Sri M’s autobiography starts with a previous life somewhere in the Himalayas near Pandukeshwar. In that life, he was a young man of about 20 in a very orthodox family of Sama Vedins who had been living there for many generations. From childhood, he had been more interested in going deeper into meditation and touching that deep space rather than the scholarly achievements of his ancestors. This family was known to Mahavatar Babaji (Sri M refers to him as Sri Guru Babaji). The young man became a disciple of Mahavatar Babaji at a very young age since Babaji frequently visited their place. After a great deal of training, he could attain or achieve higher levels of consciousness where he could sit down in Padmasana (full lotus posture) and go into a deep trance for long periods.

One day, while this young man was sitting deep in meditation on the banks of a river, an old bearded man in torn clothes, looking very dirty and in a state of exhaustion, appeared before him. He was a Sufi practitioner whose teacher had told him on his deathbed, ‘Whatever I could give you, I have given it already. Now you go to such and such an area in the Himalayas. You will find a very young yogi there. He should be your guide now. Find him, and learn from him.’ The teacher also gave him some signs to recognize him so that he could be sure. Now, as the old man stood in excitement upon finding his new guru at long last, not noticing the deep meditation he was in, he grabbed him and said, ‘I’ve come, please, wake up!’ Very upset at having been brought down from the deep state he had been in, the young man said, ‘Who on Earth are you? Why have you come?’ Anger overtook him–that anger also arose because he suddenly remembered the family and spiritual lineage he came from and thought, ‘Who is this guy that is coming and touching me? I have just had a bath.’ So he said, ‘I don’t want anything to do with you,” and the Sufi replied, ‘But I was told by my Master that you are the guide, so you have to help me out.’ The young man said, ‘I can’t do anything for you – get lost!’ He wanted to return to his one-pointed meditation. The Sufi said, ‘If you don’t guide me and teach me, you know what I am going to do? I’m going to commit suicide. I am going to jump down the rocks into the river.’ The young man said, ‘You can do whatever you want, I want to meditate. Go! I don’t care.’ So the devastated Sufi jumped down into the river and died, his body carried below by the water.

Then the young man’s Guru, Sri Babaji, appeared there, the only man who called him Madhu. He said, ‘Madhu, what have you done? Is this the result of years of spiritual growth? Your energies have touched the Vishuddha (deep state), but you have no kindness in your heart – is this the state of your spiritual development? Could you have even just found out why he came? Have you let anger overtake you? Where have you reached? Understand that one little good act is equivalent to one hundred years of tapasya (austerity).’

All great teachers emphasize that compassion is most important and the touchstone of spiritual progress.

Because of what his master said, the young man realized his mistake and said, ‘What a terrible crime I committed! Can I do something about that man?’ Sri Babaji replied, ‘I will take care of him. His body is gone, but his soul is with me — don’t worry about it. But you will have to come back again to be born under circumstances where you know what happened to the Sufi.’ The young man said, ‘I am ready to do whatever you say, but please don’t leave me without your guidance.’ Then Sri Babaji said, ‘Commit the thing,’ which Babaji used to jokingly refer to as spiritual suicide – which meant to sit in Padmasana (full lotus posture), shut off all bodily actions, do the khechari mudra, and leave the body. So the young man left the body and was reborn into particular circumstances where he could realize the difficulties of the Sufi man.

He was reborn as Mumtaz Ali (hereafter referred to as M) to fourth generation migrants from North Western Province to Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India. Sri M’s ancestors were brought to India in the early 18th century by the Maharaja of Travancore, Marthanda Varma, who distrusted his soldiers and had powerful enemies such as Ettuveettil Pillas. Until recently, a member of Sri M’s family used to accompany the maharaja in his customary procession at the Aarat festival at the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram.

By the time M was born, the family had lost touch with its mother tongue, Pashtu, but never spoke Malayalam. He does not remember his mother or sister wearing a burkha. ‘We always spoke a variant of Urdu at home, which can be called Deccani- Urdu (this helped later in communicating with my master). It also helped that I went to a good English-medium school in Thiruvananthapuram,’ says M.

When M was nine, Sri Babaji said to his disciple Maheshwarnath, ‘Go pick up the fellow; he’s with his devout grandmother somewhere.’ So the little boy M saw in the backyard of his home in Vanchiyoor a very tall man (Maheshwarnath) in just a single loincloth, with matted hair, standing under a jackfruit tree. M was a little afraid at first, but he had heard stories from his devout grandmother about angels coming down to bless Mohammed and other prophets and saints, so he thought it was an angel. In Urdu, the man asked him, ‘Do you remember anything: kuch yaad aaya?’ The boy couldn’t remember anything, and as he stood there wondering, Maheshwarnath touched his head with his hand and said, ‘Over time, you will get to know.’ Then he told the boy to go back home, and as he walked back, he wanted to look back but was unable to – something was stopping him from looking back.

Sri M says that in the years following, he would often be woken up from sleep in the middle of the night (not as if there was a presence), and he would lie down and keep looking at his navel in the naabhi area; there would be some kind of a light that would spread over his body and it was very blissful. He had many such experiences every night, some type of spiritual preparation and spontaneous meditation that continued till he finished school and college.

By then, the knowledge that M needed from time to time as he progressed on the path began to come to him automatically. His father borrowed B. K. S. Iyengar’s ‘Light on Yoga’ from a friend (his father was never an orthodox Muslim). M read it through. A yoga teacher, Sri Sharma, gave him his initial lessons on Yogasanas and Surya Namaskaras. M also met Swami Tapasyananda of the Ramakrishna Mission, a direct disciple of Sarada Devi. He was then the head of Ramakrishna Mission at Trivandrum. The librarian at the Trivandrum Public Library kept M well supplied with the works of Vivekananda. He chanced to read Swami Chinmayananda’s Japa Yoga and Gayatri, and he began to chant the Gayatri Mantra. A Tantrik instructed him in certain mantras and lent him Arthur Avalon’s ‘Serpent Power’. He read many other books – the Upanishads, the Gita, yogic texts, and Vedanta. He discovered that Sanskrit was not too difficult to understand. Side by side with gaining theoretical knowledge, he meditated for long hours, especially at midnight. He had merely to shut his eyes and concentrate on the lotus of the heart to enter into kevala-kumbhaka, the suspension of inhalation and exhalation, and experience tremendous bliss and extraordinary vision of divine lights and voices. 

But all along, there was always a feeling like being a bird in a cage and a yearning to break free. By that time, he had also read the ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’ by Yogananda and thought there must be some yogis in the Himalayas.

In those days, M had a close Brahmin friend whose father worshipped Sai Baba of Shirdi. The moment M saw Baba’s picture, an irresistible desire to know about Baba’s life rose in him. The next day Mr. Subramanya Iyer, an advocate who was his friend’s landlord, gave him a copy of the ‘Life of Sai Baba of Shirdi’ by Narasimha Swamiji. Then he lent M the Sai Satcharitra. As a result, M fell in love with the great Fakir.

At this time, M heard from a friend about a lady Avadhuta called Maayi Maa, who lived nearby on the Kanyakumari beach and was reputed to be over a hundred years old. She barely spoke, but the few words she said sounded very much like Bengali. M went to see her alone. When he came to the entrance of the famous Devi Temple there, he spotted across the rocky beach a smiling woman who looked to be in her sixties, wearing absolutely no clothes, with a glowing face and ageless eyes. She sat on one of the rocks with a circle of street dogs around her forming a security ring. The dogs snarled when they saw M. Maayi Maa scolded the dogs using peculiar sounds, and they dispersed and sat at a distance. She motioned to M to sit down. He sat down on a rock. She pointed to the bananas that he had with him and said something. He gave her the bananas. She fed the dogs some, ate two herself and returned a few to him. He closed his eyes and tried to tune in with her vibrations. After a long time, he opened his eyes. She was still there. Giving a broad smile, she said, ‘Jao, jao, thik…’ At this order from the Avadhuta, M prostrated and returned to Thiruvananthapuram.

He was made aware of the significance of Maayi Maa’s darshan the following morning. As he slept deeply, he had a wonderful and vivid dream. In the dream, he was a mendicant with matted hair and wearing only a loincloth, sitting in padmasana and meditating under a banyan tree in a thick jungle. A faint sound made him open his eyes, and he saw Maayi approaching with a stick in her hand. She was huge, much larger than life-size. Reaching the place where he sat, she touched his chin and said, ‘Give me something to eat.’ He told her, ‘Maayi Maa, I have only two grains of parched rice hidden in my matted hair.’ She said, ‘Give them to me.’ Without hesitation, he gave the rice to her. She said to him, ‘Are you hungry?’ He said, ‘Yes, but you eat it, Maa.’ She ate with great relish and, turning to him, said, ‘Your hunger is for a different thing. Close your eyes.’ He closed his eyes. She pressed the middle of his forehead hard with what seemed to be her thumb (shaktipat or descent of energy). An ocean of bliss filled his whole being, and he lost body consciousness. The ecstasy remained after he woke up from this dream. He was like a drunken man who had had his fill. Slowly, he sat up, stretched his legs, and carefully went to the bathroom, afraid that he would fall. In a few minutes, control over his body and mind returned, but the stream of bliss continued in the core of his being. 

Already acquainted with the teaching of the Sufis by attending meetings of local Sufi groups, he went at last to a gem among Sufis – Kaladi Mastan (his tomb is much visited), who lived naked on the beach near Bimapalli in Thiruvananthapuram. He was drinking a cup of tea given by a follower when M first saw him. He smiled and gave M the rest of the tea. Then he said, ‘Big thief came to steal the treasure. Take it legitimately.’ Then he lit a cigarette and said, ‘Smoke.’ M smoked. Then Kaladi took it back. M sat and meditated before him. He covered M’s head with sand and further cleared the conduits. Even though he behaved like a mad man, the few people who seriously knew him considered him a priceless gem. Not very far from there lived Poontharasami, another God-intoxicated person with matted hair. When M visited him, this Avadhuta suddenly stood up and kicked M on his chest, which cleared the psychic passages the mighty energy travels through.

M received a similar energetic clearing strike from another Avadhuta, the incandescently sublime Master, Bhagavan Nityananda. In ‘The Journey Continues’, M recounts this auspicious, albeit severe, blessing in detail:

‘We were told to wait in a queue. There were at least fifty people waiting to have darshan of the saint. In half an hour, a gate was opened and we were ushered in.  

On an easy chair sat a rather frightening figure. He was huge with a shiny, black complexion and a shaven head and face that seemed strangely small compared to the rest of his body, especially his tight protruding belly. All he wore was a small, white loin cloth and was bare foot. I was scared, for apart from his formidable physique he seemed crazy. He was muttering to himself in some incoherent language, making strange gestures with his hands and now and then breaking into chuckles for no apparent reason.  

The line of devotees walked past him. When they came face to face, they prostrated, sought his blessings and moved on. He touched some on their heads, others he just waved away and in one case, he shouted loudly. For a second, it seemed he was going to assault him, but the moment passed and the next in line, stepped forward.  

By the time our chance came, I was shivering with fear, though my uncle held my hand. Standing in front of Nityananda who now seemed to me like a huge mountain, I imitated the other devotees and prostrated. When I raised my head, stood up and looked at his face, all fear vanished. He smiled sweetly, a motherly smile, full of affection and patted my head muttering in Malayalam. The only words I could catch were, ‘Mala Kaeranum’ (will have to climb mountains), and something that sounded like ‘thorakkum, thorakkum, thorakkum pinnae’ (must open, must open, must open later on).  

When my uncle said to him in Malayalam that he did not understand what he was saying, he got angry and shouted at him to get out and get lost. Still angry, he glared at me and then he suddenly slapped me hard on my right cheek. The slap was so powerful that I fell down on my side. The cheek felt like it was on fire. I burst into tears, wailed loudly, as I picked myself up. My uncle quietly led me out, consoling me saying ‘It is your good luck. That was a blessing. Few people get such a blessing. Don’t worry.’

‘ . . . I continued to think of the incident as the mad outburst of a mentally deranged person until the age of sixteen or so, when I came to understand that certain highly evolved sages called Avadhutas sometimes behaved in strange ways to achieve objectives not known to us ordinary mortals. Perhaps there was some significance to the slap, I thought, but what it actually was I found out many years later when I had run away from home and had been accepted as [Maheshwarnath] Babaji’s apprentice.  

Whilst living in the Charan Paduka cave in Badrinath, Babaji taught me a certain breathing technique which was aimed at clearing the ida nadi, the pathway through which life energy or prana courses through the left side of the body. I practised it to perfection and Babaji was convinced that the ida nadi pathway had been cleared totally. When I asked him if I had to do the same for the right side, which is called the pingala nadi, he laughed and said, ‘That was done long ago by Nityananda’s slap on your right cheek. It’s clean and clear now and you don’t have to worry about it. I know you thought he was mad!’

When he was twenty, M made up his mind to go to the Himalayas. First, he went to Madras by train, spent some time in the Theosophical Society, and then traveled to Delhi. From Delhi, he went to Hardwar from where he decided to walk. He had no money left and no intention of writing back home for help or letting them know where he was. He knew he would be looked after, that the minimum needs of the body would be taken care of by the great powers that run the universe, and he was right. Of course, at certain times, he was tested thoroughly, but in the end, everything was fine. He covered the entire journey from Rishikesh to Uttarkashi on foot, to Gangotri, Yamunotri, from Batwari to Kedar via Buda Kedar, then to Badrinath. At Rishikesh, he decided to stay in the Divine Life Society Ashram. Yoga is taught, and the senior swamis are a great help, Satsang being most important for a sadhaka. That pilgrim-season found M walking again to Badrinath – sometimes on the common pilgrim routes, sometimes through forests, staying in roadside dharmashalas, and many a time in forest hermitages beside the river. He gathered much food for the soul. 

After many days’ journey, he first slept in the choultry upon reaching Badrinath. It was quite cold, and his single blanket was insufficient, but he was in no mood to seek help. Those were the days when the fire of spirituality burned so bright that everything else, even the bare necessities – food, clothes, and shelter – melted into insignificance. A highly intoxicating, ecstatic mood came over him in the great Himalayas. He attributed this, as well as his intense sadhana, to the presence of highly evolved beings in these regions, and he hoped to meet some of them. His physical difficulties were solved by the arrival of a Brahmachari whom he had met in the Divine Life Society, an experienced pilgrim who had traveled many times. Quickly he found M an independent Kutir and persuaded him to stay there. He also got M a couple of blankets and a wooden plank to sleep on; he further arranged with the Nepali Dharmashala for his food. He then introduced M to the Rawalji, the chief priest of Badrinath. Eager to see more genuine yogis and Paramahamsas, M learned that they lived beyond Badrinath and on the other side of Narayan Parvat, so he decided to travel further. 

Without informing anyone, one morning he started off with his water-pot, staff, and blanket. After about six or seven kilometres of strenuous climbing, he reached the confluence of the Saraswati and the Alakananda, called Keshav Prayag. Close to this is the cave known as the Vyasa Guha. A strange force seemed to make his feet heavy. Seeing a fire or dhuni in the mouth of the cave, often kept by sadhus in the Nath Sampradaya, he thought there must be somebody inside and slowly edged himself into the cave. Before him was Maheshwarnath Babaji, the same man he had met when he was nine years old, whose guidance he had felt throughout his life. Babaji stood up, and his first words were: ‘Accha Ghum Phirkar Phir Hamare Paas Pahuch Gaye?’ (‘Oh! So you have gone around window shopping and come back?’). M said to him, ‘Babaji, I will never leave you, believe me.’ Babaji laughed and said in Hindi, ‘Dekha Jayega.’ (‘We will see about that…’).

M’s hair stood up on end at the Master’s smile, and his eyes filled with tears. ‘No place for hysterics,’ said the calm voice, this time in English. He stroked M’s shoulders. Back in control, M touched his feet. Sitting down near him, right into the night and till dawn the next day, the teachings and discussions continued. 

Maheshwarnath Babaji, from M’s understanding, was about 150 years old, but he looked like 30-35 years old, quite young. He would drink very little water and hardly any food, just eating sometimes when people offered him food. M spent three-and-a-half years with his Master travelling all over the Himalayas, receiving all he needed.

Babaji wanted him to speed up the cleaning of the inner channels since they could not wait for another two lives to get it cleared, considering the amount of work M was expected to do. So he suggested ways of doing that, and M was willing to take the risk of the procedure, completely surrendering himself into the Master’s hands. M was sent to a cave above Kedarnath on the mountain. What looked like three people came there, tall and dressed in white with masks like those worn by Jain sadhus (M has hinted that they could have been from other realms). He was blindfolded and then brought down through what seemed like a tunnel. The blindfold was removed, and M found himself in a small empty room. He was given something to drink – greenish, a very bitter herbal – and then made to lie down on a slab, after which his whole body started convulsing. They fitted a kind of helmet onto his head that had some cable-like thing coming out of it. There was no injury, and he had some experiences – he felt like he was outside of his body looking down at himself. He was taken somewhere else and given some instructions, and then brought back. M writes that this was happening in a kind of different dimension. When he came back, it felt like jet lag. He was again blindfolded and returned to the cave. Then M went back to Babaji, bowed down to him, and said it was done. Babaji told him to do his Kriya in the evening, and for a long time after that, whenever he did Kriya, at the end of it, he felt like lying down in Shavasana and would slowly get out of the body and look down. It went on for some time and then gradually subsided. After that procedure, there was kind of a deep, clear unity to M’s experience too – everything was unified.

M also mentions another unusual incident in his autobiography in a chapter called ‘The Fireball from the Sky’. At that time, he stayed in the Arundhati Cave (close to Vashishta Cave near Rishikesh) with Maheshwarnath Babaji. M had just had a meal and was sleeping in the cave’s interior when he heard what sounded like distant thunder, so he woke up. M emphasizes that he has hardly ever taken any narcotics or anything like that at any point, so he was undoubtedly not hallucinating.

This cave is by the Ganga and on the other side are lots of trees, and from there, M saw something coming. At first, it looked like a moon, then grew larger as it drew closer with increasing sound. Finally, it came straight down and landed near the dhuni fire, making a loud thunderclap sound. M saw a sphere, almost big enough to sit in, then it opened. By that time, M was very scared, and even more so when he saw some kind of a bluish-colored serpent emerging, like a snake made of deep blue glass, but alive. There was some kind of exchange between the serpent and Babaji, a conversation in hissing noises. Then Babaji asked M to come near and bow down. When he did, the snake put its head on M’s head for some time, and then it got in the vehicle, and it vanished. Later on, Babaji gave M a fairly long description of Naga Loka, the snake world, and other worlds, and told him that the one who had come was Nagaraj, the prince of the Naga World. Babaji said there had been some problem in the Naga Loka, and Nagaraja had come to ask his advice on sorting it out. 

M also describes the eventual meeting with the Grand Master, Sri Guru Babaji, also known as Sri Mahavatar Babaji.

He and Maheshwar Babaji were discussing the teaching of Kriya Yoga, with Babaji stating a lot of conditions for teaching Kriya. M felt that he could never teach Kriya to anybody with the requirement of celibacy. He said many married householders would like to do Kriya, giving the example of Lahiri Mahasaya. As they were walking along the Ganga, they came to a quiet spot where the river turns, and then they saw somebody coming – a very beautiful-looking person with long hair and bare-bodied just like Babaji with only a white cloth and barefoot. As soon as He appeared, Babaji prostrated before him. M had never seen Babaji prostrate before anybody ever, or even touch anyone’s feet. So M inferred this must be Maheshwarnath Babaji’s Guru. And then it struck him that this beautiful person was indeed Sri Guru Babaji (Mahavatar Babaji), so he also prostrated. When Mahavatar Babaji lifted him, the experience was entirely out of this world. Putting His hands on M’s shoulders, He told Babaji, maybe you should listen to the young man; cut down these requirements. And then He just abruptly took his hands off and walked away, turning the corner. 

The Master advised M to go back to the plains, start leading an everyday life, and begin teaching when commanded to do so, promising to keep in touch. The Master had thoroughly overhauled his thought process and brought about a lasting change in his consciousness – the psychic channels in the spine and brain were opened up, and the dormant energies activated so that the contact between the mind and the higher Consciousness was re-established.

M replied, ‘But Babaji, I am very happy here, unaffected by worldly trappings, enjoying a sense of liberation. Why should I go back?’  Babaji replied, ‘You cannot call it liberation when you have not been tested in a true sense by material dimensions. That testing will prove you. Keep things simple and direct—no mumbo jumbo. Live in the world like anybody else. Greatness is never advertised. Those who come close, discover it themselves. Be an example to your friends and associates of how you can live in this world happily and, at the same time, tune in to the abundant energy and glory of the infinite consciousness.’

Following his Master’s advice, M went back to the plains, lived an everyday life, worked for a living, fulfilled his social commitments, and prepared himself to teach all he had learned and experienced. He met many spiritual teachers and traveled all over India to ‘see the world at close quarters,’ as he put it. He was periodically instructed to visit holy places across the subcontinent – Marutva Malai, Ajmer, Dakshineshwar, Belur Matt, Puri, Benaras, Alandi, Shirdi, and Tiruvannamalai – to familiarize himself with diverse spiritual traditions. He met saints from all religions, including Neem Karoli Baba, and interacted with Laxman Joo and J.Krishnamurti.

Off and on, M attended the talks of J. Krishnamurti in Madras and elsewhere and read most of his literature. Finally, he met him and had a forty-minute private discussion, after which he decided to stay on in the Krishnamurti Foundation for some time. The Master had said that Krishnamurti would be the last of the important persons who M would meet as part of his education, and he had instructed M to pay particular attention to everything that ‘K’ did and how the organization would function when he lived and after his death. As a result, M was made a Trustee of the Krishnamurti Foundation, a position that he resigned after five years. After Krishnamurti’s death, M married Sunanda, whom he had met in Vasant Vihar, the headquarters of the Krishnamurti Foundation, and became a householder. ‘In fact, being a householder is the best thing to do in this period of the Earth’s existence, for sannyasa (life of a renunciate) is only for the rarest of the rare,’ says M. With the blessings of his Himalayan Master and by strenuous sadhana, M has transcended theories and scholarship and is established in higher consciousness.

The second time he saw Mahavatar Babaji was when Maheshwarnath Babaji attained mahasamadhi when he was passing away. Again, something similar to the Arundhati Cave experience occurred; a sizeable glowing sphere appeared from which Mahavatar Babaji stepped out and accompanied by a very handsome young man with him. Mahavatar Babaji said that this was Nagaraj, who also sometimes appears as a snake. Mahavatar Babaji said He had come there because He wanted M to take over some aspects of Maheshwarnath Babaji’s work. So, He put M’s hand onto Maheshwarnath Babaji’s hand, and He put His hand on top of that and held it for a while. This was some kind of download or transmission. M then actually felt something coming up and released it. Mahavatar Babaji said to Maheshwarnath Babaji: ‘Yes, now you can go.’ After this, everything changed for M, and he felt completely different as if some part of Babaji had also entered into him. Then they went off, and Babaji attained mahasamadhi. 

A few years after his Master passed away, M received the spiritual go-ahead to commence his mission and enter the teaching phase of his life in 1998, eventually leading to the formation of The Satsang Foundation.