Chapter Three: The Madhura Disposition in India's Inner (Esoteric) Religious Disciplines

—nature before entering the discipline. To express its difficulty, the Siddhas used several paradoxes: bathing in the ocean without becoming wet in the slightest; a frog dancing before a serpent; binding an elephant with a spider's thread; and others.

Sahajiyas distinguish three grades in love-practice: beginner, practitioner, and perfected. Five supports correspond to them: name, mantra, feeling, love, and rasa. Name and mantra belong to the beginner; feeling to the practitioner; love and rasa to the perfected. Only after attaining perfection does one become qualified to practise love and rasa.

Strength of both body and mind is indispensable to perfection. Innate practice is impossible without a strong body, so bodily discipline is a major limb of love-practice. The Principle is within this body; neglecting the body makes its attainment difficult, indeed impossible. Whoever knows this vessel, the body, knows the cosmos.

The conscious form is the innate form, dwelling in the body's various lotuses. The entire mystery of Radha and Krishna can be known only within this body. Love-practice completely abolishes duality: two bodies, one soul; one body, one soul; the complete dissolution of two into one. The practice is perfected only when lover and beloved dissolve wholly in love and become one.

Chandidas sings:

Love rests upon love; above it rests feeling.
Upon feeling rests deeper feeling; above that lies attainment.
Within love is the place of ecstatic thrill; above the thrill, a streaming current.
Upon the current the greater current dwells—who can explain such happiness?
Water rests upon the earth, and above the water, waves.
Above the waves dwells love—does anyone know it?

When genuine love arises in the practitioner's heart, the beloved becomes a symbol of love. The entire universe, with its infinite majesty, mystery, and immeasurable beauty, becomes concentrated and manifest in the beloved's body. More than this, the beloved becomes the symbol of Supreme Truth, Supreme Shiva, and Supreme Beauty.

In such a divine transport of love, Chandidas addresses Rami: