Chapter 2§
Spiritual Lineage
गुरुपरम्परा
ENEVOLENT MEN WHO WROTE THE KAṬHA UPANISHAD THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO ADVISED SEEKERS TO “ARISE, AWAKE, APPROACH THE GREAT BEINGS AND KNOW THE TRUTH!” IT IS A UNIVERSAL IMPERATIVE—THE NEED TO KNOW THE TRUTH WITHIN EXISTENCE, THE REALITY BENEATH THE APPEARANCE, THE IMMORTAL WHICH GIVES MEANING TO OUR MORTALITY. THE WAY TO THIS TRUTH, RECURRING IN EVERY AGE AND CULTURE, STILL EXISTS TODAY.§
36 ¶It is a dynamic tradition, carrying the same force and power for contemporary pathfinders as it did for the seekers and disciples of the dim past. It is called the Sanātana Dharma, the “Eternal Path,” for it never dies. It is coexistent with man’s inquiry after the Real. The most powerful traditions all have a living master, a knower of What Is, an awakened soul. He provides a potency, an ability to make the journey one of personal experience far greater than any philosophy, any dogma, any religious history or institution. One such venerable spiritual tradition is the Nandinātha Sampradāya’s Kailāsa Paramparā.§
The Masters In our Kailāsa Lineage§
37 ¶The first of these masters that history recalls was Mahārishi Nandinātha (or Nandikeśvara) 2,250 years ago, satguru to the great Tirumular, ca 200 BCE, and seven other disciples, as stated in the Tirumantiram: Patañjali, Vyāghrapāda, Sanatkumāra, Śivayogamuni, Sanakar, Sanadanar and Sananthanar. Tirumular had seven disciples: Malaṅgam, Indiran, Soman, Brahman, Rudran, Kalaṅga and Kañjamalayam, each of whom established one or more monasteries and propagated the Āgamic lore. In the line of Kalaṅga came the sages Ṛighama, Māligaideva, Nādāntar, Bhogadeva and Paramānanda. The lineage continued down the centuries and is alive today—the first recently known siddha being the Ṛishi from the Himālayas, so named because he descended from those holy mountains. In South India, he initiated Kadaitswāmī (1804–1891), who in turn initiated Chellappaswāmī (1840–1915). Sage Chellappan passed the mantle of authority to Sage Yogaswāmī (1872–1964), who in 1949 initiated me as the current satguru, invested with the spiritual power and mantle of authority for the Kailāsa Paramparā, in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, on the full moon day in May, 1949, when I was 22 years of age. §
Miraculous Seers, Men Of God§
38 ¶The beings in this lineage are not conventional saints or typical yogīs. Technically, they are called Śaiva siddhas, which means followers of Śiva who have attained the highest knowledge and perfection. It is said that such men hold Truth in the palm of their hand, that they can do anything at will—turn iron into gold, heal the sick, raise the dead, see into the future, change lives and talk with the Gods. Many are the stories told by the still-living disciples of this satguru lineage, those who saw the miracles first-hand through tears of wonderment and awe. Such powers sometimes became an obstacle when devotees came to these siddhas for the lesser magic rather than for God Consciousness. So the masters “hid themselves” beneath unassuming white robes and stern ways. It helped. But these were luminous beings, engulfed in the Clear White Light, Satchidānanda, day and night. Who can hide such radiance for long? People still came. The most ardent drew near, and the teachings were passed from one to the next over the centuries. Not in classes or seminars. In the old way, by word of mouth, by the preceptor’s testing the disciple, preparing the disciple, guiding the disciple in daily context and in dreams. Such men can shake the seeker’s mind loose from its shackles, arouse awareness from the slumber of so many births and turn questions like “Who am I?” into proclamations of “I am That.” This the gurus of the Kailāsa Paramparā did. Here now is a glimpse of five of these great souls and the God-centered nondualism they taught. §
Mystic Ṛishi From the Himālayas§
39 ¶One afternoon sometime in the mid-1800s a white-haired man happened into a tea shop near Bangalore in central South India. He was a stranger, probably from the Himālayan crown of India. He sat at a wooden table and took his tea. When the time came for the shop to close, the owner found the man had entered a state of contemplation so complete that he could not be aroused. Besides, it is considered improper to disturb a meditator. So he was left alone. Opening the shop early the next day, the shopkeeper discovered the yogi seated in perfect stillness, filling the room with a palpable sanctity. He did not move from that spot for seven years, nor did he speak. The shop closed. Villagers turned it into a shrine frequented by the crowds who wanted darśana, or “sight,” of this remarkable being. Many came with problems, the kind people everywhere have—a new job, grandmother’s health, daughter’s marriage. To their amazement, answers always came. Sometimes in dreams. Sometimes a piece of paper would materialize in the air above the saint and float gently to the ground. On it would be written exactly what they needed. One day, as suddenly as he had come, the ṛishi emerged from his divine state, got up and left the shop, never to return. He was the first modern-day satguru in this lineage and is known as the “Ṛishi from the Himālayas.”§
Let us have concord with our own people, and concord with people who are strangers to us.
Aśvins, create between us and the strangers a unity of hearts.§
ATHARVA VEDA 7.52.1§
Kadaitswāmī Siddha from Bangalore§
40 ¶A few years later, farther south, a high court judge sat at the end of a trial, faced with the duty to pass a sentence of death on a convicted murderer. The man was guilty, but the judge refused to fatally condemn a fellow human being. Instead, he left the bench, quit the law and renounced the world. He became a wandering monk. In time he met the Ṛishi and was initiated into the inner teachings. Eventually he settled in Sri Lanka’s port city of Jaffna. It was around 1860. He had no home, no āśrama or yoga school. He could be found walking in the marketplace, speaking of man’s oneness with God Śiva and taking his meals with common folks. The people called him Kadaitswāmī, the “Marketplace Swāmī.” One day Kadaitswāmī was invited for lunch at the home of a devout but poor family. With little food in the house and not wanting to offend a great soul, the wife did the unthinkable—she sold her cherished gold wedding necklace to buy provisions. When the meal was finished, the swāmī asked her to bring a piece of iron. A rusty old rod was found. Kadaitswāmī took it aside, spat on it and handed it back. It had turned to gold! The family became wealthy coconut oil merchants, though it is said they never sold the golden rod. §
The Austere Sage Chellappaswāmī§
41 ¶The next satguru in this tradition was called Chellappaswāmī (1840–1915). Chellappan means “wealthy father.” Except in a spiritual sense, he was anything but rich. In fact, most thought him a vagrant, and mad in the bargain. He wore disheveled clothing and preferred to be alone. At age nineteen, Chellappan was initiated by Kadaitswāmī. Thereafter he camped on the steps of Jaffna’s now famous Nallur Temple—that is when he was not walking the country roads, which he did frequently and energetically. Chellappaswāmī spoke of God only in the first person, oblivious of duality, never admitting that there was “another.” He would puzzle passersby by asking questions like “Did you know that I am the King of kings?” “Did anyone tell you that all the money in all the banks in the world is mine?” Chellappaswāmī was strict with himself, especially about food. He cooked his own meals—simple affairs of boiled rice and dal. His favorite curry was eggplant, for which he would sometimes walk ten miles to the market to get fresh and ten miles back. Never would he allow base desire to well up. If it did, if his mouth would so much as water at the smell of a hard-earned curry, he would chide himself, “So, you want this tasty food that much, do you?” Laughing aloud he would pick up the clay cooking pots and break them on the ground. Then he would meditate on greater things as the crows loudly shared the scattered food. §
Yogaswāmī, The Master Of Sri Lanka§
42 ¶One morning a pilgrim was walking by the temple where Chellappaswāmī lived. Suddenly, the sage laughed, calling out, “Just who do you think you are?” It was a seemingly innocuous query, but somehow it went deep into the heart, then deeper and deeper. Later the 35-year-old man left all worldly life and joined Chellappan as his disciple. This was Sage Yogaswāmī (1872–1964), who wrote many verses recounting that meeting: “I saw my guru at Nallur Temple. ‘Hey! Who are you?’ he challenged me. I saw darkness all-surrounding and could not comprehend his meaning. As I stood perplexed, he looked at me with kindness, and the māyā that was tormenting me left and disappeared. He pointed above my head, and I lost all consciousness of body and stood there in amazement. He then spoke of the essence of Vedānta, that my fear might vanish. ‘It is as it is. Who knows? Grasp well the meaning of these words,’ said he. Everything disappeared and by the grace of my guru, who has no one to compare with him, I remained still, with no one to compare with me.” §
A Short Sketch About Me, By My Monks§
43 ¶In 1947 a 20-year-old American sailed from San Francisco to Bombay in search of his guru. His cabin on the ship was directly over the engine room. It was his habit to meditate long hours each day alone in his room. One morning his contemplation was particularly deep, and as he returned to normal consciousness the mechanical roar of the engines became annoying, then grating, then unbearable. In his mind he spontaneously commanded the noise to “Stop!” The engines immediately halted, and the ship drifted quietly for two days before the voyage was resumed. Arriving in India, the youth traveled south by train. Crossing the straits to Sri Lanka, he found himself among Buddhist and Hindu mystics. His urge to realize God fully grew irresistibly intense. Entering the dense jungles southeast of Colombo, he settled in the famed Caves of Jalani, vowing to fast and meditate until he attained the ultimate illumination. An Islamic mystic from a nearby mosque observed the young man disciplining himself and growing thinner as he meditated longer and longer. One day the Muslim was amazed to see a giant snake slither across the lap of the yogī, who had lost body consciousness. Finally, the youth broke through the various wheels of consciousness, or chakras, into full enlightenment, beyond time, beyond form, beyond space. Months later, the youth was taken to Sage Yogaswāmī’s humble hut in the North. The 77-year-old Yogaswāmī named him Subramuniya, “silent teacher of light” and initiated him into the famed mantra Namaḥ Śivāya. Later, on the full-moon day in May, 1949, his satguru initiated Subramuniya into the holy orders of sannyāsa and with a forceful slap on the back commanded him to carry the ancient Nātha teachings back to the West. The event was acclaimed a coronation by all who witnessed. Yogaswāmī left his earthly body, attaining māhasamādhi, in Sri Lanka, on March 24, 1964. §
O self-luminous Divine, remove the veil of ignorance from before me, that I may behold your light. Reveal to me the spirit of the scriptures. May the truth of the scriptures be ever present to me. May I seek day and night to realize what I learn from the sages.§
ṚIG VEDA AITAREYA U INV. UPP, 95§
Our Greatest Siddhi: to Change Lives§
44 ¶Sivaya Subramuniyaswami is now the living successor of the venerable sage and the satguru of the Tamil Śaivite Hindu people of Sri Lanka, who now reside in many countries of the world. He lives on a remote Hawaiian island where he has built a Śaivite monastery-temple complex. Here, in 1995, his eleven swāmīs and numerous other monks work full-time to strengthen all four sects of Hinduism. Gurudeva, as he is affectionately known, personally guides the spiritual life of each devotee, dedicated souls who have set upon the traditional inner path, and seek—as he and his guru and his guru’s guru once did—to know thy Self and see God everywhere. His is the greatest magic of all—transforming people’s lives through changing their consciousness. Gurudeva publishes the international news journal HINDUISM TODAY, printed or distributed each month in nearly a dozen nations. His discourses have inspired many books and courses, most importantly Dancing with Śiva, Hinduism’s Contemporary Catechism—a 1,008-page illustrated sourcebook safeguarding India’s timeless ways and wisdom, and The Master Course, Part One of which is Śaivite Hindu Religion, a graded course for children age 7 to 15. In 1986, New Delhi’s World Council of Religion named him one of five modern-day Jagadāchāryas, world teachers, for his international efforts in promoting a Hindu renaissance for half a century. The Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders for Human Survival chose Subramuniyaswami as a Hindu representative at its remarkable conferences. At Oxford in 1988, Moscow in 1990 and Rio de Janiero in 1992, he joined religious, political and scientific leaders from all countries to discuss privately, for the first time in history, the future of human life on this planet. At Chicago’s historic centenary Parliament of the World’s Religions in September of 1993, Subramuniyaswami was elected as one of three presidents to represent Hinduism at the prestigious assembly of 25 men and women voicing the needs of world faiths.§
About the Following Chapter§
45 ¶Now we shall examine the beliefs, or articles of faith, of Śaiva Siddhānta Church, those convictions which define attitude and guide actions for its members. §
Perishable is matter. Immortal, imperishable the Lord, who, the One, controls the perishable and also the soul. Meditating on Him, uniting with Him, becoming more and more like Him, one is freed at the last from the world’s illusion. §
Kṛishṇa Yajur Veda, SvetU 1.10. VE, 762§
Realize the Self always to be neither above nor below, nor on either side, not without nor within, but to be eternal and shining beyond the sublime world.§
Sarvajñānottara Āgama, AtmaS. 50–51, RM, 109§
That which is neither conscious nor unconscious, which is invisible, impalpable, indefinable, unthinkable, unnameable, whose very essence consists of the experience of its own self, which absorbs all diversity, is tranquil and benign, without a second, which is what they call the fourth state—that is the ātman. This it is which should be known. §
Atharva Veda, MandU 7. VE, 723§
Subtlest of the subtle, greatest of the great, the ātman is hidden in the cave of the heart of all beings. He who, free from all urges, beholds Him overcomes sorrow, seeing by grace of the Creator, the Lord and His glory.§
Kṛishṇa Yajur Veda, SvetU 3.20. VE, 735§
On the emergence of spontaneous supreme knowledge occurs that state of movement in the vast unlimited expanse of consciousness which is Śiva’s state, the supreme state of Reality. §
Śiva Sūtras 2.5. YS, 99§
I am the Supreme Brahman! I am the Lord of the universe! Such is the settled conviction of the muktas. All other experiences lead to bondage. When the Self is clearly realized not to be the body, the realizer gains peace and becomes free from all desires.§
Devīkālottara Āgama, JAV 50–51. RM, 114§
When the Creator dances, the worlds He created dance. To the measure that He dances in our knowledge, our thoughts, too, dance. When He in heart endearing dances, the several elements, too, dance. Witness in rapture surpassing the dance of Him who is a glowing flame.§
Tirumantiram 2786. TM§
Just as light shines, dispelling darkness, so also the Supreme Self shines, dispelling ignorance. Just as a lamp spontaneously goes out if not fed with oil, so also the ego becomes extinct if one meditates unceasingly and becomes merged in the Self. There is no higher gain than the Self. §
Sarvajñānottara Āgama, AtmaS. 50–51, RM, 109§