What is sadhana?
Sadhana is an important part of Kundalini Yoga. In this blog, I will explain what sadhana is, its purpose and effects. We will look at traditional sadhana and how to create your own personal sadhana.
Sadhana means daily spiritual practice. It’s a self-discipline that allows one to express the Infinite within one’s self. Discipline of the mind and body to serve the soul.
The main purpose of sadhana is to reconnect with ourselves. In order to do that, sometimes we need to move our physical body and shift the stuck energy there, free our body and mind of obstacles, create more space and peace in our being. Other times we need to sit still and listen to the inner voice, cleanse our mind, transform our limitations, heal and expand.
It’s a continuous process that requires constant awareness and presence.
3 steps of sadhana
There are 3 steps of the daily spiritual practice. They are called sadhana, aradhana and prabhupati. Sadhana is a daily practice, aradhana – walking in our daily practice, prabhupati – mastery, eloquence, and excellence that we are if we are doing our daily practice.
Sadhana is our discipline, this is where we create and maintain positive habits. At this point, we may skip the practice, try to bargain and ego may stop us from committing fully. As we stick with the regular practice, we feel its effects and the benefits of the practice go deeper. This inspires us even more to be consistent and committed.
Aradhana is when the spiritual practice becomes second nature. We don’t need to negotiate with ourselves anymore, we know exactly why we are doing it and the effects of the practice are visible not only in our practice but also in daily life. The practice becomes deeper, we are cleansing the subconscious mind profoundly, letting go of many limitations, obstacles etc. And with consistent practice we can enter the third phase… prabhupati.
Prabhupati is the mastery of the Universe. All our hard work is paying off now. The conscious mind has merged with the subconscious mind, complete integration. This is where we rest in neutrality, and harmony. We go beyond the polarities of time and space. We still feel the polarities but they don’t affect us. This is a neutral space of mind, with a lot of harmony, balance and peace. Our presence is strong and it's working for us, we radiate peace, stability and grace.
So this is why we turn up on the mat! To daily chip away at what doesn’t serve us and reconnect with our Selves. It’s a long and continuous process, but luckily, we experience small positive effects of it daily, not only at the end of the process.
Now let’s get practical, what does sadhana look like? In general, there is a traditional Aquarian Sadhana and sadhana that one can create for themselves.
Traditional sadhana
Traditional Aquarian Sadhana as recommended by Yogi Bhajan is 2 and a half hours long, consists of
Reading spiritual text called Japji Sahib. 30 mins
Yoga practice (kriya). 6o mins
Chanting aquarian mantras. 60 mins
Your own sadhana.
Alternatively, we can create our own sadhana and consider how much time we have daily, and what are our needs and goals. Not everybody can commit to 2.5 hours of daily practice so this is a great solution. Your sadhana can be 15 minutes or 2 hours long. It can be as short as 3 minutes, consistency is more important than quantity. Equally, you can choose what you would like to practice. Whether it’s a yoga set, or a few postures, meditation, mantra, breathing or even a lifestyle intervention. As long as the sadhana is serving its purpose which is balancing body and mind to serve the soul, all methods are fine.
I’m curious to know what are your thoughts about sadhana? Does it sound inspiring and motivating or difficult? Would you like to create your own or attend the traditional sadhana? Drop your comments below.
Link to attend
I’m thinking of re-starting the group sadhana, it will take place online so everybody can attend from the comfort of their own house. More details and the link to book is here. Who is coming?