Avdhoot Baba Shivananda

Avdhoot Baba Shivanand, widely known to devotees simply as Babaji, is the founder of ShivYog, a meditation and healing system he describes as a revival of Vedic-era spiritual science, built around the claim that ordinary human beings can recover a lost capacity for direct connection to divine consciousness through structured practices of energy healing and meditation.

A childhood encounter with a Himalayan yogi

Born on March 26, 1955, in Delhi and raised in Rajasthan, Shivanand's spiritual path began remarkably early: at age eight, he came into contact with a Himalayan yogi known as 108 Swami Jagannath ji, who gave him spiritual instruction and set him on a lifelong contemplative path. Following this formative encounter, Shivanand traveled extensively to sacred sites across India for meditation, practicing and reflecting on the teachings he had received from Swami Jagannath over the years that followed, before eventually deciding to dedicate his life fully to spreading spirituality and meditation to a wider public.

Founding ShivYog

Beginning in 1990, Shivanand started conducting talks and workshops on ShivYog and a related practice called Advait Shri Vidya Sadhana across India, formally establishing the ShivYog Foundation in 1995 with the explicit goal of sharing meditation and inner healing practices with people regardless of background or prior spiritual training. The name itself reflects his core teaching: "Shiv" representing the infinite, cosmic consciousness, and "Yog" the practice of connecting or merging with it — ShivYog, in his framing, is the systematic practice of merging individual consciousness with that infinite cosmic awareness.

Specific healing practices within the system

ShivYog's teaching curriculum includes several named practices distinct from more generic meditation instruction, among them Shambhavi Healing, Crystal Healing, Advait Shri Vidya Sadhana, and Prati Prasav Sadhana, each aimed at addressing what the tradition describes as negative thought patterns and psychosomatic illness rooted in unresolved karmic and energetic imbalance. Shivanand frames this as a form of "cosmic medicine," presenting it as a complement to, rather than a replacement for, conventional modern healthcare, and has spoken publicly about wanting to demonstrate that meaningful healing through these methods is genuinely possible.

Institutional growth and international reach

From its first ashram in Delhi, ShivYog has grown to include additional ashram centers in Lucknow and Karjat, with courses now conducted at more than one hundred locations across India and programs extending to roughly thirty countries worldwide. Shivanand's teaching has also reached a broad television audience through discourses broadcast on religious channels including Aastha TV, Adhyatm TV and Sanskar TV, extending his reach considerably beyond those able to attend his workshops and ashram programs in person.

Recognition and social engagement

In September 2016, Shivanand was conferred an Honorary Degree of Doctor Emeritus by DY Patil University in recognition of his contribution to what the citation described as modern spiritual science, and he has been informally referred to in some press coverage as the "Father of Indian Healing." Alongside his teaching activity, Shivanand and his wife, Guruma Sadhna Shivanand, have engaged in social development initiatives, including feeding programs for poor children and the development of a dedicated sanctuary for cows on previously barren land near Alwar, Rajasthan — humanitarian projects the couple frame as a direct extension of their shared spiritual mission rather than as separate charitable work.