Chapter Three: The Madhura Disposition in India's Inner (Esoteric) Religious Disciplines
Several striking differences between the Nath Siddhas and Buddhist Siddhacharyas are plainly visible. Paired yogic practice was current among the Buddhist Sahajiyas, transforming the bliss of sexual union into great feeling, bodily wholeness, and happiness. Buddhist Sahajiyas praised women highly, sang of their virtues, regarded them as embodiments of wisdom, selflessness, or emptiness, and considered union with them necessary for the perfection of practice.
The Naths adopted precisely the opposite position. They condemned women as such and called them tigresses and enchantresses. The company of women was absolutely forbidden in Nath practice. Nath Siddhas nevertheless knew, practised, and employed the Vajroli, Amaroli, Sahajoli, and other seals.
The Rasārṇava explains rasa, mercury, in detail.1 Parvati asked Shiva about liberation while living. Shiva replied: what use is liberation after death? True liberation is that which is attained in this very life while one is still alive. He then discussed rasa. Mercury is called pārada because it carries a human being to the farther shore: pāraṃ dadātīti pāradaḥ. This mercury is Shiva's semen, while mica is Gauri's generative blood. The substance produced through their conjunction has the power to bestow immortality upon a human being.2
Alchemists speak of the perfected body and the divine body, free of birth, age, and death. Both Nath Siddhas and mercury Siddhas made bodily immortality the goal of practice. The latter distinguished two kinds of perfected body: one belonging to liberation while living and the other to supreme liberation. The first is the pure body of pure Maya, called the body of praṇava or the body of mantra. It is free from age and death. When, however, the perfected body enters the conscious state of supreme liberation, it disappears. In Tantric terminology, these are called the baindava body and the Shakta body.
C. The Madhura Disposition in Kapalika, Nath, and Sant Practice
Although the nirguṇa Sants of the later medieval period called themselves Vaishnavas, their method differs from original Vaishnava practice in many respects and at times appears its opposite. Muslim influence is not the reason. The anti-ritual voice heard in Sant literature belongs to a very ancient tradition. Words such as sahaja, emptiness, sky, sky-like, the Lord of the sky, beyond mind, iḍā, and piṅgalā occur so frequently that one cannot discuss this literature without speaking of the Kaulas, Vajrayanis, Kapalikas, and Shakta practitioners who used them extensively—