Sahaja (Prakrit languages: সহজ Sanskrit: सहज) means spontaneous enlightenment in Indian and Tibetan Buddhist spirituality. Sahaja practices first arose in Bengal 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."[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, means 'together with', and derives from the root, meaning 'to be born, produced, to occur, to happen'.[3] 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'.[4] [5] The Tibetan can function as a verbal phrase, noun, or adjective.
The siddha Saraha (8th century CE) was the key figure of the Vajrayana Buddhist Sahajayana movement, which flourished in Bengal and Odisha.[6]
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.[7] [8]
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.[9]
The songs were often sung in tantric feasts called ganachakras which included dance, music and improvised songs or poems called caryagiti.[10]
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.[11]
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.[12] Sahajayana Buddhism became very popular in the Pala Empire, especially among commoners.[13]
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 [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.[14]The siddha, Indrabhuti, wrote a commentary on Sahaja teachings called the .
See main article: Nath.
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 and Buddhism in Bengal as early as the 8th–9th centuries. The British Nath teacher Mahendranath wrote:
The concept of a spontaneous spirituality entered Hinduism 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.[15] It influenced the bhakti movement through the Sant tradition, exemplified by the Bauls of Bengal, Namdev[16] Dnyaneshwar, Meera, Kabir[17] and Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism.[18]
Yoga 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.
See main article: 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 .[19] 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.[20]
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)[21] one of the eighty-four Mahasiddhas.[22] 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 distinguished between and :
is temporary,[23] [24] 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.