Question: At the completion of Shri Shivabalayogi’s tapas and at the completion of Babaji’s tapas, there was a manifestation of Shiva-Parvati. Was this a physical manifestation for the purpose of darshan? Do God and Guru actually manifest in physical form that you can see and touch?

Babaji:

Yes, the manifestation was in physical form. It was for the purpose of darshan and for eradication of the final resolution. And to guide you to go beyond actual samadhi towards the effortless nirvikalpa samadhi. They do actually manifest, both the God and Guru, in a physical form that you can see and touch. As I was telling you earlier, look at the imagination of your mind. You imagine and concentrate. If both the things can happen together, this means your imagination will sit on one particular thing. This is the beginning of devotion. That is how it is taught. So thus your concentration sits on one Deity. Just like, when I saw Swamiji in 1971, I was completely thoroughly and totally drawn to Swamiji. So that was resolution set in the mind. Well, eventually, Swamiji trained me to remove that resolution also, just before nirvikalpa samadhi so that I lost that resolution. But because of that strong resolution previously, the Divine had to come as Shiva and Parvati, the Divine had to come as Shivabalayogi. And then the mind realized that was also an illusion, a mental manifestation, finally. Not the mental manifestation of my imagined self, it was the mental manifestation of the All Pervading, the Boundless Divine. And then you go to nirvikalpa samadhi, where only one single Self exists.

I would like to say this occurs in three stages. First, the mind’s imagination state. It starts imagining. As the imagination and concentration on that imagination become stronger and stronger, the more stronger it becomes, the vision also becomes more and more stronger and solid. Gradually you lose the sense that your consciousness was trying to imagine. Well, when it grows devotionally, you start losing your existence, your imagination of your own existence. Your concentration simply grows on the Deity that you love. To your consciousness only that Deity exists. Then the second stage, mental projection happens. That’s when the great devotees have always felt the presence of the Divine, the Divine Guru or their Lord, their Deity. Thus one always has the experience, blissful experience. That is not a feeling. That is a little higher stage. This is not also easy. This can happen only in an advanced state of sadhana, whether in the bhakti marga, or in meditation. It will happen. The projection takes place. Later on, in the third stage, when your concentration raises to the highest pitch, what is called tapas, this tapas enables to evaporate your imagined self, totally. Only the Deity exists. So that is when the mind recedes totally and merges into the Divine. But it’s not actually nirvikalpa samadhi. When it merges, it has merged with the resolution. So an iota of resolution still remains. Then the manifestation of the Divine occurs. Whatever the previous resolutions you have, that will happen in the physical form. That is the technology of the Divine. The Divine has such a power. But if you can pray, if your mind can touch the Divine with 100% concentration, with a particular resolution, then the manifestation happens. But this is a very, very rare phenomenon, very, very difficult one. It’s not as easy as I am talking. It has to happen naturally and effortlessly. It happened to us, maybe because of previous practices, from time immemorial, through so many lives. Such a concentration came when I first saw Swamiji and that resolution stood in the mind. So, before entering into the nirvikalpa, of the Pure Existence, this experience of the manifestation was given and then the nirvikalpa samadhi occurs and everything is gone. Only a single Self simply exists with peace and peace and peace.