The Unbroken Transmission of A Living Spiritual Energy

The most significant gurus of the lineage from which Swami Khecaranatha received his training are Bhagavan Nityananda and Swami Rudrananda (Rudi).

Bhagavan Nityananda, whose name means, "bliss of the eternal," lived in southwest India from around the turn of the 20th century until 1961. Nityananda was well known in the major districts of Maharashtra and Karnataka, where he is revered to this day as a great saint.

In its essence, Nityananda's teaching was profoundly simple—to live within the heart of God. Nityananda demonstrated the goal of spiritual work—which is to merge the individual into the universal.

Swami Rudrananda: At the age of 30, after many years of spiritual practice, Albert Rudolph (Rudi) became a devout student of Nityananda. Even after Nityananda's mahasamadhi in 1961, Rudi traveled regularly to India to visit his shrine and to study with Swami Muktananda—one of Nityananda's primary students.

In 1966, Swami Muktananda initiated Rudi as a Swami into the Saraswati monastic order, naming him Rudrananda, or "bliss of Rudra." One of the first Americans to be recognized as a Swami, Rudi established many ashrams across North America and Europe. He continued to teach until his passing in 1973.

The practice of Kundalini MahaYoga has always been an inner practice, carefully passed from teacher to student through oral and energetic transmission. While the focus on inner practice remained, the philosophical aspects as a written tradition emerged in the 5th and 6th centuries. The inspired writings and commentaries arose from the personal inner experience of these practitioners, based on their ardent study of the early Tantric practices.

The most significant philosophical expositions that arose from the practice of Kundalini MahaYoga are Tantric Shaivism and Tantric Buddhism. Both are non-dualistic schools of thought that emerged from the inner practice of Kundalini. These practices and traditions blossomed from the hearts of many great Tantric masters of early times, called Mahasiddhas. The word Mahasiddha comes from "maha" which means great and "siddha" which means perfection of inner awareness and energy. These Mahasiddhas were the preceptors for the earliest Tantric practices, profoundly influencing both the Tantric Shaivite and Buddhist traditions. All of them were adepts in the practice of Kundalini.

Some the most important Tantric practitioners of early times were Abhinavagupta of Kashmir Shaivism, Matsyendranatha and Goraksanatha of the Shiva/Nath Tradition, and Varupa, Naropa, and Guru Padmasambhava of the Tantric Buddhist Tradition

Bhagavan Nityananda and Swami Rudrananda were modern day Mahasiddhas, and the wellspring of this particular expression of the ancient practice of Kundalini MahaYoga. Throughout history there has been an intrinsic current of spiritual wisdom and energy that has manifested in different ways in many different times and places. Such a current is conceived as preserving an unbroken connection with the divine source of living spiritual energy. The preceptors of that divine energy in the Tantric tradition are the Mahasiddhas. A profound expression of that spiritual energy in this current time and place emerged through Nityananda and Rudrananda.

Rudi was profoundly connected to the inner practice of kundalini evident in both Tantric Buddhism and Tantric Shaivism. He transmitted that teaching to Swami Khecaranatha (Nathaji), who has spent the past 37 years fully mastering that practice and teaching. In addition, Nathaji has continued with Rudi's effort to extract the essence of the inner practices of those ancient Tantric traditions.

From Matsyendranatha and Gorakshanatha, the siddhas who founded the Natha tradition, we recognize Rudi's practice of the double breath and particular form of shaktipat. From Padmasambhava, the Buddhist Mahasiddha who founded the Tibetan Tantric tradition, Rudi received transmission of the Mind Treasure (gong ter) class. From Tirumular, the Tamil siddha who was a founder of the Sri Vidya tradition, we draw our practice of the Shree Chakra Puja and Lalita Mantra. Each of these great Mahasiddhas emphasized kundalini as the quintessential element of their practice and presented realization as the result of the ascent of kundalini through the chakras. Each viewed the transmission from teacher to student (shaktipat) as the principal means of awakening that process within the student. Each of them expressed these truths in a different way. In our practice we have chosen to draw from the teachings of these Tantric masters.

The Significant Canons of the Tantric Traditions

• Focus on the rising of the kundalini—the power of the divine within each of us—from the chakra (awareness/energy centers) in the base of the spine to the chakra in the crown of the head as the means to spiritual awakening and union with God.


• The fundamental philosophical assertion that our existence is an expression of the inseparable Consciousness and Creative Energy of the Divine. Tantric masters described their experience of the Divine as conscious energy. It is, they went on to say, a pure awareness that is utterly still and yet a conscious energy that is completely dynamic.


• Inclusion of both men and women (many practices exclude women) and accepting householders into sannyas (renunciation).


• Not rejecting alcohol, meat, and sex as impure.


• The elegant explanation of the process of manifestation asserting that, from the simplest to the most complex levels of life, the same fundamental process repeats itself over and over again. The very process that manifests the universe also manifests in our individual lives and experience. Thus, we are not different from or separate from the Divine.

The practice of Kundalini MahaYoga is how we come to experience and become immersed in that Divinity.