In a traditional Śaivite family, the mother and the father are the first teachers, or gurus, of their children, teaching by example, explanation, giving advice and direction until their children are old enough to be sent to their next guru, in the arts, sciences, medicine and general education. Families that have a satguru will often choose the most promising religious young son to go to his āśrama, to study and learn the religion and become a sannyāsin or a family pandit in later years, depending on how his life works out. In this case, the mother and father, the first gurus, turn the entire direction of their son over to the satguru, the second guru, who then becomes mother and father in the eyes of the son, and in the eyes of his parents as well. ¶Hindu children are traditionally brought up respecting their parents. They follow certain in-house protocols of culture and conduct. Therefore, it is not difficult for an Asian man to live in an āśrama and follow the protocols of respect that monastic life demands. True bhakti, devotion, starts with your mother and father. You have to start there if you want a relationship with God and the Gods. Once the problems with mom and dad are resolved, then that love for the mother and father is transferred or extended to God, Gods and guru. It certainly doesn’t mean that you no longer love your mother and father. It’s just the opposite. You have more love, a deeper love, for everyone. Transferring the love of your family to your guru doesn’t mean they no longer have your love, but that you’ve included your guru in the family. Love is inclusive, not exclusive, on the spiritual path. ¶To the traditional Śaivite, the guru is everything. As Satguru Siva Yogaswami sang, “Mother and father are Śiva. Sisters and brother are Śiva.” Therefore, the guru is Śiva; and that is everything, because Śiva is everything. But the satguru is not your business partner, not your psychiatrist, not your psychologist, not your older brother, as Western persons may regard him. Western people who do not follow any protocol in their homes satisfactory for harmonious living should be careful not to transfer to the guru any disobedience and antagonism that they might have had for their parents. Many Western homes, in teaching by example, do so through reverse psychology, teaching what you shouldn’t do rather than what you should do. Relating to a traditional guru is difficult for those brought up in this way. Respect for elders is not there. Neither is responsiveness. ¶From my monastic devotees especially I expect the razor’s edge of attentiveness. I expect anticipated responses. This means that the śishya should read the mind of the guru, give the answer without forethought when a question is put. He must be sensitive and anticipate. It is not a schoolhouse relationship: five hours of study and then homework. It is a twenty-four-hour relationship. I expect to see the monastic in my dreams. The relationship with the gṛihastha devotees is different. My expectancy is that they will maintain the Śaiva Dharma as it is understood to be in the eyes of the community they are associating with. I also expect each of their male offspring to serve for at least six months, up to two years, at Kauai Aadheenam, in preparation for adult life. And I expect all members to perform four hours of karma yoga per week throughout life. ¶We are all involved in the Nandinātha Sūtras, which are the combined effort of all the gurus of our paramparā, with blessings from Maharishi Nandinatha himself. These aphorisms reflect the patterns of belief and behavior of every aspect of life for all those on the Kailāsa path. Nandinātha’s great disciple, Rishi Tirumular, shows us in the Tirumantiram how well he was taught by his guru and how well he fulfilled his mission by going to South India to revive the monistic theism of Śaiva Siddhānta. The vast amount of knowledge in the Tirumantiram, which digests the Āgamas and Vedas and weaves them together in such an ingenious way, indicates a lot of deep meditation, training and yoga practice. It also indicates a great spirit, because he actually did what he was sent to do, so we actually have that great treatise today, over 2,200 years later. That shows us an unbroken continuity of what? Intellectual knowledge? No. Of spirit, the spirit of the guru. §
Before books were invented, the traditional way of conveying information was through the spoken word. This is called sampradāya. Sampradāya, verbal teaching, was the method that all satgurus used. A satguru can only give his śishya as much as the śishya can hold in his mind at any one time. If the śishya comes with an empty cup, the cup is filled by the guru. But if the śishya comes with a cup that is already full, nothing more can be added by the guru. ¶Many satgurus work with their devotees in unseen ways. They have the ability to tune into the vibration of a devotee anywhere his physical body might be on the planet, feel how he is feeling and send blessings of protection and guidance. The guru-śishya system of training is personal and direct. Much is unspoken between them, so close is the mental attunement. The traditional observance of brahmacharya helps to stabilize this relationship. ¶An advanced śishya is one whose intuition is in absolute harmony with that of his satguru. This harmony does not occur in the beginning stages, however, when the devotee is probing the subject matter of the guru’s teachings for answers. Only after he has conquered the fluctuating patterns of the thinking mind does an inner flow of harmony begin to become apparent to both guru and śishya. The śishya is expected to cultivate his inner life as well as his outer life. The more sincere and consistent he is with his inner work and his inner friends—God, Gods and guru—the more safe and secure and blessed he will be. Your relationship with your guru is growing stronger even now as you come to better know yourself and proceed in your study of these daily lessons. ¶Hindu temples sustain Hinduism around the world. Scriptures keep us always reminded of the path we are on and the path we are supposed to be on, but only from the satguru can you get the spirit, the śakti, the sustaining spirit, to make it all come to life in you, to make the temple meaningful and to complement the scriptures with your own sight, your own third-eye sight. Otherwise, it’s just words. ¶Nāthas are not on the path of words. The Ṛishi wandered down from the Himalayas to Bangalore. What did he say? Nobody knows. Whom did he talk to? Nobody knows. Did he influence crowds of people? Perhaps, but he only had to influence one individual, Kadaitswami, to speak out to the world. Kadaitswami caught the spirit of the Rishi, who had caught the spirit of the previous ṛishi, the previous ṛishi and all the ones that preceded him. It is that spirit of sampradāya that makes the traditional teachings meaningful, that gives you the power to discriminate between what is real within those teachings and what is superfluous or just plain nonsense, that gives you the power to blend Siddhānta with Vedānta, Vedas with Āgamas. ¶The irreversible spirit of the guru carries through all of the śishyas. It is basically the only gift a guru can give—that sustaining spirit. He doesn’t have to give knowledge, because that has already been written down. He doesn’t have to build temples, because there are more than enough temples for everyone. The rare and precious gift that he can convey is the inner spirit of his religious heritage. That is his unique gift to the world. ¶Nāthas do not follow the way of words. Kadaitswami spoke to a lot of people. Who knows what he said? They didn’t have tape recorders in those days, and doubtless he never wrote anything down, but the spirit carried through him to Chellappaguru, who didn’t say an awful lot. He wasn’t following the way of words either. He spoke only divine essences of the philosophy. He didn’t write 3,000 verses like Rishi Tirumular did. Nor did he give lectures to crowds like Kadaitswami did. His spirit was passed on to Satguru Siva Yogaswami, who passed his spirit on to a lot of devotees. ¶We must remember that during the time of the British, all gurus had to keep a very low profile and that Yogaswami’s great work started to flourish publicly only after the British left Sri Lanka. He passed his spirit on to lots of devotees, including me. If I had not journeyed to the northern part of Sri Lanka and gone to Śiva temples, worshiped there and received initiation from Yogaswami, would I have returned to America and built a Śiva temple or helped found over fifty other Hindu temples scattered around the world? No. Would we have a monastic community? No. Would we have an international Saiva Siddhanta Church? No. Would we have a Himalayan Academy? No. Would we have a Hindu Heritage Endowment? No. Would we have a HINDUISM TODAY magazine? No. Would we have family missions all over the world? No. Would we be sitting here right now? No. Only because of the existence of one satguru in this venerable line of gurus, I caught the spirit; and through this spirit the words manifest, the activities manifest, the devotees maintain that straight path, the disciplines bear fruit, the inner sight comes, and after it comes, it stays. Without satgurus, we would only have temples and scriptures. Without satgurus, we wouldn’t have the spirit, and people would stop going to temples and stop reading the scriptures.§
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. §
Many of you have been studying with me for ten, twenty or thirty years. I want you to think and think through the rest of the day about the spirit of the satguru. Suppose you didn’t have a satguru. You would be guided by the spirit of your intellect, or the spirit of your instinct, or the energies of confusion. The satguru only has one job, to keep his devotees on the right track. We do not follow the way of words, which is repeating from memory verses and stanzas of scripture with meager mental interpretations of their meaning. We follow the way of transformational spiritual unfoldment. We follow the mārga of sādhana and tapas. Śishyas move from one stage to another in spiritual unfoldment as they progress through the different petals of the higher chakras and come into one or more inner awakenings, one after another. They are not to settle down in any one or several of the chakras and consider, “This is a nice life. I like this part of my unfoldment, so I won’t strive further.” They can’t do that, because the spirit of the guru drives them onward. He is constantly thinking and saying, “This is not good enough; you can do better.” ¶Did Chellappaguru ever say to Yogaswami, “OK, now we’ve done enough. Let’s just be ordinary”? No, he kept walking him around and feeding him, walking him around and feeding him, walking him around and feeding him, walking him around and feeding him, until finally Satguru Yogaswami was walking around and feeding everybody, walking around and feeding everybody, and eventually everybody was doing the same thing. Passing on that spiritual quality, we don’t have any problems. We don’t have to solve problems with words. Problems are tackled with words when you are following the path of words. This can be a long, long, tedious process. But when spiritual awakenings are there, problems are solved by lifting consciousness. The problem goes away, just automatically goes away. It is a do-it-yourself process, a mystical tantra not to be ignored. ¶Every Hindu needs a satguru, a preceptor. The satguru is as much a part of Hinduism as are the temples, as are the Vedas and our other great scriptures, because not everyone can see for themselves. They need someone to see ahead a little bit for them and to keep them on the right track and in the right mood. Because people are tribal, they need a guide. I’ve heard prominent swāmīs all through the years remark, “You all need a spiritual guide. If you don’t want me, find somebody else, but you need someone to guide you through life.” It could be a grandmother, it could be a grandfather, it could be your astrologer, a temple priest, a visiting yogī or a resident swāmī in your community, a sādhu, a pandit or a rare satguru—somebody that you will listen to and follow. The choice must be made after much consideration, after talking with parents, consulting elders and searching the heart. Once the choice is made, don’t change your mind. Be loyal and give him or her all the love and devotion you have to give and more. Take advice and admonition as golden offerings and proceed in confidence. Many benefits will come from their guidance on the path of dharma for a fruitful and fulfilling life. ¶A heavy burden falls upon the preceptor, too. He or she must produce results and continue to do so. Preceptors are not entertainers, content to be lauded or bowed down to in adulation. Rather, they must benefit their followers’ lives, lessen their karmic burdens and strengthen the family, hold marriages together, as well as seek out potential religious leaders and train them well. They must follow the karmas of each individual and each family year after year, and they must be there for devotees when needed most. They must demonstrate their śānti and bask in the bliss of attainment. They must be spirit, for spirit lives on. §
When people do not have a guide, they wander around bumping into each other. They can’t see the consequences of their actions. They perform good, bad and mixed actions and don’t keep on the right track and therefore end up wandering around in circles. They don’t listen to their mothers. They don’t listen to their fathers. They don’t listen to their spiritual guides. They don’t listen to their local religious mentors. But they do listen to the hottest rock star, to their drug dealer and their gang leader. They do listen to the Miranda reading from the police officer before they have to listen to the local judge and later to their parole officer. Some have to listen to their aids or cancer counselor and make plans for an early departure. So, they can listen. Yes, listening is still functional. Am I communicating? Are we communicating? ¶Unfortunately, many children are raised by their parents these days to not listen to anyone. “Don’t ask me. Make up your own mind,” they are told, “I just want you to be happy.” Children are raised to be confused. They are raised to be loners in a complicated world. They are raised to be lower-consciousness people. And in many schools they are raised to become educated criminals. Let’s get back to the basics of raising children properly, giving them proper guidance. It is the dharma of the parents to raise their children properly, as it is the duty of the satguru to see that they do it. ¶It is the duty of the śishya to be responsive to the satguru and not resistive. I was impressed at an āśrama in India we visited recently with how responsive everybody was to their guru. The guru there merely looks, and devotees ask, “What can I do to serve?” The guru speaks, and everyone immediately responds. No resisting: “I have something else to do. You already gave me ten things to do. How can you possibly want me to stop now and do something else? Isn’t there somebody else around here who can do it?” I saw none of that there. Maybe everybody was just on their good behavior because we were there, but it certainly took a lot of practice. They must have been practicing to be on their good behavior for about five years before we arrived. Wonderful responsiveness. Because of such responsiveness, the connection between the śishya and the guru maintains a systematic growth, and the spiritual life comes up within the individual which breaks all routine and yet works within routine, is beyond all intellectual and reasoning abilities yet works within the intellect and through reason, is unpredictable yet predictable in that it is consistently unpredictable. ¶However, we must remember that blind obedience is never the spiritual way. It is intelligent cooperation that is the binding force in a well-run āśrama. Intelligent cooperation means obtaining an extremely clear understanding of what is requested to be done before proceeding. Often this requires asking questions, discussing the direction or project, as one would do in a modern corporation, then, once all is understood, making the leader’s direction your own direction. This is intelligent cooperation, not blind obedience. Those are the spiritual qualities that I see in all of you here at Kauai Aadheenam and which are manifesting in my śishyas all over the world. §
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. §
If you ever become discouraged and wonder about the path, remember that there are three pillars of Hinduism that will keep you on the path: the satguru, the temple and the scriptures. Go to the temple, strengthen your relationship with your guru and begin studying the scriptures. Discouragement will go away and courage will come. Dark hours will go and bright hours will come. Problems will bend down as the intelligence from the spiritual force begins to come up. This is the way of the mysterious Nāthas, who don’t follow the way of words. ¶Nāthas don’t have any hype. We are not beating a drum or selling a mantra or selling a seminar or selling a promise. We just are who we are, doing what we are doing, and if anyone comes along to help, that is our karma at that point in time. We do the very best that we can with the facilities that we have. We don’t sell healing. We make no promises. Nāthas do their job on a very broad scale and pay attention to every small detail at the same time. That’s the working of the spiritual force that has come from Sage Yogaswami, Chellappaguru, Kadaitswami, the mysterious Ṛishi and those that preceded him, back to Tirumular and Maharishi Nandinatha and those that preceded them and those that preceded them and those that preceded them, for as long as people have walked on this planet. ¶Yes, there are three pillars of our great religion: satgurus, temples—Śiva temples, Murugan temples, Gaṇeśa temples—and the oldest scriptures in the world. But it’s the spiritual force of the satguru that makes the religion come to life in the individual. Would we all be sitting here today if when I went to the Jaffna Peninsula to find my guru he wasn’t there, and I just worshiped in a few temples for awhile and came back to the United States? No. We would not all be sitting here today. The temples don’t give you that kind of spiritual force. The scriptures don’t give you that kind of spiritual force. It is only the satguru that gives you the sustaining, spiritual force that makes life on this planet worthwhile and gives you the ability to prevail over all challenges and make a lasting difference, not only in yourself but in the lives of others. ¶Now we are all working together to bring Hinduism, especially Śaivism, into the twenty-first century. It is going to take all of our energies collectively to make that next big step, because there will be many changes. It is our job to bring the best of tradition into the twenty-first century, with clarity of thought and, most importantly, with the spirit and mysticism that go along with it. ¶Spirit expressed in a simple example would be, “I want to do my haṭha yoga! I want to get up in the morning and meditate!” Lack of spirit is, “I have to do my haṭha yoga. Oh, do I really have to? Maybe just today I won’t get up and meditate.” That’s the instinctive mind talking. That’s not the superconscious mind talking. “I want to”—that’s the spiritual force. “Do I have to?” or “I should”—that’s the instinctive-intellectual force. ¶Sitting here today thinking about our wonderful lineage of gurus, about what they said and what they didn’t say, you will find that we don’t know what some of them said and what they didn’t say. But what they did, that’s the important thing. And how did they do it? Through continuity of the spiritual force—one thread and then another thread, one fiber and then another fiber and another fiber, until a rope was built up that was stronger than any humans could pull apart. Bands of steel, generation after generation, that’s the Nandinātha way, unbreakable bands of spiritual force. ¶It is important that newcomers to the Hindu faith, the young people especially, realize that in ancient times as well as today the family unit is complete only when it includes an ordained spiritual mentor, a guru or pandit. It is to him or her that the family turns in times of joy and celebration. It is to him or her that the family goes when karmas are heavy, when difficulties and confusions are encountered on the path and the proper course is unclear. This mentor’s firmness and clarity are a stabilizing influence in the family’s year-to-year life. For most, but not all Hindus, a family temple is also a necessity, as is a collection of sacred writings or scripture, often the teachings of contemporary masters. ¶We encourage all to receive, with enthusiasm, as one would a God, all Hindu religious leaders, when they come to your community. Show the proper protocol, rush forward, garland them with flowers, lay gifts at their feet in humble obeisance. They are the mainstay and powerhouse and source of all expressions of our beloved Sanātana Dharma and its followers. §