Sahaja 33 Min

- This is KPFK Los Angeles and good evening.

Welcome to another hour with Alan Watts.

We have two talks from Alan today.

First from the Philosophy East and West series.

One of the most beautiful of all the Alan Watts programs.

Alan Watts reads A.K. Kumaraswamy's Sahaja,

which is on sacred, secular, and romantic love.

And then in about half an hour from the Summer of Love set,

we're going to hear Psychedelic Experience, part one.

So here is Alan Watts with a very special half hour,

A.K. Kumaraswamy, Sahaja.

This evening I'm going to invite another absent guest

to my program.

This guest, absent not so much in space as in time,

the late Ananda Kumaraswamy,

sometime a research fellow

at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts,

and one of the most celebrated scholars

and sages of the 20th century.

Of mixed parentage, British and Sinhalese.

A truly universal man who combined enormous scholarship,

artistic sensibility, philosophical insight,

and practical dexterity,

both as a great gardener and a marvelous fisherman.

This is his essay entitled Sahaja,

approximately translatable as spontaneity.

The last achievement of all thought

is a recognition of the identity of spirit and matter,

subject and object.

And this reunion is the marriage of heaven and hell,

the reaching out of a contracted universe

towards its freedom in response to the love of eternity

for the productions of time.

There is then no sacred or profane, spiritual or sensual,

but everything that lives is pure and void.

This very world of birth and death is also the great abyss.

In India, we could not escape

that sexual love has a deep and spiritual significance.

There is nothing in which we can better compare

the mystic union of the finite with its infinite ambient.

That one experience which proves itself

and is the only ground of faith.

Then the self-oblivion of earthly lovers

locked in each other's arms, where each is both.

Physical proximity, contact and interpenetration

are the expressions of love

only because love is the recognition of identity.

These two are one flesh

because they have remembered their unity of spirit.

This is moreover a fuller identity

than the mere sympathy of two individuals.

And each as individual

has now no more significance for the other

than the gates of heaven for one who stands within.

It is like an algebraic equation

where the equation is the only truth

and the terms may stand for anything.

The least intrusion of the ego, however,

involves a return to the illusion of duality.

This vision of the beloved

has no necessary relation to empirical reality.

The beloved may be in every ethical sense of the word unworthy

and the consequences of this may be socially or ethically disastrous.

But nevertheless, the eye of love perceives her divine perfection and infinity

and is not deceived.

That one is chosen by the other is therefore no occasion of pride

for the same perfection and infinity are present in every grain of sand

and in the raindrop as much as in the sea.

Through such a relationship, however,

and to reach a goal,

to really progress and not merely to achieve an intimation,

for this it is necessary that both the lover and the beloved

should be of one and the same spiritual age

and of the same moral fibre.

For if not, as Chandidas says,

"The woman who loves an unworthy man

will share the fate of a flower that is pierced with thorns.

She will die of a broken heart."

And the youth who falls in love with a woman of lower spiritual degree

will be tossed to and fro in great unrest

and will give way to despair.

Because the stages of human love

reflect the stations of spiritual evolution,

it is said that the relationship of hero and heroine

reveals an esoteric meaning.

And this truth has been made the basis

of the well-known allegories of Radha and Krsna,

which are the dominant motif of medieval Hinduism.

Here, illicit love becomes the very type of salvation.

For in India, where social convention is so strict,

such a love involves a surrender of all that the world values

and sometimes of life itself.

When Krsna receives the milkmaids

and tells them He owes a debt that can never be paid,

it is because they have come to Him

like the Vairagi who has renounced his home.

Neither their duties nor their great possessions

hindered them from taking the way of Mary.

The great seducer makes them his own.

All this is an allegory,

the reflection of reality in the mirror of illusion.

This reality is the inner life where Krsna,

the milkmaids are the souls of men,

and Vrndavana, the field of consciousness.

The relation of the milkmaids with the divine herdsmen

is not in any sense a model

intended to be realized in human relationships,

and the literature contains explicit warnings

against any such confusion of claims.

The interpretation of this mystery, however,

is so well known as to need no elaboration.

But there is a related tout which is called sahaja,

which constitutes a practical discipline, a rule,

and what we have to speak of here

concerns this more difficult and less familiar teaching.

In sahaja, the adoration of young and beautiful girls

was made the path of spiritual evolution

and ultimate emancipation.

By this adoration, we must understand

not merely ritual worship, but also romantic love.

This doctrine seems to have originated

with the later tantric Buddhists.

Kanu Bhatta, already in the 10th century,

wrote sahaja love songs in Bengal.

The classic exponent, however, is Chandidas,

who lived in the 14th century.

Many other poets wrote in the same sense.

Chandidas himself was called a madman,

a term in Bengali which signifies

a man of eccentric ideas

who nevertheless endears himself to everyone.

He was a Brahman and a priest of the temple

of Vasuli Devi near Bhopur.

One day, he was walking on the riverbank

where some women were washing clothes.

By chance, there was a young girl who saw him.

She raised her eyes to his.

There was a meeting of Dante and Beatrice.

From this time on, Chandidas was filled with love.

Rani was very beautiful, but in Hindu society,

what can a washing woman be to a Brahman?

She could only take the dust off his feet.

He, however, openly avowed his love in his songs

and neglected his priestly duties.

He would fall into a dream whenever he was reminded of her.

The love songs of Chandidas were more like hymns of devotion.

"I have taken refuge at your feet, my beloved.

"When I do not see you, my mind has no rest.

"You are to me as a parent to a helpless child.

"You are the goddess herself,

"the garland about my neck, my very universe.

"All is darkness without you.

"You are the meaning of my prayers.

"I cannot forget your grace and your charm.

"And yet, there is no desire in my heart."

Chandidas was excommunicated,

for he had affronted the whole Orthodox community.

By the good offices of his brother,

he was once on the point of being taken back into society

on the condition of renouncing Rani forever.

But when she was told of this,

she went and stood before him at the place of the reunion.

Never before had she looked upon his face so publicly.

Then he forgot every promise of reformation

and bowed before her with joined hands

as a priest approaches his household goddess.

It is said that a divine vision was perhaps safe

to certain of the Brahmans there present,

for Rani was so transfigured

that she seemed to be the mother of the universe herself,

the goddess.

That is to say that for them, as for Chandidas himself,

the doors of perception were cleansed

and they too saw her divine perfection.

But the rest of them saw only the washerwoman.

And Chandidas remained an outcast.

He has explained in his songs what he means by sahaja.

The lovers must refuse each other nothing, yet never fall.

Inwardly, he says of the woman,

she will sacrifice all for her love,

but outwardly she will appear indifferent.

This secret love must find expression in secret,

but she must not yield to desire.

She must cast herself freely into the sea of contempt,

and yet she must never actually drink of the forbidden waters.

She must not be shaken by pleasure or pain.

Of the man, he says that to be a true lover,

he must be able to make a frog dance in the mouth of a snake

or to bind an elephant with a spider's web.

That is to say that although he plays

with the most dangerous passions,

he must not be carried away.

In his restraint, or rather,

in the temper that makes it possible lies his salvation.

Hear me, says Chandidas,

to attain salvation through the love of woman,

make your body like a dry stick.

For he that pervades the universe, seen of none,

can only be found by one who knows the secret of love.

It is not surprising, if he adds,

that one such is hardly to be found in a million.

The doctrine of romantic love is by no means unique.

We meet with it also at the summit levels

of European culture in the 13th century.

And so far as love is concerned as a modern Russian, Kubrin,

I tell you that even this has its peaks,

which only one out of millions is able to climb.

Before attempting to understand the practice of sahaja,

we must define the significance of the desired salvation,

the spiritual freedom, moksha,

which is called the ultimate purpose,

the only true meaning of life.

And by hypothesis,

the highest good and perfection of our nature.

It is a release from the ego and from becoming.

It is the realization of self and of entity,

when nothing of ourself is left in us.

This perfect state must be one without desire,

because desire implies a lack.

Whatever action the jivanmukta,

or spiritual free man, performs,

must therefore be of the nature of manifestation

and will be without purpose or intention.

Nothing that he does will be praiseworthy or blameworthy.

And he will not think in any such terms,

as the Mahabharata says, with many like texts,

"He who considers himself a doer of good and evil

"knows not the truth."

Nothing that the free man does will be selfish,

for he has lost the illusion of the ego.

His entire being will be in all he does.

And it is this which makes the virtue of his action.

This is the innocence of desires.

Then and then only is the lover free.

When he is free from willing,

he who is free is free to do what he will.

But first, as Nietzsche says,

he must be such as can will,

or as Rumi expresses it, must have surrendered will.

This is by no means the same as to do what one likes,

or avoid what one does not like,

for he is very far from free,

who is subject to the caprices or desires of the ego.

Of course, if the doors of perception were cleansed,

we should know that we are always free.

"It is not indeed but thine own hearing and willing

"that do hinder thee,

"so thou dost not see and hear God,

"for the world itself is manifestation,

"and not the handiwork of the absolute."

The most perfect love seeks nothing for itself,

requiring nothing, and offers nothing to the beloved,

realizing her infinite perfection,

which cannot be added to.

But we do not know this,

except in moments of perfect experience.

Very surely, the love of woman

is not the only way to approach this freedom.

It is more likely by far the most dangerous way,

and perhaps for many an impossible way.

We do not, however, write to condemn or to advocate,

but to explain.

In reading of romantic love,

we are apt to ponder over what is left unsaid.

What did the writers really mean?

What was the actual physical relation

of the provencal lover to his mistress,

of Chandidas to Rani?

I have come to see now that even if we knew this

to the last detail, it would tell us nothing.

"He who looks upon a woman with desire,

"be it even his wife,

"has already committed adultery with art,

"for all desire is adultery."

We remember that saying, but do not always remember

that the converse is also true,

that he who embraces a woman without desire

has added nothing to the sum of his mortality.

Action is then inaction.

It is not by non-participation,

but by non-attachment,

that we live the spiritual life.

So that he in sahaja,

who merely represses desire, fails.

It is easy not to walk,

but we have to walk without touching the ground.

To refuse the beauty of the earth,

which is our birthright,

from fear that we may sink to the level of pleasure seekers,

that inaction would be action

and bind us to the very flesh we seek to evade.

The virtue of the action of those who are free beings

lies in the complete coordination of their being,

body, soul, and spirit,

the inner and outer man at one.

The mere action then reveals nothing.

As do the slaves of passion

impelled by purpose and poverty,

so do the spiritually free

out of the abundance of the bestowing virtue.

Only the searcher of hearts

can sift the tares from the wheat.

It is not for mortal man

to judge of another state of grace.

When we say that the Indian culture is spiritual,

we do not mean that it is not spiritual.

We do not mean that it is not sensuous.

It is perhaps more sensuous

than has ever been realized

because a sensuousness such as this,

which can cut 360 kinds of the fine emotions of a lover's heart,

and pause to count the patterns gentle teeth may leave on the tender skin of the beloved,

or to decorate her breasts with painted flowers of sandal paste,

and carries perfect sweetness through the most erotic art,

is inconceivable to those who are merely sensual,

or by a superhuman effort, are merely self-controlled.

The Indian temperament makes it possible to speak of abstract things,

"men ontre les baisers,"

even between kisses.

For this to be possible

demands a profound culture of the sexual relationship,

something altogether different from the innocence of Western girlhood

and the brutal violence of the first night and the married orgy.

The mere understanding of what is meant by sahaja

demands at least a racial, if not an individual, education in love,

an education related to athletics and dancing, music and hygiene.

The sexual relation in itself must not be so rare or so exciting as to intoxicate.

One should enjoy a woman as one enjoys any other living thing,

any forest, flower or mountain, that reveals itself to those who are patient.

One should not be forced to the act of love by a merely physical tension.

Minutes suffice for that, but hours are needed for the perfect ritual.

What the lover seeks should be the full response, and not his mere pleasure.

And by this I do not mean anything so sentimental as forbearance or self-sacrifice,

but what him most.

Under these conditions, violence has no attractions.

In Arabia, Burton tells us, the Muslims respected even their slaves,

and it was "pundona", a point of honour, that a slave, like any other woman, must be wooed.

Lafcadio Hearn has pointed out the enormous degree

to which modern European literature is permeated with the idea of love.

This is, however, as nothing compared with what we find in the Vaishnava literature of Hindustan.

There, however, there is always interpretation.

In European romantic literature, there is rarely anything better than description.

That should be only a passing phase, for the real tendency of Western sexual freedom

is certainly idealistic, and its forms are destined to be developed

until the spiritual significance of love is made clear.

Under the sway of modern hedonism, where nothing is accepted as an end

and everything is a means to something else,

the preconditions for understanding sahaja scarcely exist.

Sahaja has nothing to do with the cult of pleasure.

It is a doctrine of the Tao, and a path of non-pursuit.

All that is best for us comes of itself into our hands,

but if we strive to overtake it, it perpetually eludes us.

In the passionless, spontaneous relation of sahaja,

are we to suppose that children are ever to be begotten?

Certainly not of necessity. It is true, many times it was considered right

for the hermit who has renounced the world and the flesh

to grant the request of a woman who comes to him of her own will and desires a child.

But this is quite another matter, and incidentally a wise eugenic disposition,

removing an objection to monasticism which some have found in its sterilization of the best blood.

The sahaja relation, on the contrary, is an end in itself

and cannot be associated with social and eugenic ideas.

Those who are capable of such love must certainly stand on the plane of the men of old

who did not long for descendants and said,

"Why should we long for descendants, we whose self is the universe?"

For longing for children is longing for possessions,

and longing for possessions is longing for the world.

One, like the other, is merely longing.

We cannot admit such a longing in sahaja.

It is, however, just possible that such a relation as this

might be employed by the powers for the birth of an avatar.

And in such case, we should understand what was meant by immaculate conception and virgin birth.

She being virgin, who has never been moved by desire.

The sahaja relation is incommensurable with marriage,

categorically regarded as a contract,

inasmuch as this relation is undertaken for an end,

the definite purpose of fulfilling social and religious duties,

and in particular of paying the debt to the ancestors by begetting children.

Those whose view of life is exclusively ethical

will hold that sexual intimacy must be sanctified, justified, or expiated

by at least the wish to beget, and subsequent responsibilities of parenthood.

There is indeed something inappropriate in the position of those who pursue the pleasures of life as such,

and evade by artificial means their natural fruit.

But this point of view presupposes that the sexual intimacy was a sought pleasure.

What we have discussed is something quite other than this,

and without an element of seeking.

It is only by pursuing what is not already ours by divine right that we go astray,

and bring upon ourselves and upon others infinite suffering.

To those who do not pursue, all things will offer themselves.

What we truly need, we need not strive for.

It will be seen from all this how necessary it is that sexual intimacy

should not in itself be considered an unduly exciting experience.

It is more than likely also that those who are capable of this spontaneous control

will have been already accustomed to willed control under other circumstances.

And a control of this kind implies a certain training.

We may remark in passing that in birth control we see an objection to the use of artificial means,

an objection additional to what is obvious on aesthetic grounds,

in the fact that such means remove all incentive to the practice of self-control.

Those who have good reason to avoid procreation at any time

should make it a point of pride to accomplish this by their own strength.

And in any case, no man who has not this strength

can be sure of his ability to play his part to perfection,

but may at any time meet with a woman whom he cannot satisfy.

How is one to avoid in such a relation as sahaja

the danger of self-perception, the pestilence of suppressed desires,

and even of physical over-strain and tension?

For very highly perfected beings it may be true

that those subtle exchanges of nervous energy which are affected in sexual intercourse

and are necessary to full vitality

can be affected by mere intimacy in a relation scarcely passionate in the common sense.

We read indeed of other worlds

where even generation may be affected by an exchange of glances.

But it is given to few to function always on such a plane as this.

Are we then to forbid to those who need the consolations of mortal affection,

are we to forbid to these the passionless intimacy of sahaja?

Why should we do so?

Even for those who cannot renounce the sheltered valleys of the personal life forever,

it is well sometimes to breathe the cold air of the perpetual snows.

We should add that to whom chastity is difficult it is to be dissuaded.

In order to be sure of our ground

we should not attempt the practice of a degree of continence beyond our power.

We should also be careful not to mix our planes

or to make one thing an excuse for another.

We must recognize everything for what it really is,

the relative as relative, the absolute as absolute,

and render unto Caesar those things and only those which are lawfully his.

We are now perhaps in a better position to know what is meant by Chandidas

when he speaks of the difficulties and the meaning of sahaja.

What he intends by never falling is a perpetual uncalculated life in the present

and the maintenance not of deliberate control

but of unsought unshaken serenity in moments of greatest intimacy.

He means that under circumstances of temptation none should be felt,

not that temptation should be merely overcome.

And to achieve this he does not pray to be delivered from temptation but cause it.

Here nothing is to be done for one another but all for love.

There is to be no effort to evoke response and none to withhold it.

All this is far removed from the passion and surrender,

the tricks of seduction and the shyness of the spiritual allegory

and of the purely human experience.

My absent guest tonight was Ananda Kumaraswamy

and I have been reading to you from his essay, "Sahaja."

The Sanskrit word approximately translatable as "spontaneity."

This is KPFK Los Angeles 90.7 FM and that was "Sahaja"

from the Philosophy East and West series.

The name of Alan Watts' program at the time was Philosophy East and West.

For information on the Alan Watts programs

you can contact the Pacifica Archives at 800-735-0230

800-735-0230, Pacifica Radio Archives

or you can go to their website at www.pacificaradioarchives.org

and walk through the archives, pacificaradioarchives.org

or go to pacifica.org and find, click on archives.

The number of "Sahaja," the program we just heard, is BB0528.23

for you Robert Anton Wilson fans, BB0528.23.

Alan Watts reads, "A.K. Kumaraswamy, Sahaja."