Gurudev's Life Sketch

Read about Gurudev’s spiritual life in brief

Brief Life Sketch


Gurudev Shri Ramlalji Siyag, an enlightened and empowered Spiritual Master, has gifted the world with Siddha Yoga, derived from ancient India’s rich Vedic spiritual heritage.
  • Gurudev Shri Ramlal Ji Siyag is an empowered Spiritual Master who has been awakening the Kundalini of seekers throughout the world by Shaktipat Initiation for the last 30 years. A unique and amazing aspect of Gurudev's Shaktipat Initiation is that a seeker residing in any part of the world can easily get initiated into Gurudev Siyag's Siddha Yoga merely by listening to the Sanjeevani Mantra in Gurudev's divine voice in the comfort of his home. 

  • Gurudev descended on earth on 24th November' 1926 in Palana village of Bikaner district. He worked as a head clerk in Indian Railways. Gurudev’s spiritual journey began when due to certain circumstances, he chanted the Gayatri Mantra 125,000 times along with performing the fire sacrifice and other rituals starting from the October of 1968. The day he completed the chants, he realized the very next morning, in deep meditation that his body had transformed into divine light. When he concentrated further, he heard a buzzing sound of a black bee. When he concentrated on the sound, he realized that it was the Gayatri Mantra which was being chanted incessantly by the navel. This way he attained the 'Gayatri Siddhi' (Special Spiritual Power) on 1st Jan'1969.

  • After reading Swami Vivekanand’s literature where he says that one cannot progress on the spiritual path without accepting a Guru, Gurudev accepted Baba Shri Gangainath Ji Yogi as his Spiritual Master and by Baba’s grace Gurudev attained Krishna Siddhi in 1984. Gurudev had a direct experience of God in the formless state (Nirgun Nirakar) by 'Gayatri Siddhi' and God in a form (Sagun Sakar) by 'Krishna Siddhi'. As a result of attaining both these Siddhis, Yogic Kriyas occur automatically while meditating on His picture. This phenomenon has not happened to date.

  •  It was by the order of His Guru, Baba Shri Gangainath Ji Yogi, that Gurudev took premature retirement from Railways in 1986 and started publicly giving Shaktipat Initiation from 1990 and later established Adhyatma Vigyan Satsang Kendra, Jodhpur on 10 May' 1993 to spread this divine knowledge in the world.

  • A seeker meditating on His picture undergoes automatic Yogic Kriyas as per the need of his body. These Yogic Kriyas are a part of an internal cleansing process that cures all kinds of diseases and clears the pathway for spiritual progress. This can be a topic of interest for scientists to research as to how yogic movements are induced automatically while meditating on Gurudev's lifeless picture.

  • Gurudev left his mortal self on 5th June 2017. Gurudev always said that this body (pointing to himself) is not a Guru. A Siddha Guru is not limited by his physical body and is omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient.


Humble Beginning


Gurudev Siyag was born into a poor peasant family in Palana, a small village with a typical agrarian backdrop 25 km to the north of the city of Bikaner, on November 24, 1926. Gurudev’s childhood was marked by an intense struggle for survival — made more difficult by the sudden demise of his father when he was barely 3 years old.
  • Gurudev managed to go to a local school and finish high school level studies. However, when he turned 18, his mother’s old age compelled Gurudev to give up any dreams he may have entertained of college education, and to take up a clerk’s job with the Indian Railways. He soon got married and started a family. In the years that followed, he eventually had five children — a daughter and four sons.

  • The winter of 1968 proved to be a watershed in Gurudev’s life. His humdrum life was suddenly upset when he was seized by an inexplicable fear of death though he wasn’t down with any illness. All kinds of physical treatments failed. His friend, Shri Ram Dubey, who was an astrologer told Gurudev that he was under ‘Markesh Dasha’ — a constellation of planets casting a spell of death. He told Gurudev that one of the ways to escape imminent death, was to invoke the blessings of Goddess Gayatri through a special ritual.

  • He was advised to perform ‘Havan’ — lighting of a sacred fire — and to chant the Gayatri Mantra daily. For the invocation to be complete and offer him the divine protective shield, he was told, he would have to conduct the ritual until he had finished chanting the mantra 125,000 times.

  • In the October of 1968, Gurudev began the ritual in earnest during Navratri, a nine-day festival, dedicated to the feminine divine power. He would rise in the wee hours of morning every day and chant the sacred Gayatri Mantra over ‘Havan’ for a couple of hours before getting ready to go to the office.


The pressure of illogical panic that had seized was so intense that he performed the daily ritual with utmost sincerity and concentration. It took him three months to complete the ritual. All throughout this long period, the nature and intensity of concentration and prayer constantly remained the same. Morning from four to seven and in the evening from seven to nine, chanting continued uninterrupted. 

Recalling those days, Gurudev was to comment later that it was as if a divine force had propelled him into an artificial state of fear only to change the mundane life that he had led until then and to goad him unto the spiritual path.


Life-changing experiences


  • The day he finished the ritual, Gurudev went to bed that night thinking he would wake up during the normal morning hours the next day now that he was through with the arduous Gayatri worship.

Out of habit, he woke up at 4:00 am but since chanting wasn’t to be done, keeping his eyes closed, he kept lying on the bed. While he was lying with his eyes closed, he saw a strange type of white light within him from navel till throat. It was a kind of bright light that he couldn’t compare with any other — not even with sunlight.
  • No other parts of the body like liver, spleen, heart or lungs were visible except for the bright white light. Having worked occasionally as a helper in the railway hospital’s morgue, where doctors performed post mortems on deceased patients, Gurudev had known the placement of various internal organs, muscles and bones in a human body. And yet he could see none of it inside his own body! He soon became aware of a buzzing sound as if a swarm of bees were creating a racket over a honeycomb.

  • When he focused on the sound, he realized it was emanating from the center of his navel. As he concentrated, he noticed, to his astonishment that the buzzing was nothing but the Gayatri mantra, being chanted at an amazingly high speed, making it sound like the buzzing of bees!

  • He was to learn much later that the Gayatri Mantra that he had previously chanted through willful efforts had now become established as a non-stop, self-run process, linking him permanently to the divine force.

The divine glow brought another discovery for Gurudev. He realized that behind the façade of his identity and existence in the material world, he was a very different entity altogether.
  • He was neither bound by his physical limitations nor was his personal awareness restricted to the physical world that he inhabited. He felt as if his personal being had expanded so vastly that he could embrace the whole universe. In fact, he felt he was the universe and he could feel the vibrations of all the animate and inanimate beings inhabiting it as if they were his own.

  • Just as Gurudev was marveling at this extraordinary experience and was afloat on the waves of joy, peace and love; the vision broke off by the gurgling sound of water suddenly gushing out of an open tap in the bathroom.

  • When he consulted some pundits well-versed in the holy scriptures about this particular experience, he was told that he had indeed been blessed by the Goddess Gayatri with a Siddhi — special divine power. He attained Gayatri Siddhi on 1st January 1969. They however advised him to use this power to get himself out of material difficulties he was constantly facing.

  • Gurudev politely declined to heed their advice. He believed that God had not changed his life and put him on the spiritual path so that he could make money and lead a comfortable material life. If God had turned him to divinity, Gurudev realized, he must have done so for a special purpose and that he would show the way ahead too.

A strange quality had come within him after this experience that if his mind and heart concentrated intensely on any goal of life, the outcome was seen clearly like on a television screen much in advance and later the incident would happen exactly the way as it was revealed to him.
  • This way for about a year, he received countless proofs constantly and they all happened in the physical world exactly the way he had foreseen them.

  • A bunch of words have this strange might and power, was beyond his imagination. So out of curiosity, he thought of praying again. Keeping a picture of Lord Shri Krishna, he started chanting a ‘beej mantra’ of Krishna. He neither decided the total number of chants to be done nor any specific goal for this worship.

  • The chanting continued for about two and a half to three years in the morning and evening in the same way as before. One day he thought that the number of chants done so far was more than many hundred times of Gayatri mantra still he hadn’t got any such realization. The moment he thought so, a strange situation developed. All the time, a shadow was visible when glanced sideways. When he looked straight, nothing was seen.

  • He thought maybe its an eye disease, went to the doctors but no such disease was there. The chanting continued as before. One day a thought occurred that as he has no knowledge of this discipline, so unnecessarily he shouldn’t fall into unseen problems hence he stopped chanting but the shadow continued to be seen. He thought since it was not causing any harm so if it was still visible then let it be.

It was shortly after stopping the chants, one night when he was sleeping in his village, around five in the morning he heard a voice which distinctly said, “Son, now chant only ‘Krishna.” This voice was heard very clearly two times. He woke up suddenly but who said that, he couldn’t understand.
  • One day a thought occurred to him that as he was addressed as ‘son’ by that voice so whatever good or bad happens, will be the responsibility of the one whose voice was heard. With this thought in his mind, he started chanting Krishna’s name. A small word, when took speed, started progressing ten times faster than the previous one

  • A year must have passed when a strange incident happened. One day around four in the morning in a partial awakened state Gurudev had a vision. He saw that he was sitting in a room. There was another room of the same kind. There was a connecting door between that room and his, on which a very beautiful pink coloured velvet curtain was hanging touching the floor. 

  • The moment he looked at that curtain he saw it moving as if moved by the wind. At the same time, he heard a voice coming from the other room saying, “See, don’t move the curtain, it will get removed”. To which Gurudev replied, “Even if a strong blow of wind removes it, it will eventually fall back to its original position.” The voice from the other room said, “Do you understand the meaning of removal? Gurudev said,” Can there be any meaning other than what he had just said?” The voice from the other end said, “yes” and asked to see what the removal of it would mean.

  • With this, the scene related to curtain disappeared and instead Gurudev saw a man whose curtain had been removed, had become all knowing (Trikaldarshi) so, his sense of attachment had been completely broken. His sense of duality had completely ended. He looked at all the beings of the world with equality, neither is he attached to anyone nor does he envy anybody. Right after this the same pink curtain was seen and a voice came from the other end, “See, this is what the removal of curtain means.” Gurdev said this is a very nice thing and for this only, he had been doing all the spiritual practices.

  • Then the voice said, “This is all right but then there is a word “Yogbhrast”, what is it? Do you know anything about it?” Gurudev replied, “During the time of spiritual practice (Aradhana), any wrong doing results in the downfall of the spiritual practice.” The voice from the other side said it is almost right but is not the right definition of it and the voice continued, “You have small children, a wife, a mother. They all are completely dependent on you. It is correct that if you get the curtain removed, your condition will be exactly the same as you just saw but these people don’t have any knowledge about it.

When you will leave all of them in the prime of their youth, their call for you in distress, full of misery and pain, will lead to your downfall. This way by becoming “Yogbhrasht, it will become the reason for your downfall. Now do as you think is right.”
  • After listening to this, Gurudev was in great dilemma. He said, “Worship and prayer can also lead to such a fierce outcome, he had never ever imagined that. The voice replied, “The path of ‘Karma’ (Karamgati) is very intense, no one can understand it.” After thinking for some time Gurudev asked that voice, “I am not able to understand what I should be doing so please guide me and I am ready to do exactly that.”

  • The voice from the other room said, “ Now that the curtain has moved, it will be removed at its prescribed time so stop moving it now. Do your duty as per the requirement in the field of your work.” With these words the scene disappeared and Gurudev woke up. Morning had set in so after placing a garland on Bhagwan Shri Krishna’s picture, he took leave of Him. This happened in the last days of the year 1974.


After this, till 1983, Gurudev actively worked at various positions for Worker’s Union and Rajasthan Farmer’s Union. Since he had developed complete faith in the miracles of the spiritual world, his attention was constantly focussed there. He had almost become used to doing most of the work of physical world through the guidance of the spiritual powers. This was the reason that he was rarely unsuccessful in his work. Whatever work he undertook; he was successful in it.


Meeting with Baba Shri Gangainathji Yogi


  • During his spiritual pursuits in the ensuing months, Gurudev came upon the philosophy propounded by Swami Vivekananda, one of 20th century’s greatest spiritual figures, who led the revival of the Vedic spiritual heritage not just in India but also in America and Europe. Swami Vivekananda strongly advocated that one cannot progress on the spiritual path without accepting a Guru.

Heeding Swami Vivekananda’s advice, Gurudev began search for a Guru in right earnest. Fortunately, in the month of March or April of the year 1983, he got the good fortune of meeting a great saint and an empowered spiritual master Baba Shri Gangainath ji Yogi, an ascetic yogi who lived in the village of Jamsar, 27 kilometers to the north of Bikaner.
  • There was nothing extraordinary about this first meeting – a group of people had gathered to meditate in Gangainathji’s presence.

  • Gurudev sat at the back of this crowd simply observing. While there was no interaction between the two in this meeting, something prompted Gurudev to visit Baba’s ashram a few days later again. It was during the second visit in May 1983, when Gurudev bowed and touched Baba’s feet, that the master touched Gurudev’s head by way of blessing.

  • The moment Baba touched Gurudev, he felt a tremendous vibration like a bolt of lightning passing though his body. This was Baba’s way of giving Diksha, initiating Gurudev in the unique form of Siddha Yoga. No words were exchanged as Gurudev left the Ashram soon. Little did Gurudev realize then that his life had taken a new turn. Gurudev attained Krishna Siddhi in the year 1984.


Strange Events


As Gurudev’s involvement in his spiritual evolution deepened, his interest in his material life began to wane. But the pressing needs of his young family pushed him into a state of deep turmoil.
  • The mental turmoil he felt grew worse by May-June 1983 and continued even after the ashram visit. By the end of August 1983, it grew so worse that Gurudev could no longer attend to work in the office and stayed away without applying for leave.

  • Then came a big jolt! On December 31, 1983 at 5:22 a.m., the entire north-west of India was rocked by a severe earthquake. Seconds before the earth shook, Gurudev was jolted out of deep slumber in the wee hours that morning by a strange shock. Gurudev was to learn later that it was precisely the moment when Baba Gangainathji had left his mortal body.

  • A few days after this incident, when Gurudev was walking down the road, a local youth called out to him. What he told Gurudev sounded very strange. The youth said Baba Gangainathji had been pestering him to get Gurudev to visit His Jamsar Samadhi.

  • When Gurudev countered that Baba was no longer alive and that he could not therefore have met him, the youth said the monk has been appearing in his dream to give him the command. Taking this for a divine call, Gurudev visited Baba’s Samadhi and offered prayers there.


Baba’s messages from the after world


During meditation, Gurudev started receiving inner messages from Baba, guiding him through the turbulent waters that lay ahead. Gurudev also realized that despite leaving his mortal body, Baba could guide him on the spiritual path without any hindrance and with potent force.
  • Baba soon made Gurudev realize that he was not destined to lead a mundane life. It was made clear to him on numerous occasions during deep meditation that Gurudev was ordained to lead a spiritual revolution to transform the entire mankind.

  • The transformation that Gurudev was undergoing himself was in fact meant to prepare him for that onerous task ahead. Gurudev was to learn years later through the writings of Sri Aurobindo, of one of India’s yogis of the 20th century, that divine transformation of one human being would eventually herald the transformation of the entire mankind as that enlightened person would lead the way.

  • Gurudev was told in no uncertain words that he was the chosen one for this mission. The unseen Supreme Divine Power showed him the scenes of his life till the last breath in pieces, like the trailer of a film. He was shown with proof that whatever was to be done was a predetermined arrangement and not even an iota of change was possible in it.

  • By putting him in extremely difficult circumstances, Gurudev was forced to perform spiritual practices, leading to the accumulation of an extent of spiritual powers, that he was incapable of calculating, when Baba Shri Gangainath Ji Yogi also handed over his vast spiritual powers to him before leaving his mortal self.


Prophetic vision


  • It was during these turbulent times in 1984 that Gurudev was visited by yet another strange happening, whose implications could impact humanity in the years ahead.

One night after he had retired to bed, he had a vision in a dream. In the vision, he was shown a passage from what he could vaguely perceive to be a holy book and a voice pronounced, “Thou art that; thou art that.”
  • The next morning, Gurudev mulled over the strange vision and tried to understand if what he saw in the dream was a vision or just a strange dream and what the words “Thou art that” meant. Since the passage was in Hindi, Gurudev could recall some words in the passage, but they made no sense to him.

  • A couple of days later, Gurudev’s youngest son, Rajendra, brought home an old dog-eared book. While walking home from school, the young boy felt a strange urge to pick up the book when he noticed it lying abandoned in a cobbler’s shop by the roadside. As Gurudev turned the pages of the book with no particular interest, he was jolted to attention when he noticed a passage in one of the pages. It was the same passage that he was shown in the dream.

  • He read the book over and again for a few days, but couldn’t fathom what it was about. All he could gather was that the book, meant for children, was illustrated with pictures to explain to them in simple terms the Christian faith.


Though the dream remained a puzzle for him, Gurudev began experiencing a new calm. He returned to Bikaner from Palana, where he had taken a refuge following his turmoil-ridden phase, reported back to work and resumed normal duties in the office. Strangely, no one took any serious objection to his long unofficial absence from work, which would have normally led to his being fired from the job. It was as if he had never deserted his job at all. This was two years after he had first prayed at the Samadhi of his Guru Baba Gangainathji.


Biblical Predictions


Once back in Bikaner, Gurudev asked around in his social circle if Christians followed any holy book like the Hindus did the Bhagwat Geeta. It was then that he learnt about the Bible. He was told the passage from the holy book, which was shown to him in the vision, formed a part of the gospels in the Bible written by St. John, and that what he had seen in the dream were chapters – 15:26-27 and 16:7-15.
  • Later a friend, who had taken a short course in the Bible to familiarize himself with the holy book, presented Gurudev with a Hindi version in a booklet form. Reading the booklet gave Gurudev some idea about Christianity.

  • He managed to borrow a copy of the Bible from a friend who was a lecturer in a local law college. Reading the Bible in English didn’t prove to be of any help either; he didn’t find the passage he was looking for. Giving up, Gurudev returned the book and dropped the subject once again, thinking it was the end of the episode. But that was not to be.

  • The inner urge returned now with greater intensity. Making queries once again, he learned something that surprised him; Christianity was divided among many sects, two main among them being Catholics and Protestants. While the Bible he had read earlier was followed by Catholics, the one followed by Protestants contained the passage from St. John’s Gospels that he was shown in the dream.

  • With Baba’s blessings, Gurudev did manage to get a copy of the Protestant Bible and read the Gospel that he was being constantly goaded to. The relevant part of Gospels contained a prophesy made by none other than Jesus himself of the advent of the Comforter, who, He prophesied, would save only the truly faithful from certain death while the rest of humanity faced terrible divine retribution in a global calamity brought on by war and famine in the 21st century!


Gurudev was to learn later that the Old Testament, the first part of the Bible that Jewish people follow, contains similar prophesies made by prophet Malachi about the advent of the Messiah, whom He describes as E-li’jah. Reading prophesies from the Holy book followed by both the Christians and Jewish people made Gurudev realize that they were somehow linked to the preaching offered by Lord Krishna in the Geeta thousands of years ago that preceded Christianity and Judaism.


Assuming the role of a Siddha Guru


Reading further about what the Comforter is prophesied to do convinced Gurudev that somehow he had a role to play in the realization of these prophesies through the inner Yoga that he was learning during deep meditation since the Navratri incident.
  • During meditation, since his return to Bikaner and resuming the office work, Gurudev received an Aadesh (command) from Baba Shri Gangainathji Yogi that he should quit his job and dedicate himself fully to the spiritual mission entrusted to him. Gurudev quit his job through voluntary retirement on June 30, 1986, nearly seven years before reaching his superannuation age.

  • Gurudev was to comment later, “I was serving the railways earlier; now I am serving my Guru. This is a lifelong job that I can never quit. I have left the worries of the material needs for my family entirely to Him. I am my Guru’s faithful servant; whatever I may gain or lose in this mission will be according to His wish.”

Baba also conferred Gurudom on Guru Siyag and directed him to initiate people into Siddha Yoga as his disciples. Gurudev started initiating people into Siddha Yoga from 1990 through Diksha programs initially in Jodhpur and a few other cities in Rajasthan.
  • Those who came to Gurudev and became his disciples, experienced an amazing positive change in their lives; they found their diseases/ chronic ailments cured, and felt spiritual awakening through chanting of the divine mantra that Gurudev gave them during these programs and the meditation they did along with the chanting.

  • As word about Gurudev’s unique Siddha Yoga and healing powers spread like wild fire, Gurudev was invited to other cities and towns to conduct Diksha programs.


Gurudev then traveled to different cities in India and also to Israel and the United States of America and put thousands of people on to the path of Spiritual Evolution and good health. However, Gurudev said that until the people in the western hemisphere join the spiritual path that Baba Gangainathji has shown, there will be no real peace and prosperity in the world.

Spiritualism of the East needs to join hands with the materialism of the West, without which the world will never see the end of conflicts and discord. It is this spiritual union of East and West that I have set out to accomplish to usher in lasting peace in the world.

- Gurudev Siyag


Gurudev left this world on June 5, 2017. (On Nirjala Ekadashi as per Hindu Calendar)

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