[Prev][Next][Index]
SHRI SADASHIVA HARIAKHAN BABAJI MAHARAJ
*--- Forwarded Article ---*
ABOUT
MAHAMUNIDRA SRI SRIX108 SRI SADASHIVA HARIAKHAN BABAJI MAHARAJ
by a devotee
He is a saint who has no name and at the same time has several
names; who has no place and at the same time has several places.
Many people say that Babaji Maharaj comes from Nepal, where he has
a permanent place in the caves of inaccessible mountains. But no
one knows where and when he was born, or when he disappeared. And
no one knows how he appears from time to time to help the world. He
is eternally young and appears in many different forms.
In the Kurmachala area (the lower mountains of the Himalayas) which
includes the districts of Almora, Nainital and Garhwal, he is well
known by the name of Hariakhan Baba. This is not his real name, of
course, but because he appeared in a cave in the Hariakhan jungle
in 1890, that name began to be used commonly by the people of that
area. People over sixty years old say they saw him and tell his
stories very delightfully. In other places he is known as
Mahamunidra, Sri Sadguru, Sri Sadashiva, Mahavatar, Trayambak Baba,
Babaji Maharaj, etc.
Some people say this great sage first appeared with the dam of Lake
Bhim Tal was being constructed: he was working on the dam, dressed
as a laborer, and disappeared when people guessed that he was not
an ordinary person. People also say that attempts to construct this
dam had failed several times before, but when Babaji Maharaj worked
on it the project was successfully completed.
He was tall and slim bodied, with long arms reaching to the knees
and a fair complexion. He would walk very fast. His eyes were brown
and his eyebrows would move up and down which indicates some mantra
was being repeated continuously inside him. He would not sleep at
all. A kind of smell like musk would spread all around him. His
feces had no smell and would decompose very quickly.
His body was very soft, flexible and young. He had no hunger or
thirst. He would eat or drink if he were offered food, fruits, milk
or water. And he has great strength in his body; people often saw
him lifting huge rocks.
Over his shoulder he was seen wearing a sacred thread. A tuft of
hair grew on the top of his head. A cap with flaps covered his ears
and he wore a long shirt, a loin cloth and a dhoti. He was also
seen wearing a turban and sometimes Tibetan robes. Frequently he
was seen with several lamas. Once two lamas performed their tantric
sadhana for two months in a tent near him. He would speak a mixture
of Nepali, Hindi and Kurmachal languages and he would write in very
ancient scripts which nawadays are unknown to people. When he
appeared in different places, he would be seen and heard speaking
fluently the native languages of those places. A Swedish gentleman
named Niels Olft Cressander saw a vision of him in a hotel in
France where he was wearing European dress and speaking French. But
when Mr. Cressander and his wife saw him in Moscow he was wearing
traditional Indian dress.
Once in the month of January, Babaji Maharaj was staying in the
cave at Hariakhan. A few saints heard about Babaji's powers and
decided to receive his darshan. First the saints asked different
questions about Yoga and the scriptures, and then they decided to
ask Babaji Maharaj to give them a wild fruit called kaphal. The
fruit grows in the Himalayas during the months of April and May,
but in January and February it is not available. Babaji, realizing
their thought, came out of the cave and walked a distance away. He
returned with a branch full of kaphal fruits and distributed the
fruits to the saints.
During the summers, Babaji Maharaj would make a hut of grass and
leaves at some distance from the Hariakhan cave near the bank of
the Gautam Ganga River. At that place he would perform Panchagni
Sevan (use of five fires), which is an austerity performed during
the summertime. Four fires surround the yogi and the fifth fire is
the sun. The yogi sits in the middle and gazes at the bright sun
with his eyes open and does japa.
People saw Babaji Maharaj sitting in the middle of the fires doing
Panchagni Sevan, completely enveloped by the flames. The people who
were there saw that every day, after completion of Panchagni Sevan,
a huge lion would come, walk around Babaji Maharaj, bow his head on
Babaji's feet and then leave. Seeing the lion, the devotees would
feel fear and they would close their eyes when he got near.
Babaji assured them that the lion would not harm anyone; that he
only came to pay his respect to him.
Once a forest guard named Mangal Singh, who was living in a village
called Chorgalia, fifteen to twenty miles to the east of the Gautam
Ganga River invited Babaji Maharaj to stay in his village.
Babaji Maharaj went to the village, but did not wish to stay inside
a house. So the villagers arranged a place outside the village and
made a fire there. It was the month of January, and it was raining
very hard. Babaji Maharaj sat there in front of the fire. It
surprised everyone to see that it was raining everywhere but the
place where Babaji was sitting and that the fire was burning
without any hindrance from water or wind.
Ranibag is a place six miles north of Haldwani on the Nainital
Road. There is one Siva temple and a small village which is
situated on the bank of the River Gautam Ganga. During festivals or
on solar and lunar eclipses, people come there to bathe in the
river.
Once Babaji maharaj was staying there and, as usual, he was
surrounded by people. Because there was about to be a solar
eclipse, some people were going to Kuruksetra (a place near Dheli
where the battle of the Mahabharata was fought) to take a bath on
that auspicious occasion. Other people were planning to take a bath
with Babaji at Ranibag.
When the solar eclipse started, the people at Kuruksetra saw Babaji
Maharaj there, taking a bath with them. And when the eclipse
finished, the people returned from Kuruksetra to Ranibag. Finding
Babaji had arrived there before them, they were very surprised and
asked those who had remained in Ranibag when Babaji had returned.
They replied that Babaji had not gone anywhere. "We took a bath in
the river with Babaji." they said. The people who had gone to
Kuruksetra said, "No, Babaji took a bath with us there."
Yogiraj Sri Sri Shyama Charan Lahiri (called Lahiri Mahasaya) was
born in Bengal, District Nadia, in a small village named Ghurni.
When he was very small his parents moved to Benares. He was
educated there, married and had a family. He worked in the army as
a civilian clerk and transferred to Ranikhet army headquarters
where he met Babaji, his guru, 14 miles outside the town at
Dronagiri in 1861.
After meeting his guru, he attained a very high stage in yoga and
wanted to leave his job. But Babaji Maharaj ordered him to do his
household duties together with his meditation. However, Babaji also
told him he would be transferred from Ranikhet because his work
there was finished, and the same day he received his transfer
order.
Sri Sri Lahiri Mahasaya obeyed his guru's orders and performed his
household duties and meditation. He was such a great yogi that his
mind would remain in peace all the time, even when he was working
among crowds and maintaining full household responsibilities. He
was quite unattached to the world, like a lotus flower which never
retains a drop of water when lifted out of the pond.
He was also very learned in scriptural matters. He was egoless and
spoke very little. His miraculous life was shared with many
disciples. He cured many sick people by the power that was in him.
After retiring from his job, he returned to Benares and lived up to
72 years of age. He left his body in 1895.
Sri Sri Lahiri Mahasaya was the master of my master's master. The
thread of spirit has been passed from Babaji to Lahiri Mahasaya to
Swami Sri Yukteswar to Paramahansa Yogananda to the world. I pay my
respects to my gurus and to all of the great saints and sages of
the world whether known or unknown.
Aum santih santih santih Hari Aum Tat Sat
[This article originally appeared in "The IIIrd I" and is copyright
1990 by Bruce Salamandir-Feyrecilde. Permission to reprint all or
parts of this article is granted for the purposes of ringing the
bell of dharma, but I'd appreciate hearing from you if you use it.
feel free to email me at salamandir@netamerica.com]
*--- End of Forwarded Article ---*
*-=Om Shanti=-* Jai Maharaj
jai maharaj |_|_|_|_| mantra corporation
jyotishi, vedic astrologer |_| |_| vedic prediction sciences
jai@mantra.com |_|_ _|_| telex 6505614754
mci mail 561-4754 | | | | | voicemail +1 808 948 4357
