Trika Mahāsiddha Yoga is not a new system of spiritual practice. It is Tantra or Tantrik Yoga from an Indian perspective, and Gyüd and Dzogchen from a Tibetan perspective. These different ethnic and cultural traditions share common roots. It is only in the sequencing of the methods taught in that path, their emphasis, and in the precise vocabulary and literary tradition of each that they differ. In 90% of theory and practice; they are identical. 

The Fruit or result of the Indian and Tibetan Nondual Tantrik Yoga paths when taken to the end, and that of Dzogchen, are identical. The great masters of these traditions were living examples of the fruit of the path. They received the mantle of “Mahāsiddha” in Sanskrit, which translates roughly as Masters of Great Attainment.

Mahāsiddhas shared certain characteristics such as:

•  A very strong emphasis on non-sectarianism. However, in clear contradistinction to this principle of the Way of the Mahāsiddhas, the Tibetan and Indian Nondual Dharma traditions/religions often claim these luminaries “as their own” in an attempt to “one up” their rival traditions.

•  Esoteric Ritual

•  Rich Inner Alchemy Practices

•  Living in Direct Realization – a Non-Progressive way of practice and life.

•  They often had an antinomian lifestyle in close contact with nature or unusual settings such as cremation grounds. But there were Mahāsiddhas who chose to live in communities.

•  Most often they were in Mirror Consort Relationships.

•  These masters were the first to be called “Crazy Wisdom” adepts.

•  A great many of them underwent the process of transmogrification of the physical body instead of ordinary death. They reached total realization of Buddhahood and manifested the Rainbow Light Body, leaving no corpse behind. This demonstrated their seamless unity or Ultimate Intimacy with their Ultimate Nature.

The Mahāsiddhas set a high bar for spiritual realization. Their way of practicing and living is the standard reference point for Ultimate Realization in the Nondual Dharma Traditions.

Trika Mahāsiddha Yoga is a system comprised of the standard essential practices and principles of Indian and Tibetan Tantrik Yoga and Meditation. TMY is organized and delivered in the same way that the Mahāsiddhas of our lineages practiced, taught and lived.

If you are relatively new to the Nondual Yoga and Meditation traditions of the East, and unfamiliar with the Sanskrit words  - “Tantra” and “Tantrik Yoga”, please read the next section entitled “What is Tantra?” 

A Central Asian/Indian grouping of spiritual technologies which use the body, its energies, and the mind to attain freedom from suffering and limitation. It is the extension of the earlier shamanic and Vedic traditions, and nowadays is primarily carried by Indian Śakta-Śaiva, Tibetan Bön, Japanese Shingon & Tibetan Buddhist religious and cultural traditions. It has these general characteristics:

1.  Guru Yoga & Initiation – The central characteristic of all schools of traditional Tantra is the cultivation of the student-teacher relationship on outer, inner and secret levels in order to reflect the student’s own innate self-perfected state of being which can only be experienced outside of conventional mind and learning. There is no Tantrik Yoga without the Guru/Lama.

2.  Deity Yoga –meditation, mantra, visualization and ritual aided by the enlightened deities.

3. Esoteric Ritual – The Mahāsiddhas revealed the subtle workings of the exoteric rituals of the earlier dualistic Tantrik traditions. They created systems of practice that expressed the inherent fusion of both the subtle body/mind complex’s inner energies and their correlated ritual actions.

4. Inner Alchemy – Kriya Yoga – Trika Mahāsiddha Yoga uses the subtle, relatively simple, and yet powerfully transformative Kriya Yoga system of Swami Rudrānanda. This system turbocharges all Tantrik practices and acts like a “motor” to generate, refine and circulate mass quantities of subtle energy necessary for deeper spiritual work. What makes Swami Rudrananda’s Kriya Yoga system unique is its utility as a stand-alone practice as well as being a type of motor that maximizes the potential result of practices such as deity yoga, guru yoga and even dream, sleep and death yogas.  The energy imbibed and released during this practice is a great aid in revealing one’s deepest psycho-emotional and spiritual limitations and obstacles as merely virtues under the tension of the ego.

5. Mantra – Mantra in essence is powerful packets of vibrational-energy represented by the various seed sounds chanted in Tantrik Yoga. These are handed down through unbroken guru-disciple transmission. These sounds/vibrational seed-powers are the essence of the manifested world. They are also the “bodies” of the enlightened deities and the raw energy display of your own enlightened consciousness. Mantras are used as stand-alone practices and also as “Awareness Spells”. Awareness Spells can be used for specific transformational purposes, protection, healing, awakening of inner virtues, invoking enlightened deities as guides, etc. They also give access to various realms of experience and the enlightened beings populating those realms.

6. Meditation – Meditation has numerous progressive methods that make use of a step-by-step approach to discovering one’s Essence-Mind. There also exists in Trika Mahāsiddha Yoga what are called “Direct Meditation” methods that place the properly prepared meditator directly at Source without causation.

7. Antinomian Lifestyle - A lifestyle free from the bondage of societal norms, wherein one is free to construct the most appropriate lifestyle conducive to self-liberation in one lifetime which naturally benefits all beings. The reason practitioners of Tantra favor an antinomian lifestyle is not to become a rebel, an anarchist or an inconsiderate hedonist buffoon or lout, but to transform one’s entire life into a direct expression of enlightened Compassion and Wisdom, uplifting humanity at large.