Vaishnava Sahajiya
Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyā was a form of Hindu tantric Vaishnavism focused on Radha Krishna worship that developed in Eastern India (Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Assam).
[4] Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyā used the romance between Krishna and Radha as a metaphor for union with the innate or primordial condition (the Sahaja) present in everyone.
[5] The Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyā tradition was deeply influenced by Bengali Vaishnava bhakti and its poets (such as Jayadeva).
[7] From the Bengali Vaishnavas, Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyā adopted the devotion to Radha Krishna and its understanding of bhava (feeling) and rasa (flavor).
[4] The Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyā tradition does not survive as a living lineage today with an unbroken connection to the medieval gurus.
[7] Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyās held that the erotic (sringara) flavor of devotion was the superior rasa of divine love.
[4] Sexual sadhana was said to be able to transform desire (kama) into pure divine love (prema).
"[2] While the system of Gaudiya Vaishnavism is strictly theistic, seeing god as a supreme person, the Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyās saw Krishna as the true form (svarupa) which dwells inside all males (and Radha was likewise in all women).
According to the Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyā text entitled Ratnasara: All lives are created as a result of the union of the male and female elements, and so are human beings also.
Under a favorable opportunity, God comes in the human body with all His natural characteristics, and the new form is nothing but a modified image of God...However transformed man may be by virtue of his birth, the divine element in him cannot remain concealed, and those who manifest this divine character to its fullest extent are called...by the term Sahaja.
[4] Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyā practices also often involved breaking social norms, including those relating to caste.
[9] Other key figures include Vidyāpati, Caitanya-dāsa, Rupa, Sanatana, Vrndavana, Dasa, Krishnadasa, Kaviraja, Narahari, and Mukundadasa.
[9][4] Chandidas or Caṇḍidāsa (Bengali: চন্ডীদাস; born 1408 CE, whose name means "servant of the furious goddess") refers to possibly more than one medieval poet of Bengal.
Over 1250 poems related to the love of Radha and Krishna in Bengali with the signature line (bhanita) of a "Chandidas" have survived.
is rendered into English by David R. Kinsley (1975: p. 48-49) thus: Along with short poems, longer Esoteric Manuals were also written.
[4] The Necklace of Immortality describes the initial steps of the path as beginning with finding a mantric guru:[4] 13) Divine Love for Krishna is always pure, it is never stained.
Having a splendid body like Radha, she is the well of both Divine Essence and Cosmic Substance.Shashibhusan Dasgupta (1946, 1962: p. 131) holds that there are two hundred and fifty "manuscripts of small texts" in the Calcutta University which are associated with the Sahajiya, and that there is a comparable number of manuscripts held in common with Calcutta University in the library of the Bangīya-sāhitya-pariṣad.
The modern Vaisnava guru Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati strongly opposed the Sahajiya practice on the grounds that a soul cannot be promoted to the status of Radha or her expansions.
