Lord Lakulish
Lord Lakulish was a master of Kundalini Yoga. Like many Divine Beings, Lakulish preferred to work in silence, beyond mortal sight, and thus little is known about him. The birth of Lakulish was foretold in the scriptures:
“During the twenty-eighth Dwapar age when Dwaipayan, son of Parasar, shall be Vyas and Lord Vishnu shall incarnate as Lord Krishna, son of Vasudeva, I too shall incarnate in the body of a celibate and shall be known as Lakulish. The place of my incarnation shall be siddhakshetra and it shall be renowned among men till the earth shall last.” (Shiva Puran, Shatrudra Samhita, V:43-50)
Courtesy of Life Mission
Lord Lakulish was born to a Brahmin couple named Vishvarup and Sudarshana. Their ancestral line we(nt back to the great ancient sage, Atri. Lakulish was born on the fourteenth day of the bright half of the moon in the Indian month of Chaitra after midnight. After the birth of Lakulish, his father decided to go on a pilgrimage to holy Kurukshetra. Before going, he asked his wife to continue performing the Yagnas, the religious ceremonies, which he regularly did with the help of a pious priest.
After Vishvarup’s departure, Sudarshana carried out the wishes of her husband. On the first day of the holy month of Shravana, she prepared for the ceremonies in the morning and then went out to call the priest. When they came home, to their great surprise, they found that someone had already performed the ceremonies. All the necessary articles were used up and the sacred Yagna fire was lit.
They were stunned to see this, since there was no one in the house except the three-month-old child sleeping in the cradle. This happened again on the second, third, and fourth days, too, and then became a daily occurrence.
When Vishvarup returned from his pilgrimage, Sudarshana told him the whole story. Vishvarup was surprised. He decided to hide in a nearby house and watch to see who was conducting the ceremonies. At the appointed time he did so and found that his small child came out of the cradle and performed all of the spiritual ceremonies with perfection. After performing the ceremonies, the child returned to the cradle.
His parents, overwhelmed with surprise and love, hugged the child and asked, “Son, tell us who you really are?”
On hearing this, the child fainted and died.
The distraught parents placed the tiny body in a nearby pond named Devakhat. At the bottom of the pond was a Shiva Lingam.
After some time, the people in the village found that the child had come back to life and had assumed the body of a youthful teenager and was playing on the surface of the water. Soon the Rishis gathered around and asked,
“Who are you?”
“I am Prana,” the youth replied.
The Rishis recognized Him as the incarnation of Lord Shiva and called Him Lord Lakulish because He held Lakul, the scepter, in one hand. All said prayers to Him. Since Lord Shiva had incarnated, or come down to earth (avarohn) in a human body (Kay), they changed the name of the town from Medhavati to Kayavarohan.
The news of the new incarnation spread all over the land and saints, kings, devotees, scholars, renunciates and aspirants from far-off places visited Kayavarohan. Lord Lakulish trained many disciples and made them able preachers of the Pashupat teachings. They went to different parts of the land and propagated His teachings.
Vedic culture was once again rejuvenated throughout the land from the highly spiritualized center of Kayavarohan. The city flourished and yoga, knowledge, devotion and the arts filled the city with great spirituality and purity.
This prophecy came to pass nearly 4,500 years ago, when Lord Lakulish appeared on earth at Kayavarohan, a well-known holy pilgrimage center in western India. He preached the principles of Sanatan Dharma, the Eternal Way, and the spiritual science of Divine Yoga—attaining the Divine Body—the pinnacle of yogic achievements. His spiritual tradition flourished for nearly 3,000 years and then gradually faded away.
In 1913, Lakulish emerged once again, determined to re-establish Kayavarohan as a sacred place of pilgrimage and to continue the teachings of Sanatan Dharma. To do this, he selected four souls who would each incarnate in succession to accomplish these goals. The first was his disciple, Swami Pranavanand, who Lakulish initiated into divine yoga in 1913.
When Swami Pranavanand died in 1930, Lakulish entered his body and used it for a year and one quarter. He purified it further by remaining in unbroken samadhi for 12 days. He then went to Bombay appearing as a 60-year-old man to a weeping 19-year-old. That desperate young man became his chief disciple, Swami Kripalu. Lakulish gave him personal instruction like none other and commanded the young Kripalu not to speak or write about him until Kripalu had attained a high state of yoga. Kripalu honored this request and said nothing about his Guru for 39 years. In 1970, Kripalu emerged from 12 years of complete silence and spoke publicly about Lakulish for the first time. This is his story.