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 11th 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 Lord]. Babaji conversed with them in their own language, telling them about His having been a lama in Tibet. This was the first time He had mentioned this to anyone. In reply, the lamas hailed Him with 'Lama Baba ki jai!' [Hail to Lama Baba.]
"This whole incident has also been confirmed by the present day, well-known saint, Gangotri Baba, also known as Swami Akhananda, who, on instruction of Bhagwan Haidakhan, has been living in the Himalayas... for the last fifty years. This covers the period of Bhagwan Haidakhan's disappearance [after] 1922.
"When Gangotri Baba came to Vrindaban in February 1973, I had a satsang [religious discussion] with him. During our conversation, he told me that Jaukshu Lama, he himself, and I had all been devotees of Bhagwan Haidakhan in Tibet during the time of His being Lama Baba, and that we all have been His disciples for many lifetimes."22
Stories of 'Old Haidakhan Baba'
The manifestation of Shri Babaji in the 19th century and into the 20th century is well documented and remembered by living persons. There are several books in print (mostly in Hindi) which relate the stories of people's experiences of this incarnation, which, for the sake of easy differentiation, Babaji's present devotees call 'Old Haidakhan Baba.'
Mahendra Baba and Baba Hari Das wrote that this incarnation of Babaji, in the Kumaon Hills area, began around the year 189023 in an unnamed village in the hills east of Nainital. The residents of this village saw, on several consecutive days, a bright light (jyoti) which appeared on a nearby hill, stayed for some time, and then vanished. The villagers concluded this was a divine sign and assembled one day, before the usual time of this appearance, and began to sing bhajans - devotional songs. This time, when the light appeared, a divine youth emerged from it. The people begged him to come to their village. He stayed in the house of the forest guard, Shri Dhansingh. Dhansingh, afraid that this divine youth might leave, locked him in his room every day when he (Dhansingh) went off to his work. One day during Dhansingh's absence, the curious and enchanted villagers broke open the lock and discovered that Babaji had disappeared.
Some time later, Shri Babaji appeared in the village of Haida-khan (closer to Nainital), on the banks of the Gautam Ganga. (In its lower stretches, above and below Haldwani, this river is known as the Gola River.) He stayed in Haidakhan for some time and returned there often when He traveled around northern India and through the Himalayas. This gave Him the name - among many other names - of Haidakhan Baba. He built a small ashram in Haidakhan and in the mid-1890's He designed and helped construct a unique octagonal temple in the ashram.24 An interesting feature of this temple is that the stone slabs used in this small temple are not available anywhere near the locality. Elders of Haidakhan village in the 1970' s recalled their parents telling them that Babaji took workers to a hill and, after putting a mark on the rocks, asked them to take out the slabs. These rocks changed into entirely different nature.25
Babaji was well known throughout the Kumaon area and the Himalayas, which He covered on foot many times, traveling with a small band of devotees. His miracles and His more 'normal' routine of living were unusual even in this area where miracle-working saints were numerous. His food habits were also unusual. It is said that He never ate cereal foods. Occasionally, when a devotee insisted, He would eat fruits or milk. Shri Shiromani Pathak, of Sheetlakhet in the Almora District, where the Siddhashram was built for Babaji, stayed with Babaji for a period of six months and did not see Him take food or water during that time. Neither was Babaji ever found asleep.26
"One day in February some saints who had heard of the fame of Shri Munindra Baba [one of Haidakhan Baba's names] went to see him. During their conversation with him, they began to talk about kaphal fruit. Some local people noted that kaphal was available in the hills only in May and June, and never in the winter. The desire arose in them that Babaji would give them kaphal as prasad. Responding to their thoughts, Shri Babaji went a little distance away and brought back - from who knows where - some ripe kaphal fruits still on the branch, and distributed the fruits to them as prasad."27
Babaji daily used to perform yagya, or hawan, a religious fire ceremony in which offerings of Earth's bounty are made to the fire
