Sahaja ( ) is spontaneous liberating knowledge in Indian Tantric and Tibetan Buddhist religions. Sahaja practices first arose in

Bengal Bengal ( ) is a Historical geography, historical geographical, ethnolinguistic and cultural term referring to a region in the Eastern South Asia, eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. The region of Benga ...

during the 8th century among yogis called Sahajiya siddhas. 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."

Etymology

The Sanskrit nd the Tibetan, which precisely follows itliterally means: 'born or produced together or at the same time as. Congenital, innate, hereditary, original, natural (...by birth, by nature, naturally...)'. Etymologically, means 'together with', and derives from the root , meaning 'to be born, produced, to occur, to happen'. The Tibetan is an exact etymological equivalent of the Sanskrit. means 'together with', and means 'to be born, to arise, to come about, to be produced'. The Tibetan can function as a verbal phrase, noun, or adjective.

Origins

According to Davidson,

Sahajayana

The

siddha ''Siddha'' (Sanskrit: '; "perfected one") is a term that is used widely in Indian religions and culture. It means "one who is accomplished." It refers to perfected masters who have achieved a high degree of perfection of the intellect as we ...

Saraha (8th century CE) was the key figure of the

Vajrayana ''Vajrayāna'' (; 'vajra vehicle'), also known as Mantrayāna ('mantra vehicle'), Guhyamantrayāna ('secret mantra vehicle'), Tantrayāna ('tantra vehicle'), Tantric Buddhism, and Esoteric Buddhism, is a Mahāyāna Buddhism, Mahāyāna Buddhis ...

Buddhist ''Sahajayana movement,'' which flourished in

and

Odisha Odisha (), formerly Orissa (List of renamed places in India, the official name until 2011), is a States and union territories of India, state located in East India, Eastern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by ar ...

. Sahajiya mahasiddhas (great adepts or yogis) like Saraha, Kanha, Savari, Luipāda, Kukkuripāda, Kānhapāda and Bhusukupāda were tantric Buddhists who expounded their beliefs in songs and dohas in the Apabhraṃśa languages and Bengali.Per Kvaerne, On the Concept of Sahaja in Indian Buddhist Tantric Literature, ''Temenos'', vol.11, 1975, pp88-135 Many of the songs in this tradition are preserved in the '' Charyapada,'' a work of Buddhist tantric songs in the Abahaṭ‌ṭha languages written between the 8th and 12th centuries''.'' The songs were often sung in tantric feasts called ganachakras which included dance, music and improvised songs or poems called ''caryagiti''. Sahajiyas such as Saraha also believed that enlightenment could be achieved in this lifetime, by laypersons living in samsara. The sahajiyas also practiced a form of tantric sex which was supposed to bring the female and male elements together in balance. Saraha and his disciples were also master practitioners of Mahamudra meditation, and Saraha composed a famous Mahamudra meditation text along with his 'Three Cycles of Doha', a series of yogic songs. Sahajayana Buddhism became very popular in the Pala Empire, especially among commoners. One of the classic texts associated with the Sahajiya Buddhists is the '' Hevajra Tantra''. The tantra describes four kinds of Joy (ecstasy):

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 ahajais realized. Perfect Joy is samsara ystic 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.

The siddha, Indrabhuti, wrote a commentary on Sahaja teachings called the ''.''

In the Nāth tradition

is one of the four keywords of the Nath sampradaya along with Svecchachara, Sama, and Samarasa. meditation and worship was prevalent in Tantric traditions common to

Hinduism Hinduism () is an Hypernymy and hyponymy, umbrella term for a range of Indian religions, Indian List of religions and spiritual traditions#Indian religions, religious and spiritual traditions (Sampradaya, ''sampradaya''s) that are unified ...

and

Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

in Bengal as early as the 8th–9th centuries. The British Nath teacher Mahendranath wrote: The concept of a spontaneous spirituality entered

with Nath yogis such as Gorakshanath and was often alluded to indirectly and symbolically in the twilight language () common to traditions as found in the '' Charyapada'' and works by Matsyendranath and Daripada. It influenced the

bhakti movement The Bhakti movement was a significant religious movement in medieval Hinduism that sought to bring religious reforms to all strata of society by adopting the method of Bhakti, devotion to achieve salvation. Originating in Tamilakam during 6t ...

through the Sant tradition, exemplified by the

Baul The Baul () are a group of mystic minstrels of mixed elements of Sufism and Vaishnavism from different parts of Bangladesh and the neighboring Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura and Assam's Barak Valley and Meghalaya. Bauls constitute bot ...

s of

, NamdevPrabhakar Machwe, Namdev: Life & Philosophy, Punjabi University, 1968, pp37-41 Dnyaneshwar, Meera, KabirKabir: In the bliss of Sahaj, ''Knowledge of Reality'', no.20
/ref> and Guru Nanak, the founder of

Sikhism Sikhism is an Indian religion and Indian philosophy, philosophy that originated in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent around the end of the 15th century CE. It is one of the most recently founded major religious groups, major religio ...

.Niharranjan Ray, The Concept of Sahaj in Guru Nanak's Theology and its Antecedents', in ''Medieval Bhakti Movements in India'', edited by N.N.Bhattacharyya (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1969), pp17-35

Yoga Yoga (UK: , US: ; 'yoga' ; ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines that originated with its own philosophy in ancient India, aimed at controlling body and mind to attain various salvation goals, as pra ...

in particular had a quickening influence on the various traditions The culture of the body () through processes of Haṭha-yoga was of paramount importance in the Nāth sect and found in all schools. Whether conceived of as 'supreme bliss' (), 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.

Vaishnava-Sahajiya

The sect became popular in 17th century Bengal. It sought religious experience through the five senses. The divine relationship between Krishna and Radha (guises of the divine masculine and divine feminine) had been celebrated by Chandidas (Bangla: ) (born 1408 CE), Jayadeva (circa 1200 CE) and Vidyapati (c 1352 - c 1448) whose works foreshadowed the '' rasas'' 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 (), in which the Rasa of a human couple is transmuted into the divine love between Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā, leading to the highest spiritual realisation, the state of union or . The element of love, the innovation of the school, "is essentially based on the element of yoga in the form of physical and psychological discipline". 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.

The or the '' siddhi'' or 'natural accomplishment' or the 'accomplishment of the unconditioned natural state' was also a textual work, the revealed by Dombi Heruka (Skt. Ḍombi Heruka or Ḍombipa) one of the eighty-four Mahasiddhas.Chattopadhyana, Debiprasad (ed.)(1970). ''Taranatha's History of Buddhism in India''. Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Simla. p.245-246 The following quotation identifies the relationship of the 'mental flux' ( mindstream) to the . Moreover, it must be remembered that though Sundararajan and Mukerji (2003: p. 502) use a masculine pronominal the term is not gender-specific and that there were females, many as senior , amongst the communities:

Ramana Maharshi

Ramana Maharshi Ramana Maharshi (; ; 30 December 1879 – 14 April 1950) was an Indian Hindu Sage (philosophy), sage and ''jivanmukta'' (liberated being). He was born Venkataraman Iyer, but is mostly known by the name Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. He was b ...

distinguished between and : is temporary,David Godman, I' and 'I-I' - A Reader's Query''
/ref>
/ref> whereas is a continuous state throughout daily activity. This state seems inherently more complex than , since it involves several aspects of life, namely external activity, internal quietude, and the relation between them. It also seems to be a more advanced state, since it comes after the mastering of ''samadhi''.

Notes

References

Sources

;Printed sources * Arora, R.K. ''The Sacred Scripture'' (New Delhi: Harman, 1988), chapter 6: Sahaja * * * Dimock, Edward C. Jr. "The Place of the Hidden Moon - Erotic Mysticism in the Vaiṣṇava-sahajiyā Cult of Bengal, University of Chicago Press, 1966 * *
Kvaerne, Per. "On the Concept of Sahaja in Indian Buddhist Tantric Literature", ''Temenos'', vol.11, 1975, pp88-135
* Mahendranath, Shri Gurudev
Ecstasy, Equipoise, and Eternity
Retrieved Oct. 20, 2004. * Mahendranath, Shri Gurudev
The Pathless Path to Immortality
Retrieved Oct. 20, 2004. * Neki, J.S. "Sahaja: an Indian ideal of mental health", ''Psychiatry'', vol.38, 1975, pp1–10 * Ray, Niharranjan. "The Concept of Sahaj in Guru Nanak's Theology and its Antecedents", in ''Medieval Bhakti Movements in India'', edited by N.N.Bhattacharyya (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1969), pp17–35 ;Web-sources

External links

* Timothy Conway (2012)

{{Yoga Bengali philosophy Buddhism in Bangladesh Schools of Buddhism Buddhist philosophical concepts Hindu philosophical concepts Bhakti movement Nonduality Advaita Yoga