Prathiba - Sahaja - Samarasa (continued)
Dattatreya tried to each men that if they had sahaja there was no need to do anything to prove it. It manifested only by the way one lived. Sukhadev, the great naked Mahatma who expounded the Bhagavad Purana, stood, when a young man, naked in the presence of his father, the sage Vyasa, to be initiated into the Brahmin caste with mantra and sacred thread. This was a moment such as we have just mentioned, when the natural unspoiled boy was to be ushered into a world of concepts, ideas and obligations, and all naturalness would be lost. Sukhadev decided to keep his sahaja. Taking to his heels, he ran from the house and took to the path which wound itself along the side of a river and into the jungle.
As he came to the river some young women were bathing naked in the water. They took no notice of Sukhadev and he only glanced and ran on. But Vyasa the father was hot on his tracks, and following the young man to induce him to return. But as Vyasa approached the river, the young women screamed, rushed for their garments and covered themselves as he drew near. Having observed their complete indifference when his naked son ran past, and this modest but demonstrative display at his own approach, Vyasa could not help wondering at the contrast.
He stopped by the now covered women, and asked for some explanation of such widely different
behaviour towards his naked son and his decorously dressed self. One of the women explained: "When your son looks at us he sees only people and is not conscious of male and female. He is just as unconscious of our nakedness as he is of his own, but with you, Maharaj Vyasa it is different." Sukhadev had sahaja, and the women knew it. He knew it, and never lost it. His father never caught up with him and he never returned home. He became one of India's many great saints, not living in any fixed place, but only in the fullness of the immediate present.
The three Sanskrit words Pratibha, Sahaja and Samarasa are related even in meaning, interlocking with each other and together to form a 'Holy Trinity' of liberation. The 3rd, however, is the greater and by far the most interesting, for it is the one single magic word which contains the Absolute, the Universe, and the World.
Samarasa This unique word, completely absent from Vedic texts, is found again and again in Tantra, Upanishads and all the best of non-Vedic literature. In one short chapter of the Avadhut Gita it occurs more than 40 times. This whole Gita would be impossible to read and understand without knowledge of this word.
One of the unique but mysterious features of the Sanskrit language is how many words can be used at three separate and distinct levels of thought. Even whole verses have this remarkable feature. It is one of the factors which have made translation into other languages so difficult. The difference presupposes three groups of people. First there is the literal meaning intended for the householder or worldly man, and a guide to better thought and action. The second is the meaning on a higher level intended for the mumukshi or hungry seeker for God. Here the same words take the reader from the mundane level to the higher level, and the implications. The third is the meaning intended for the soul who has attained or is nearly ready to attain liberation.
This play of words is not unknown in other languages 'A dog's life' would have a different meaning to Diogenes of Sinope, a harassed householder, or to a dog itself. There is little wonder that the sages warned against public reading of many scriptures and confined them only to disciples or near relatives. It is also one of the features which has made the Sadguru indispensable to the sincere disciple.
The Tantrik or non-Vedic teachers used the word samarasa in its mundane meaning to suggest higher truth. Samarasa can mean the ecstasy attained in sexual intercourse at the moment of orgasm. Using this, as many other worldly things, to draw an analogy between the moment of sexual bliss and the spiritual bliss of realisation, it was thought men and women would better understand absolute concepts from the examples of relative life.
Going higher, it means the essential unity of all things -- of all existence, the equipoise of equanimity, the supreme bliss of harmony, that which is aesthetically balanced, undifferentiated unity, absolute assimilation, the most perfect unification and the highest consummation of Oneness.
To Dattatreya it meant a stage of realisation of the Absolute Truth where there was no longer any distinction to be felt, seen or experienced between the seeker and the Sought. Gorakhnath, who wrote the first texts of the Nathas, explains samarasa as a state of absolute freedom, peace and attainment in the realisation of the Absolute Truth. He placed it on a higher level than samadhi. Samarasa implied the joy and happiness with perfect equanimity and tranquility, maintained after samadhi had finished, and continued in the waking or conscious state. In this sense it is a form of permanent ecstasy and contemplation which the saint maintains at all times. Zen maintains the same concepts, but nothing comparable with pratibha, sahaja or samarasa are found in any of the Black Dharmas of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
In the Tantrik-Buddhist school which existed for about 300 years between the 7th and 10th centuries AD, samaras and sahaja hold a prominent place, and were also adopted by Tibetan Lamaism. The Siddha and Natha sects used samaras instead of the word moksha. In this way the word became used to express the highest ideal of human life. It is much elucidated in the Agamas of the Shiva-Shakti tradition. Samarasa is not just a matter of outlook or adjustment of ourselves with the world and its innumerable divisions, or to try and adjust the world to ourselves. One ends in greater conditioning, and the other in frustration. Samarasa must be regarded only as the culminating point of real yoga. The true yogi does as Dattatreya did -- seeing himself in the world and the world in himself, the most perfect harmony of man and nature.
Thanks to Lokanath Maharaj -Hindu Tantrik Home page
Shiva Shakti Mandalam: Tantrik Home Page
These concepts help us understand not only the siddhars but also all the Saints of Hinduism.
