MeraPahad Community Of Uttarakhand Lovers

    Sanskrit words expressing the   inexpressible - the Ultimate, the Absolute, the Transcendental, the Divine, God.   How often I have said I can never write about Babaji. So beyond expressions   beyond the ken of the wildest imagination. The most outrageous fantasies pale   beside him. In truth I don't know what he is. No one can fathom him. No words   successfully describe him. Words by their nature limit. He in every aspect is   limitless. Yet I feel an urgency to share him with those open to God, to tell   those who have been seeking God, searching for reality, peace, liberation, Truth   in its highest form, of his presence in mortal form and of his message of Truth,   Simplicity and Love and the constant remembrance of God's name-this teaching   which offers safety even from atom bombs, yet is simple, intimate to one's   being, and the basis of all religions.
My first remembrance of Babaji came through Paramahansa Yogananda when I read   his "Autobiography of a Yogi". Babaji, the deathless guru, the Yogi-Christ of   India, as Yogananda calls him, Shiva Mahavatar (the highest form of God)   "divinity in the flesh", "maintaining his physical form from century to   century". Sometimes visible to people, often working invisibly for the   redemption and salvation of the human race. (Autobiography p. 295) Who could   read of him, his beauty, his power, his never-dying love and protection of his   devotees, without being moved to call out to him? Especially so when Yogananda   relates: "Whenever anyone utters with reverence the name of Babaji, that devotee   attracts an instant spiritual blessing." (Autobiography, p.300).
 
  I remember the yearning I felt then to experience this immortal master of   masters, whose youthlike body, beautiful and strong, bears no marks of age but   radiates a perceptible glow. The thought never occurred to me in those days that   I could ever meet this peerless one who appears from time to time and vanishes   into light at will, whose "undecayable body requires no food" (Autobiography,   p.300), who is seen or recognised by others only when he so desires. The image   of Babaji was by far the most enticing concept my searching mind had ever   imagined and, though I never doubted the veracity of Yogananda's description,   only the seeming impossibility. of ever encountering this divine being allowed   the flames of desire in my heart to subside and the memory of his existence to   retreat again into the subconscious. I believe that this longing for him and the   remembrance of him in all his glorious splendour has always been alive in my   subtle awareness, permitting me to find neither peace nor satisfaction in   anything else. I believe so, yes. I cannot say I know. So much concerning Babaji   one can feel as Truth with the heart. The mind can never know these things.   These matters are beyond the ken of the mind.
 
  Several years after reading Autobiography, I learned that Babaji was in physical   form and living in the Kumaon hills of the Himalayan mountains in India. It took   not a moment to decide that I could come to see him. I gave notice to the law   school where I taught and four months later found myself in flight to India, my   mind floating at the thought and stories of this pure light who had taken on   human form for the salvation of mankind. En route I opened the small Spiritual   Diary of Yogananda which I had just purchased. How perfect the words for that   day
 
  "It is because God wants you that I am here with you, calling you to come Home,   where my Beloved is, where Krishna, and Christ and Babaji, and the other saints   are. "Come", the Lord is saying. "They are all rejoicing in Me. No worldly joys   can compare with the divine joys of my home. There is only one Reality. It is   He. Forget everything else."
 
  I remember that first walk up the river valley to Babaji's ashram, crossing the   holy Gautama Ganga River 10 or 12 times, the stones white, the waters sparkling   in the sunshine. The feeling I had was that I had finally come home. Nothing had   ever felt so familiar. It seemed that every place I had ever loved was reflected   here, a piece of this whole. After an immeasurable period of time, which turned   out to be about 1.5 hours, I saw the ashram, with the 9 temples on one side,   colourfully rising out of the golden Mount Kailash, the legendary abode of Lord   Shiva, outlined by a bright blue sky. On the other side, tiny pink and white   buildings and a white--domed temple sat high atop a long white staircase. Like a   fairy land, it looked. Then I heard someone say, "Baba is coming". I remember   only my head at his feet. Everything in my life has since taken reference to   this point of time. For me, there is only before meeting Babaji and after.   Nothing else is of significance. It has been more than two years since that day   when my eyes first feasted on his beauty, when my ears first filled with the   sweet melody of his voice, his laughter, when I first smelled the unimaginable   fragrance of his presence. Incomparable is the joy of loving him, of immersing   the mind in thoughts of him. Satiation seems impossible, fascination with   anything concerning him inevitable and with anything else unimaginable.
 
  Shall I tell you something of his beauty? Like everything else about him, words   fail to capture. Neti, Neti. He is so illusive, like light, like a cloud. You   cannot bottle these things. Besides, he changes, sometimes from moment to   moment. What is this beauty? One gazes and gazes and still the mind cannot   fathom the infinity which is his nature. He wears his mortal form like a shawl   to cover his Light. He is not bound by it. He changes it at will. This is   clearly reflected in the photographs taken of him since his appearance in 1970.   The differences are enormous.
 
  A 10th century Indian saint, Devara Dasimayya, addressing a poem to Ramanatha (a   name for Shiva), captures Babaji's illusive, indefinable quality:
 
      Though Babaji wears a man's body, his aspect as Mother Divine is undeniable. One   cannot say he is man or woman. Both aspects are merged in him. The creator of   all contains all within himself. The Father, the Mother, the Divine being   immeasurably exalted beyond every human attribute. Often during the worship   service that is performed to him, a shawl will be placed covering his head and   shoulders. As he sits motionless, he is bedecked with flowers. At these times   his appearance becomes completely that of Goddess. The male aspect submerges   entirely and his beauty, like exquisitely chiselled marble, is extraordinary.
Mahantji, the head priest of the Hanuman temple, one of the major temples in   Delhi, relates many wonderful stories of Babaji showing that he is not bound by   time and space. Once he travelled with Babaji from Vrindaban, the playground of   Krishna, to Madhuban. After some time there, the food was offered to Babaji and   blessed by him. He told the people that those who had travelled with him should   take their food first and then the villagers would be served. Instead of   complying, the villagers rushed for the available places. When all were seated,   a cloud was seen in the otherwise cloudless sky. Within minutes a downpour   drenched the immediate area. Babaji ran here and there in the rain as Mahantji   followed him. Mahantji noticed that the rain was not falling on Babaji. When   Babaji sat down again on his dais, Mahantji, covered with mud on his feet, legs   and clothes, sat down near Babaji. Babaji had not one spot on him.
 
  Yogananda wrote of Babaji's spiritual state as beyond human comprehension. "The   dwarfed vision of men can not pierce to this transcendental star." Perhaps one   of the most concrete indications of the state of his divinity is in his   footprints. On the soles of his feet from time to time have appeared certain   symbols which are known as cosmic marks in the Indian spiritual tradition. These   markings have been seen by numerous people at various times and have even been   seen in photographs. The following marks were identified:  The Sanskrit letter OM, considered to be   the sound of creation, containing the essence of the entire universe; the Shesh   Nag (or five-hooded snake), symbolising the five senses, the five elements of   creation, and also the resting place on which God is said to have been seated   before the creation of the world; conch shells, symbolising the element of   sound, and used in worship; a trident, the emblem of sovereignty, symbol of   Shiva; head of a bull, Lord Shiva's attendant and vehicle; Swastik, symbol of   peace and success; a peacock; a lotus flower, symbol of divinity, living on the   water but never touched by it; Dhanush, or bow; chakra, or wheel; the crescent   moon, indicative of perfect mind control; all the signs of the Zodiac; the   serpent, representing wisdom and eternity, as well as fearlessness and   immortality: the sun; an octagon; a hatchet; an eagle; the planetary system,   with sun and moon at its centre; a club.
 
  The avatars Ram and Krishna are reported to have shown cosmic marks on the soles   of their feet. The first time such symbols were noticed in Babaji's footprints   was five years before his present appearance. He had appeared on the occasion of   the installation of an Amba temple in Banas Kada, Gujarat, on 25 May, 1965 and   some symbols (a flag, octagonal mark, etc.) were noticed on the ground where he   bad been standing. These marks fulfil the predictions long ago delivered that   when Shiva next was to appear in human form he would have a scar on his lower   right leg and upper left arm (as Babaji does) and symbols of Shiva and the   Zodiac on the soles of his feet.
 
  The name Shiva is frequently mentioned with reference to Babaji. Shiva is   synonymous with OM. By Shiva is meant eternally happy and auspicious, the   creator of the universe. Shiva is seen as the God without second who has been   moving in this world in his one and original form since the creation, watchful   for eternity over the welfare of mankind and the universe. He is described as   ever-pure, changeless, attributeless, all-pervading, eternal, the immortal   essence of the universe, the universal Self, the self-resplendent light of   Lights, the embodiment of wisdom. People say Babaji is Lord Shiva himself, the   great God, the Mahadev. His only desire, it is told, is to destroy the ignorance   of souls and to let the light come. What Babaji is, what Shiva is-one attempts   in vain even to picture these things--they are inconceivable.
 
      What is known about Babaji's existence was first disclosed to the modern public   by a famous Indian householder saint (the guru of Sri Yukteswar, Yogananda's   guru,) named Lahiri Mahasaya, whom Babaji initiated into Kriya Yoga and   enlightened in 1861. Details of this auspicious meeting and of Babaji's   existence were given wider publication by Yogananda in his Autobiography. He   describes Babaji as capable of doing anything at any moment of whatever   magnitude. In Autobiography he writes of these lilas (Sanskrit for "God's   play"), such as Babaji's materialising a palace in the Himalayas out of his   thought waves, appearing from and disappearing into light at will, instant   healing and bringing the dead back to life.
Although Babaji appeared to him   several times, Yogananda was unaware that during the very period of which he   wrote, Babaji was in fact appearing in a human form. Between the years 1800 and   1922, one of his names was Haidakhan Baba, because he spent much time in the   little village of Haidakhan in the Himalayan foothills. He was also known as   Shiva Baba.
In his 19th century Haidakhan Baba form, Babaji was renowned in the Himalayan   area for his supernatural powers and divine presence. Many stories are told of   his raising the dead, healing, sitting in fires, and, after hours or days,   emerging untouched; appearing in several places at the same time, offering gifts   of out-of-season food, writing in unknown ancient languages. In 1922 he visited   the raja of Ashkot, who, when Babaji left, helped carry his palanquin out of the   city. At the merger of the two rivers nearby, Babaji, promising to return one   day for the salvation of mankind, entered the water. Eyewitness accounts state   he sat in yogic posture, turned into light, and disappeared.
 
  During the following 48 years Babaji occasionally appeared to devotees but did   not seem to maintain a physical body. Those however who called upon him with   faith and devotion were blessed with appearances and visions, as numerous   stories from this period tell. Perhaps the most ardent of Babaji's devotees at   that time was a great saint called Mahendra Baba. He spent virtually his whole   life in search, worship, and service of Babaji. Babaji had appeared to him on   his fifth birthday and handed him candy. Never could he forget this divine   figure. After completing his schooling, be spent the next 25 years searching for   Babaji in Tibet, Nepal and India, and performing prayers and extreme   austerities. Finally, in 1949, in the Himalayan hill town of Almora, he saw a   picture of Haidakhan Baba in his previous form. Mahendra Baba recognised that   supernatural being who had disappeared 27 years earlier as the figure from his   childhood experience. Babaji afterwards reappeared to Mahendra Baba, enlightened   him, and instructed him to prepare for his return to the world in mortal form.   Mahendra Baba then spent the following twenty years repairing and rebuilding   Haidakhan Baba's old temples and ashrams in northern India and gathering,   informing and spiritually instructing devotees in preparation for Babaji's   return.
 
  Mahendra Baba was not the only one who foretold the coming of Mahavatar Babaji   in the year 1970. Some others also received revelatory information about   Babaji's reappearance, and published detailed Hindi language accounts of what   was to come. In 1970, a North Indian man had a dream in which his long deceased   father told him to go to a cave in Haidakhan, saying Babaji had appeared. He   went, and found a youth-like holy man there. It was Babaji.
 
  The pictures taken in the first years after his appearance strongly resemble the   facial outline of Babaji given by Lahiri Mahasaya, subsequently sketched and   appearing in Yogananda's book.
 
  In 1970 and the first years thereafter, Babaji appeared to be more spirit than   matter. He hardly spoke in those days, sitting for hours on end in meditative   trance, motionless like a marble statue. Yet when a devotee would bow at his   feet, he would often raise his hand in the blessing pose. People could not look   into his eyes then, their power was so great. Many people feared him, so   unapproachable he seemed. As the years have passed, he has become more   approachable as he sits, chats, laughs and fills the air with his presence.   People who have known him since the early years say he has hidden himself. The   body of light which he exposed so openly after first appearing in "mortal form"   he now discloses only to some in special visions and dreams.
 
  What one observes in Babaji's physical appearance depends upon what Babaji   chooses to disclose. Sheila, an Indian devotee, first met Babaji in 1972. Raised   in a family visited frequently by various saints and gurus, she had reached a   saturation point; no longer interested in meeting any such persons. Somehow she   was prevailed upon to see Babaji. When she first saw Babaji, she spoke to him   internally. She asked that if he were what he was reported as being, he should   disclose himself to her. For the next half hour, as she continually pinched   herself to make sure she wasn't dreaming, she stared at his face, which changed   like a kaleidoscope, from one form of God to another, running the gamut of Hindu   and other deities.
 
  I have seen him also, with my physical eyes, as the great Lord Shiva,   blue-skinned with matted locks piled high atop his exquisite head and those   almond-shaped eyes that are pools of bliss. One time I even saw his face as   Hanuman, the beloved monkey-faced god who is said to be a Shiva manifestation,   Hanuman who grants all wishes of his devotees; who is the great servant of Lord   Ram and his consort Sitaji, and whose perfection in worship and service have   long been my ideal. And on another occasion, I saw his face change to that of my   mother. The exquisiteness of this experience equals almost any other.
 
  You see why it is difficult to describe him. With these limitations in mind. one   can say his forehead is extremely broad and high. His black hair, shiny and   wavy, remind one of the waves of the sacred river Ganga which, in order not to   destroy earth by her force, is said to plunge to earth through the hairs of   Shiva. His eyes are dark and sparkling, laughing, full of bliss, endless in   their depth; seeming to contain or reflect the cosmos. The feeling I get at   times compares somehow 'with experiences of viewing the sky from high atop a   mountain on a clear, moonless night. I have seen Babaji angry in expression and   voice, but never have I seen anything but softness, compassion. and love in his   beautiful eyes, reflecting an ocean of peace. His nose, delicate yet strong.   sometimes flares slightly, reminding me often of the primal energy and joy of a   young wild colt. His mouth, like every other feature, is exquisite. His face is   full, like the sun. His beauty is beyond this world.
        His body is broad, sometimes quite large in stature. At times, he seems to carry   the earth in his belly. He once told a devotee that it contains five babies.   Someone explained this as meaning all of creation, consisting of the five   elements: earth, water, fire, air, ether. One devotee had an experience of   entering Babaji's body and in fact viewing, seemingly, the whole universe   contained therein.
Despite this load, grace characterises all of his movements. He walks, sometimes   carrying a staff, and his feet, like the lotus flower, do not seem to rest on   the ground. At times he leaves no footprints. When he recently stepped on a   weighing scale, it registered 75 kilos, about 165 pounds. Yet he carries his   weight like a cloud. He will run up a hill as though wings were attached to his   feet. Some people who have carried him report that he seems to weigh almost   nothing. A book in Hindi describes the cosmic significance of every part of his   physical body. One gets the feeling, and it is so reported, that even his   slightest movement impacts the entire cosmos. And when he tosses his head back   in a burst of laughter or nods it ever so slightly in assent to a question posed   by a devotee, one's heart fills in ever expanding love for him.
 
  The fragrance of his presence is unmistakable, unique. Some say musk like though   it's unlike anything I've ever smelled before. It lingers endlessly on things he   has used, his shawl, his pillows. One devotee with whom Babaji stayed for   several days in Delhi told me that his divine fragrance remained for six months   in the room, and was noticeable even to people who knew nothing about him or the   fact of his visit. One day when I was cleaning the area outside his room at   Haidakhan, his fragrance was strongly present. He had been away more than two   months then.
 
  This fairest flower of creation, ocean of mercy without any motive; why has he   come to the world? To the worldly minded it is impossible to perceive Babaji's   nature. But God has few to whom he whispers in the ear. It is for these that he   has come into the world. This is what he said:
 
  I am everywhere - in your every breath. I am come to help you realise unity   beyond division. I will show you a freedom you have not imagined. You must seek   that unity where there is an awareness that we are all one and the same. You   should seek harmony in all that you do. I am harmony. If you are in peace, I am   in peace. If you are troubled, I am troubled. If you have problems, I have   problems. If you are happy, I am happy. Be happy. Have faith. Everything depends   on faith.
 
  Babaji has come to the world to remove the bonds of sorrow of man, to change   their hearts and minds, to bring in the golden age of Truth. From his infinite   mercy and love, his teaching comes. This teaching-so simple, so powerful,   capable of dissolving all the sins of the world, yet natural, intimate to one's   inner essence, the basis of all religions.
 
  Babaji's teaching is threefold: (1) Live life in Truth, Simplicity and Love; (2)   Remember God always by repeating His name. Though he says any name of God which   appeals is appropriate, he teaches that the Maha Mantra or ultimate name of God   is. Om Namah Shivaya. This, he says, is the highest mantra. It means I bow to   Shiva or I take refuge in God. Repeat this always. It purifies the heart and   mind so that God can dwell therein. (3) Perform work-karma yoga. Work for   humanity, give everything of yourself for others, all your energy and resources.   Idleness, he says, is death, the breeding ground for evil. By working and   dedicating all to God, one reaches God.
   
  Published by:
  Haidakhandi Samaj
  Haidakhan Vishwa Mahadham
  Via Kathgodam, DistNainital, U. P.2631 26
Source :

http://www.babaji.net/teachings-babaji.htm

Famous Bollyhood Actress Priyanka Chopra is also Trustee of Haidakhan Baba Temple. She visits Haidakhan Baba Temple every year.

I was in Ranikhet, Priyanka Chopra stayed there during the Navtrata, she was heading for Miss Word Contest and with grace of Baba, she won the Miss World Title.

Last also, she visited there..A few photos which our Senior Member, Journalist D S Badola has sent us.





Priyanka at Haidakhan Baba Temple Ranikhet.

Actress Priyanka Chopra Performing Arti At haida khan baba temple Ranikhet.

Apart from Priyanka Chopra, late Congress Leader Rajesh Pilot was also trustee of Haidakhan Baba Trust. During my stay in Ranikhet, I used to see a lot of foreigners visiting the temple and performing their marriage rituals according the Indian tradition. There many foreigners who have taken Indian citizenship and also speak kumoani language.

I remember when Priyanka Chopra stayed there for 9 days during the Navratra. We were not aware that Mis India Priyanka Chopra is there and she is heading for Miss World Title. Even she did some shopping in Ranikhet market but nobody could recognize her and after she went from the Haidakhan temple, next day it was published in the paper.

There is a hospital beside the Temple. Haidakhan Baba Trust Hospital

You can have a view of Badrinath Temple from this place through Telescope.