Sahajiya: Simple Presence in Collapse

Sahajiya in Bengali bhakti means simplicity, the natural state before elaboration. Mirabai's devotion was radically unsophisticated: she danced, sang, loved Krishna directly, without mediation. For anticipatory grief for civilization, sahajiya means abandoning the performance of crisis management, expert solutions, and spiritual superiority. It means sitting with neighbors in actual conversation about what's being lost. It means tending a garden not as carbon offset but as presence. Sahajiya rejects both apocalyptic grandeur and techno-optimism in favor of ordinary, grounded attention. This is not passivity but a refusal of false complexity. By returning to simple presence—with ourselves, with others, with the earth—we practice sahajiya. It liberates us from the exhaustion of managing our own impact and instead invites authentic response. Collapse itself becomes a teacher in simplicity: many modern complications will fall away, leaving only what actually matters.