baba muktanand and his associates

Friends and associates of Swami Muktananda (Baba)

Photo: Baba Muktananda (at rear) with Bhagavan
Nityananda

Mentors

Hari Giri Baba

A mentor and guide to Baba Muktananda. He was an eccentric and humorous saint of great attainment from Vaijapur, Maharashtra.

Zipruanna

A naked avadhut from the village of Nasirabad, Maharashtra. He was a yogi of great attainment who was a spiritual mentor to Baba Muktananda for many years. He told Baba to go to Nityananda, saying 'he is your guru'.

Teachers

Siddharudha Swami (1837-1929)

A very well regarded saint of Karnataka. An early teacher in Baba’s teenage years. Baba learned Vedanta and took sannyasa, receiving the name, Swami Muktananda, in his ashram in Hubli, southern India.

Muppinariya Swami

A disciple and successor of Siddharudha Swami. Baba studied Vedanta with him in his ashram at Dharwar after the death of Siddharudha Swami. Made a visit to Ganeshpuri in his extreme old age, when Baba was very ill.

Spiritual friends and colleagues

Rang Avadhoot (1898-1968)

A well known saint of Gujarat who had worked with Gandhiji in his early days. He was a dear friend of Baba and visited the Ganeshpuri ashram a number of times.

Ranchod Bapuji

A great yogi who did much social work among the poor. He visited the Ganeshpuri Ashram in the mid-1960s. He and Baba had great affection for each other.

Swami Vishnu Tirth

A member of the Siddha Yoga lineage of Swami Gangadhar Tirth. Author of a book that Baba Muktananda often recommended to seekers, Devatma Shakti, which describes the process of Shaktipat. Baba and Swami Vishnu Tirth visited each other’s ashrams. Vishnu Tirth’s guru, Sri Yogananda Maharaj, wrote the book Mahayoga Vijnana, which helped Baba at a crucial point in his sadhana.maha mandleshwar Swami Brahmananda Giri

Main ashrams: Surat Giri Bangla, Haridwar and Sannyas Ashram, Vila Parle, Mumbai. Was invited by Baba Muktananda to preside over the initiation of Baba’s sannyasis in 1977. Baba and he became good friends and Brahmanandaji visited Baba’s ashram many times and initiated Baba’s swamis.

Mahamandaleshwar Swami Vishveshwarananda Giri

Main ashrams: Surat Giri Bangla, Haridwar and Sannyas Ashram, Vila Parle, Mumbai. Disciple and successor of Swami Brahmananda, who accompanied him on his visits to Baba Muktananda’s Ganeshpuri ashram. His relationship with Bhagavan Nityananda’s lineage continues to this day.

Sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa, Rangjung Rigpe Dorje (1924-1981)

The spiritual head of the Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. He visited Baba at his Ganeshpuri ashram and also met with him at the Ann Arbor ashram in 1974. The two had great love for each other.

Sivaya Subramuniyaswami (1927-2001)

A US-born guru and founder of the Shaiva Siddhanta Church which has its ashram headquarters in Hawaii. Founding publisher and editor of the influential, Hinduism Today magazine. Visited Baba with many followers in Ganeshpuri.

Swami Venkatesananda (1921-1981)

A senior disciple of Swami Shivananda of Rishikesh whom he served as an attendant and secretary for many years. Later, he traveled and opened centres around the world. He had great devotion to Baba Muktananda and visited him frequently.

Ram Dass (Richard Alpert, b. 1931)

A psychologist who was Tim Leary’s associate at Harvard. Later he went to India, eventually becoming an influential spiritual teacher in the West. He toured with Baba on Baba’s 1970 world tour, introducing him to Western audiences.

Stanislov Grof (b. 1931)

A pioneer in the field of transpersonal psychology and the founding president of the International Transpersonal Association. He and his wife, Christina, were admirers and friends of Baba Muktananda.

AVDHOOT BABA NITYANAND

Biography

Early Life

Details about Nityananda's birth are relatively unknown. According to his disciples, Nityananda was found as an abandoned infant in Tuneri village, Kozhikode, India by a lady named Uniamma Nair, who was married to Chathu Nair. The Nair couple adopted this child and took care of him along with their own five children. Nityananda was named as Raman by his foster parents. The Nair couple worked as farm labourers on a farmland owned by a wealthy lawyer named Ishwar Iyer, who greatly trusted them. Nityananda's foster father died when he was three and his foster mother when he was six. Before dying she handed over her responsibility of Nityananda to Ishwar Iyer.^[2] Even in childhood, Nityananda seemed to be in an unusually advanced spiritual state, which gave rise to the belief that he was born enlightened. He was eventually given the name Nityananda, which means, "always in bliss".^[3]

Before the age of twenty, Nityananda became a wandering yogi, spending time on yogic studies and practices in the Himalayas and other places. By 1920, he was back in southern India.^[4]

Adult Life

Bhagawan Nityananda as a young Yogi.

Settled in southern India, Nityananda gained a reputation for creating miracles and wonderful cures. He started building an ashram near Kanhangad, Kerala state. The local police thought he must be producing counterfeit money to pay for the building, so Nityananda took them to a crocodile-infested pool in the jungle. He dived in and then produced handfuls of money, which was apparently enough to satisfy the police. The beautiful hill temple and Ashram in Kanhangad are now pilgrim centres. The Guru Van, a forest in the hills nearby where Bhagawan sat on penance, is now a pilgrim retreat.^[4]

By 1923, Nityananda had wandered to the Tansa Valley in Maharashtra state. There, his reputation as a miracle worker attracted people from as far away as Mumbai, though he never took credit for any miracles. He said, "Everything that happens, happens automatically by the will of God."^[2][3] Nityananda gave a great deal of help to the local adivasis, who were despised by the population at large. Nityananda set up a school, as well as providing food and clothing for them.

As a guru, Nityananda gave relatively little by way of verbal teachings. Starting in the early 1920s, his devotees in Mangalore would sit with him in the evenings. Most of the time he was silent, though occasionally he would give teachings. A devotee named Tulsiamma wrote down some of his teachings and his answers to her specific queries. Later, these notes were compiled and published in the Kannada language and came to be known as the Chidaksha Geeta.^[2]

Some believe that Nityananda had the power to transmit spiritual energy (shaktipat) to people through non-verbal means. He could also be extremely fiery and intimidating in his behaviour, even to the point of throwing rocks on occasion. This was his way of deterring people who were not serious in their spiritual aspirations, or who came to him with ulterior motives.^[3]

In 1936, he went to the Shiva temple in the village of Ganeshpuri and asked if he could stay there. The family that looked after the temple agreed and built a hut for him. As his visitors and followers increased, the hut expanded and became an ashram. To the people around him, he was an avadhuta: one who is absorbed in the transcendental state.

Nityananda died on August 8, 1961. His Samadhi is located in Ganeshpuri at the Samadhi Mandir. There is also a shrine dedicated him in the Gurudev Siddha Peeth ashram at Ganeshpuri. His ashram, tourist hostel, and other buildings associated with his life in Ganeshpuri are preserved by the Shree Bhimeshwar Sadguru Nityanand Sanstha Ganeshpuri. This trust is also responsible for his samadhi shrine in Ganeshpuri, which is a pilgrimage site.

A trust at Kanhangad looks after the Ashram and temples located there. The trust also runs a few educational institutions and a dharmasala.^{[citation needed]}

Nityananda’s Guru

According to Nityananda's biographers, the identity of Nityananda's guru is a mystery. Some believe that he had no guru. In one of his talks, Swami Muktananda said Nityananda’s Guru was an unknown Siddha Purusha from Kerala.^[5] At least one photograph has been identified showing him with a teacher named Swami Sivananda when Nityananda was a young man.^[6]

POWER OF THOUGHTS

The Power of Thoughts

One day, a yogi and his disciple arrived to the big city. They had no money with them, but they needed food and a place to stay. The disciple was sure that they were going to beg for their food, and sleep in the park at night.

"There is a big park not far from here. We can sleep there at night", said the disciple. "In the open air?" Asked the yogi. "Yes", responded the student. The yogi smiled and said: "No, tonight we are going to sleep in a hotel and eat there too". The student was amazed. "How?" "Come and sit down", said the yogi.

They both sat down on the ground and the yogi said:
"When you focus your mind intently on any subject, it comes to pass."

The yogi closed his eyes and started to meditate with full concentration. After about ten minutes he got up and started to walk, with his disciple following him. They walked through several streets and alleys, until they arrived to a hotel.

"Come, let's enter inside", the yogi said to his disciple.

They just set foot in the entrance, when a well-dressed man approached them.

"I am the manager of this hotel. You look like traveling swamis and I believe you have no money. Would you like to work in the kitchen, and in return I'll give you food and a place to stay?"

"Fine", responded the yogi.

The disciple was perplexed and asked the yogi: "Did you use any magic? How did you do that?"

The yogi smiled and said, "I wanted to show you how the power of thoughts works. When you think with full and strong concentration about something that you want to happen, and your mind does not resist the subject of your thought, your thought materializes."

"The secret is concentrating, visualizing, seeing details, having faith and projecting mental and emotional energy into the mental scene. These are the general prerequisites. When your mind is empty from thoughts, and only one single thought is allowed to enter, it gains a very great power. One should be very careful with what he thinks. A concentrated thought is powerful, and exerts a very strong influence."

The disciple looked at his teacher and said: "I see that I have to sharpen my concentration in order to be able to use this power."

"Yes, this is the first step", responded the yogi.