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Sahaja: The Naturalness
The term ‘Sahaja’ has been translated by "spontaneous", "natural". Etymologically, it derives from "saha" – which means ‘together’ and "ja" – which means “to be born”. Therefore, the direct translation is "born together" or "emerged together." a) Etymology So, in this case, the understatement is the fundamental idea that the Spiritual freedom, the Liberation is not “something” (an energy or a reality) external to us. The Liberation and our being "come into being” or “get born” together. On the other hand, sahaja suggests that samsara (the manifested world) and nirvana (the transcendent reality) are "born together" and, therefore, there must be a common underlying background where they originally came from and where they coexist. The individual (the subject or experiencer) who succeeds to remain in the Spiritual Heart gets to actually live in the Reality revealed to him not only in ecstatic meditations, in nirvana, but also in the world – samsara. Thus, samsara becomes integral part of the Reality. The wisdom of maintaining the true natural spontaneity or sahaja was termed, in Buddhism, "the direct spiritual path" (uju-patha) or "the royal path" (raja- patha). The dzogchen tradition terms it as the Natural State. c) The reconciliation of opposites Once we have the intuition of the eternity, we start to have a different attitude toward what is not permanent, toward the ephemeral or temporary. We start to perceive it also as an expression or manifestation of the Spiritual Heart. And then any and all oppositions between the Eternal and the ephemeral, between the Divine Oneness and the multiplicity of objects, cease to exist. Then, we exist at the same time as “I am” and “I become”, in the Absolute Reality of the Self and in every day routine life. Meister Eckhart referred to this state by using the metaphor of “the hinge which remains fixed while the door is moving.” Through the practice of the Yoga of the Spiritual Heart, we open ourselves to sahaja, spontaneity, naturalness, freedom which radiate continuously from the Heart. The naturalness or candor of this feeling is expressed through essential simplicity. But this simplicity includes everything. It is a holistic vision, which means that it is non-dualistic and all-pervasive. Essential Concepts in the Yoga of the Spiritual Heart |