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

—Kabir, Dadu, and others sometimes advise entering innate absorption; sometimes express an intense desire to obtain innate bliss; sometimes proclaim the importance of bathing in the lake of emptiness; and sometimes stand at the gate of innate emptiness and pity the condition of the sages.

In one place Kabir cries out in deep longing: is there a saint who can produce innate bliss—who can give me a single drop of Rama's essence, just as a woman tavern-keeper fills a cup with intoxicating liquor? I am prepared to give him all my recitation and austerity as his commission:

Is there a saint who can bring innate bliss to birth?
I shall give all prayer and austerity as his fee.
Let him pour me one drop of Rama's essence,
as the tavern-woman fills the cup.

The word sahaja has a long lineage. Having bathed in the Ganges of the minds of practitioners of many kinds, it manifested in Kabir's heart as the essence of Rama. The story of its long journey is both fascinating and useful for understanding Sant literature.

The great devotee Dadu Dayal addresses his guru with a question: “What is sahaja? What absorption? What devotion, and what worship?” He has the guru answer:

Renounce selfhood, pride, vanity, intoxication, envy, and ego.
Embrace humility, worship, and service of the Creator.

Here sahaja means embracing humility and offering worship. The word itself is very ancient. In the Gita, Sri Krishna says: Sahajaṃ karma kaunteya sa-doṣam api na tyajet—“O son of Kunti, one should not abandon the work born with one's nature, even though it has defects.”

From the seventh century onward, the word exercised a remarkably wide influence in Kaula, Shakta, and Buddhist literature. The “innate” of the Vajrayana Siddhas became, much like the Brahman of the Upanishads, an ineffable and inconceivable principle.¹ From the seventh through the fourteenth century, the word had a pervasive influence throughout the world of spiritual practice.