Welcoming Bade Baba to Shri Nilaya

This sharing was given on September 20, 2018, during a Celebration of the Relocation of Bhagavan Nityananda’s Murti in Shree Muktananda Ashram.

Salutations to Bhagavan Nityananda!

Welcome, Bade Baba!

We are overjoyed to have your divine darshan here in Shri Nilaya.

O Bhagavan Nityananda, we love you, and we offer our heartfelt pranam to you, again and again.

Today, on Thursday, September 20, 2018, we have gathered for satsang to celebrate your arrival at your new puja altar, where every day we will continue to worship and honor you.

In this way, on this auspicious day, we are practicing Gurumayi’s Message for 2018, Satsang. Satsang, the company of the Truth—the company of saints and devotees, the best company.

Yesterday morning, just as it opened, I went to the space in Atma Nidhi where Bade Baba’s murti has been housed. I offered a pranam to Bade Baba and prayed to him: “Thank you, Bade Baba, for being here for so many years.” Inside, I heard him say to me with great delight: “Tomorrow, I will be with all of you in Shri Nilaya.”

When I heard these words, I smiled, and I was very touched. I then began to reflect on Bade Baba’s words. It seemed to me that Bade Baba really wants to be with all of us here in satsang. The saints love the good company of those dedicated to knowing and living the Truth.

Shri Nilaya, this sacred hall, is where we gather for satsang, where Gurumayi imparts the Siddha Yoga teachings that are shared with the entire world. This sacred hall is where we recite Shri Guru Gita every day and perform worship to the Guru. Here in Shri Nilaya, we chant the divine name and meditate on the Self.

From the experience I had, it appears that this is where Bade Baba, the mahayogi, wishes to be: in a place where seekers who love him perform their spiritual practices.

Bade Baba’s murti is alive with divine shakti. Now, each day, when we enter this hall to perform our spiritual practices, Bade Baba’s auspicious countenance will be here to remind us of the goal of Siddha Yoga sadhana. Siddha Yogis around the world know this experience so well as they worship him, with deep devotion, in Siddha Yoga Ashrams, meditation centers, and chanting and meditation groups, and in their pujas at home. On a daily basis, Bade Baba illumines the hearts of many thousands of people, and will continue to do so throughout the ages.

In the Siddha Yoga Ashram in Sydney, for example, once a month the whole community gathers to perform an abhishek and puja to a small Bade Baba murti.

One Siddha Yoga student wrote:

He is only eight inches high, yet he generates such love and reverence within the community.

At the conclusion of every satsang, people line up to share a moment of quiet connection with him. The atmosphere of gratitude and grace is palpable. And people take this beneficence out into their daily lives and share it with others.

One devotee who lives in the remote countryside performs puja to Bhagavan Nityananda every day in her home. She writes:

I have Bade Baba’s darshan every morning. I chant the Nityananda Arati and put flowers around his murti. I talk to him. I have lovely clothes for him, and I have placed a mala on him that Baba gave to me. For a Shaktipat Intensive or celebration, Bade Baba sits on special cloths I save for those occasions. 

Many Siddha Yogis also visit the Siddha Yoga path website daily to have Bade Baba’s darshan and receive his teachings.

As one worships and meditates on Bade Baba’s form, through his grace one can have the experience of satsang, of being in the company of the Truth.

Bade Baba was a janma siddha, a being born with the state of perfection in yoga.

From a very early age, Bade Baba manifested his state of enlightenment. He was well known for his innumerable miracles. Through these miracles he uplifted people, answered their prayers, and showed them a way to God. 

One of Bade Baba’s devotees tells this story.

One morning my father, who was a farmer, was out doing his plowing, and he came across a young man lying very still in the field. My father came close to see if the young man was breathing. He was but very slightly, and he seemed to be in a state of samadhi. There was a beautiful smile on his face. My father thought this must be a holy man, and so he quietly moved on.

The next morning, the young man was still there. My father’s curiosity grew, but he let him be.

On the third morning, when my father went out again, the young man was still lying there in the same place. So now my father was worried that something might be wrong with him. He went over to him and gently shook him. The young man opened his eyes very slowly. My father said, “Please come to my house. Let me feed you.”

And the young man gave my father a sweet smile, and then he got up and followed him to the house.

He stayed in my family’s house for a few days, and then one day he just wandered off. He left such an atmosphere of peace. Everyone felt it.

Years later, long after my father had passed away, I heard about a great being named Bhagavan Nityananda who was living in the village of Ganeshpuri, and I went for his darshan.

I came very quietly before Bhagavan. When he saw me, he took hold of my hands and then began to shower me with gifts—shawls, garlands, fruits. He said, “Your father was so kind to me.” 

How amazing! I wasn’t even born when that happened. How did he know me?

He knows everything.

For Bade Baba, nothing was insentient; the entire universe was filled with Consciousness. This was his vision, and he had the extraordinary power to awaken others to this vision of oneness through shaktipat-diksha.

By awakening Baba Muktananda and giving him the command to make divine initiation available around the world, Bade Baba laid the groundwork for the Siddha Yoga path to become a source of knowledge and inner transformation for countless seekers. Bade Baba was the one who brought to this world the river of grace that flows from the Siddha Yoga lineage.

Though he is everywhere, when you come before his murti, you’re able to feel his unconditional love. You’re able to connect with the great power of God. Bade Baba’s image is the very face of the Absolute. His beautiful countenance invokes satsang within us.

A Brahmin priest tells of his experience with Bade Baba.

One of my first assignments as a young Brahmin priest was to look after a Krishna Temple here in Palani. One morning, I had just completed the puja and was coming out of the temple when I saw a stranger, dressed in only a loin cloth, coming up the path.

When he reached where I was, he said, “Please open the temple. I wish to perform arati.”

I looked at him and thought, “Who does he think he is?” I just ignored him and kept walking. But I’d only gone a few feet when I heard the temple bells ringing. I turned around. He was already inside the temple!

I ran back, and I saw that the doors of the inner sanctum were wide open. This fellow was sitting in the place of the temple deity, Lord Krishna. And not only that—a light was moving around him, and invisible hands were performing arati to him.

Do you want to know what I did? I did a full pranam.

Then he came out, and he stood in front of the temple. He stood on one leg in vrikshasana, the tree pose, with his eyes rolled back in his head.

And then, from out of nowhere, people came running, and they started pouring money at his feet. He asked them to bring the leader of the local sannyasins, the swamis. And then he told that swami to collect the money. And then he left, walking very fast.

The swami told me that he had been praying to the deity in the temple, because he and the other swamis didn’t have enough to eat and were going hungry. He had been praying to Lord Krishna that they could be fed at least one meal a day. So Bhagavan Nityananda had answered his prayer.

And, the miracles, small and large, continue to this day.

The beautiful prayer Shri Avadhuta Stotram praises Bade Baba, describing his inner state:

Perfect in yoga, an embodiment of austerity, full of love,
being of auspicious countenance, perfect in realization,
an embodiment of grace—to that Nityananda, I bow.¹

When you hear this verse, don’t you recognize your beloved Bade Baba?

What a blessed day. We’re here in satsang with the great Siddhas all around us.

Thank you, Bade Baba, for gracing us with your most beautiful and loving form.

We are so happy to welcome you to Shri Nilaya!

We offer to you our worship and our pranam.

And we greet you with these words of praise:

Sadgurunāth Mahārāj kī Jay!

Sadgurunāth Mahārāj kī Jay!

Sadgurunāth Mahārāj kī Jay!