How Babaji is keeping his body from 1800 years?

Sadhguru in his book “Death – An inside story” explains how Mahavatar Babaji is keeping this body from 1800 years.

Excerpt from his book Death – An inside story (pp. 274-276)

Nirmanakaya

In spiritual circles there have always been talks about yogis who lived on the planet long ago but now make rare appearances by materializing and dematerializing their bodies at will. These days there is a lot of interest in people being able to materialize and dematerialize at will because there is too much talk about Babaji everywhere. The popular stories doing the rounds about him in India is that there is one man who lives forever and appears at will, again and again. It is not so. It has become fanciful for people to talk about such things because people like legends. They don’t like the living because with legends you have the freedom to twist and turn them or blow them out of proportion or whatever. If you exaggerate something about me, for example, I will knock you on your head and tell you that it isn’t so.

Some confusion regarding this is because there are yogis who are nirmanakayas. Nirman means ‘to create’, kaya means ‘a body’. It is very rare that this would happen, but there have been some beings who have done that. These yogis are of the highest calibre and are able to materialize their body at will. Essentially, they build a conscious energy body, which is all made by them but is not for serving the physiological purposes of the physical body. You know, at least 20 per cent of your energy body is serving physiological functions.

So these yogis create a large energy body which has no physiological association but is just stationed in the physiology. So he has two energy bodies—one that he was born with and another to transmit what he wants to transmit, which is of another dimension. He cannot transmit without the second one. Both are the same as far as other people’s perception is concerned. Without this kind of an arrangement, with just regular physiology, it is impossible to run a program like Samyama, for example. It cannot withstand the sheer intensity and complexity of what is being done there. It will die right there.

Now, even after the physical body is dead, the subtle body is preserved and he makes it visible now and then. It need not necessarily be full flesh and bone, it just becomes visible. That is all. Usually, these are yogis who have taken on this role where they will reappear once in so many years. That does not mean they are living somewhere. They keep the subtler aspect of the body intact, but the physical body is gone. They recreate it now and then. They are not reborn, nor is this forever.

When you are born through a womb, you too are creating a body. Your own energy is doing it. You take nutrients from your mother, but you create the body. It is not the mother who is creating it. After you are born, you are still creating this body, isn’t it? You are creating it in the same way—taking nutrients through food, through the air that you breathe, the water that you drink. Before you are born, that mechanism is not established yet.

So you use the mother’s mechanisms of eating, drinking and breathing to structure the body, but it is your own energies which are doing it. Now, one can acquire the capability to create a body without the help of a mother’s womb. You can create it by yourself. It need not be a small body. The small body is created because only that can fit in a mother’s womb. But when you sit and create it, you can create an average-sized body or one that is 20 feet tall. Generally, people choose to create their youthful form.

So, these nirmanakayas are in subtle states and use elaborate processes. They have chosen to be in that state. They live in a very minimal way. They choose to be in that state, either out of their compassion, or they have been ordained by their Masters, who told them, ‘Don’t worry about your mukti, just do this.’ Once in a while, they may create a gross body to come back and do certain things. They can only do a minimal amount of work, because each time they create their bodies, they have a certain span and a limitation on activity. Most of the time, it is just an appearance that they can manage. The period of time in which they do this may be very long in normal human terms. It could be a couple of thousand years to even 10,000 years, but even that has a certain span to it. Eventually, they will dissolve completely.

Most of the time, they do this because they want to protect their lineage. They want to appear, so that minute corrections can be made in their lineage. They cannot do much with the general population. Now, for example, Isha is a certain type of Yoga, it is a lineage. Because people can go off track over time, some distortions will creep in. Now, I will not do such things, so you don’t have to fear that I may come back again. I will not. But let us say, we want to make sure that every 100 years corrections happen. So every 100 years, I could reappear and make some corrections and go back. There is a very short period for which you can appear and do such things.

You must know, not everyone who creates a nirmanakaya uses it the same way with the world. Not everyone uses it to make it appear and disappear in the world. It is like you have a great car, but how you use it is up to you. You may want to go to the office in it or race it or just drive it for fun—it is left to you. It is your vehicle. Even if you did not want to do anything with it, you could still own one. Maybe there are collectors who just keep the car parked in their garage! It is similar for nirmanakayas. It is very rare that these things happen, but there have been some beings who have done things like that. Without them, I would not be so knowledgeable. But the phenomenon has been too exaggerated and presented in many distorted ways.