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

The principle of superimposition

As stated above, a person's outward life is “form,” while the inward spiritual life—the pure condition of Krishnahood or Radhahood—is “essential nature.” Form must attain this essential nature; only then does real spiritual life begin. Superimposing essential nature upon form does not mean extinguishing form. Every particle of form must instead be saturated with the savour and awareness of essential nature.

The human body and human life are neither useless nor contemptible. Sahajiyas regarded them as immensely important. Within the intoxication of human beauty, the practitioner sees a reflection of the shimmering radiance of divine beauty. Divine beauty and love never require contempt for human beauty and love. Only by accepting the chain of human love and beauty, and acknowledging their physical attraction and intoxication, can the practitioner successfully master the mind and advance through discipline toward supreme divine bliss and beauty.

Just as mercury or sulphur is purified, worldly human love and beauty are refined into the perfection of divine love and beauty—continuous, immeasurable, and ineffable in themselves. Divine love is the consummation of human love; one might say it is born from the womb of human love, like a lotus from mud.

Where orthodox Vaishnavas call “the desire to please one's own senses” lust and “the desire to please Krishna's senses” love, Vaishnava Sahajiyas erase the distinction. They say that after divinisation no difference remains between the desire to please one's own senses and the desire to please Krishna's: one's own satisfaction and Krishna's satisfaction are one.

Put plainly, they hold that love is born from desire. Love cannot exist without desire, so there is no need to render desire seedless or uproot it. In the Sahajiya view, “love” does not mean the devotee's affection at the Lord's feet. It is the intense affection of Radha and Krishna, available in every woman and man through superimposing essential nature upon form. Herein lies the fulfilment of male and female bodies. This body and life are therefore not contemptible.¹

Humanity is the mother of divinity. A human being becomes divine through love; the human—