a semimythical figure reputedly born in 203 C.E.
in the seaport town of Porto Novo, Tamil Nadu,
India. After a life of adventure and spiritual
accomplishment, he emerged as a master of YOGA
and KUNDALINI. He then spent years in retreat in
the HIMALAYAS and emerged, having overcome the
limitations of death. He would become known
over the centuries as the immortal Babaji (the
same personage introduced to the West by Para-
mahansa YOGANANDA in his Autobiography of a
Yogi).
According to S. A. A. Ramaiah, in 1944 Babaji
saw the need for an organization through which
he could contact his devotees throughout the
world. Thus, in 1951 the International Babaji
Krija Yoga Sangam was established with Ramaiah
as chief administrator.
Ramaiah became a model in the 1960s for
those interested in yogic methods; he traveled to
the United States and demonstrated in scientific
tests that he had control of a variety of bodily
functions. For example, he could vary his body
temperature by 15 degrees in either direction
from the norm of 98.6 degrees. Ramaiah founded
a mission in America with monks and disciples
from India. They opened their headquarters in
Norwalk, California. Kriya centers, sometimes
called sadhana centers, were established for the
more highly developed forms of yoga that had a
rigorous method. These were generally set up in
rural locations so as to enhance the experience of
contemplation and MEDITATION for attendees.
In Imperial City, California, Ramaiah founded
a shrine to Ayyappa Swami, a holy figure from
the PURANAS, ancient sacred Hindu stories. Since
1970, each December the disciples conduct an
annual pilgrimage from the shrine to Mount
Shasta in Northern California, a distance of some
500 miles.
In India the Sangam operates the KBYS Holis-
tic Hospital and Colleges of Yoga Therapy and
Physiotherapy, located in Athanor, Tamil Nadu.
There are over 50 centers for the Sangam through-
out the world.
Further reading: Yogi S. A. A. Ramaiah, Shasta Ayy-
appa Swami Yoga Pilgrimage (Imperial City, Calif.: Pan
American Babaji Yoga sangam, n.d.)International Foundation for Spiritual
Unfoldment See AMERICAN MEDITATION
SOCIETY.International Mahavir Jain Mission See
JAINISM.International Meditation Institute
(est. 1970s)
The International Meditation Institute in Kulu,
Himachal Pradesh, India, was founded by Swami
Shyam (b. 1924), an Indian teacher who taught
meditation in Canada in the early 1970s. There
he developed a following of enthusiastic devotees
who returned with him to India. They bestowed
upon him the unofficial title of SWAMI, although he
is a householder, with a wife and five children.
When Shyam was a young man, he expe-
rienced an altered spiritual state that left him
forever a changed person. That space of pure
consciousness, which he named Shyam Space,
was described as pure existence and pristine
consciousness where one drops the mortal self,
becomes detached from the mundane world, and
identifies with the pure Self. This perspective is
usually expressed of terms of ADVAITA (non-dual)
Vedanta, a form of Hindu thought that forms
the infrastructure of various yoga techniques for
enlightenment.
Today, disciples of the institute live in inde-
pendent group houses near the MEDITATION center,
which they visit for meditation and teaching.
Swami Shyam’s teachings have been taken to other
areas of the world. Centers now exist in Taiwan,
the United States, Europe, New Zealand, Israel,
and Japan. The North American headquarters is
in Montreal.K 198 International Foundation for Spiritual Unfoldment