Babaji
Babaji is an unascended master of the Himalayas. He has become well known in the West through the writings of Paramahansa Yogananda. Babaji has chosen to forgo the ascension by reason of the bodhisattva ideal, which means that he desires to remain on earth until everyone has won their freedom. He remains in a body of flesh in a cave in the Himalayas, yet he is able to dematerialize his body at will and carry himself and his followers from one part of the world to another.
The unascended brotherhood of the Himalayas
Babaji is a part of the Great White Brotherhood in the lineage of the unascended brotherhood of the Himalayas. His name means “Revered Father.” Mighty Victory has described the service of the unascended masters:
Unascended souls of magnificent countenance have stood with the evolutions of earth. They have stood as sages. They have stood to retain the flame at the etheric level to give comfort to life. They are the consciousness of the ascension, yet unascended. You might say they have reached the plane of samadhi, of eternal communion with the Mother light, and from that communion they have drawn forth even the light of nirvanic planes, anchoring that light here below. They are the perpetuation of the Word. They stand to ennoble the race.[1]
Descriptions of the master
According to Yogananda, Babaji has never disclosed his family origin, birthplace or birth date. He speaks generally in Hindi but also converses easily in any language. Yogananda says:
The deathless guru bears no mark of age on his body; he appears to be a youth of not more than twenty-five. Fair-skinned, of medium build and height, Babaji’s beautiful, strong body radiates a perceptible glow. His eyes are dark, calm, and tender; his long, lustrous hair is copper-colored.... He has lived for many centuries amid the Himalayan snows.[2]
Yogananda’s Sanskrit tutor was a disciple of Babaji who had spent time with the master in the Himalayas. He said of Babaji, “The peerless master moves with his group from place to place in the mountains.... Babaji can be seen or recognized by others only when he so desires. He is known to have appeared in many slightly different forms to various devotees—sometimes with beard and moustache and sometimes without them. His undecayable body requires no food; the master, therefore, seldom eats.”[3]
Another of Babaji’s disciples has explained why Babaji has kept a physical body for so long:
One night when some disciples and Babaji’s sister, Mataji, were kneeling at the great Guru’s feet, Babaji said: “Blessed Sister, I am intending to shed my form and plunge into the Infinite Current.”
Mataji asked, “Why should you leave your body?”
Babaji said, “What is the difference if I wear a visible or an invisible wave on the ocean of my Spirit?”
Mataji replied, “Deathless Guru, if it makes no difference, then please do not ever relinquish your form.”
“Be it so,” said Babaji solemnly. “I shall never leave my physical body. It will always remain visible to at least a small number of people on this earth.”[4]
In Autobiography of a Yogi, Yogananda says that Babaji’s sister, Mataji, has also lived through the centuries and is almost as far advanced spiritually as Babaji. Her name means “Holy Mother.”
Yogananda relates the following story about the power of a guru’s intercession:
Babaji’s disciples were sitting one night around a huge fire that was blazing for a sacred Vedic ceremony. The guru suddenly seized a burning brand and lightly struck the bare shoulder of a chela who was close to the fire.
“Sir, how cruel!” Lahiri Mahasaya, who was present, made this remonstrance.
“Would you rather have seen him burned to ashes before your eyes, according to the decree of his past karma?”>
With these words Babaji placed his healing hand on the chela’s disfigured shoulder. “I have freed you tonight from painful death. The karmic law has been satisfied through your slight suffering by fire.”[5]
Yogananda’s Sanskrit tutor tells a story about Babaji that illustrates the importance of obedience and of trust in the Guru:
On one occasion Babaji’s sacred circle was disturbed by the arrival of a stranger. He had climbed with astonishing skill to the nearly inaccessible ledge near the Guru’s camp and said, “Sir, you must be the great Babaji.”
The man’s face was lit with inexpressible reverence. He continued: “For months I have pursued a ceaseless search for you among these forbidding crags. I implore you to accept me as a disciple.”
When the great Guru made no response, the man pointed to the rock-lined chasm below the ledge. “If you refuse me, I will jump from this mountain. Life has no further value if I cannot win your guidance to the Divine.”
“Jump then,” Babaji said unemotionally. “I cannot accept you in your present state of development.”
The man immediately hurled himself over the cliff. Babaji instructed the shocked disciples to fetch the stranger’s body. After they had returned with the mangled form, the Master placed his hand on the dead man. Lo! He opened his eyes and prostrated himself humbly before the omnipotent Guru, who said, “You are now ready for discipleship.” Babaji beamed lovingly on his resurrected chela: “You have courageously passed a difficult test. Death shall not touch you again. Now you are one of our immortal flock.” Then he spoke his usual words of departure;... the whole group vanished from the mountain.[6]
With those words we understand that the real disciples of Babaji have regained the immortal threefold flame of life—their own immortality. They are no longer mortal. So Babaji only has immortals as his followers, at least in this particular situation and group.
Yogananda explains that the stranger’s test concerned obedience:
When the illumined master said, “Jump,” the man obeyed. Had he hesitated, he would have disproved his assertion that he considered his life worthless without Babaji’s guidance. Had he hesitated, he would have revealed that he lacked complete trust in the Guru. Therefore, though drastic and unusual, the test was a perfect one for that individual in the circumstances.[7]
His mission today
During a dictation in 1988, Surya explained that Babaji was present, “floating in the lotus posture, beaming intense and fiery love. Remaining at the interval and the nexus between the crystal spheres of the Spirit-Matter Cosmos, this unascended master of the Himalayas does come to demonstrate to you what is the victory of the Mother flame, how ascension’s flame as a buoyant fount of light may become the lotus pad.”[8]
Babaji speaks on behalf of the Brotherhood of the Himalayas, urging his students to take up the path of the violet flame. He also asks us to find the students trapped in the false paths and false teachings of India. Babaji tells his students to not remove themselves into nirvana but to “get over the desire to be the removed one, set apart and in meditation and in unreality when there is a victory to be won and a battle to enter.”
He says:
I AM Babaji! I choose to speak by the authority of the Darjeeling Council on behalf of the unascended brotherhood of the Himalayas. For we come forth and we come to sponsor now true chelas of the Path who will wear the mantle of the ascension, white and bright.
I come in the person of Father as I am called. I come to pierce and penetrate the veil. I come to expose those false ones who have misrepresented us. They are named and their names hang with the sword of Damocles that is upon their head. I say, Let them be exposed! For we will have the victory of all chelas in the dispensation of the Great White Brotherhood....
Test me by my vibration! Ask me and I will come to your life! Don’t you dare deny me or my messenger until you have demanded proof and more proof! For I will give it! I will come! And I will growl with Himalaya until you know that the God Star Sirius is my home also. And I am with the legions of the mighty Blue Eagle and I am here. And I will not take “no” for an answer! If you are of the light, you may first fight with Babaji. And when I have fought and won, I will teach you how to defeat the demons.
So I have come. I have broken the silence. And all of the masters of the Himalayas gather with me....
Now you who hear me: Go find those souls trapped in the false paths of the false gurus of India! And let them hear my message; let them hear my Word! Do not fear to show them the face of the messenger or the sound of my voice. Then let them choose. And do not leave them without the light and sign of Astrea.
I AM Babaji. I AM here because I AM not anywhere else, but everywhere.[9]
See also
Sources
Mark L. Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet, The Masters and Their Retreats, s.v. “Babaji.”
Elizabeth Clare Prophet, June 20, 1995.
- ↑ Mighty Victory, “Victory’s Torch Passed unto the Messengers of Truth in Science and Religion,” December 31, 1976, quoted by Elizabeth Clare Prophet, June 30, 1995.
- ↑ Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi (Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1977), pp. 348, 355.
- ↑ Ibid., pp. 348–49.
- ↑ Ibid., pp. 352–53.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 349.
- ↑ Ibid., pp. 349–50.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 350.
- ↑ Surya, “Passing Through,” Pearls of Wisdom, vol. 31, no. 5, January 31, 1988.
- ↑ Babaji, “The Radiant Word,” Pearls of Wisdom, vol. 30, no. 51, November 20, 1987.