The Lineage of Kripalu

The first person known to attain final liberation completed this transformation nearly forty thousand years ago. She was called Adhinatha, First Master, first in the line of spiritual masters to this day.

 

Of Adhinatha’s disciples, two names are known to us, Vishnu (a woman) and Shiva (a man), both of whom attained the same state as Adhinatha, and through whom the experience and teachings of Adhinatha have been preserved and passed down. The receivers of this knowledge have, over time, evolved into numerous branches of spiritual wisdom.

Lord Shivaji

 

Lord Lakulisha

Durga Ma’s branch, which came to be known several hundred years ago as Pashupat Shaivism, is thought by most to have long since died out. However, an Immortal by the name of Lakulisha, or Babaji, revealed himself to a man in Gujarat, India, in the 1900s, in the foothills of the Himalayas near Rishikesh.

 

This man was Swami Shri Shri Kripalvanandaji, affectionately known to his disciples as Kripalu, “Giver of Grace.” After passing through its ups and downs and near dissolution, Pashupat Shaivism was revived by Kripalu through the direct teachings of Lakulisha, the twenty-eighth incarnation of Shiva.

Swami Kripalu

As a descendent of the Shaivite branch of the lineage of Adhinatha, Durga Ma has been charged to “bring back the worship of the Goddess.” Exactly what this meant to her, and what she was being asked to do, were left to her to decipher and to teach to sincere seekers who would benefit from this knowledge and its practice.