Lesson 154 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Who Were Kadaitswami and Chellappan?

ŚLOKA 154
Kadaitswami was a dynamic satguru who revived Śaivism in Catholic-dominated Jaffna, Sri Lanka, in the 1800 s. Chellappaswami was an ardent sage, ablaze with God consciousness, immersed in divine soliloquy. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Kadaitswami was a powerful siddha, standing two meters tall, whose fiery marketplace talks converted thousands back to Śaivism. It is said he was a high court judge who refused to confer the death penalty and renounced his career at middle age to become a sannyāsin. Directed by his satguru to be a worker of miracles, he performed siddhis that are talked about to this day—turning iron to gold, drinking molten wax, disappearing and appearing elsewhere. Chellappaswami, initiated at age nineteen, lived alone in the teradi at Nallur temple. Absorbed in the inner Self, recognizing no duality, he uttered advaitic axioms in constant refrain: “There is no intrinsic evil. It was all finished long ago. All that is, is Truth. We know not!” The Natchintanai says, “Laughing, Chellappan roams in Nallur’s precincts. Appearing like a man possessed, he scorns all outward show. Dark is his body; his only garment, rags. Now all my sins have gone, for he has burnt them up! Always repeating something softly to himself, he will impart the blessing of true life to anyone who ventures to come near him. And he has made a temple of my mind.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 154 – Living with Śiva

Posted on by Himalayan Academy
Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Striving for Teamwork

The mother-in-law has much to offer. A strong, kindly mother-in-law will see that divorce does not happen for her son by helping to hold the family together. A strong, loving mother-in-law will see that an untrained wife becomes trained in various household skills and the human arts of nurturing and education. A strong, understanding mother-in-law will care for the children and give occasional rest and freedom to the busy young homemaker. The mother-in-law is a precious artifact. Whatever her qualities are, likeable or unlikeable, they are also the qualities of the son, since she raised him. She is a library of useful knowledge for the young bride. If the young homemaker takes the attitude that she is in school and the mother-in-law is her teacher, and adopts that relationship, then it will be a positive learning experience for the daughter-in-law, and she will become a better, more accomplished, more refined person as positive qualities awaken in her. The mother-in law teaches the ins and outs of the whole family, and if there are dozens of members of the extended family, there is a lot to share and know. She should listen carefully.

Many families are not patient and persistent enough to bring about harmony in the home. Often they resort to splitting apart. When the mother-in-law living with her son and daughter-in-law is not kindly, loving or understanding, one common solution that works when the going gets tough for the bride is for the son to get an apartment for himself and his wife next door to his mother and father’s home, or at least not too far away. After the first baby is born, mom-in-law may soften.

Another solution is a condominium with members of the extended family living in separate apartments in the same building. This happens in many parts of the world where ancestral compounds provide closeness, but also separateness. Within this independence enjoyed by each nuclear family, there is yet a valuable dependence on the extended family as a support in marriage, crises, births and deaths. Here, without too strict a rein, the elderly mother may reign supreme. Honor her, respect her when she visits and realize that each in turn may be a mother-in-law or father-in-law one day. Thus we set a new karmic pattern in families where Eastern values and those of the West merge for a happy elderly experience among Hindus in today’s world. With this in mind, shall our motto now be “Old and gray and here to stay”?

Still, we must admit that to move across town to avoid the mother-in-law is to cause new karmas to be worked out in a future birth. To conquer the home situation in love and trust leads us to deepen our religious commitments through sādhana, to quell the flames of fight within us. When this is done, a better person emerges. The family dharma is a very important part of Hinduism today. We must reaffirm that we are born into a family to merge our prārabdha karmas with those of others and endeavor to work them out with all family members.

It is best to take a positive attitude. Mothers-in-law are not going to go away. They have always been with us; they will always be with us. Many, if not most, are not going to adjust to being retrained. Most will have a hard time accepting suggestions or hearing about a better way of doing things. They are who they are. If the wife receives pleasure from her husband, simultaneously she can bless his mother for bringing him into a physical body. Let’s be kindly. Let’s be tolerant. Let’s be accepting. Let’s be nice to the aged. Let’s work out issues at the daily family meeting as they come up. If all else fails and the situation becomes unbearable, let’s get an apartment a few minutes away, and treat Mom as an honored guest when she comes to visit, which will probably be twice a day.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 154: NEVER BENDING TO PEER PRESSURE
Śiva’s adolescent followers hold their own among their peers and are leaders. To bend to peer pressure and offend the dharma shows weakness of character and parental neglect. Nothing but shame can follow. Aum.

Lesson 154 – Merging with Śiva

Posted on by Himalayan Academy
Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Exiting the Āṇava Mārga

Āṇava still exists in the other mārgas, but it diminishes. It first starts out as “I’ll do it all myself. I need no one to help me.” Fulfillment comes through fulfilling each individual desire. Self-preservation is a very important part of the personal ego. But then, later, as progressive steps are taken, spiritual identity fulfills the emptiness, as water fills up a container. Only at the moment that mukti occurs does the container vanish. Until then the āṇava is like smoldering coals in a burnt-out fire. New wood can be thrown upon them. They can be fanned up. Detractors to a spiritual movement will often try to reawaken the āṇava of its leader and kill out the rival movement by creating his downfall.

Āṇava comes strongly to the Hindu when not living up to Hindu Dharma, when not performing sādhana, when there is no desire for mukti. When he has a fatalistic view of karma, when his Sanātana Dharma does not include pilgrimage once a year, daily reading of scripture, home pūjā, temple worship, when he is overly involved in the acquisition of wealth, ignoring all the other goals of life—we have here the makings of a fine āṇava mārgī. Being overly involved with personal pleasures, kāma, neglecting artha, not understanding karma, we have the makings of a wonderful āṇava mārgī. Being overly involved in dharma or the desire for mukti, we have here the makings of a wonderful karma yogī, bhakti yogī, rāja yogī, jñāna yogī. The normal Hindu needs a normal balance of all the goals. It is no accident that the Hindu sages can understand the āṇava within man. Yes, of course, they passed through it themselves and are just tapping their own memory patterns, seeing the actions of others and knowing the outcome.

As the soul leaves the āṇava mārga and enters the charyā path, a budding love begins to unfold. He is now conscious in the mūlādhāra chakra, looking out through the window of memory and reason at the world around him. His personal ego, which had until recently been well placed on the āṇava mārga, is feeling bruised. It now has to deal with some very real challenges—loving one’s country, loving the world, family, friends. The charyā mārga brings him into penance, which eventually brings him into sādhana, which is regulated penance. Without sādhana, penance tends to be spontaneous, erratic; whereas consistent sādhana is the regulation of penance. Now the soul begins dropping off the bonds of karma, māyā and āṇava as it unfolds into bhakti, love. This is true Śaiva Siddhānta. All this is not without being a painful process. Therefore, the protective mechanism of fear, which in itself is an avoidance process, is right there to help—in the chakra just below the mūlādhāra. The presence or absence of spiritual surrender and willingness to serve shows whether a person is on the āṇava mārga or on the charyā mārga. Devotees on the charyā mārga are striving to unfold spiritually and reach the kriyā mārga. People on the āṇava mārga are not striving at all. They are their own self-appointed teachers and proceed at their own pace. When we are on the charyā mārga, we have a lot of help from family, friends and our entire religious community. When we are on the kriyā mārga, the entire Hindu community, the elders and others all get behind us to help us along our way. Then when we are finally on the yoga mārga, we have all the saptha ṛishis helping us. The satgurus are helping, too, and all three million swāmīs and sādhus in the world are helping us along the path at this stage. When we have entered the jñāna mārga, we are bringing forth new knowledge, giving forth blessings and meeting the karmas that unwind until mukti.

Lesson 153 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Who Were the Early Kailāsa Preceptors?

ŚLOKA 153
Among its ancient gurus, the Kailāsa Paramparā honors the illustrious Rishi Tirumular and his generations of successors. In recent history we especially revere the silent siddha called “Rishi from the Himalayas.” Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Having achieved perfect enlightenment and the eight siddhis at the feet of Maharishi Nandinatha in the Himalayas, Rishi Tirumular was sent by his satguru to revive Śaiva Siddhānta in the South of India. Finally, he reached Tiruvavaduthurai, where, in the Tamil language, he recorded the truths of the Śaiva Āgamas and the precious Vedas in the Tirumantiram, a book of over 3,000 esoteric verses. Through the centuries, the Kailāsa mantle was passed from one siddha yogī to the next. Among these luminaries was the nameless Rishi from the Himalayas, who in the 1700s entered a teashop in a village near Bangalore, sat down and entered into deep samādhi. He did not move for seven years, nor did he speak. Streams of devotees came for his darśana. Their unspoken prayers and questions were mysteriously answered in dreams or in written, paper messages that manifested in the air and floated down. Then one day Rishi left the village, later to pass his power to Kadaitswami. The Tirumantiram expounds, “With Nandi’s grace I sought the primal cause. With Nandi’s grace I Sadāśiva became. With Nandi’s grace truth divine I attained.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 153 – Living with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Mothers-In-Law

When devotees speak with me of their experiences with family togetherness, the mother-in-law is a common concern. Mothers-in-law on both sides are often even the cause of separation or divorce. They often have the attitude, “This girl is not good enough for my son,” or “This boy is not good enough for my daughter.” That constant harassment—emotional harassment, mental harassment and even physical harassment—can cause the couple to separate, just for their own peace of mind. When we are asked to ascertain astrological compatibility for marriage, we not only check the compatibility between the boy and the girl, but also between the girl and the boy’s mother.

It is important to be aware that all mothers-in-law of the world—and every daughter may eventually be one—have their own insecurities in giving sons and daughters over to a spouse they don’t know deeply. Social security and pension plans are relatively new, and only exist in certain parts of the world. In the absence of these, worries about the future naturally arise. Every society has evolved solutions to the in-law issue, mothers-in-law, fathers-in law, but in today’s world it’s even more difficult. Young people need to be aware of their needs, their feelings, their insecurities, and have compassion when behavioral patterns that are the by-products of insecurity show themselves, such as being overly dominant, proud, extremely critical and unrelenting. In America there is a sad saying, “Old and gray and in the way.” The solution used all too often is to put bothersome elders away in nursing homes, rest homes or “paradise retreats.”

The major focus of the problem is the authority of the mother-in-law and her occasional abuses. But consider also that in modern cultures the authority of elders is all too frequently usurped by both the son and the daughter-in-law, who then wield the power and make life-and-death decisions about their parents. The tables are turned. This causes an even greater instability. One has to ask which is the preferable culture—to allow the elderly to remain in charge of their lives and have a strong say and respect in the family or to deny their contribution and condemn them to a life of helplessness and dependence, which is what happens all too frequently in the West. Obviously, a harmonious balance is needed.

First of all, I suggest that the myth that mothers-in-law are unable to adjust or learn anything new should be thrown out. Second, I hold the husband, the mother-in-law’s son, totally responsible for bringing about harmony in the home so that his wife is happy and not at odds with his mother, and that his mother does not make his wife miserable. As in all family conflicts, each incident must be resolved before sleep. Issues or problems can be put on an agenda, as described in our system of positive discipline, and brought up in a calm manner at the daily family meeting, just as is done nowadays by children in many school classrooms.

Anyone, including mothers-in-law, can change if they want to. A problem mom is a discouraged mom, just as a problem child is a discouraged child. A young bride told me her mother-in-law was totally transformed when she changed her attitude toward her, when she began to consider what it would be like to be in her place and looked for ways to win her love and trust. Without a single confrontation, a single harsh word, their relationship improved and they actually began enjoying each other and working together with enthusiasm.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 153: THE IDEAL YOUTH-PARENT RELATIONSHIP
Śiva’s young adult followers esteem their mother and father. In respecting their parents, they respect themselves and keep the doors open to parental aid and advice on the churning sea of adolescent experience. Aum.

Lesson 153 – Merging with Śiva

Posted on by Himalayan Academy
Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Bound to The Path

A powerful businessman, a bum on the street, a highly educated scientist and the uneducated field worker could all be sharing the āṇava mārga. It is a path of gratification of the ego, or the gratification of other persons’ egos. These days egos get gratified by going to heads of corporations, meeting important people and bowing before heads of state. It is on the charyā mārga that we learn that rich and poor, the powerful and lowly are all purushas, pure souls, jīvas encompassed in a physical body. And on this mārga we learn to bow before God and the Gods. We learn that their home, their officiating place, is the temple, the home shrine and under sacred trees. Being in their presence makes the charyā mārgī feel small. The first glimmer of the feeling of smallness is the first footstep on the charyā mārga.

Those who are not successful in life yet, and experience the repercussion of karmas of past lives denying them things, experiences, security and wealth, are the ruthless āṇava mārgīs. For those who have fulfilled their dharmas, and desire has waned for more—they don’t need more money, they don’t need more food, they don’t need more houses, they don’t need more respect—the āṇava wanes of its own accord, like an old leaf on a tree turns color and falls to the ground. They enter the charyā mārga and kriyā mārga with matured respect and humility.

The one who has little desires the most. He takes issues with the smallest things. The instinctive desire to save face is ever prevalent in his mind, for his face is all he’s got. He doesn’t have anything more. The rich and āṇavically powerful can buy new things, and when something goes wrong in life, change their image by retreating into their money, place, prestige and come out anew. Those full of āṇava who have satisfied, put to rest, the many desires of life, entering the charyā, kriyā and yoga mārgas gain a new spiritual face, a light in the eye and become looked up to even more than they were when they were sought out for donations for worthy causes.

Even the jīvanmukta doesn’t like unjust criticisms, but he is bound by his wisdom to nondefensiveness, just, unjust, true or false. “Let them say what they have to say, and if it affects me, it is helping me on the way to my final mukti.” He would bless them for that. The āṇava mārgī is not like people on the other mārgas, who have mixed feelings about these issues. The āṇava mārgī is a prefect in retaliation. That comes as one of the powers or boons of living on this mārga, along with deception and the ability to lie one’s way out of a situation. And to save face, place and position, no matter how lowly they might seem, is the goal of life for the āṇava mārgī. So, one should never drive the yoga mārgīs, kriyā mārgīs back to the āṇava mārga, because they would maintain their higher vision and be masters of the art and win at every turn. They should be left alone to pursue their goals.

In the Śaiva Siddhānta system of understanding, the progressive mārgas define the unfoldment of the individual soul, or the awakening of the chakras. When one comes to the temple because he wants to, has to and needs to live near one, he is on the kriyā mārga. This does not mean the āṇava mārga has not gone away or he has lost his personal identity. There is a little of the āṇava always with us right up to the moment of mukti. The āṇava presides through the fourteen chakras, but is most expressive before the awakening of the knowledge of the Gods and their abilities as helpmates to spiritual unfoldment. You don’t get off the āṇava mārga. Individual ego slowly diminishes as the soul unfolds from mārga to mārga. Nandi the bull represents the ego, personal identity, and in a large traditional Hindu temple, we see many images of Nandi, getting progressively smaller as we approach the innermost sanctum. This indicates the soul’s progression toward God or the diminishing ego.

Lesson 152 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

What Is the Lofty Kailāsa Paramparā?

ŚLOKA 152
The Kailāsa Paramparā is a millennia-old guru lineage of the Nandinātha Sampradāya. In this century it was embodied by Sage Yogaswami, who ordained me in Sri Lanka in 1949 to carry on the venerable tradition. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
The authenticity of Hindu teachings is perpetuated by lineages, paramparā, passed from gurus to their successors through ordination. The Kailāsa Paramparā extends back to, and far beyond, Maharishi Nandinatha and his eight disciples—Sanatkumara, Sanakar, Sanadanar, Sananthanar, Sivayogamuni, Patanjali, Vyaghrapada and Tirumular. This succession of siddha yoga adepts flourishes today in many streams, most notably in the Śaiva Siddhānta of South India. Our branch of this paramparā is the line of Rishi Tirumular (ca 200 bce), of which the first known satguru in recent history was the Rishi from the Himalayas (ca 1770–1840). From him the power was passed to Siddha Kadaitswami of Bangalore (1804–1891), then to Satguru Chellappaswami (1840–1915), then to Sage Yogaswami (1872–1964) of Sri Lanka, and finally to myself, Sivaya Subramuniyaswami (1927–). The Tirumantiram states, “Thus expounding, I bore His word down Kailāsa’s unchanging path—the word of Him, the eternal, the truth effulgent, the limitless great, Nandinatha, the joyous one, He of the blissful dance that all impurity dispels.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 152 – Living with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

What Is Real Prosperity?

A spiritual vibration in the home can be initiated or renewed by having a priest come and perform a purification ceremony. That makes the prāṇas flow correctly in the home, which when carried out to the community make you a full person. Another key is to have Monday evenings at home. Monday home evening is practiced by many religions, including the Hindus. On Monday evening, Śiva’s day, the family members get together, prepare a wonderful meal, play games together and verbally appreciate one another’s good qualities. It’s an evening when the television is not turned on. They don’t solve any problems on that day. They just love each other, and everybody has a voice, from the littlest child to the oldest senior. It’s a family togetherness, one day a week when everyone will look forward to having mom and dad at home. That doesn’t mean it will be on Tuesday or any other day if Monday is missed. Family home evening is always on Monday, and everyone’s life has to adjust to that.

Many families find even this is impossible because of their careers. Nowadays people think that they have to have two incomes, three incomes, to be comfortably well off. Money is gained and lost, sometimes rather quickly. As quickly gained, often as quickly lost. But what is wealth? Wealth is a diamond with many facets. One facet of wealth is money, but it is not the only one. A happy family that enjoys each other—that is a great wealth. Doing things together and enjoying doing things together is another great wealth. Rushing home to be with one another—if you can create that in your family, you are wealthy. Wealth is growing your own food, making your own furniture, sewing your own clothing, picking oranges off the tree the family planted together several years ago. Another great wealth is living within your income. Even multi-millionaires are poor if they do not live within their income and always worry about debts, payments and responsibilities. They often are very lonely people, because in all their efforts to gain those millions, they have had to sacrifice their family, their children and their own happiness. Many content themselves with building big multi-million dollar mansions—but to benefit whom? A gardener? Maybe a cook, a maid or two who get to live there all the time while the owners are traveling around the world, coming home late and leaving early. That’s not wealth. That’s also not wisdom. That’s a good way to die young.

To have a maid take care of the children while the parents both work and come home late is not a substitute for a mother; nor are grandparents, though they may be a better choice. A surrogate mother cannot replace a real mother and a real father for children growing up, because children model themselves more than you know upon what they see adults do, what they hear adults say to each other, what they feel adults are feeling. That shapes who they are and what they are going to do in their future. There is no substitute for a real mom and a real dad in a real home with a vibration of a family, the vibration of loving and the vibration of sharing. A mother’s place is in the home

What is a mother? A mother is a person who loves her children, who is calm, serene, doesn’t become angry, doesn’t become frustrated with children, realizing that a child goes through many stages of development. One must not expect a child to behave like an adult or expect too much of a child too early. A mother knows of all this intuitively; but for her intuitive mind to work, she has to be free from the worries of the outside world, of bills and bill collectors, of travel, of TV and various other concerns, so that she can raise up the next generation strong enough to meet the challenges of the impending new age of peace and prosperity for all mankind.

Now, if mothers beat their children, the children will beat other kids, and later on in life they will become warriors and fight all through life, emotionally, mentally, because they’re taught right in the home that solutions are reached through violent means. We don’t want that. That won’t bring in the New Age. That is bringing back the Old Age. Those methods of raising children have to go. A mother must be a real mother. For many, it’s not a popular idea for a mother to stay at home. During the Second World War in the United States, mothers left their homes and never went back, because they were needed in airplane factories and shipyards, as the men were all off to war. But before the Second World War and before the First World War, mothers remained home. Juvenile delinquency was not a phrase in anyone’s vocabulary. If a teenager made some mischief, the family was held responsible by the community. Such things were regulated in those days, but went out of balance when mother left home and never went back.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 152: BRINGING JOY TO THEIR PARENTS
Śiva’s young adult followers realize they have a debt to their parents for their birth, early raising and education, which they repay with obedience and affection, giving joy, practical assistance and satisfaction. Aum.

Lesson 152 – Merging with Śiva

Posted on by Himalayan Academy
Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

The Pernicious, Persistent Ego

Āṇava is one’s personal ego, his identity and place in the world and position on the planet. If his motives are proper and the position is earned on account of good deeds, it is not āṇava. But if, when praised, he takes credit for himself, it is āṇava. Āṇava is the tricky substance of the mind. It is behind every door, it’s peeking in every window. It is the first thing to come at birth and the last thing to go at death. To break the chain of āṇava, the yoking to the Infinite beyond comprehension in any state of mind must be complete and final. And yet, while a physical body is still maintained, the āṇava elf is still lurking in the shadows, saying “praise is better than blame, name must come into fame, and shame is to be avoided at all cost.” This is the āṇava routine. It keeps people held down on the planet in the instinctive-intellectual mind of remorse and forgiveness and suffering the adjustments to circumstance that occur beyond their power of understanding. A big gun that shoots the bullet of the depth of knowledge of karma, the second bullet, of the deep understanding of the perfect universal energies, and the third bullet, of the dharmic way of a balanced life, kills the āṇava and brings that purusha onto the charyā mārga, onto the path of the Gods, the hospital of the soul at that point. The final conquering of the tenacious āṇava is the final mahāsamādhi, when all three worlds sing, “Mukti has been attained,” the final goal of life that we on this planet know, merger with Śiva.

Because ignorance is all-pervasive, equally distributed throughout the world, one must leave the world and get a wise dome, wisdom, a wise head. He must transmute the energies from the solar plexus—nothing must affect him there—to his third eye, see into the past, see into the future, and with that seeing understand the present.

If we were to admit that there are really seven mārgas, we would find that charyā, kriyā, yoga and jñāna are progressive states of fullness, and the āṇava mārga, by comparison, is a static state of emptiness. This feeling of emptiness is a motivative, driving force of desire toward the attainment of the feeling of fullness. The feeling of fullness is the awakening of the higher chakras, of course. And the constant feeling of completeness is, of course, the permanent awakening of the sahasrāra chakra. The feeling of emptiness distinguishes the āṇava mārga from the other four mārgas, and this is why it is not included in Śaiva Siddhānta, but is not excluded either, because the āṇava mala is mentioned here and there and everywhere within the scriptures. For the sake of understanding individual ego in its struggles to be whole, we have delineated it as a path leading into charyā, kriyā, yoga and jñāna.

The path of the āṇava teaches us what to do and what not to do. It creates the karmas to be lived through and faced in many lives to come. And when dharma is finally accepted and understood and the religious patterns of life are encompassed in one’s own personal daily experience, then and only then do we see the end of this path in view. So, the āṇava mārga is definitely not a never-ending maze or a no-man’s land. Though a state of ignorance, it is still a state of experiential learning. All is leading, in evolution of the soul, to Sanātana Dharma.

Everything preceding charyā is āṇava mārga. People try to fill their emptiness with things. They work so hard for their money, thinking, “Oh, when I can buy this object for my home I will feel fulfilled.” They buy it with their hard-earned money. A day or two later, after ownership has taken effect, the initial fulfillment of ownership wanes, and unfulfillment, which has always been there, takes over, with the accompanying desire for the next fulfillment, object, or in the case of the intellectual, the next idea, group of ideas or new sphere of knowledge. There is no fulfillment in the instinctive-intellectual mind. This is the way it is. This is the way it has always been, and always will be, too.

Lesson 151 – Dancing with Śiva

Posted on by Himalayan Academy
Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

What Is Hinduism’s Nātha Sampradāya?

ŚLOKA 151
The Nātha Sampradāya, “the masters’ way,” is the mystical fountainhead of Śaivism. The divine message of the eternal truths and how to succeed on the path to enlightenment are locked within the Nātha tradition. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Nātha means “lord or adept,” and sampradāya refers to a living theological tradition. The roots of this venerable heritage stretch back beyond recorded history, when awakened Nātha mystics worshiped the Lord of lords, Śiva, and in yogic contemplation experienced their identity in Him. The Nātha Sampradāya has revealed the search for the innermost divine Self, balanced by temple worship, fueled by kuṇḍalinī yoga, charted by monistic theism, illumined by a potent guru-śishya system, guided by soul-stirring scriptures and awakened by sādhana and tapas. Thus has it given mankind the mechanics for moving forward in evolution. Today two main Nātha streams are well known: the Nandinātha Sampradāya, made famous by Maharishi Nandinatha (ca 250BCE), and the Ādinātha Sampradāya, carried forth by Siddha Yogi Gorakshanatha (ca 900). Yea, there is infinitely more to know of the mysterious Nāthas. The Tirumantiram states, “My peerless satguru, Nandinatha, of Śaivam honored high, showed us a holy path for soul’s redemption. It is Śiva’s divine path, San Mārga, for all the world to tread and forever be free.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.