Sustaining the Connection
A satguru doesn’t need a lot of words to transmit the spirit to another person; but the śishyas have to be open and be kept open. The little bit of spirit extends like a slender fiber, a thin thread, from the satguru to the śishya, and it is easily broken. A little bit more of that association adds another strand, and we have two threads, then three, then four. They are gradually woven together through service, and a substantial string develops between the guru and the śishya. More strings are created, and they are finally woven together into a rope strong enough to pull a cart. You’ve seen in India the huge, thick ropes that pull a temple chariot. That is the ultimate goal of the guru-śishya relationship.
Upon the connection between guru and śishya, the spirit of the paramparā travels, the spirit of the sampradāya travels. It causes the words that are said to sink deep. They don’t just bounce off the intellect; the message goes deep into the individual. Spiritual force doesn’t just happen. It’s a hand-me-down process, a process of transmission, just as the development of the human race didn’t just happen. It was a hand-me-down from many, many fathers and mothers and many, many reincarnations that brought us all here. Paramparā is a spiritual force that moves from one person to another. I am not talking about the modern idea of bestowing śakti power, where somebody gets a little jolt and pays a little money and that’s the end of the association with the teacher. Paramparā is like giving a devotee one end of a tiny silk thread. Now, if the devotee drops his end of the thread, the experiences are stopped and only words are left, just words, one word after another, another and another. The devotee then has to interpret the depth of the philosophy according to the depths of his inherent ignorance. What other measurement does he have? The relationship with the guru is a constant weaving in and out of one fiber of the thread added to another fiber, added to another fiber, added to another fiber, just like this khadi kavi robe we wear in our Order was woven. Each fiber is attached to another fiber, attached to another fiber, attached to another fiber, and finally we have a thread. Between the guru and śishya many threads are all woven together, and finally we have a firm rope that cannot be pulled apart or destroyed even by two people pulling against one another. That is sampradāya. That is paramparā. That is the magical power of the Nāthas.
As we look at this great line of satgurus—coming from Lord Śiva Himself through Nandinātha and countless ones before Nandinatha, to Rishi Tirumular and countless ṛishis after him to the Rishi of Bangalore, to Kadaitswami, Chellappaguru and Yogaswami—we see the same spiritual force flowing. We see an undaunted, rare succession of individuals who considered adversity as a boon from the Gods, wherein all the accumulated karmas to be wiped away come together in one place to be taken care of all at once. Nāthas don’t run from adversity; nor do they resent it. They take it within themselves in meditation and deal with it, dissolve it in the clear white light within themselves, every tiny little bit of it. They consider it a boon from the Gods that it all came at one time rather than strung out over a period of many years. The mysterious Nāthas have their own way of handling almost everything, and much of that is revealed in the Nandinātha Sūtras. These sūtras have within them, summarized in short stanzas, all the knowledge that’s within our catechism and creed, all the knowledge that’s in our monastic Holy Orders, all the knowledge embodied in our Śaiva culture, in our brahmacharya course, and all the other books and lessons we have published and distributed throughout the years. They give codes of behavior, conduct, ways of living, ways of moving, ways of thinking, as well as the basic core of the monistic Śaiva Siddhānta taught by our Kailāsa Paramparā for eons and eons of time.
NANDINATHA SŪTRA 325: PURE VESSELS FOR THE DIVINE
My monastics strive to keep Lord Śiva foremost in their mind and heart, seeking pure emptiness, kāīf. Having mastered the Shūm-Tyēīf language of meditation, they are vessels for God’s gracious will. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.