Sahaja - The Esoteric Terminology 

The Sahajiya Vaishnavas and Bauls of Bengal also adopted this esoteric terminology. The patent meaning of Sahaj has been the abnegation of duality and the perception of unity in God as well as the creation. 

 Devoidness, is also the primordial state of the Nirgun Brahm Himself. 

 Mohan Singh Uberoi describes the Sikh Sahaja Yoga as “unification with Self through cultivation of a state of natural, easy Self-Hold, Self-Rest.” 

 Again: “Sunn is a state in which there is no movement, in the receptacle, of any type, no sound, no wind, no object or objectivity, the subject God, is there as the container, the presence.” 

Guru Nanak has copiously used esoteric terms and expressions such as :

• sunn, 
• shiv-shakti, 
• trikuti, 
• unman, 
• sas-ghar-sur, 
• bajar-kapat,
•  ira-pingla-sukhmana, 
• ajapa-jap, 
• dasamduar, 
• dhundhukar-niralam, 
• sache amerapur, 
• sachi nagari, 
• bij-mandar,
•  sunn kala, 
• satsar, 
• panch-sabad, 
• akul niranjan, 
• purakh-arit, 
• gagnantar dhanakh, 
• sunn-samadh, 
• bis-ikis, 
•  dubmue-vin pani, 
• surat-dhun, 
• nijghar,
•  guptibani, 
• anhat sunn and surat-sabad 

- in all his compositions, specially in Ragas, Ramkali and Maru. 

 These are purely mystical terms common to all Indian religions. As Nirharranjan Ray observes, Guru Nanak’s use of these tantric and yogic terms does not logically follow that he actually practiced or inculcated their practice among his followers, since he has used them only as figures of speech or technical esoteric terms which were current and handy for use and were generally understood among advanced mystical orders of his time. 

He had actually many discussions during his travels and at Kartarpur with Yogis, Sadhus and ascetics of various mystical cults and denominations. Guru Nanak, in fact, had his own mystical message to convey to humanity and it was original with him and had no conceptual reference to the mystical philosophies of saivites, vaishnavites, yogies and even to Kabir, Dadu, Namdev and others, though many of them were accepted as allied co-mystics and their compositions included in the Adi-Granth more with a view to illustration and elaboration than to identification and syncretism. 

The achievement of Sahaj-avastha in the form of maha-sukha or jiwan-mukti which was the ultimate goal of all the mystical cults using esoteric terms concurrently during Guru Nanak’s times, was to Guru Nanak a matter of inner discipline and direct experiential contact with divine Reality. 

 Mere esoteric niceties or intricacies, specially of Tantric Yoga were quite alien to his mystic temperament which was fundamentally Dynic, ethical and synthetic. N. Ray remarks in this context: 

 

“God-experience is an inner experience; one must therefore, cleanse and purify one's inner being. How does one do it? Guru Nanak’s clear answer is, by loving devotion and adoration of God and by endless repetition and remembering of His Name, Nam Simran.”

 Summing up, this eminent scholar says: 

“Guru Nanak’s position and statements are precise, clear and unequivocal and their ethical import and socio-religious significance deep and wide.” 

Guru Nanak’s mystic thought is easily distinguishable from the Natha-panthi and Kanphata Yogi cult, as also from Tantrism, Vaishnavism and Shaivism, though a general fallacy exists to equate or identify it with Kabir’s mysticism. But as Mcleod has lucidly discussed, much of Kabir’s mystical jargon remains obscure and personal whereas Guru Nanak’s postulation especially of the mystic path and discipline is clearer and more cogent than that of Kabir.

Concluding his analysis of Guru’s Nanak’s mystical contribution to Indian religious thought as represented by Sant Tradition (i.e. Nirgun-samparadaya tradition), Mcleod says: 

 “The system developed by Guru Nanak is essentially a reworking of the Sant pattern, a reinterpretation which compounded experience and profound insight with a quality of coherence and a power of effective express.” 

There is much inconsistency and incoherence in Kabir’s thought, as Ray observes, from which Guru Nanak’s mysticism is absolutely free, with the result that whereas it is difficult if not impossible to construct a theology out of what Kabir says, it is not so with Guru Nanak. 

 “He was also a mystic, but his mysticism was limited to the final goal of sahaj experience which at the ultimate analysis was a mystical, ineffable, unanalysable, inexpressible experience.” 

Another eminent writer observes:

 

“The Sahaja Yoga, according to the Guru, consists in subduing the mind through the grace of the Guru and in the extinction of all troubles and ills in the company of the Guru and the saints. This is the Bhakti Yoga of the Guru.” 

 Among the more technical esoteric (Tantric) terms may be included the ‘Chhat-chakra’ or the six nerve-plexuses, the kundalini, the sahasarar-dal kanwal, the sas-sur complex, the dasamduar, the opening of bajar-kaput or trikuti. 

 These are the well-known yogic terms which Guru Nanak adopted and reinterpreted to suit his own mystic realization. They are, thus, of illustrative value. The idea of the immersion of ‘sun’ in the house of ‘moon’ (sas ghar sur samauna) is typically mystical and has been adopted by Guru Nanak to express the subservience of the creative energy (called shakti - the female symbol) to the spiritual element (called shiva - the male symbol). 

 The sun and moon also stand for the right and left nerve channels (called ira and pingla, respectively) of the Hathayoga. 

 Connecting the allied states of Sahaj and Anhad N. Ray says: 

“Apart from the characteristics of peace and tranquillity, of wonderment and bliss and of ineffable radiance by which one recognized the sahaj state of being, Guru Nanak recognized another, that of anhad sabad, an unstruck sound which he used to experience within himself as that ultimate state of being.: While sahaj is the highest blissful state attainable by man as a result of mystic discipline and realization, anhad is the mystical expression of that radiant state in terms of divine music esoterically heard within the soul and which the experienced only knows in his own experience and cannot describe in human language. 

 Guru Nanak has treated the concept of sahaj in its varied aspects, as is evident from the following references from his poetry: 

1. We come by sahaj and left by Hukam; Nanak, there is eternal obedience (to God). 

2. “By hearing the Name, one attains sahaj contemplation.” 

3. “By hearing Guru’s word, one attains sahaj contemplation.”

 4. “Those who apprehended Him, they recognized the Sahaj. When I pondered over this, my mind was appeased.” 

5. “One who met the Lord in Sahaj, was accepted. He has neither death nor rebirth.” 

6. “In fear one found the Fearless. Then he entered the house of Sahaj.” 

7. “To see Nature, to hear Gurbani, and to utter your true Name. Thus the treasure of honour was filled and we got Sahaj contemplation.” 

8. “O Yogi, consider the essence with Sahaj. In this way you will not be reborn in this world.”