Shivapuri Baba

Shivapuri Baba was born in 1826 into a wealthy, learned Brahmin family in South India, and took the renunciate name Govindananda Bharati on becoming a sannyasin.

His grandfather, a respected astrologer, became his guru. Renouncing his inheritance — which he made over to his sister — he followed his grandfather into the forests at the source of the Narmada River. After his grandfather's death he withdrew into deep solitude there, and so began his quest for God.

After nearly twenty-five years of severe penance, he attained God-realisation — the final destination which, he said, every human being must reach.

Then, as his grandfather had wished, he set out on a great pilgrimage around the world — much of it on foot, over some forty years — before settling at last in the hills near Kathmandu, where he taught the Right Life to seekers of every kind until his death in 1963.

What is the gift of his Right Life?

It is very simple: to carry Body, Intellect, Mind and Soul to perfection.

— Shivapuri Baba

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The Three Disciplines

Shivapuri Baba said that every living being must reach this goal to become 100% free — because man, being the crown of all living beings, is the only one who can achieve it. How is it achieved? By practising the three disciplines: physical, mental, and spiritual.

Physical discipline

Physical discipline takes the seeker's body and intellect to perfection by making the body healthy. At the same time, by restricting himself to his swadharma — his chosen duty — and never straying into useless and harmful activities, he makes his life successful and prosperous. He becomes happy and lives like a king; but he cannot attain the Highest, God.

Mental discipline

Mental discipline tames the mind, which as a result comes to possess commanding and controlling power over the senses and their objects. He becomes free from his likings and dislikings; he does not stray into speculation or unlawful desires and actions. In this way he becomes a happy and accomplished yogi, full of occult powers — but still he falls short of God. With his death, all his accomplishments disappear.

Spiritual discipline

The last discipline enables him to acquire divine qualities. His soul, bereft of its identification with body, intellect, and mind — the false “I”, the cage in which he was imprisoned until then — comes to know its real “I”: the Purusha. God, the Father, bestows His grace, which makes him fit to fly to His kingdom — his birthplace, his birthright, his goal. He becomes Purushottama, the Greatest.

He becomes omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, eternally blissful, and immortal.

Shivapuri Baba implores every man to achieve this, recommending the practice of the three disciplines simultaneously, not in isolation. In the beginning, the first two predominate; at the end, the third becomes predominant.