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

Unsteady in the senses and crude of tongue—
Gorakh says such a one falls among the outcastes.
Chaste beneath the loincloth and truthful of mouth:
that person is declared the highest of the true.

Both tendencies had grown excessive among the sahaja paths preceding Goraksha. Yet Gorakhnath's Hatha Yoga did not support innate practice; it remained merely a road to supernatural attainment. Its formidable disciplines, too, spread through northern India in the effort to attain the Supreme.

The preceding discussion reveals a grave deficiency in the many currents of the sahaja path. They certainly opposed religion founded upon external rites and tried to attain the Supreme within the body, but love had no place in any of them. Without love there can be no devotion. The entire medieval sahaja path based upon bodily yoga was therefore empty of devotion.

By the fourteenth century, northern India had become thoroughly acquainted with the love-centred devotional religion of the South. At the same time, the Sufi practitioners of Iran and their worship in the madhura disposition gradually became popular. The Nath Siddhas had rescued innate practice from the swamp of Sri-Sundari practice. Through the influence of southern teachers and western Sufis, however, the voice of a genuine, love-founded innate discipline now became dominant.

Kabir's new interpretation of sahaja emphasised natural life:

Everyone says “sahaja, sahaja”; no one recognises the innate.
One who naturally relinquishes sense-objects is rightly called innate.

And:

Everyone says “sahaja, sahaja”; no one knows the innate.
One who naturally meets dear Hari is rightly called innate.

In place of the Naths' elaborate absorption, Kabir advised innate absorption—an effortless attainment arising after recognition of the supremely loving Beloved within, the fruit of uncaused self-surrender:

O seeker, innate absorption is good.
Since it arose through the guru's grace, it grows greater day by day.
Wherever I wander is circumambulation; whatever I do is service.
When I sleep, I bow full length; I worship no other god.
Whatever I speak is his Name; whatever I hear is remembrance.
Whatever I eat and drink is worship.
I regard home and wilderness alike and cherish no second disposition.
I close no eyes, stop no ears, and undertake not the least hardship.
With open eyes I recognise him and, smiling, behold the beautiful form—