His spiritual journey started at an early age when he was given the opportunity to study and perform intensive meditation under the guidance of various eminent meditation teachers. He studied in numerous places, including the Himalayas. He received training in sounds and mantras, as well as astrology, numerology, Ayurveda and other healing arts. He received a very thorough initiation into the teachings of the Tamil Siddhas, and the blessings to widely share the secrets of this lineage with the world for the first time.

The Tamil Siddhas are an illustrious and esoteric lineage of enlightened Indian saints who have been passing on enlightened teachings for thousands of years. Some of these better-known saints include Babaji and Agastiya. Traditionally the Tamil Siddhas taught only to small circles of selected students. These teachings will now help many people change their consciousness and the quality of their lives.

Schooling Years
Baba's goal was to find a blend of the spiritual and mundane that enabled each "world" to contribute to and support the other. He knew that in order to be able to help people in the modern world, he needed to directly understand the issues and problems that they faced every day.

Alongside his mystic education, Baba pursued his secular education. He became a Research Fellow at the University of Madurai in India. There he earned a Master's Degree in English literature and a Master of Letters in Comparative literature. In 1983, he came to the United States and began graduate level studies that earned him a PhD in Religious Studies from the University of Pittsburgh.

While at the University of Pittsburgh, he served as coordinator of Indian Studies within the Asian Studies Program and taught several courses on Buddhist meditation and other Buddhist topics. His teaching was so popular with the students that there was often a waiting list for his classes.

When not teaching, Baba's specialty was research on how to integrate religious phenomena with modern science. He trained in neuropsychology to help him interpret traditional yogic and tantric wisdoms as they relate to psychobiology.

He also served as an editor for the Encyclopedia of Hinduism.

Sharing The Wisdom
For more than two decades, Baba has been teaching people around the world how to change their consciousness and have more joy and prosperity. To help even more people, Baba taught Dr. Wayne Dyer the "ah" meditation and instructed him to share it with the world. Dr. Dyer first did so through his best-selling book "Manifest Your Destiny", and continues to do so in his teachings so more people can more easily manifest their dreams.

For more than two decades, Baba has also been actively involved in the study of Siddha and Ayurveda herbs for healing purposes. He has sponsored several scientific conferences in Siddha medicine. Later in 2005, he will unveil a set of free educational seminars on how Siddha medicine and meditation, combined with standard medical care, can ease the suffering of AIDS patients.

Baba has privately consulted many leading industrialists and entrepreneurs in their business development and leadership skills over the years. He is currently heading several business projects and is a very hands-on, practical businessman in the computer field with an office in the Silicon Alley section of Manhattan.

In addition, Baba has presented at numerous conferences and shared panels at many universities with Nobel Prize laureates, including Eugene Wigner, of Princeton University. He was invited by and attended the United Nations World Religions conference, where he spoke on Hinduism.

Further Compassion
Baba's goal is to enable every human being to receive the basics to live and to enjoy a sense of dignity and self-worth. To this end, he created Tripura Foundation, a non-profit organization through which he has performed extensive good-will charity work.

Some of Baba's projects through Tripura Foundation include:

• Hunger Project
• Boystown Project
• Girlstown Project
• Mind-Sound Technology (TM) (Sounds for Hope is the non-profit division)
• Bhairava Initiative

Past Lives
For more than a decade, hundreds of Nadi leaf readings have identified Dattatreya Siva Baba as the reincarnation of four great saints from ancient India:

(1) Agastiya, also known as Agastya and Agastyar. The foremost Siddha and author of the Tamil language, as well as countless texts on astrology, alchemy, mantras, sastras, and medicine;

(2) Bhismacharya, also known as Bhisma. The unbeatable warrior and well-respected teacher of martial arts during the period of the epic Mahabharata;

(3) Manikavacakar, an illustrious Tamil Saint who wrote several masterpieces of devotional lyrics on Lord Siva before dissolving into light and;

(4) Swami Ramalingam (Vallalar) - an enlightened Indian saint in southern India who was graced with a light body and continued teaching until 1874 when he dissolved completely into light.

Agastya was a teacher of Babaji, whose lineage through Lahiri Mahasaya and Sri Yukteswar led to Paramahansa Yogananda. Yogananda was an enlightened teacher who came from India to the United States in the early 1900s and whose book "Autobiography of a Yogi" is well-loved by many. More stories about Agastiya and Swami Ramalingam can be found in a more recent book "Babaji and the 18 Siddha Kriya Yoga Tradition" by M. Govindan.