of his work and sought his guidance. Sayagyi followed Goenkaji's progress very closely and wrote him a number of letters offering instructions and advice on his work.

Set forth below is a collection of selected ones of those letters from Sayagyi U Ba Khin to Goenkaji written during the period 1969-1971 along with an earlier letter written by him in 1952 (before Goenkaji did his first course) in which he announced the beginning of courses at his center (IMC) in Rangoon. The letters have been redacted to eliminate passages of a personal or familial nature. The last letter in the collection is by U Tin Yee, a teacher at Sayagyi's IMC after he passed away, about Goenkaji's work.