Haidakhan Babaji

Haidakhan Babaji appeared in June 1970 in a cave at the foot of Kumaon Mount Kailash, near the village of Haidakhan in the Nainital district of Uttarakhand, as a youth of about eighteen or twenty. That September he climbed to the top of the mountain and sat there in meditation for forty-five days without leaving his seat, and it was from there that he began to teach.

Babaji said he was the old Haidakhan Baba remembered in the same valley between 1860 and 1922, and in 1971 he gave sworn testimony to that effect in the court at Haldwani, which granted him the right to the ashrams at Kathgaria and Haidakhan. Most of the fourteen years of his manifestation were spent at Haidakhan, where he built nine temples on the bank of the Gautami Ganga - the main one put up by the old Haidakhan Baba himself.

The teaching

His message was Truth, Simplicity and Love. Karma yoga was at the centre of it: work is worship, and hard work done well is the spiritual practice he asked of everyone who came to him. With it went japa - repetition of the name of God, Om Namah Shivaya above all - and the plain instruction to stay humane: one can follow any religion or path, he said, but one must be humane.

Truth, Simplicity and Love.

Haidakhan Babaji's message, as the Haidakhandi Samaj records it

The ashrams today

The Haidakhandi Samaj keeps three ashrams. Haidakhan Vishwa Mahadham is the main one, with the nine temples, the samadhi, the aarti through the day and guest rooms for pilgrims. Ananda Puri Ashram sits at Chilianaula below Ranikhet, where free cataract surgery, an ENT clinic and dental care are run, and the Manda ashram near Vapi in Gujarat - whose temple Babaji inaugurated in 1983 - keeps the Samaj's cow shelter.

His devotees and the festivals

Devotees come from India and from Europe and America, drawn by his teachings and by the accounts of his presence at Haidakhan. The big days at the ashram are Prakatya Utsav, Samadhi Diwas on 14 February and Maha Shivratri, along with both Navratris; the rest of the year the valley stays quiet, the aarti small and the Gautami Ganga running through it.