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Enlightened Incarnation, Penance for Others
Shivabalayogi was born as Sathyaraju and completed twelve years of unusually difficult tapas for the sake of others. He has had many previous lifetimes in which he completed tapas and attained Self realization. He himself had no reason to incarnate again. Shivabalayogi volunteered to reincarnate.
Ramakrishna
Lahiri Mahasaya
Nityananda
A Yogi’s Parents
For a great soul to incarnate, the parents must also be great souls. Sathyaraju’s father, Bheemana Allaka, was a sincere devotee of Shiva. Swamiji’s mother, Parvatamma, was an incarnation of the Divine Mother. Swamiji used to tell devotees that in every birth, Swamiji’s mother has to have had an amsha (portion) of Parvati and his father an amsha of Shiva. He would say that when Swamiji was born, nine gods gave a spark of themselves to Swamiji’s being. The nine gods include Hanuman, Nandi, Shiva, Vishnu and Ganesha.
Ancient Prophesies, Other Lives
The nadis are records of ancient predictions. Shivabalayogi explained that the ancient yogis would describe events to come and their disciples would write them down. These are what we know today as the astrological nadis. The Bhrigu Nadi astrology of Shivabalayogi lists twenty-seven other lives which culminate in his birth a Sathayaraju. These other lives include:
Sanaka, one of the four eternally young mind-born sons of Brahma;
Suka Mahamuni, the son of Sage Vyasa;
Jnaneshwara (Jyanadeva), an Indian spiritual writer of the 13th century;
Tulsidas (c.1543-1623), an Indian sacred poet whose principal work, Ramacharitamanas, is considered the greatest achievement of medieval Hindi literature;
Namdev (c.1270-c.1350), a leading medieval poet-saint who also wrote in the Indian language of Marati;
Kabir (1440-1518), the weaver, mystic, poet and saint who revered equally by Moslems and Hindus;
Jai Chandra, king of Kanauj from 1176-1194;
Shivaji (c.1630-1680) one of the great warrior-king heroes in Indian history;
Shri Chandra and Guru Arjuna Dev, great saints in the Sikh tradition;
Gadadhar Chatterjee (1836-1886), better known as Ramakrishna Paramahansa, the God realized saint of Dakshineswar and guru of Vivekananda who traveled to the West and founded the Vedanta Society;
Shyama Charan Lahiri (c.1828-1895), better known as Lahiri Mahasaya, whose disciples included Shri Yukteswar Giri, the guru of Yogananda who traveled to the West and founded Self Realization Fellowship; and
Bhagavan Nityananda (c.1896-1961), revered yogi whose disciple Mukhtananda, traveled to the West and founded the Siddha Yoga organization.
Shivabalayogi on His Other Lives
Swamiji often referred to his prior life as Ramakrishna. Ramakrishna’s nadis list over a hundred other lives, including Jesus and Mohammed. Shivabalayogi discouraged too much attention on prior lives. What is done in this life is what counts. But privately he acknowledged the accuracy of the information in the nadis. Many of these prior lives were contemporaneous. When asked, Swamiji simply chuckled, “One atma, many bodies. No problem.”
A Life of Service
The work for which Shivabalayogi incarnated and did tapas is not limited to this world. It encompasses many worlds.
“All yogis know one another. They are all the agents of God. They keep meeting together and they decide what is to be done and they go ahead and do it. They need not be on the same planet at any time, but can be doing service for people on different planets. Swamiji also keeps doing service on other planets by going there with his astral body. Not only Swamiji, even Christ does such service. All the agents of God do this, not just Swamiji.”