Auhor: Jack Barratt
Lord Dattatreya was an ancient rishi commonly thought to be the mind-born son of Rishi Atri and his
wife Anasuya Devi. Lord Dattatreya was most well-known for his activities in the era Treta Yuga, when the conscious operating levels of human beings originally began to degrade. During Treta Yuga, he was known as the yuga acharya, or supreme master, of that era. During Treta Yuga, his dharmic deeds were countless and he empowered many beings including Kartavirya Sahasrarjuna, Alarka and, of course, Parashurama, whom he delivered the full knowledge of Shri Vidya to.
It is difficult to pin down exact historical information in regard to Lord Datta. When talking about Lord Dattatreya, there are two flows of information that can be looked at, one more mythological, and the other more concrete. The more mythological side of Lord Datta is that which has given birth to Dattatreya as a deity most commonly worshipped in the Indian states of Maharashtra, Karnataka,
Gujarat and Andra Pradesh. This is the Datta represented with three heads, six arms and four dogs
accompanying him, with each of these elements having their own symbolic significance. When we talk about Dattatreya as a more concrete figure, we talk about a yogi who was probably descended from the spiritual lineage of Rishi Atri (rather being than his actual son), and who was a tremendous guru of the nath and avadhuta traditions, who empowered many different beings across the beter part of a thousand years.
Today, in Mohanji’s modern iteration of the avadhuta tradition, Lord Dattatreya is seen as supreme
father-figure of the tradition who is, at once, a historical yogi avatar, a deity and the supreme reality in both its manifest and unmanifest forms. The main significance of Datta within Mohanji’s lineage is not who he was in an historical sense but, rather, what he represents today.
In the Shrimad Bhagavatam, a meeting is described in which an avadhuta (thought to be Lord
Dattatreya) describes his own spiritual journey to King Yadu. He recounts his process of gradual
enlightenment by describing his interaction with twenty-four aspects of the natural world, which were either elements, features, animals or people. This meeting displayed the fundamental quality of the Datta tradition, which is to learn through both our inner nature and the nature outside of us. In short, the supreme guru of the Dattatreya tradition, the one who Datta himself learned from, is life itself. This is a view that is radically opposed to schools of spiritual practice that place a great emphasis on ritual, scholarship or harsh physical austerities.
Thus, it is Datta as nature, as naturalness, that links him most strongly with Mohanji’s tradition and his work in the world. After all, what we call as sanatana dharma, is not a rigid set of rules, duties and rituals that must be dogmatically observed until the end of time. The real sanatana dharma is always fluid, and the expression of sanatana dharma always changes as per the fluctuation of conditions in the collective consciousness. An avatar, or being born to keep the fire of dharma burning, will use different methods in different generations to communicate and teach the ways of dharma to the world.
So, ultimately, Lord Datta, and all of his avatars, can be seen as pure messengers carrying the power of dharma into the world successively in each generation. Like all great avatars, the scope of Lord
Dattatreya’s significance is far greater today than it was in his own time. It would perhaps take a
multiple volumes to fully express what Datta means to different people, from the time that he existed in the body, until today when his name continues to echo on the tongues of beings seeking a natural way on the path to total liberation.
I like to see Datta as life itself. So, in that case, I bow down to Datta as my main guru.
Jai Gurudev Datta!