Babajis and Sahajiyas

The following article by Babaji's verdict on Babajis, Sahajiyas and Apasampradayas. I am keeping it here primarily for references. I will make a couple of points below:

Another allegation made by the author is that bābājīs are sahajiyās. When we use a word it has a specific meaning but here it is not clear what the word sahajiyā means for the author. The word sahajiyā is derived from the Sanskrit word sahaja which literally means ‘born with or natural’ (saha+ja | saha = with; ja = born). The sahajiyā theory consists of two premises, namely:

1. Kṛṣṇa-prema is dormant in the heart and
2. This prema can be awakened by practicing love with a female partner.

It should be also noted here that a practicing sahajiyā has only one female partner, not two or three.

Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava bābājīs do not accept either of these two premises. Associating with women is not part of their practice but is instead warned against. It is considered a deviation from one’s spiritual practices and is reprehensible.

There was a Buddhist sect called sahaja-yāna, besides the mahāyāna and hīnayāna sects, which was popular in the Eastern part of India before the appearance of Mahāprabhu. They followed the Tantric practice of trying to elevate their consciousness or raise the kuṇḍalinī with the help of a female partner. The purpose was not to enjoy sex as is misunderstood by many. Some sects of Tantra still practice this and it has unfortunately become the popular understanding of the Tantra practiced in the West.

When Mahāprabhu became popular in Bengal and Orissa, many of these sahaja-yānis took to Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism being influenced by Mahāprabhu. They subsequently mixed their sahaja-yāna practice into the philosophy of Mahāprabhu. They believed that Goloka-vṛndāvana exists in the physical body and love of Kṛṣṇa is dormant within the ātmā. This love can be manifested in the most natural way (sahaja) in the association of a female, especially a woman who is not one’s wife (parakīya) as the male mind is naturally attracted to women other than one’s wife.

Sahajiyās consider Caitanya-caritāmṛta as one of the most important books of their school and claim that even Caitanya Mahāprabhu had a female partner. According to them, the daughter of Sārvabhauma Bhaṭṭācārya, Ṣāṭhī, was Mahāprabhu’s partner. This was the reason behind Ṣāṭhī’s husband, Amogha, being upset with Mahāprabhu when He came to Sārvabhauma Bhaṭṭācārya’s house to take lunch prasāda (Cc. 3.15.245-248).

Similarly, in their books the sahajiyās give the names of the female partners of all the Gosvāmīs of Vṛndāvana. They consider this knowledge to be very esoteric. Therefore most of their literature has never been printed. I have a collection of such manuscripts in my personal library.

When the GM and ISKCON claim that bābājīs are sahajiyās, they probably have no idea that they are ultimately also calling the Gosvāmīs themselves sahajiyās as the Gosvāmīs were bābājīs.

I think that I responded to this article a bit briefly in Where do I stand on the Sahajiya question nowadays? But looking at it again I don't think it is sufficient. 

First of all, let me go on the record: I am not favorable to the historical viewpoint expressed in Vivarta-vilāsa, to which Babaji refers, namely that Mahaprabhu, etc., had female bhajan partners. These things are of course impossible to prove, but were it true it would certainly have affected their social standing. I have heard of lynchings of Bengali babas who crossed the line with Brijbasi girls. There is no reason to think anything would have been any different 500 years ago, when non-Brahmin Bengalis were commonly despised as foreigners. The Goswamis were Brahmins and they behaved a Brahmins and as sannyasis. Mahaprabhu himself said that an inkspot shows more clearly on a white cloth, so similarly small flaws in a sannyasi are exaggerated in the minds of the ordinary folk. Like Rama who in order to keep his reputation -- as a lesson to kings and rulers everywhere -- knowingly abandoned the faultless Sita. Or like the barely guilty Chota Haridas being rejected. Or Mahaprabhu's respect for Damodar Pandit and Jagadananda Pandit for their close guard on his reputation. And on and on.

I assume that the strong orthodox tradition as expressed by Kaviraj Goswami is justified and should be honored and the Sahajiya narrative to be rejected as a dangerous imagination, arising out of a deemed necessity for the sake of justifying their approach to Mahaprabhu and their belief that they had grasped his essential teachings.

About that let me briefly say, as an aside, that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's original teachings, are encapsulated in the Sikshashtakam -- and that right there is a big subject for historical analysis. It is accepted that Mahaprabhu was absorbed in the Bhagavata view of religion, but as we know, Bengal was well aware of other Radha-Krishna traditions well before the arrival of Chaitanya, including I presume, some variants of Sahajiyaism. The principle that sexuality has something to do with spirituality had been swimming up and down the rivers of the Bengal delta for at least a millennium.

Since sex, understood symbolically, can have numerous meanings, so did numerous understandings become attached to the Syzygy. Different myths are varying explanations of the symbols. So because there is a Buddhist understanding applied to the symbolism of the kundalini, as well as a Shiva-Shakti version, it is the most natural thing in the world that the Radha Krishna Yugal should become attached to it. And all attempts to deny become somewhat laughable.

These symbol systems are often complementary rather than opposed, so one can "mix and match" so to speak, according to one's own traditions or samskaras combined with individual realization. As "orthodox" Vaishnavas we nevertheless give primacy of place to madhura-prema and to Radha Krishna as the highest truth of Transcendence

The Vaishnava Sahajiya system places a lot of emphasis on the Kundalini as a part of its texts, so people lose sight of the fact that the practice was predicated on a number of priors, which they called the pravartaka stage. Pravartaka includes the cultural samskaras that would naturally accrue to one who is born in a Vaishnava family, namely that of being Krishna-conscious by virtue of having assimilated it as one's natural identity. When faith strikes such a person, his progress is rapid. So the pravartaka stage can be divided into phases also -- kanishtha, madhyama and uttama. These are mentioned in 1.2 of Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu. 

In the Sahajiya analysis, uttama adhikara based on faith is what we call raganuga-bhakti, where faith has expanded considerably from its barebones beginnings. In other words there is a content to faith. The faith of the raganuga bhakta is one that has recognized Radha and Krishna as the Supreme Truth beyond all material duality. When that person comes to realize that Radha and Krishna's lila is reflected in the world around them and that the Archetype is present in the type, then he is ready for the sadhaka phase.

Pravartaka, sadhaka, siddha

Here right away there is a terminological problem. What is meant by the sādhaka stage here is not the same as sādhana bhakti according to BRS, even though there are important parallels. If we include the idea that rāgānugā bhakti automatically implies sahajiyā practices (as indeed many Sahajiyas believe and is defensible), then the entirety of the sādhaka stage would be considered raganuga and its goal or sādhya be the culture of bhāva. The Kundalini practice here is an important accessory to that culture. 

But the problem for the orthodoxy is the sex, and the attraction for the prurient is the sex. It is the classical case of attraction and aversion and therefore the extremes are to be treated with submission. The essence of yukta-vairāgya is utility: if something is anukula to kṛṣānuśīlanam and one accepts it without either attachment or aversion then that is yukta-vairāgya. So if there is a way that if so-called worldly things can be used in the culture of Krishna prema, then that is their utility. 

So in this way of looking at it, sex is not the "cause" of prema (as the glib summary given above would lead one to believe) any more than a fruit is the cause of prasada. It is the "transformed" sexual experience that becomes a doorway to meditation on the divine union of Radha and Krishna.

Now it should be mentioned here that ALL categories of relationship also have their correspondences in our lives, and in fact every Vaishnava is a sādhaka of all five primary relationships, and oftentimes more than one sub-variety of each. For instance, one admires hundreds of heroes and heroines, one has multiple friends though likely few close ones, relationships of service or mastery, childhood and parenthood, have their numerous divisions which are experienced at one point or another in everyone's life and at different times. Madhura rasa incorporates all these subdivisions of love and to experience the madhura rasa one has to understand how the sādhanas of the other relationships play a role in its culture.

Admiration is easy, service tougher, friendship yet again, leadership again harder, and madhura the toughest of all. See Prema's testing ground and laboratory are in the human. The reasons madhura is the toughest of all are many, and the pitfalls usually lie in the lila rather than the sambhoga. But can anyone doubt the primacy of sambhoga? Even separation pays homage to union. 

In that article I stressed a valid orthodox approach to relationships that sees human love not as Babaji says