Prathiba - Sahaja - Samarasa - 2

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Continued

 

Retirement from such a society became the outer symbol of freedom

from the bonds and bounds of conventional society. Taoism, as Brahma-

Vidya and Zen, saw retirement or renunciation as the only possible

way for men to recover sahaja. Thus the greatest quality of children

again became recaptured by saints and sages.

 

Artificial clowns throng the world: Only children and saints know

sahaja.

 

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

http://www.shivashakti.com/datta.htm