I am Harmony. Radhe Shyam

      "Then I [Shiva] too shall be born with the body of a Brahmacarin and the soul of by means of Yogic Maya to the great surprise of the worlds."

      "On seeing a dead body forsaken in the cremation ground I shall enter into it and make it free from ailments by means of Yogic Maya... Then I will enter the holy divine cavern of Meru along with you [Lord Brahma] and Visnu. O Brahma, I shall then be known as Lakulin."

      "The physical incarnation thus and the holy Siddha centre will be greatly renowned as long as the earth lasts."¹⁸

      It is an historical fact that there was a great religious figure in India named Lakulish (a form of the name Lakulin, which means "one who carries a staff"). Tradition states that he lived at the time of Lord Krishna.¹⁹ Lakulish settled in a place called Kayavarohan, in modern Gujarat state, which is said to have been established as a religious teaching center by Maharshi Vishwamitra in the still earlier era of Lord Ram. Lakulish is credited with formulating and propagating the Pashupatmat form of Shaivism and establishing twelve "Jyotirlingams" (special phallic forms symbolic of Lord Shiva's creative energy) around India. The administration of these jyotirlingams and the learning centers associated with them lasted for about a thou­sand years. The lingams and their temples still exist. Haidakhan Baba frequently walked with a heavy staff, and Mount Meru is another name for Mount Kailash, where Lord Shiva has performed thousands of years of tapas. When Babaji visited Kayavarohan in 1980, He was greeted and worshipped as Lakulish and Lord Shiva.

      The present text of the Shiva Purana was compiled some time later than Lakulish's era and it is now impossible to determine whether the prophesy in the Shiva Purana was contained in the earlier written versions or oral traditions, or was written at a later time to exalt Lakulish's Pashupatmat sect. Whether Lakulish represents the first appearance of Shri Babaji in a human form or not, a tradition among Shri Babaji s followers is that He has been in and out of physical worldly activities in an identifiable 'human' form (but not limited to one form only) at least since the end of the Dvapara Yuga, the time of Lord Krishna.

      The modern book referred to is "Shrisadashiv Charitamrit"²⁰, a divinely inspired book published by Shri Vishnu Dutt Shastri in 1959. The first chapter of this book relates the visions given to Shri Vishnu Dutt of a discussion among the ancient, fabled sage Narada and the gods, concerning the need to send someone to the earth to help and guide humankind. All concerned agreed that only Lord Samba Sadashiv (a subtle form of The Divine as Shiva, Who is believed to have interacted with the created universe since the beginning of Time) has the qualities needed for this task. Therefore, they went to Lord Samba Sadashiv and prayed that He go to the world and help it in its miseries. The Lord responded with this statement:

      "I will very soon come to the world. In the Treta Yuga, I will come with Rama as a brahmachari and clean the world of non-knowledge. In the Dvapara Yuga, I will enter and give knowledge to all those who will open their hearts to me. Vishnu then will enter into me as a swan and the people of Kumaon will begin to call me Paramhansa [the Supreme Swan; the swan is a symbol of knowledge] and Brahmachari [a brahmachari is a dedicated, celibate student, a seeker of knowledge]."²¹

      Vishnu Dutt Shastri understood this prophesy to have reference to Babaji. Babaji is believed by many to be a manifestation of the earliest forms of the Formless Divine (like "the Word" used in the gospel of John) and, in early and recent manifestations, is associated with the Kumaon Hills of Uttar Pradesh, where one of His many names is Brahmachari Baba.

      "Shrisadashiv Charitamrit" also contains chapters relating to other earthly manifestations of Shri Babaji. Chapters V and VI deal with the period of Lord Ram. In a later chapter, Lord Shiva glorifies Ram to Lord Vishnu and concludes with the statement, "My heart is always filled with Ram's glory. As an incarnation of devotion, Ram is everything."

      Another chapter deals with Lord Samba Sadashiv's appearance in Vrindaban in Lord Krishna's time. It describes Samba Sadashiv having darshan of the baby Krishna and the later worship of Shiva by Lord Krishna. Shri Babaji, in His recent incarnation, mentioned on a few occasions that He was one of the teachers of Jesus Christ during His years between the ages of twelve and thirty, on which the New Testament is silent. And, as stated above, Shri Babaji said that, some centuries later, He also had initiated Shri Shankara and the great religious poet Kabir into yogic practices. He told others that He lived in Tibet as the great Buddhist saint Milarepa in the eleventh and twelfth centuries AD.

       A Dream Confirmed

      There is evidence from two or three sources of an incarnation of Shri Babaji in Tibet about six hundred years ago. Swami Fakiranand, the man who administered Babaji's ashram at Haidakhan, wrote in the early 1970's of the following experience:

      "In 1972, Babaji gave me a drawing of His previous physical manifestation of a long time ago. This drawing showed Him with four arms... a typical feature of divinity. In one hand, He is holding a coudi shell (a conch); in the second a trishul (trident); in the third, a kamandalu (water pot); and in the fourth a chakra (symbol of a spiritual center). [These are all traditional symbols of Lord Shiva.] Somehow, I always forgot to ask Babaji when and where this drawing was made.

      "In October, 1972, during the time of Navratri, the Shri Jagadamba Yagna ceremony was performed at my native village of Dhanyan, District Almora, U.P. The ceremony was being held in the presence of [Babaji].

      "On the fourth day of Navratri, on 11^th October, at about 3 a.m., I dreamt I was in Tibet and in the company of a group of lamas. The picture of Babaji with four arms I had with me, and in the dream I showed it to everyone present, asking them whether they knew when it was made and where it came from.

      "Then I met... a lama by the name of Jaukshu Lama, and it was he who told me that he himself had drawn the picture about 600 years ago and that its place of origin is Tibet. At that time, Baba Haidakhan had assumed the divine body of a lama and was well known as Lama Baba, and Jaukshu Lama was one of His ardent devotees. Jaukshu Lama proceeded to tell me:

      "I was a very devoted worshipper of Lord Shi­va and it was the great longing of my life to be blessed with the darshan of my adored deity. This was my constant request of my master. Little did I know then that my master Himself was Lord Shiva.

      "It was in the middle of a severe winter and I kept on pestering my great master to wear a chola (a long shirt worn by sadhus), since it was bitterly cold; but my master would never wear anything except wrap His body with a sheet. However, one day He did give me permission to make a chola for Him.

      "I was overjoyed and bought a piece of cloth for the purpose, but when I started to make it at night, I suddenly remembered that I had forgotten to take His measurements. So I went straightway to His hut.

      "The door was covered with a straw mat, so I peeped through its chinks. What I now saw struck me dumb with amazement. Lord Shiva was sitting there in deep meditation. In one hand, He was holding a coudi shell, in the second a trishul, in the third a kamandalu, and in the fourth a chakra. I pinched my­self to see whether I was awake or asleep, for I could not make out whether what I saw was real or whether I was just imagining it. Then it occurred to me that my Lord might think I was spying on Him, so I ran back to where I was staying. Now I realized for certain that my master (Babaji) was Lord Shiva Himself.

      "You may imagine my immense joy at the fulfillment of my life-long prayer. The fact was that I had been living with my Lord Shiva all those years without realizing it.

      "The next day, I had a chola made for Him with four sleeves, and took it to my master. When He saw it, He was furious with me, saying, 'What is this? Do you take Me for a juggler? Or are you playing games with Me?' Then I told Him what I had seen the previous night - which, of course, He knew all along; it was just His lila [God's 'play'] - and He continued to speak, softly, to me: 'Since it was your life-long desire, I had to fulfill it, and so I showed you what you saw last night.'

      "Jaukshu Lama finished his narrative by saying, 'This was when I made the drawing of what I had seen.'

      "In the same year [1972]... when Babaji was at Haidakhan ...five or six lamas came there to have the darshan of Prabhu [the