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

—my mind is fixed continually upon the Word; impure desire has been abandoned.
Rising or sitting, this rapture never leaves me.
Kabir says: brother, I have made manifest this way of living beyond mind.
Beyond both pain and pleasure is the supreme state; I remain absorbed in that state.

Earlier sahaja disciplines tried to grasp the Supreme within independently of feeling. They therefore became dry and remained liable to go astray. This discipline sought a sweet form held within loving feeling, and so preserved both steadiness and savour. Once the supremely loving indwelling deity is attained, delusion, possessiveness, and attachment depart of themselves. This is therefore genuine innate practice. Kabir says:

In the cry of “sahaja, sahaja,” everyone was lost—to children, wealth, woman, and desire.
Kabir the servant remained absorbed in the One alone: Rama.

Such a devotee begins to regard himself as a faithful and devoted wife who knows only the glory and dignity of vermilion. Kohl cannot replace vermilion, just as desire cannot replace Rama:

Kabir: upon the line of vermilion, kohl cannot be applied.
Rama fills my eyes; no other can enter there.

This is true innate practice. Its practitioner enjoys the bliss of perfect love. Dadu says:

The Infinite himself bestowed the remembrance of the innate.
Touching and being touched by that One, we forever play in spring.

The path grounded in loving devotion is thus the sahaja path itself. This is worship in the madhura disposition. The love of the Supreme Beloved, a mass of unbroken bliss, is naturally attainable. It comes of itself in the innate disposition, by the road of the heart's natural longing. The great devotee Dadu Dayal explains the principle in tender language:

The Beloved's love is found when fortune crowns the head.
Then one will not go elsewhere, but remain clinging to his feet.
I have withdrawn my mind from every other; my business is with One alone.
Going elsewhere gives me pain; in the One alone is my kingdom.
Naturally I delight with my Lord; there is no other god.
My mind rests where dwells the Unseen, beyond all distinction.
I have fixed my heart upon the lotus feet, taking the bee's own love.
O Dadu, people are unconscious—come naturally into the innate.