Within the last six months, the world lost two giants in the passing of Dr. Mark Dyczkowski and Fauja Singh. I was and still am a fan of both. Dr. Dyczkowski was one of only a few of the most prominent scholars of Kashmiri Shaivism and a well-known Sitar musician. Fauja Singh was the most incredible near 90-year-old to centenarian long-distance runner that has ever graced this planet.
My knowledge of Fauja Singh is of news stories over the years and perhaps legend. I have read Dr. Dyczkowski and am familiar with his work and a bit of his story over the years via his writings and his offerings via YouTube.
Their lives have relevance to Your Transformations. Mr. Singh’s may be easy to see where this is the case whereby Dr. Dyczkowski’s is slightly nuanced.
Fauja Singh was born in 1911 and passed due to a accident at the age of 114. He lost his wife, a daughter and son in quick succession in the early 90s. His grief was overwhelming to himself and to concerned family and community members. He was talked into moving from India to London. There he started walking. Then he started running. His running served purposes that included healing from such unbearable losses. In 2000, at the age of 89 he ran his first marathon. His times recorded for races while he was 89 until he started slowing down are quite remarkable. He ran his last marathon in 2011 at the age of 100.
Dr. Dyczkowski was born in London and left for India at the tender age of 18. He felt called to this country at a early age. He was someone who never struck me as being concerned with prestige where due to his academic accomplishments or his musical ones. He is someone who was certainly capable of having a level of material riches if he had desired this. He had graduated from the finest universities. He was brilliant and tenaciously industrious. The world of Kashmiri Shaivism and Tantra is not where one would normally find the spotlight. They would not be considered “sexy”. The Sitar as an instrument can be seen the same way. These were his passions and he demonstrated great grace to others through his pursuits. Different than Mr. Singh, Dr. Dyczkowski’s life’s challenges were more along the existential lines with spiritual longing. He shared with Mr. Singh a non-flagging discipline although his was manifested much differently.
One thing that binds both men is their being influenced by Seva or service. I believe their concepts of this were a bit different but it is not like the concept of penance. Devotion was paramount in both people’s lives. Giving of themselves was of vital importance.
Beyond healing I believe there were other purposes that inspired this gentle soul, Mr. Singh. It seems that he lived a relatively simply life with his faith as his centrepiece. He was a Sikh. He became involved with celebrities in promoting active lifestyles for greater health from a holistic standpoint as one ages. He just did not believe in self-imposed limits and wished to share this belief via his own example. If one looks up his running times while he was in his 90s, they may find like I do, that it is difficult to grasp how this being was able to do this.
Mr. Singh wished to inspire the young. This too was important to him. I think I would do him a disservice here by not mentioning his advocacy for diets for people that was vegetarian. Love, devotion, and remarkable resilience are just a bit of his legacy.
Mark Dyczkowski was extremely motivated to tirelessly research and interpret ancient texts in order to share them with the world. His tradition is one where the lineage of the guru had ended with Dr. Dyczkowski’s generation of devotees and not just keeping alive his tradition but expounding on it through new findings. There have been some stories regarding his interaction with his musical students that are very endearing in the humour and kindness and ego free nature that was part of his being that he demonstrated.
So, they both shared examples of continual reinvention and adaptability. They both were curious individuals but in different ways. Where Mr. Singh’s activities had more fanfare and were more action oriented his curiosity was not as obvious. Where Dr. Dyczkowski’s was more of a intellectual curiosity Mr. Singh found new ways of engaging with life. He explored what the body and spirit could do.
It appears to me that both men with Seva as such a mainstay in their stores they were self-honouring people. They showed that devotion for them did not take away and that service does not need to come at the expense of the self. I believe as their stories progressed their lives lead were of alignment.
Within the last six months, the world lost two quiet giants: Dr. Mark Dyczkowski and Fauja Singh. I was and still am an admirer of both. Dr. Dyczkowski was one of the foremost Western scholars of Kashmiri Shaivism and a gifted sitarist. Fauja Singh was perhaps the most extraordinary near-90-year-old to centenarian long-distance runner to ever take to the road.
My knowledge of Fauja Singh came mainly through news reports and the legends that naturally form around remarkable lives. I’ve read Dr. Dyczkowski’s work and followed his offerings over the years through his writings and YouTube presence. Their lives, distinct as they were, hold deep relevance to our ideas here at Your Transformations. Mr. Singh’s connection may appear more straightforward, while Dr. Dyczkowski’s is subtler but no less profound.
Fauja Singh was born in 1911, in Punjab, India. In the early 1990s, he experienced immense personal loss with his wife and a son dying within a short time of each other. Grief threatened to overwhelm him. Encouraged by family and community, he moved to London. There, he began walking. Walking turned into running.
His running became a form of healing in motion. In 2000, at the age of 89, he ran his first marathon. His race times from ages 89 to 100 remain astonishing. In 2011, he completed his final full marathon at the age of 100, though he continued to run shorter races to raise awareness and funds for causes dear to him.
Dr. Dyczkowski was born in London in 1951. Drawn to India from a young age, he moved there at the age of 18. Despite his academic pedigree and musical gifts, prestige seemed peripheral to him. He chose instead a life rooted in scholarship, music, and spiritual practice. He completed advanced studies at top universities and wrote extensively on Shaiva Tantra, but lived with humility and generosity. The sitar, a bit like the philosophy he studied was hardly a glamorous pursuit, yet he devoted himself to both.
While Mr. Singh’s challenges were shaped by grief and the body’s limits, Dr. Dyczkowski’s struggles were more existential, rooted in an inner drive to seek spiritual understanding. Yet both men shared an unwavering discipline. Singh through physical endurance, Dyczkowski through scholarly and artistic rigor.
One thread that binds them is their relationship to seva, or selfless service. Their interpretations may have differed, but neither approached it as penance. It was a expression of their devotion.
Singh lived simply, guided by his Sikh faith. He partnered with celebrities to promote active aging and holistic health. He rejected self-imposed limits and shared this belief through example. His running times in his 90s defies comprehension. He wished to inspire the young and advocated vegetarian diets. Dr. Dyczkowski served by preserving and expanding the body of Kashmiri Shaivite teachings, translating and interpreting ancient texts in ways that kept them alive for future generations. Stories of his interactions with musical students reveal warmth and humour, alongside a complete absence of ego.
Both men embodied continual reinvention and adaptability. Singh’s curiosity was expressed through his body by how far, how fast, how joyfully he could move through life. Dyczkowski’s curiosity was intellectual and devotional, a lifelong inquiry into consciousness and the sacred. In their own ways, they each honoured themselves while serving others, proving that service need not be self-erasing. For them, devotion was not a drain but a wellspring.
Fauja Singh ran not to outrun grief, but to remain in motion alongside life. Mark Dyczkowski studied and played not for applause, but to stay in dialogue with the divine. Both remind us that service, when rooted in love and discipline, can be a form of self-care. It affirms the self rather than erasing it.
Their legacies are not just measured in achievements or records, but in the sustained, humble acts of dedication that defined their lives. Joy, as they modelled it, is not a distant reward but a daily practice. Through movement and music, study and stillness, they showed what it means to live in alignment with one’s deepest callings and in doing so, they gave the world something enduring: living examples of integrity, humility, and grace.
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