To find out more about this book
including the paperback edition, please visit:
www.vividpublishing.com.au/sahaja
Edited by Ian Wilson
Copyright © 2019 Wide Ocean
ISBN: 978-1-925952-36-0 (ebook edition)
Published by Vivid Publishing
A division of Fontaine Publishing Group
P.O. Box 948, Fremantle
Western Australia 6959
www.vividpublishing.com.au
Version 1.0. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright holder.
In memory of
Vimala Thakar
with love.
Nairatmya1
Contents
Preface
Introduction
The Text
Verses
Part I: Empty Smoke Rings
1. Blowing Smoke into Your Own Eyes
2. A Great Actor
3. Whatever You Want to Hear
4. Performance Art
5. Out of Tune Piano
6. Wide of the Mark
7. Alchemy
8. Bargain Hunting
9. The Superficial
10. Sorrow
11. Make Friends with Death
12. The Universe
13. Ungraspable
14. Desire
15. The Sorcerer
16. Not Knowing Which Way to Turn
17. Balloon on a String
18. It’s You Who Is in the Way
Part II: Pointing at Emptiness
19. Drink It All Up!
20. The Master of the House
21. Nothing Outside
22. It neither Comes nor Goes
23. The World
24. Just That!
25. Overfull!
26. Neither This nor That
27. The Inner and the Outer
28. No Resemblance at All
29. Words
30. Chasing Your Own Shadow
31. When Mind Stops Jumping About
Part III: Emptying Out Emptiness
32. Opinions
33. Emptying Out
34. Long-winded Explanations
35. Why not Loosen Your Grip?
36. Why Torment Yourself?
37. Relax
38. Not Something You Can Grab
39. Floating on Water
40. The Camel
41. Why the Hurry?
42. Be Natural
43. Water and Waves
44. Yesterday’s Dreams
45. Forgetfulness
46. World Stops Moving
Part IV: Bliss-emptiness
47. Bliss and Emptiness
48. A Profound Secret
49. The Path of Bliss-emptiness
50. The Yamuna and the Ganges
51. Going on Pilgrimage
52. Where You Enter
53. Why not Stay at Home Tonight?
54. Nairatmya
55. Immerse Yourself
56. Like a Lamp
57. Be Released from It
58. Intoxicated
59. Not In-between
Part V: Sailing Through Emptiness
60. The Heart
61. Don’t You Recognize Her?
62. Fallen Out of Love?
63. Not Other than Yourself
64. The Lotus Blossom
65. Have You Experienced the Ordinary?
66. Can’t You See Beauty?
67. The Mystic Syllable “A”
68. Music of Silence
69. Love Apple Tree
70. It’s Not Atoms
71. The Magic Jewel
72. Made of Space
73. Pouring Water into Water
74. The Sesame Seed
75. Let the Sunshine In!
76. Drinking Poison All Day
77. Like Eating Sand
78. Soft Kisses
79. Like Lovers
80. Yab-yum
81. Delirious
Part VI: Flowers of Emptines
82. Dive In
83. Universe All Swallowed Up!
84. Not Two
85. Indivisible
86. No Traces
87. The Taste of the Indescribable
88. Like Being in Love
89. Throw it Out!
90. Love is the Flower
91. Many Flavours of Love
92. Samsara
93. Do You Understand Yet?
94. A Flower in Your Heart
Notes
Glossary
Preface
To be alive is to be. In your hurry to be on your way elsewhere perhaps you’ve overlooked it?
Have you noticed recently that you are alive? Maybe you have forgotten?
Have you not noticed the smell of the first day of spring when it arrives and the play of dappled sunlight across the ground? Have you noticed just how unordinary the ordinary is? A lemon. A butterfly. The sound of rain drops on the roof. The sycamore tree. Bees buzzing madly around the lavender flowers. The dreamy drifting of the clouds across the sky. The soft breeze on your face.
Life is an unending mystery. It’s a miracle of the impossible.
It is a precious gift.2
Introduction
The stanzas contained in this volume are derived from the verses attributed to the tantric adept Saraha who lived towards the end of the first millennium in northern India. As such, they disclose his teachings on the tantric path of sahaja.
What is sahaja? Sahaja is a kind of tantra. Tantra literally means warp and weft or tapestry. So, one might say that to engage in tantra (for there can be and is no tantra in abstraction) means to spin or to weave. However just as there is no one pattern of a carpet and there is no one way to spin fabric, there is no one tantra. In fact, there are many tantras, and they all adopt quite different patterns and methods of weaving.3
So as a tantra, sahaja is a particular kind of weaving. It’s not just any weaving. It’s a very particular way of spinning the rough cloth of unexamined life into the most beautiful cloth of illumination. In short it is the tantra of weaving the energies of contracted existence into the energies of unconstriction and freedom. It is a particular approach to overcoming the misconception that one is constricted or un-free through a process of dismantling the conventional and self-limiting way that one sees oneself and the world. Sahaja is also called the path of bliss-emptiness. It’s called the path of bliss-emptiness because in sahaja the essence of mind is recognized as bliss-emptiness. And so, in sahaja the experience of existence is woven into bliss, love, joy and delight.
In terms of what this path of bliss-emptiness looks like, it’s hard to describe since the way of sahaja has no fixed outer form. There are no fixed rituals to follow, no chants and no supplications. There are no gods and no deities to bring fresh flowers to. There are no physical postures. There are no positions to be assumed. Yet, on the other hand there might be if you are so inclined.
In sahaja there are no hierarchies. There are no leaders and no followers. Yet there are always good friends you meet on the road who have journeyed further than you.
There are no rules and no regulations. No vows. There is no specific time to rise and no time to retire. And yet at the same time whatever is useful may freely be adopted for as long as it is useful. That’s because that which may be useful for you might be a hindrance to me. And what may be useful for me might be poison for you.
Etymologically, sahaja means the innate or spontaneously arisen.4 It also means that which is natural. So, the way of sahaja is the natural way. It is the way that flows freely and easily. It has no fixed outer form and it adheres to no rigid view of things. It is an inner journey of the heart-mind that is travelled within. It is the heart that determines what is to be done or not to be done. The path of sahaja is the natural path which means that for you it will be one thing and for me it will be something else. In other words, the path of sahaja is the shoe that fits the foot.
When the shoe fits the foot there is harmony. And in harmony there is balance. And so, you have a symphony of life. You have beauty. When the inner energies of the human being are in harmony and inner and outer merge into one wholeness, there is bliss and delight. And when there is delight then there is love. Such is sahaja.
Wide Ocean
Summer 2019
The Text
The primary verses of the text are very loosely derived from the Treasury of Couplets of Saraha written in the Western Apabhramsa language of north India. It should be emphasised that the verses as presented here are not intended in any way as either literal or scholarly renderings. Rather, they should be considered to be like a distant echo heard from afar by someone standing on the other side of the fjord of time.
The Western Apabhramsa version of these verses was discovered in a Nepalese royal library in 1907 and was published by Haraprasad Sastri in 1916. The actual text was never located as an independent manuscript. However, the verses correspond with the verses forming part of a commentary, the Dohakosa-Panjika by Advayavajra, an eleventh century Indian tantric theorist.
Of Saraha himself, we know very little. He is mentioned as one of the siddhas in the Caturasits-siddha-pravrtti (The Lives of the Eighty-Four Siddhas) a collection of hagiographies composed by the eleventh century Indian scholar Abhayadattasri (the great teacher of Campara). He also features in the Carypada (performance songs) written in the old Bengali script. All we can really say however, is that he probably lived in north-east India, in Bengal or Orissa, sometime during the Pala and Sena dynasties (circa 750-1250CE), most likely during the ninth century based on the chronology of events contained in the Caturasits-siddha-pravrtti.5
As to the Treasury of Couplets of Saraha we cannot say with any accuracy who composed them. In fact, we have no idea whether they were related to Saraha at all. They could have been composed by a later Sahaja tantric scholar and adept and attributed to the personage of Saraha. We will simply never know.
Verses
PART I:
EMPTY SMOKE RINGS
1. Blowing Smoke into Your Own Eyes
Those poor priests,6
they’re absolutely clueless!
Pointlessly
they recite a lot of
mumbo jumbo.7
They imagine that
purity is found
by bathing in holy rivers.
They make offerings
to the god of fire8–
but it’s all just a case of
blowing smoke into your own eyes!
Commentary
Saraha is pointing out that it is difficult to see things clearly when you’ve got smoke in your eyes. With smoke in your eyes, things appear to be other than as they are.
In the Caryagiti, Saraha says:
Misconception is most perplexing;
it appears as the divided.
But such imagination
is as empty as a reflection in water.
2. A Great Actor
Then there are those who dress up
like actors
playing a part.
He’s handsome and so charming.
The ladies love him.
Imagining that he is a great sage
gratuitously he imparts
some teachings.
He can’t see up from down,
or back from front.
Unfortunately he is
totally lost himself –
he’ll just send you off in the wrong direction!
Commentary
In the Kularnava Tantra it is stated:
Numerous are those who are bent on the improvement of their situation. But one who is beyond all concern is hard to find.
Be careful says Saraha. Truth is not for sale. And wisdom cannot be bought. The true teacher reveals the light whereas the false one stands in its way.
3. Whatever You Want to Hear
Then there are the so-called saints
who pose as holy men.
He really looks the part.
He sits cross-legged
with his eyes half closed
and whispers
soft words
to lure the unsuspecting.
By the way,
he likes you rich people best –
for just a few dollars,
he will tell you whatever you want to hear!
Commentary
Saraha is saying that before you hand your money over, you had better weigh up what is on offer. In the Kularnava Tantra it is stated:
There is no shortage of gurus who know how to lessen their disciples’ wealth. But few are there who know how to remove their confusion.
4. Performance Art
And then there’s the ascetic.
Poor man,
he cuts off all his hair
and walks around half naked.
He eats only scraps
of thrown away food
and never washes.
It’s just performance art!
He thinks
that by mortifying his body
he’ll free his mind –
but if freedom were found like that
dogs would be free!
Commentary
Kularnava Tantra
Fools deluded by illusion aspire to liberation by means of asceticism of the body and abstention from food. How can there be liberation through punishment of the body?9