Satish Kumar was born in India. He is the current editor of Resurgence , founder and Director of Programmes of the Schumacher College international centre for ecological studies and of The Small School. He became a jain monk at the age of 9. At 18, following an inner voice, he ran away from the mendicant order, to become a disciple of Vinoba Bhave who was an eminent disciple of Gandhi and his nonviolence and land reform ideas.

Inspired in 1962 by Bertrand Russell's civil disobedience against the atomic bomb, a few years later Kumar and a companion decided to dedicate themselves to undertaking a peace walk from India to the USA. They called it 'Pilgrimage for peace'. They began their walk in Bangalore. There Vinoba Bhave gave the young men two gifts. One was to be penniless wherever they walked. The other was to be vegetarian. They first travelled through Pakistan, where they met great kindness from a country with a huge historic conflict and antipathy towards India. They continued through Armenia, Georgia, the Caucasus Mountains, the Khyber Pass, visiting Moscow, Paris, London, and Washington, D.C.. On foot and carrying no money, Kumar and a companion would stay with anyone who offered them food or shelter. They eventually delivered 'peace tea' to the leaders of 4 of the nuclear powers.

Their journey is chronicled in Satish's book No Destination . Other books by him You Are Therefore I Am: A Declaration of Dependence"

He settled in England in 1973 and lives in Hartland Devon, where he continues to have an impact on the lives of many.