The earlier parts of the Narrative (Parts 1, 2 and 3) dealt with the writer’s personal meetings with Sri Ramana Maharishi at Tiruvannamalai in 1943 and 1946 and with Jiddu Krishnamurti, the revolutionary sage of the 20th century, in 1947, and subsequent years till 1980.

This Part 4 of the Narrative purports to deal with the writer’s personal meetings with Yogi S. A. A. Ramaiah, a modern disciple of the 1800 year old Maha Avatar Kriya Babaji of the Himalayas, in 1956 and again in 2005, and with Paramahamsa Omkara Swami, described as the Blissful Saint by Kriya Babaji himself, in 1956 and 1957 in Colombo and in 1961 in India.

Yogi Ramaiah at the last meeting with the writer in November 2005 at the office of the Kriya Babaji Yoga Sangam Society, Colombo, confirmed the contents of the book entitled ‘Kriya Babaji and the 18 Siddha Yoga Tradition’, written by Marshall Govindan of Canada, who was originally a pupil and colleague of Yogi Ramaiah in India and later a direct disciple of Kriya Babaji, functioning in Canada. Yogi Ramaiah also reiterated the confirmation at the talk delivered by him on the Sri Lanka Rupavahini channel on the November 29, 2005, which the writer helped to arrange with the Rupavahini management. Thereafter Yogi Ramaiah left for Malaysia and passed away there on the July 12, 2006 at the age of 83 and his body was taken to India and laid in Samadhi at the Palani Andavar Temple at Kanadukathan in Tamil Nadu a week later with the physique still fresh and exhibiting no signs of decomposition, as in the case of Paramahamsa Yogananda an, earlier devotee of Kriya Babaji, who was laid in Samadhi in California in 1952 after 21 days of yogic preservation of the body.

Yogi Ramaiah was a scion of a wealthy family in Tamil Nadu. His father was Sri S. A. Annamalai Chettiar. Yogi Ramaiah after graduating Madras University, was preparing to leave for the U.S.A. for post-graduate studies in 1946, when he was suddenly struck down by a crippling ailment in the spine and remained in a plaster cast for the next six years despite the medical attention. During this time Paramahamsa Omkara Swami of Jnanodaya Alayam, Madras, a highly evolved Yogi whom Kriya Babaji later described as the Blissful Saint, used to visit Yogi Ramaiah and initiated him on the spiritual path.

In 1952, Kriya Babaji appeared in a re-materialized body in the shrine room of his disciple Sri V. T. Neelakantan at Surnima Lane, Egmore, Madras over a period of several weeks and dictated a series of spiritual talks which were duly recorded and published by Neelakantan later. Neelakantan was a well known journalist and a friend of Sri Jawaharlal Nehru and a senior member of the Theosophical Society at Adyar in Madras. It was during this period that Kriya Babaji suddenly appeared in Yogi Ramaiah’s home and miraculously healed him by taking over the ailment to his own body temporarily and tore his plaster cast and set him up as a great Yogi who thereafter held several Parliament of Religion meetings throughout the world and spread the special Kriya Yoga technique of Kriya Babaji to the present day generation of humanity.

During the sessions at Neelakantan’s shrine room, which Yogi Ramaiah also joined later, Kriya Babaji himself revealed for the first time the full history of his birth at Puerto Novo in Tamil Nadu about the year 200 A.D. on Karthigai Deepam day in November and being named as Nagaraj. He also referred to his travelling to Kataragama in Ceylon in 214 A. D. and being initiated there by Boganatha Rishi after a period of six months in meditation under a huge Banyan tree and then being sent by him to his own Guru Sri Agastya Mahamuni at Ktittaalam in South India to receive his final initiation, which he did after undergoing 48 days of intense Tapas without taking any food or water at Kuttaalam. Sri Agastya Mahamuni, the ageless guru of gurus, came out of the forest on the 48th day in his physical form and hugged him tenderly and gave him his final initiation and sent him to the Himalayas to a site off Badrinath near the Tibetan border and told him that he would be known as the greatest Yogi of modern times.

To commemorate Kriya Babaji’s visit to Kataragama in 214 A. D., a small shrine room had been constructed recently in the premises of the Temple of Theivanai Amman, a consort of Lord Muruga, adjoining the main Murugan temple at Kataragama, and idols of Kriya Babaji and Boganatha Rishi had been placed in the shrine and daily popjas and arathi are performed there by the priests. The writer and a committee of interested persons, including Dr. Mrs. Dora Munasinghe the well known social worker and organizer of the Sowkiyadana free medical camps, sought an interview some years ago with Lakshman Jayakody the then Minister of Cultural and Religious Affairs in the Sri Lankan Government and obtained his active support for the improvement of the structure housing the said shrine dedicated to Kriya Babaji and Boganatha Rishi. This committee of persons interested in the improvement of the Kriya Babaji shrine at Kataragama also included Mrs. Theja Gunawardhana, one time High Commissioner for Sri Lanka in Pakistan. She was a rare multi-faceted personality. In her early years she was a political firebrand who was ably defended in a criminal defamation case in the Sri Lankan courts by D. N. Pritt, the eminent Queen’s Counsel from England. But it was in later years when she had dropped her political activities and become deeply interested in mysticism and had developed degree of psychic sensitivity herself, that the writer developed a close friendship with her. In an exhibition of her paintings held in Colombo shortly before she passed away, there was a vivid portrayal by her of Kriya Babaji drawn by her on the basis of a visionary experience she had of the Himalayan Master.

The other well-known lineal disciples of Kriya Babaji were Lahari Mabasaya, Yukteswar and Paramahamsa Yogananda, who were all contemporaries and whose spiritual eminence has been vividly described in the world-renowned book ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’ written by Paramahamsa Yogananda.

In recent times, however, the hitherto hidden unbelievable facts about Maha Avatar Kriya Babaji’s spiritual eminence came to the notice of the public at large as a result of a cine-film called ‘Baba’ that was produced by the popular South Indian film-star Rajnikanth, in which Kriya Babaji’s life in the remote inaccessible fastnesses of the Himalayan range of mountains and his concern for the welfare of humanity was brought to light in a very artistic presentation.

The writer discovered recently that Swami Satchidananda of Yogaville in Virginia USA, whom Rajnikanth had specially invited as a venerable guest of 87 years of age to preside at the premiere release of the film ‘Baba’ in India on 15th August 2002, was none other than the young Swami Satchidananda who had been conducting an ashram called Satchidananda Taovanam on the banks of the Mahaveli river at Tennekumbura, near Kandy in Sri Lanka, for over twelve years up to 1966 when, he left for the USA and thereafter built the famous Lotus Temple in Virginia on a 1000 acre land and helped several alcoholics in USA to give up drink by following his classes in Hatha Yoga, in which he was an expert.

It is a small world! The writer knew Swami Satchidananda well during his period of stay in Sri Lanka about 50 years ago from 1954 to 1966 and used to invite him regularly to address various religious meetings in Colombo which the writer organized at that time. Swami Satchidananda was a science graduate who renounced his lay life and became a monk under Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh and later established an ashram, in Sri Lanka, and subsequently at Coimbatore in India, his birthplace. He was an ardent believer in the universality of all religions.

As regards Paramahamsa Omkara Swami, the writer first met him in 1956 when he accompanied Yogi Ramaiah as a silent companion to attend the Parliament of Religions held by Yogi Ramaiah at the Vivekananda Society hall in Colombo, where the Yogi demonstrated various Yogic feats to the audience with Dr. P. R. Anthonis, the well known surgeon, and Dr. T. Nallainathan, later President of the Sathya Sai Samithi, Colombo, as medical comperes. The writer was greatly taken up with the saintliness of Paramahamsa Omkara Swami as soon as he met him and invited him to travel to Ceylon with his own group of devotees in 1957 and visit Kataragama and other places in Ceylon, which he did the following year.

His long drawn out resonant intonation of the ‘OM’ mantra and his very presence created an atmosphere of sanctity and spiritual fervor that the writer and several others experienced. This has a parallel in the Christian concept enshrined in the famous Biblical statement ‘In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God’. The Word signifies the primordial sound ‘OM’. A colleague of the writer called Jothi Swami then, and now ordained as Swami Prakashamayananda, accompanied Paramahamsa Omkara Swami to Kataragama and the other places in Ceylon. The writer later visited Paramahamsa Ornkara Swami at his Jnanodaya Alayam at Madras in 1961 and received his blessings again, prior to his attaining Mahasamadhi in 1967. Paramahamsa Omkara Swami had transcended all sense attractions and had an intake of food only if and when anyone fed him like feeding an infant child. On one occasion, it is recorded, he went into a meditational trance at Madras for several days similar to the state of Jiva Samadhi, with the breathing and heart-beat stopped completely and only the Pranic energy sustaining the body. He was both a Poorna Gnani as well as a great Master of yoga.

The next article by the writer, namely Narrative - Part 5, will focus on his personal meeting with Swami Ramdas, the great Bhakthi saint of Kanhangad, India, who went on a world tour in 1954, and with the unconventionally outspoken Sage Yoga Swamigal of Lankapuri and Guru Bawa Mohaideen of Colombo and later of Philadelphia U.S.A. a great Sufi mystic who was well over 125 years of age.