The Mission Of the Nāthas
Responsiveness is the spiritual quality I look for in my devotees. Without that quality in life, nothing really works right. People settle down to an ordinary, routine job and begin the process of hate, jealousy and revenge, hate, jealousy and revenge, hate, jealousy and revenge with their employer and with employees who work close to them. Nowadays even with their mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters this kind of competition goes on. Such negatively competitive people never make it to the top in any modern corporation or make much out of their lives.
In the Nandinātha Sūtras I make it very clear that competition—competitive games, competitive sports, competitive activities of all kinds—should not be stimulated within young people, or old people, because the winner-loser consciousness keeps the lower qualities active. I tell my devotees, be helpful to everyone; don’t compete with anyone. Do the very best you can and appreciate others’ doing the best that they can. You all have a lot to think about when you read the Nandinātha Sūtras and consider that the foundation of wisdom within them originated from deep within, 2,200 years ago, when Maharishi Nandinatha sat with his śishya, Tirumular, and said, “Go down to South India and teach about the glories of Lord Śiva. Teach that He is within you and you are within Him, that He is the Life of your life, and your soul was emanated from Him. Keep our monistic philosophy moving along down there. I can see that they have gotten a little bit confused.” He didn’t go to the airport and buy a ticket on a jet plane to South India. He had a long and arduous journey, probably on foot for the most part, and by bullock cart. Many, many things could have happened to him on the way. He could have faced many temptations. He could have been tempted by pretty girls bathing at the rivers. He could have been robbed. He could have been assaulted. He could have been killed, but because of his tapas and the good karma he had accumulated by being carefully obedient to his guru, the connection with his guru, the spiritual force, carried him like a magical carpet to where Chidambaram is today. He started his mission and he fulfilled his mission, and his mission is being fulfilled to this very day, right here in this room, and will continue to be fulfilled 2,200 years from now.
Nothing can stop the spiritual force. Death cannot stop it. The intellect cannot stop it. Once it begins, it continues. The instinct cannot stop it. Adversity cannot stop it. In the future, we envision pictures of our Nandinātha line of satgurus all the way around this room, then around, and then around, and then around. We can see ahead another 2,200 years. It’s the same spiritual force, śakti of Śiva, flowing through the Nāthas. There are many Nāthas being born again as Nāthas to move things along, to improve conditions; and when things aren’t going very well, more Nāthas will come to put a spiritual force into the world through such media as HINDUISM TODAY. This public service of our Nātha order has united the Hindus of the world, educated the Hindus of the world, so they can talk to one another in one voice, in one common forum, and look in the same way at karma, dharma, reincarnation, the Vedas and Āgamas and all these wonderful things that we are writing about in our international magazine. Hindus can now freely and knowledgeably speak about their religion and the four major denominations within it, understand one another in Asia, England, throughout the continents of Europe and Africa, North America, South America, and have better appreciation for their very great religion, which is put forth in HINDUISM TODAY in a simple, pragmatic way. This is all the work of the mysterious Nandinātha lineage.
NANDINATHA SŪTRA 328: THE WHOLE WORLD IS THEIR FAMILY
Śiva’s monastics who have separated themselves from family to pursue a divine life do so in a spirit of love. They look upon this not as losing their dear family of a few but as gaining all of humanity as their kin. Aum.