Sadhana
Robin Cohen
Sadhana is the Sanskrit word for conscious spiritual discipline, or conscious spiritual practice. The word “conscious” tells us that for a practice to be considered a sadhana, one must be cognizant and mindful of her actions. “Spiritual” indicates that the practice is one that moves toward the Divine. (And the Divine is whatever the yoga practitioner believes it to be). And what of the word “practice?” It indicates a “doing” of some sort by the yoga practitioner. Complacency, non-action, and osmosis are not going to bring sadhana into one’s life.
This mindful practice is believed to be a path that can ultimately take a person beyond the lower mind, the ego, toward recognition of and identification with the True Self. In other words, we are, through sadhana, on a path to seeing that we are each more than our physical bodies and more than our minds. We learn that each of us is a spark of the Divine, and we’re advised to incorporate sadhana into our lives on a daily basis in order to enable this going beyond the lower mind toward the True Self.
What does this mean for each of us? To begin our journeys toward our True Selves, we must incorporate active yoga practices into our daily lives. Active doesn’t necessarily mean a “do poses until you drop” practice. An active practice can be deliberate, thought-provoking, intense, not necessarily physically active, but rather stimulating mentally. What is important is that the practice is consistent and is one which induces active involvement.
There are three stages of sadhana. You’ll probably recognize at least a couple of them (though you might not have called them by their given names) from having gone through them yourself.
Stage 1 – Actions of the practice are deliberate and are carried out with effort (tapas).
Stage 2 – Actions move from being effortful and deliberate to being an expression of one’s heart (bhava)
Stage 3 – Actions become true and are filled with fully developed love (bhakti).
Think of something you love to do now that took a considerable amount of effort and practice when you started learning it. Playing golf, baseball….any sport. Learning to read. Learning to cook, etc. I believe we reach stage 3, adoration and fully developed love, with infrequency, but knowing that it awaits us is incentive in itself.
Sadhana on the mat can be life changing. Why not give it a try and see where it takes you?