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

—the yogi himself is called Vajradhara. There he experiences great bliss in the form of innate bliss.¹

Of the four kinds of bliss described above, the first is bodily. The second and third belong respectively to speech and mind. The final bliss is cognitive and is therefore called innate bliss. Through it, great bliss is experienced.

Summary of the sahaja doctrines

Briefly, the various practitioners of sahaja held:

1. The body is the instrument of every form of practice.
2. The union or harmony of Shiva and Shakti is accomplished in several ways:
   • through the union of wisdom and skilful means;
   • through the joining of gross bodies;
   • through the union of Kundalini Shakti with Shiva in the emptiness-centre or sahasrāra;
   • through the yogic drawing upward of the Five Sacred Things;
   • or through mantra recitation and related methods.
3. All opposed outward display, formal worship, meditation and concentration, and fixed ritual prescriptions; yet every discipline eventually assumed an extremely complex form.
4. Although all sought to attain the Supreme within the body and criticised renunciation and painful austerity, they failed to discover a discipline founded upon love. They remained caught in the pursuit of supernatural attainment, liberation, and nirvana, and stayed far from loving devotion.

From the seventh through the eleventh and twelfth centuries, sahaja practice was used in many senses, yet its root meaning was consistently remembered:

1. Supreme truth is not realised through external display and painful observance.
2. The Supreme to be attained is within the human body.
3. Its nature is ineffable; only the guru can reveal it.
4. Renouncing women, renunciation generally, and painful discipline are not necessary for liberation.

Contact with many disciplines produced numerous expansions of this root meaning. The doctrine that the body itself is the ladder of attainment particularly strengthened yogic and pleasure-oriented methods. By the end of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, even these anti-ritual and anti-display practices expressed themselves through severe Tantra, mantra, magical rites, and intricate mysteries. A reaction was inevitable.

Its first forceful form appeared among Nath practitioners. They attacked Buddhists, Soma-path followers, and Shaktas. Whatever had slipped from older disciplines into their path they interpreted metaphorically, while vigorously defending celibacy, restraint of speech, and purity of mind. Gorakhnath said:

This is that supreme mountain, O mind; here that great bliss is attained.
Here is natural, innate delight; here one enters great bliss.