Is sadhana the practice of meditation alone? No. Is sadhana the practice of chanting alone? No. Then what is sadhana?
Sadhana is any consistent discipline that purifies you. It could be dance, music, a sport, a job, anything. In fact, the sadhana definition can be simplified even further: consistent mindful action.
For a spiritual seeker just beginning to walk the path, sadhana’s different aspects can seem overwhelming. There’s sadhana yoga, bhairavi sadhana, sadhana practice – the terminology alone is enough to confuse anyone.But none of these terms are for now. It’s not for years, in fact. For now, sadhana is only about our daily life, as it already is, and making incremental changes to it.
Tiny steps, massive change: this is sadhana.
Below are some posts that elaborate on sadhana practice. If you’ve ever asked yourself, “What is sadhana?”, this section covers it all.
1. Beware of Dogs: That’s what spiritual attainment is at the end of the day: gaining a new viewpoint so you may live in the same world and yet interpret life differently. It begins by respecting yourself and those around you, by practicing loving kindness, by being humble.
Compassion is an emotion you experience in the deepest recesses of your heart that then prompts you to act accordingly. This is the ultimate sadhana definition – acting, being and seeing kind.
2. The Practice of Meditation: So, you’re walking the spiritual path seriously and you’re looking to expand upon meditation as a form of sadhana practice. This post details Swamiji’s journey of meditation.
“Between the ages of 12 and 30, over a period of 18 years, I did roughly 8,000 hours of meditation. In these 18 years, I did over 40 different sadhanas, each stint averaging 40 days. During these spells, I meditated an average of 4 hours daily. That makes it 40 stints x 40 days x 4 hrs = 6400 hrs. The remaining 1600 hrs were done over other days.”
3. Sanskrit Mantras and Chanting: Are you looking to deepen your practice of chanting in sadhana?
Mantra sadhana, which is the practice of mantra yoga, helps you connect with the universe at a higher realm of consciousness, beyond the comprehension of the average mind.
The basic principle of mantra sadhana is to practice the utterance of a sound with such intensity, fervor and determination that your whole being starts to reverberate with that sound. You become the sound itself.
