This is not a story, nor a legend, but an experience shrouded in mysteries for long. This is about a deathless yogi who has crossed the limits of time and space, and history, geography, and limit of facts.
An immortal yogi whose name is even a mystery (I wonder why one of his disciples couldn’t simply ask him!). He is an avatar, literally meaning incarnation, the manifestation of divinity into flesh. The spiritual form of this great yogi is inconceivable through naked eyes for his divinity transcends the barriers of nature laws.
It was this eternally young yogi Mahavatar Babaji who revived Kriya Yoga, the secret yoga for life, and brought it from divinity to the earth. Kriya Yoga was lost on the earth. It was instructed by Krishna to Arjuna (mentioned in the Gita) before the great battle of Mahabharata and was known to only a few ancient sages Manu, Patanjali and to the likes of Jesus Christ and his disciples St. Paul, St John, and a few others.
It might astonish you to know that Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, was an earnest spiritual seeker. After he visited India, he turned so spiritually oriented that the last gift his close ones received at his funeral was a book Autobiography of A Yogi ( the first book that Jobs downloaded on his iPad and read every year!) written by Paramahansa Yoganand who had been blessed and chosen by Mahavatar Babaji to carry the message of spirituality to the West.
But why is Kriya Yoga given so much importance? Why did this yogi bring such a higher spiritual technique? And what knowledge thrives about the great yogi, Mahavatar Babaji? Let’s get answers to these questions.
Who is Mahavatar Babaji?
Mahavatar Babaji is the name given by his disciple Lahiri Mahasaya. The first in the line of the yogis (though some call him Nagaraj, master of the Kundalini Shakti) has lived for time unknown.
His disciples describe him as a divine image who never ages more than 25, having a golden complexion, copper-colored hairs to the shoulders, dark and calm eyes. An unearthly radiance and scent magnify the atmosphere at the place where he appears.
Babaji can converse through any language; attain any material form to his wish. It is believed that he has been into a divine existence, for more than 2000 years and in an eternal body that bears no mark of age. Jesus Christ and Babaji are said to be in communion with each other, to spread a spiritual message through the lineage of disciples.
Encountering the tale of such a powerful personality has set out a series of questions in your mind, right? Where did the great yogi come from? Where is he now and can he be found? Why has he lived for millenniums? One of the biggest questions reserved for ages is that is Jesus Christ first of the lineage of disciples of Mahavatar Babaji?
Walk with me into this enthralling discovery of the life of a primordial yogi!
Origins of the Immortal Yogi?
This yogi is called ageless also because his age is unknown! He looks as if his youth never crossed 25. It is held that he was born in southern India. At the age of 15, Nagaraj (child name of Mahavatar Babaji, meaning the king of serpents or one who has awakened Kundalini Shakti) left his home with ascetics to reach Sri Lanka. He made that journey on a boat with some sadhus.
It is believed that the place he was going, a secret spiritual ashram, could only be reached by those who were destined to reach it. But Nagaraj remembered from his previous life the temple where he performed his highest meditation before he died to step into another life. He walked as if remembered everything from his previous life!
He practiced his yogic sadhana (the higher practice of Yoga) before he was intimated into Kundalini Pranayama by Maharishi Agastya (one of the 7 ancient sages). Completing his sadhana, he left towards the North. He is believed to have attained cosmic salvation, a state where no laws of nature known to man or not, would work.
Babaji can take any form; speak any language, travel anywhere (what is a mystery before us as astral travels)! He appears to only his chosen disciples, who are the only spiritual teachers in the knowledge of having been blessed to meet the Mahayogi.
One such sensational meeting is recounted by one of his disciples in the 19th century.
A Strange Meeting of 1861 Autumn
Shyamacharan Lahiri (a spiritual guru revered as Lahiri Mahasaya) was an ordinary accountant in the British government of India. One day, he was summoned by his superior and handed transfer letters to a new army establishment in Ranikhet hills. Lahiri left for the 500-mile journey on horseback, hitchhiking through the Himalayan mountains.
Lahiri was in knowledge of those hills being blessed by the presence of great saints. One early afternoon of the autumn, when Lahiri was walking through the hills, he heard a strange voice calling him out by his name. He set out in the direction of that strange voice, though a sensation of fear filled his heart that he might not return before darkness swept the hills, yet he continued upwards the hills. As he vigorously went up jumping over the rocks, he suddenly looked over a rock ledge and what he saw enthralled him with an ethereal sensation.
There stood a gigantic sadhu, with copper-colored hairs, and an aura of cosmic rays pervading the atmosphere. Lahiri was frozen at the sight of such unearthly divinity. Finally, the yogi says, “Lahiri, you have come” (it was narrated to Paramhansa Yogananda, the founder of the Kriya Yoga in the West).
The yogi guided him to his cave. Lahiri was asked by the mysterious image if he remembered the cave. Lahiri had no idea about what was happening on his outside and inside. The yogi then touched his forehead with affection and what followed is still a marvel among the mysteries. Lahiri remembered his past life, and every life he had been through, every journey his soul had taken in what not bodies. He opened his eyes and fell before his guru, crying with spiritual ecstasy. Mahavatar Babaji was his guru in Lahiri’s past life.
The great yogi had waited and followed Lahiri over astral oceans, guided and protected him as his child, and directed every path of his life. Babaji instructs Lahiri to drink from a bowl the divine oil intended for purification. As the oil went inside Lahiri, he swept away in currents and when he woke up in the dark alongside a river, he was in the state of cosmic consciousness.
Babaji initiated Lahiri Mahasaya into the secret Kriya Yoga and instructed him to further initiate his disciples into it so that Kriya Yoga as a spiritual technique could spread to ignite mankind for spiritual awakening.
The Story of Jesus Christ and the Three Wise Men
Yoganand Paramahansa has held that the three wise men that came from the distant lands as mentioned in the holy texts were the lineage of his ultimate guru Mahavatar Babaji. It was the trio of Mahavatar Babaji, his disciple Lahiri Mahasaya and again his disciple Yukteswar guru in their divine existence that came to meet Jesus Christ when he was a child. The story of Jesus Christ’s travel to India to meet his divine guru has been hidden from the New Testament.
It is even believed Jesus Christ was the first in the lineage of the 5 disciples of Mahavatar Babaji! There are rare experiences of only highly accomplished spiritual masters who were blessed with the chance to meet Babaji, a cosmic mystery indeed.
Where is Mahavatar Babaji now?
People in the north Himalayas and some parts of majestic northern hills of India, claim to see a mysterious barely clothed yogi, with a strange radiance surrounding him. There is no such one address that could lead one to the ancient yogi. It is said that Mahayogi chooses the people he wants to bless with his presence.
Mahavatar Babaji was deeply concerned with the spiritual awakening of the West. There had been great minds in the West who had amassed spiritual attainment. But they too were delved into the trenches of rank materialism. So he spread the words of spirituality and Kriya Yoga to every corner of the globe.
Kriya Yoga, the yogic science and meditation techniques are today an inevitable part of the daily life of people. Institutions and international schools of Kriya Yoga are being attended by people spanning all over Europe, America, Australia, parts of Africa, and the whole of Asia. Though one cannot instantly adopt Kriya Yoga into his life, practicing meditation and yoga can do wonders, not just spiritually but also into the domains of professional life, family relationships, and health.