WHAT IS THE "KAILASA PARAMPARAI"

The Kailasa Paramparai is a millennia-old guru lineage of the Nandinatha Sampradaya. In this century it was embodied by Sage Yogaswami, who ordained Satguru Swami Subramuniswamy in Sri Lanka in 1949 to carry on the venerable tradition.

The authenticity of Hindu teachings is perpetuated by lineages, parampara, passed from gurus to their successors through ordination.

The Kailasa Parampara extends back to, and far beyond, Maharishi Nandinatha and his eight disciples--Sanatkumara, Sanakar, Sanadanar, Sananthanar, Sivayogamuni, Patanjali, Vyagrapada and Tirumular. This succession of siddha yoga adepts flourishes today in many streams, most notably in the Saiva Siddhanta of South India. Our subject in this article is the branch of the parampara in 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 Sivaya Subramuniyaswami (1927- 2002).

The Tirumantiram states, "Thus expounding, I bore His word down Kailasa'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."

The Pernicious, Persistent Ego

Anava 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 anava. But if, when praised, he takes credit for himself, it is anava. Anava 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 anava, 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 anava 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 anava 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 anava and brings that purusha onto the charya marga, onto the path of the Gods, the hospital of the soul at that point. The final conquering of the tenacious anava is the final mahasamadhi, when all three worlds sing, "Mukti has been attained," the final goal of life that we on this planet know, merger with Siva.

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 margas, we would find that charya, kriya, yoga and jnana are progressive states of fullness, and the anava marga, 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 sahasrara chakra. The feeling of emptiness distinguishes the anava marga from the other four margas, and this is why it is not included in Saiva Siddhanta, but is not excluded either, because the anava 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 charya, kriya, yoga and jnana.

The path of the anava 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 anava marga 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 Sanatana Dharma. Everything preceding charya is anava marga. 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.