{"id":5887,"date":"2025-09-11T19:14:30","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T19:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yogamatsya.com\/the-fish-in-yoga-matsyendra-natha\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T18:35:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T18:35:14","slug":"the-fish-in-yoga-matsyendra-natha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yogamatsya.com\/en\/the-fish-in-yoga-matsyendra-natha\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fish in Yoga – Matsyendra Natha"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The story of Matsyendra<\/h2>\n

The following story is from the Catura\u015b\u012bti-Siddha-Prav\u1e5bitti or The Life Stories of the Eighty-Four Siddhas by Abhaya Datta.<\/p>\n

At some distance from the land of K\u0101mar\u016bpa, a fisherman names Minapa lived on the shores of Ita Ocean. One day he sailed out to the sea and cast his nets into the waters. An enormous fish was caught in his net. The fish, being far stronger than the fisherman, dragged him into the sea and swallowed him whole. Miraculously, the blessed fisherman survived in the belly of the fish waiting for his destiny to come...<\/p>\n

At this time, the Goddess P\u0101rvat\u012b asked \u015aiva to teach her how to achieve freedom in this dark age \u2013 kaliyuga on earth. \u015aiva warned her that this knowledge is too secret to be taught indiscriminately among the people, so he asked her to descend to the ocean floor where they would be free from prying ears. There, in the ocean depths, the fish (and the fisherman within) swam close by the god and goddess.<\/p>\n

When \u015aiva began teaching this knowledge of the way of Yoga, P\u0101rvat\u012b fell asleep, unable to listen to all the secrets. After a while \u015aiva asked her, \u2018Are you still listening?\u2019 The fisherman, hidden in the belly of the fish replied, \u2018Yes, I am!\u2019, so \u015aiva resumed his instruction on hatha yoga. When \u015aiva finally finished, P\u0101rvat\u012b awoke and apologized for having fallen asleep, to which \u015aiva replied, \u2018If you haven't heard the teaching, then there will be no hatha yoga in the world! He paused for a moment and then asked, \u2018Who was it then who told me they were listening?\u2019<\/p>\n

Minapa emphatically replied, \u2018I was listening!\u2019 \u015aiva realized that he had taught a new disciple and that there would be hatha yoga in the world. However, \u015aiva was angry as the the knowlegde was meant for the Goddess and not for a mortal man. So he said: \u2018That what is for the Gods demands mortality as a sacrifice<\/em>\u2019. \u2018Therefore, you must practice in the belly of the fish till you reach immortality.\u2019<\/p>\n

For twelve long years, the fisherman diligently practiced his s\u0101dhan\u0101 in the belly of the fish as instructed by the primal guru. Years later, the fish was caught by local fishermen and cut open. The imprisoned former fisherman and yogi emerged shining.<\/p>\n

He became the \u201cLord of the fish<\/strong>\u201d, Matsyendra N\u0101th.<\/p>\n

He taught the world the secrets of ha\u1e6dha, and gave the blessing of the primal teacher.<\/p>\n

One has to descend to the bottom of one\u2019s inner sea, to listen to the secret voice of the primal guru residing there. Carried with power of persistence, one day, one will rise again from the darkness of the deep waters as a new master.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>

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The lord of the fish<\/h2>\n

The story of Matsyendra is that of a man who must descend into the deep sea of the unconscious in order to find the part of himself that embodies the divine.<\/p>\n

Matsyendra receives the knowledge that lies beyond normal life, it is \"stolen\"<\/strong> from the gods<\/strong>. This means that it takes the normal mortal from the realm of the individual into the universal. The price for this is mortality.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thus the divine demands the tribute of the earthly. In this way, all true growth is a transformation, a burning of the old in the belly of the fish and a rebirth of the greater self.<\/p>\n

Matsyendra sacrifices himself and gains eternal life<\/strong>. The fish is the vehicle of this transformation, it is the immersion into the depths of existence.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>

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\n\t\t\t\tThe fish in Christianity<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5824,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized-de"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogamatsya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogamatsya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogamatsya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogamatsya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogamatsya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yogamatsya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogamatsya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogamatsya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogamatsya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogamatsya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}