Sahaja (Prakrit languages:সহজSanskrit:सहजsahaja) means spontaneous enlightenment in Indian and Tibetan Buddhist spirituality. Sahaja practices first arose inBengal during the 8th century amongyogis called Sahajiyasiddhas.
Ananda Coomaraswamy describes its significance as "the last achievement of all thought", and "a recognition of the identity of spirit and matter, subject and object", continuing "There is then no sacred or profane, spiritual or sensual, but everything that lives is pure and void."[1]
The Sanskrit [and the Tibetan, which precisely follows it] literally means: 'born or produced together or at the same time as. Congenital, innate, hereditary, original, natural (...by birth, by nature, naturally...)'.[2]
Etymologically,saḥ- means 'together with', andja derives from the rootjan, meaning 'to be born, produced, to occur, to happen'.[3] The Tibetanlhan cig tu skye ba is an exact etymological equivalent of the Sanskrit.Lhan cig means 'together with', andskye ba means 'to be born, to arise, to come about, to be produced'.[4][5] The Tibetan can function as a verbal phrase, noun, or adjective.
ThesiddhaSaraha (8th century CE) was the key figure of theVajrayana BuddhistSahajayana movement, which flourished inBengal andOdisha.[6]
Sahajiyamahasiddhas (great adepts or yogis) like Saraha,Kanha, Savari,Luipāda,Kukkuripāda,Kānhapāda andBhusukupāda weretantric Buddhists who expounded their beliefs in songs anddohas in theApabhraṃśa languages andBengali.[7][8][9]
Many of the songs in this tradition are preserved in theCharyapada, a work of Buddhist tantric songs in theAbahaṭṭha languages written between the 8th and 12th centuries.[10]
The songs were often sung in tantric feasts calledganachakras which included dance, music and improvised songs or poems calledcaryagiti.[11]
Sahajiyas such as Saraha also believed that enlightenment could be achieved in this lifetime, by laypersons living insamsara.[citation needed] The sahajiyas also practiced a form oftantric sex which was supposed to bring the female and male elements together in balance.[12]
Saraha and his disciples were also master practitioners ofMahamudra meditation, and Saraha composed a famous Mahamudra meditation text along with his 'Three Cycles of Doha', a series of yogic songs.[13] Sahajayana Buddhism became very popular in thePala Empire, especially among commoners.[14]
One of the classic texts associated with the Sahajiya Buddhists is theHevajra Tantra. The tantra describes four kinds of Joy (ecstasy):[better source needed]
From Joy there is some bliss, from Perfect Joy yet more. From the Joy of Cessation comes a passionless state. The Joy of Sahaja is finality. The first comes by desire for contact, the second by desire for bliss, the third from the passing of passion, and by this means the fourth [Sahaja] is realized. Perfect Joy is samsara [mystic union]. The Joy of Cessation is nirvana. Then there is a plain Joy between the two. Sahaja is free of them all. For there is neither desire nor absence of desire, nor a middle to be obtained.[15]
The siddha, Indrabhuti, wrote a commentary on Sahaja teachings called theSahajasiddhipaddhati.
Sahaja is one of the four keywords of theNathsampradaya along withSvecchachara,Sama, andSamarasa.Sahaja meditation and worship was prevalent in Tantric traditions common toHinduism andBuddhism in Bengal as early as the 8th–9th centuries. The British Nath teacher Mahendranath wrote:
Man is born with an instinct for naturalness. He has never forgotten the days of his primordial perfection, except insomuch as the memory became buried under the artificial superstructure of civilization and its artificial concepts.Sahaja means natural... The tree grows according toSahaja, natural and spontaneous in complete conformity with the Natural Law of the Universe. Nobody tells it what to do or how to grow. It has noswadharma or rules, duties and obligations incurred by birth. It has onlysvabhava - its own inborn self or essence - to guide it.Sahaja is that nature which, when established in oneself, brings the state of absolute freedom and peace.[16]
The concept of a spontaneous spirituality enteredHinduism withNath yogis such asGorakshanath and was often alluded to indirectly and symbolically in thetwilight language (sandhya bhasa) common tosahaja traditions as found in theCharyapada and works byMatsyendranath andDaripada.[17] It influenced thebhakti movement through theSant tradition, exemplified by theBauls ofBengal,Namdev[18]Dnyaneshwar,Meera,Kabir[19] andGuru Nanak, the founder ofSikhism.[20]
Yoga in particular had a quickening influence on the variousSahajiya traditions[citation needed] The culture of the body (kāya-sādhana) through processes of Haṭha-yoga was of paramount importance in the Nāth sect and found in allsahaja schools. Whether conceived of as 'supreme bliss' (Mahā-sukha), as by the Buddhist Sahajiyās, or as 'supreme love' (as with the Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyās), strength of the body was deemed necessary to stand such a supreme realisation.[21]
TheVaishnava-Sahajiya sect became popular in 17th century Bengal. It sought religious experience through thefive senses. The divine relationship between Krishna and Radha (guises of the divine masculine and divine feminine) had been celebrated byChandidas (Bangla:চন্ডীদাস) (born 1408 CE),Jayadeva (circa 1200 CE) andVidyapati (c 1352 - c 1448) whose works foreshadowed therasas or "flavours" of love. The two aspects of absolute reality were explained as the eternal enjoyer and the enjoyed, Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā, as may be realised through a process of attribution (Aropa), in which theRasa of a human couple is transmuted into the divine love between Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā, leading to the highest spiritual realisation, the state of union orYugala.[22] The element of love, the innovation of theVaiṣṇava Sahajiyā school, "is essentially based on the element of yoga in the form of physical and psychological discipline".[23]
Vaisnava-Sahajiya is a synthesis and complex of traditions that, due to its tantric practices, was perceived with disdain by other religious communities and much of the time was forced to operate in secrecy. Its literature employed an encrypted and enigmatic style. Because of the necessity of privacy and secrecy, little is definitively known about their prevalence or practices.[24]
Thesahaja-siddhi or thesiddhi or 'natural accomplishment' or the 'accomplishment of the unconditioned natural state' was also a textual work, theSahaja-Siddhi revealed by Dombi Heruka (Skt. Ḍombi Heruka or Ḍombipa)[25] one of the eighty-fourMahasiddhas.[26] The following quotation identifies the relationship of the 'mental flux' (mindstream) to thesahaja-siddhi. Moreover, it must be remembered that though Sundararajan and Mukerji (2003: p. 502) use a masculine pronominal the termsiddha is not gender-specific and that there were females, many as seniorsadhakas, amongst thesiddha communities:
The practitioner is now asiddha, a realized soul. He becomes invulnerable, beyond all dangers, when all forms melt away into the Formless, "whensurati merges innirati,japa is lost inajapā" (Sākhī,Parcā ko Aṅga, d.23). The meeting ofsurati andnirati is one of the signs ofsahaja-siddhi;surati is an act of will even when the practitioner struggles to disengage himself from worldly attachments. But when his worldliness is totally destroyed with the dissolution of the ego, there isnirati, cessation of the mental flux, which implies cessation of all willed efforts.Nirati (ni-rati) is also cessation of attractions, since the object of attraction and the seeker are now one. In terms oflayayoga,nirati is dissolution of the mind in "Sound,"nāda.[27]
Ramana Maharshi distinguished betweenkevala nirvikalpa samadhi andsahaja nirvikalpa samadhi:[28][web 1][web 2]
Sahaja samadhi is a state in which the silent awareness of the subject is operant along with (simultaneously with) the full use of the human faculties.[28]
Kevala nirvikalpa samadhi is temporary,[web 1][web 2] whereassahaja nirvikalpa samadhi is a continuous state throughout daily activity.[28] This state seems inherently more complex thansamadhi, since it involves several aspects of life, namely external activity, internal quietude, and the relation between them.[28] It also seems to be a more advanced state, since it comes after the mastering ofsamadhi.[28][note 1][note 2]