MahaSiddha is a Sanskrit term that refers to greatly accomplished masters. It literally means great-adept, or accomplished meditator, but the term is used to speak about a specific group of people who lived during the 3rd-13th century. They brought forth a non-dual spirituality of such wisdom and splendor that it changed the history of Eastern spirituality. It was the MahaSiddhas who first practiced the Inner Tantras. Their historical effect has reached mythic porportions and they are acknowledged as the founders of many Buddhist lineages as well as Indian lineages. Yet the MahaSiddhas are not merely historical artifacts, the way of being and the way of spirituality of the MahaSiddhas has continued to the present day within our own lineage and within the minds of rare Masters who embody their essence.

Though many people speak of the MahaSiddhas as beings with magic, super-natural powers, their real magic was much more potent than any trick. Their magic was that of every day awareness in all kinds of real-life situations. The mythic style of Indian and Tibetan spiritual biography uses symbolic descriptions to point to the exemplary potency of the MahaSiddhas, making it sometimes difficult for the Western reader to access the essence of their stories. The essential story of the MahaSiddhas is that of ordinary people from all walks of life who encountered extraordinary realization. A shoe-maker, a widower, a monk, a lover, a beer-maker, a translator, two-sisters, a house-wife, a princess, politicians, servants, a sesame pounder, a hunter, a theif... they represent the story of human beings discovering the nature of mind and expressing that discovery in unlimited ways.

It was the extraordinary nature of the MahaSiddhas spiritual style that pivotally impacted Himalayan religious life. They broke with the religious heirarchy of ther time, and expressed a spirituality beyond cultural obsessions with purity, beyond fixations with social position (caste), and beyond institutionalized forms. The most compelling aspect of their spirituality was its simplicity, directness and precise expression within every domain of life. The Master Yogins and practitioners of this tradition were largely non-monastic and non-renunciate, viewing intimate relationship, body and work as valuable aspects of one's spiritual life. They were both female and male Masters, even though most historical documentation focuses on the men. Though the MahaSiddhas are symbolically referred to as the "84 MahaSiddhas," 84 is a symbolic number, there were actually many more and their lineage continues to this day.

The core of the tradition is devoted discipleship in the path of the Inner Tantras, which express a path of transformation and self-liberation. This can be understood in contrast by looking at the Outer Tantras, which emphasize extensive ritual and purification, whereas the Inner Tantras are successively more simple, direct and are focused on the intrinsic purity of all things. The discipleship in this path is in relationship to a Root-Teacher, one's personal living Vajra Master, who serves as a guide to the nature of mind and the nature of reality. This relationship is the essential core of the MahaSiddha Tradition which has survived because of this succession of thorough transmission from Master to disciple.

The MahaSiddha tradition can be described in many ways, as Yogic Buddhism, as Tantra, as Tantra Yoga and as the Inner Tantras. Stripped of all terminology, it is essentially a way of being of awareness and the skillful activity that expresses that awareness.