During his life, Buddha founded a monastic order composed of monks who became beggars and practiced meditative disciplines. However, not all his followers were monks and not all of Buddhas teachings were directed towards renunciates or monastics. He also led a community of white-clothed practitioners who were not monks, though they also seriously practiced the path. These white-garbed practitioners, the MahaSanghikas, were the early practitioners of Yogic Buddhism. A century after the death of the Buddha, a schism between these two groups led to the founding of two different Buddhist schools, the Sthaviras who were the early sutrics or Hinayanists and the MahaSanghikas who became the early roots of the Mahayana School. The Hinayanists taught an enlightenment path for which one had to be born male and also become a monk. However the MahaSanghikas carried an enlightenment path that was open to everyone, male or female, celibate monk or non-celibate practitioner. They relied on the Buddha's teaching that every person is intrinsically qualified for the path because of their beginningless enlightenment or Buddha-Nature. Both groups based their practice on the Buddha’s life and teachings. Yet, their methods differed because their focus was on different teachings Buddha gave at different time periods to different groups of people.

"Methods can differ without necessarily being right and wrong... ."

Though these two different paths of 'renoucing' vs 'engaging in the world' seem to contradict each other, this is not problematic according to the Buddha's view. Buddhism represents a wide variety of very divergent methods and views. Buddha taught that there is no one absolute truth, that at the absolute level everything is empty. On the relative level, when we speak of the path, we are talking about methods to realize absolute reality. Methods can differ without necessarily being wrong. There are several methods to get from the Trigug to the Berkeley MahaSiddha Center. They are valid and relevant for people who come from different locations and wish for different kinds of journeys. This is not the same as saying that all religions are "one." It is a way of explaining how the various Buddhist paths are one in essence even though they are different in view, method, conduct and the time it takes to realize enlightenment. The essence that all Buddhist paths share is the articulation of ways to realize the nature of mind.

The MahaSanghikha/Mahayanist lineage of the Buddha’s teachings focused on the view of a primordial emptiness that underlies everything, including emptiness of a “self." Mahayanists emphasized that we can relate with the world rather than renouncing it. This laid the foundational philosophy through which the MahaSiddhas practices developed.

When these two groups of the early followers of Buddhism split, the MahaSanghika group moved to Odiyana where their teachings intermingled with indigenous tantric practices; a fertile combination that birthed the MahaSiddha Tradition. Odiyana was a vast region that ran along the Indus River and that spanned north-western India, including the Swat Valley (Kashmir), Pakistan, Afghanistan and western Tibet to the Kailas region (ancient Zhang-Zhung). Odiyana was the birthplace of the Mahasiddha tradition, which arose in this area from the third to the thirteenth century. In Odiyana, a region famed for tantric teachings and female enlightened masters, a dynamic free exchange took place intermingling spiritual practices and philosophies during the early years of the common era. The spirit of that time and that region was intensively non-sectarian, practitioners of divergent esoteric traditions of India found themselves practicing side by side in the country, in the forest, in gatherings, and in the cremation grounds. The MahaSiddhas emerged from within this fertile environment.