Baba Hari Dass

Who is Baba Hari Dass?

Baba Hari Dass was born in 1923 near Almora, India. He is a silent monk and guru who was classically trained in the tradition of Ashtanga Yoga. He has maintained a continual vow of silence since 1952. He and his teachings have inspired the Mount Madonna Center and Mount Madonna Institute near Santa Cruz, California, The Salt Spring Centre in British Columbia and the Sri Ram Ashram in Haridwar, India. Baba Hari Dass was initiated into the Vairagi Vaishnava order in 1942 by Baba Raghubar Dassji Maharaj, a renunciate and Sanskrit scholar.

Baba Hari Dass first came to the attention of the West in the book by Baba Ram Dass, Be Here Now. Ram Dass' Guru, Maharaj-ji, AKA Neem Karoli Baba, instructed Ram Dass to receive teachings from Baba Hari Dass, who taught Ram Dass Ashtanga Yoga using only a chalkboard.

Baba Hari Dass agreed to mentor his pregnant student Jeannine Parvati through a course of prenatal Yoga, and supported her desire to continue practicing asanas, despite traditional male yogic proscriptions against it. From this, the first book in the Western world on the subject, Prenatal Yoga & Natural Childbirth was published in 1974.