> Mahavatar Babaji
Mahavatar Babaji:
The Deathless Yogi
Mahavatar Babaji—the revealer of Kriya Yoga, the ancient instrument that frees humans from the clutches of worldly taints ending in the merger of soul with the Spirit—is a deathless yogi. His existence was brought to light by Autobiography of a Yogi (1946), a book authored by Paramahansa Yoganandaji.
Among the practitioners of kriya yoga, as taught by Paramahansa Yoganandaji through his organisations the SRF (headquartered in Los Angeles, California) and the YSS (headquartered in Dakshineswar, Kolkata with branch headquarter in Ranchi, Jharkhand), Babaji is revered as one who has promised to remain in his bodily form throughout the present cycle of creation to protect and guide, though intuitively, all sincere kriya practitioners.
For any kriya practitioner, even someone as advanced as Swami Sri Yukteswarji, the ability to meet Babaji in bodily form is considered a touchstone of one’s mental state: the extent of mind’s freedom from its fluctuations that disrupt the calmness needed to perceive spiritual reality. Besides, as narrated in the Autobiography, it was Babaji who prodded Swami Sri Yukteswarji, Yoganandaji’s guru, to write the book “The Holy Science“. It brings out the unity between the Eastern and the Western religion, a theme reflected in the teachings of Yoganandaji.
Finally, notable in the Autobiography is a chapter that recounts Babaji’s relationship with his disciple Lahiri Mahasayaji. In the chapter, Babaji reveals that Lahiriji was his disciple in the past and that Babaji had been tracking his soul even after his death and birth to meet and initiate him into the path of Kriya yoga. Then Babaji initiates Lahiriji after fulfilling Lahiriji’s last earthly desire to live in a palace. Later, when Lahiriji seeks to demonstrate the existence of his deathless guru to his inquisitive friends, Babaji chastises him. These incidents bring out the uniqueness of guru-disciple relationship, a relationship which is eternal, fulfilling, and above all not to be sullied by the taint of human frailties.