WHAT IS "NATHA SAMPRADAYA ?"

What Is Hinduism's Natha Sampradaya?

The Natha Sampradaya, "the masters' way," is the mystical fountainhead of Saivism. The divine message of the eternal truths and how to succeed on the path to enlightenment are locked within the Natha tradition.

Natha means "lord or adept," and sampradaya refers to a living theological tradition. The roots of this venerable heritage stretch back beyond recorded history, when awakened Natha mystics worshiped the Lord of lords, Siva, and in yogic contemplation experienced their identity in Him.

The Natha Sampradaya has revealed the search for the innermost divine Self, balanced by temple worship, fueled by kundalini yoga, charted by monistic theism, illumined by a potent guru-shishya system, guided by soul-stirring scriptures and awakened by sadhana and tapas. Thus has it given mankind the mechanics for moving forward in evolution.

Today two main Natha streams are well known: the Nandinatha Sampradaya, made famous by Maharishi Nandinatha (ca 250bce), and the Adinatha Sampradaya, carried forth by Siddha Yogi Gorakshanatha (ca 900). Yea, there is infinitely more to know of the mysterious Nathas. The Tirumantiram states, "My peerless satguru, Nandinatha, of Saivam honored high, showed us a holy path for soul's redemption. It is Siva's divine path, San Marga, for all the world to tread and forever be free."

Verbal abuse becomes a way of life. The youngsters come and go unchaperoned. Nobody knows what anybody else is doing. Girls are getting pregnant out of wedlock. Boys are swearing, getting involved in gangs and experimenting with drugs. That is the hotel lobby home of a definitely dysfunctional family, a discouraged family. No wonder that in discouraged families teens want to leave home as quickly as possible--as soon they're able to get a job and rent an apartment.

That is not quality living, is it? Sorry to say, but most dual-professionals' homes, where husband and wife both have high-paying jobs, are more like a hotel lobby with a snack bar than like a home with a hearth, which is home with a heart. Think about your home. Is the guest God? Is your house a home? What kind of astral vibration does it actually have? Be honest with yourself. Evaluate! The astral pranas or energies radiating out from the hotel lobby kind of home make the occupants frustrated people.

They make people around them uncomfortable, because they live in an uncomfortable place. Yes, the pranas that emanate from an empty house make one an empty person. All Hindus in the world should reverse this situation for a stable, well-adjusted community for the new and coming generations of Hindus in the West, as well as in the East. This is the next step which those of the diaspora have to heartfully take.

It is only intelligence that can reverse a negative situation and turn it into a positive, encouraging situation. It is important for the mother to be mother, and for the father to allow her to be mother, so that together they can nurture the astral atmosphere within the house and make it vibrate with spiritual energies into a real home.

To make the house into a home is the next step. You will know if it is a home when you want to hurry back to it. You won't want to stay away too long, and you will find it difficult to leave. That's because you enjoy the vibration that you have created from your soul body. And your focus for whatever you are doing will be exquisite. It won't get divided. It is a slow process for a mother and a father to turn a house into a home. They have to be spiritually present in the home.

The auras of the mother and father and each of the children have to permeate the walls of the house. The Gods and guardian devas and ancestors have to be worshiped and invoked in the home. That turns a house into a really pranically viable home, building up the vibration so that you never want to leave.

Surrender Is The Way Out

The yoga marga must come naturally out of intense bhakti and internalized worship. The intensity of bhakti is developed on the kriya marga. The final remains of the ego are pulverized on the charya marga, where Sivathondu, selfless service, is performed unrelentingly with no thought of reward, but a hope that the punya, merit, will be beneficial in the long run.

The anava marga is easy to leave through total surrender to God, Gods and guru, along with seva, service to religious institutions. Surrender, prapatti, is the key. All the religions' teachings teach surrender to the divine forces. Great suffering, the psychic surgery kind of suffering, great repentance, is experienced in the overlapping of the charya marga with the anava marga.

The beginning knowledge of Hindu temple worship, scripture, being dragged into it by some aggressive teacher, later a desire for reconciliation--all this leads to penance, prayashchitta, followed by serious sadhana. It is not without a great ordeal and effort, soul-searching and decision-making that one marga bends into the other or bows before the other before it releases the consciousness to go on.

One marga must really bend before the other before one can be released. Before entering another marga, it is a matter of giving up, which is painful, most especially for the anava marga people, for whom suffering is no stranger. How can someone on the anava marga be convinced that there is a better way to live, think and act? The word here is pursuit. We are talking about pursuit.

Anava people are always pursuing something, the fulfillment comes on the anava marga, and there is fulfillment, but in a never-stopping pursuit of fulfillment. As soon as we stop the pursuit of fulfillment, we become unhappy, empty, feel unfulfilled and, I might even say, at times depressed.

The anava marga is the I-ness, me-ness, mine-ness; me, my, I. "I want, I give, I get, I collect." I, me and mine are the key words here. The true anava margi is the owner, the getter, the consumer, not always the producer, vulnerable to the emotions of fear, who uses jealousy as an asset to obtain.

Anger is the motivating power to fulfill desire, by stimulating fear in others. He is a master of deceit. The true anava margi, perfected in the art, has at beck and call the eighty-four wiles of the lower emotions. Why would someone begin to feel the need to change to a nicer way of life?

The word why is the important word here. They are questioning, they are asking, they are intuiting another way of life. They have observed, obviously, others living a fuller life, fulfilled by the fulfillments of their pursuits, having left the anava marga. Anava margis have become aware of the existence of the charya margis and maybe a kriya margi or two.

It is the very force of the desire of pursuit that leads the purusha, the soul, to the charya marga into Saiva Siddhanta. I see the whole thing like a tunnel--the karma marga, the maya marga, the anava marga, the charya marga, the kriya marga, yoga marga--which the soul matures through as a child matures from a child to an adult.

The problem is that it takes a little doing to define the pursuit. Therefore, the entrance of this tunnel, to be a good anava margi, is kind of crowded, and this is where the problem lies. To truly get on the anava marga, to define the ego's identity, one must have the goal of pursuit.

There are two margas before the anava marga begins, within the realm of deep ignorance. Here reside the masses who live in confusion, the professional consumers who know the generosity of society, who will never in this lifetime manifest a desire, a goal, a thought for the future worthy enough to be accepted on the anava marga. They are the slaves of the anava margis, those whom, as slaves, they manipulate without conscience.