A Nirvani is some one who is plain, direct, open – who is naked. Who does not have pretenses. Does not have layers between himself and the truth. Because he is so much in tune with the truth, the truth is her strength. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Sankhya is the naked philosophy of Hinduism. Hinduism which is shorn of all its grace and beauty and culture and embellishment. The pure naked truth for the person who wants to live with nothing but the truth. SiddHaanaam KapilOmunihi (Among the Siddhas I am Kapila Muni), proclaims Krisha famously in the Bhagavad Gita.
Historians ignorantly claim Sakhya to be an atheistic philosophy because it does not talk about God. It doesn’t talk of the glorious final state of Divinity or about the Leelas of the Avatar because it is too busy trying to take you to God and in fact make you realize your are God herself. It states plainly what the experience of the human being is. And how he or she can take the next step to liberate himself. It talks of Karma, of multiple lives and Nirvana – the ultimate liberation from the cycle of birth and death. There is no branch of Hinduism now – Bhakti, Jnana or anything else – that does not understand and build on this.
But 20 thousand years ago, Kapila, an incarnation of Mahavishnu, was the seer who verbalized this. The naked philosophy. Sankhya. And at the same time he also revived the Mahanirvani Akhada – the lineage of warrior ascetics to protect this Dharma. Much as the sastradharis were with their philosophy, the Sastradharis carried their bodies with the same purity and freedom.
Thus was born the naked Naga Sadhus of the Nirvani Akhada.
Kapila also created the Dasanami Sampradaya – the 10 Sanyasa names given to various Sanyasis of the Akhada. द॒शा॒नामेकं॑ कपि॒लं – Among 10 names is Kapila – says Rig Veda 10/27.
Along with the Mahanirvani Akhada, Kapila created the tradition of the Kumbh Mela – the ultimate celebration of the freedom from the bondages of the world. A grand meeting of the free people. For tens of thousand of years both the Sastradharis and the Shastradhaaris would meet and celebrate and take decisions. Even today the Kumbh begins with the immersion of the urn (kumbh) containing Kapila’s skull into the sacred waters of the Prayag.
In his memory and living presence do all of us celebrate every twelves years, the liberation that is enlightenment – Nirvana.
See more about the Kumbh Mela at http://kumbhmela.com
