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The name Sahaja is not a new coinage. It seems
to have quite a long history. All systems
claimed that theirs was the natural way of
attainment of the ultimate Reality or
liberation. This much alone is common to all -
their claim to be the natural way. The
question that arises, of course, is what we do
mean by the term 'Nature'. Before going to
explain this it is better to refer to the
several cults called sahaja or natural.
The tantrik buddhism tried to develop the
sahajayana, the natural path or method, which
could be used by all. It is stated that the
middle path, not being extreme either to the
right or left, is the natural or mean method
that would lead to the ultimate condition of
nirvana. The other two methods are said to be
the Vajra-yana and Kalacakra-yana. The ultimate
state reached by all, which has to be the
natural condition, is called Sahaja. In this
condition there is neither prajna nor upaya.
Dr. Shasibhusan Dasgupta writes "The
sahajiyas would never prescribe any unnatural
strain on human nature, but would use human
nature itself as the best help for realizing the
truth. It is for this reason that the path has
been always described as the easiest ad the most
natural. It will be totally wrong to suppose
that the question of moral discipline was in any
way less emphasized in the sahajiya school ..
the sahajiyas would recommend the transformation
and sublimation of them ... The Sahaja-yana aims
to realise the ultimate innate nature (sahaja)
of the self as well as the dharmas, and it is
sahaja-yana also because of the fact that
instead of suppressing, and thereby inflicting
undue strain on human nature, it makes man
realise the truth in the most natural way ...."1
They discarded formal rules and regulations of
religion, such as pratika worship of all kinds
which, they hold, leads to confusion.
The pure citta must be attained; that is
mahasukha. It is not a matter for discussion or
dialectic or explanation. It can only be somehow
known from the Guru who would teach, in
practice, the several centres within the human
body which have correspondential contact with
the macrocosmos. Some of them taught the
kundalini method which attempts to lift up the
kundalini through the middle nerve (susumna).
They of course conceived it also as female force
(sakti) - Mahamudra in the navel - which is
lifted up to the Sahasrara (yuganaddha).
The Buddhist sahajiyas conceived sahaja as
Mahasukha which is the unity of the duality
represented as man and woman, as upaya and
prajna. It is essentially a sexual-yogic
symbolism, and in gross forms, sexual-yogic
practice as well.
The Vaisnava Sahaja supplied the element of
love that transformed the relationship and
sublimated it. However the doctrine of parakiya
and svakiya - love for the Supreme Other (Para)
has been praised as more transforming and
sublimating, leading to Mahasukha, whereas the
latter may lead to maha-avidya because of its
selfish inwardness.
There have been some sahajiyas who have
claimed sahaja as rasa, bhajan and so on. As one
of the modern expositors of Sri Krsna Caitanya's
methodology has stated "Sri Krsna Caitanya had
never permitted amorousness. In other words, it
is wrong to think that amorousness or
voluptuousness is natural at all. It is
unnatural. He claims that his sahaja was audarya
Lila not madhurya lila, as Ramanand Rai's
disciples claimed."2
The sahajiya cult had developed esoteric
concepts which are clothed in mystical language.
Most mystic bhakti poetry had its roots in the
sahaja. But the whole trouble about this
mysticism is that it enlightens, or seeks to
enlighten, the vulgar terms by importing
sophisticated mystical meanings or suggestions,
rather than by trying to sublimate them. The
result has been disastrous to religious
experiences as well as to spirituality.
The original concept of sahaja is that it
meant the experience that comes about by living
with the Ultimate Reality, rather than what it
has been ingeniously derived as that which
arises at the time of the origination of any
entity (saha jayate iti sahajah: Hevajra
tantra). The natural way of living was said to
be the most happy state. The happiest state or
mahasukha comes by living in the Divine Nature
rather than in the lower Nature. The Purusa in
Samkhya is higher Nature and the Prakrti, in its
equilibrium, is happier (Prakrti-lina) than the
state of being in the modifications of that
Nature (apara-prakrti) - such as the outer
world, or rather in the sense organs and motor
organs, the manas, the ahamkara or even the
Buddhi. The conception of the buddhi as an
evolute of ahamkara in certain versions of
evolution of the categories is not to be
overlooked where the living in the ahamkara or
the pure ego transcending the manas, buddhi and
citta is of course a happy condition. The
sahaja, then, can mean the condition adapted to
a level of existence. It is therefore a very
relative term; and as an absolute term in the
context of liberation, rather than in levels of
bondage, it means living in the Ultimate Purusa
or Reality.
In the Sri Ramchandra's Rajayoga as expounded
by Sri Ram Chandra the word Sahaja refers to the
life in the Ultimate Zero or Nature which alone
can be said to be natural to the liberated
being. He considers that, in this Yoga, the life
in that Zero makes living in the context of the
evolutions of that original Nature or levels
also natural. The primal superfine
con-sciousness is submerged in the evolutes or
rings of Nature, but it is to be made to flow
freely through the whole universe of being, in
the microcosm as in the macrocosm, and that
makes natural living easier and perfect, and
life itself a delight (ananda). When the
superfine consciousness of God is fronted, and
the lower grosser forms of consciousness are
subordinated and supported by it and become
inner then Nature is said to function according
to its higher lines of Being. Natural life is
divine life, or life in, through and for the
Divine. Its force is the real prana, breath -
the upanisadic pranasya pranah - and it is this
force that is introduced into the seeker's heart
by the Guru who has become the carrier of this
pranic force. The function of the Guru is the
pranahuti - the offering of the primal superfine
consciousness-force or Life itself - that makes
for the upward living (ujjivana) in God.
Therefore, as in all Sahaja cults and
tantras, the Guru becomes the central figure and
personality who does all the work of the Supreme
Centre of God in each and every individual
seeker after the Divine life or life in Divine
Nature. In fact the Guru is an instrument or
organ provided by that very Divine Nature to
bring its own inner and fundamental spiritual
nature out of each and every individual ray of
spirit, known as the ego or jiva, which has
wrapped itself up in many sheaths out of its
(jiva's) own outgoing activity (karma).
In consonance with the Divine view of
Reality, bondage consists in not fronting the
Inward Divine, but in bringing it out of oneself
in all one's parts, or integrally. Freedom lies
in fronting the Divine Force and making all
brackets and rings, cakras and granthis, work
without impediment and without ignorance of the
Inner Divine Primal Consciousness-Force, and
that which sustains that force also.3. It is not
so much the awakening of the Kundalini at the
Muladhara and making it pass through the Susumna
(middle nadi) to the Heart and thence to the
Sahasrara (crown of the head). It appears more
to be the bringing down of the Transcendental
Breath of Breaths of the Centre down into each
individual heart and then spontaneously
perceiving its upward movement to the
transcendent levels of being - even beyond the
sthula, suksma and linga sariras to the aprakrti
Nature that is the real being and status of the
spiritual ego.
Dr. S. P. Srivastava, in his address to the
annual convention of the Vasant Panchami of
Mahatma Samartha Guru Sri Ram Chandra (1962),
has thrown some light on this concept of the
Natural Path. Sahaj does not mean merely the
easy path, for this is oversimplification. It is
a state that depends on the supreme surrender to
the Beloved Master in which one accepts all that
is given by the Beloved - good or bad, painful
or pleasant, honourable or shameful, distasteful
or delightful. It is of course easy and natural
once the Divine Master sheds his grace into the
individual. The word sahaja can be taken to
mean, he says, that which is 'born of the
difference between Sah (Brahman or He) and Ha
(the jiva or pranasakti)'. Perhaps it may be
more suitable if it is stated that it is the
condition born of the union of That or Ultimate
(Sah) or TAM and the jiva or pranasakti, which
is what the Master transmits into the seeking
soul. It is therefore the path of ascent through
the inpouring of the Supreme prana sakti,
pranasya pranah of the Upanisadic doctrine,
which is called Pranahuti by the Master. This
appears to be appropriate. The sahaja, thus, is
specially the path, not so much of Grace and its
descent, but of ascent of the individual to the
supreme state with the aid of the Sakti or
Adyasakti or Prana which is poured into one by
the supreme adept - the GURU.
Thus, the supremely natural path for the
seeker is to be taken up by the Divine Master
and lifted up by His supreme Life-Force to live
in God, for God and by God Himself.
In this path there is no possibility of
deviation or crookedness or delay. It is the
open path, the Royal Path - Raja marga and Raja
Yoga, or the Divine Way through love, devotion,
and faith.
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