Sadhana The Spiritual Way

by Swami Krishnananda

From all the considerations we went through during the earlier days, it would have been noticed that the adventure of spiritual life, yoga sadhana, is not anyone's individual affair. There is no such thing as "I shall do sadhana"; because sadhana is the very process of eliminating this "I," the "I" cannot do sadhana. Further, the great relationships that our so-called personality has with all things in the world prevent us from entertaining any such notion as that the achievement of yoga is the fulfillment of an individual purpose. It is not for "my" salvation, it is not for "your" salvation, because the "my" is only an adjective of "I," and "you" is a correlative of "I"; so, when the one thing goes, all the three go. Just as there is no such thing as "my sadhana," there is no such thing also as "my salvation."

If you persist in the old habit of thinking that "you" are engaged in spiritual practice for "your" liberation, insurmountable problems will face you later on, because the age-old question will arise: "When I attain salvation, what will happen to other people who have not attained salvation?"

If again you persist in your foolishness that the others are there and you are quite free in the highest heaven in the state of liberation, you will face another difficulty: in your omniscience attained in salvation, you will behold outside you many bound souls who have not yet attained salvation. When you can see something external to you, totally unconnected with you, unliberated but related to a liberated perception, then that would not be salvation, because already it has been pointed out that salvation is the attainment of the Infinite, where one sees nothing else, hears nothing else, and visualises nothing else. The Immortal is sufficient to Itself, and It does not require the perception of somebody else. But, your omniscience in salvation would naturally present before you the whole world of unliberated souls, bound jivas, so the contradiction in your present worldly life will persist even in salvation! So, would it be better not to go for salvation?

These are not simple things that you can just bypass. This confusion in the mind that will persist till the end of your achievement will block your vision one day, and you will be like Trishanku hanging between earth and heaven – neither here nor there, confused, neither in this world nor in any other place.

Obstacles in meditation are supposed to be many. These obstacles do not come from anybody else. They come from your misconceptions about your own self and your relationship to other people, your wrong notion of God, immortality, and salvation. Discrimination, viveka, which is supposed to be a prerequisite quality in the practice of sadhana, clarifies this position, and it enables you to distinguish between what is proper and improper, what is right and what is not, what is real and what is unreal.

Each one of you should deeply probe into your own heart and raise this question to your own self: "For whose sake am I doing spiritual practice?" It cannot be for your own personal purpose. If not, then for whose purpose? Are you engaged in yoga practice for the freedom of your wife and children? If not, is it only for yourself? If that is not the case, then whose is the salvation? Let each one privately answer this question to one's own self.

Your freedom is the only thing that you are seeking in all the walks of life. Everywhere you have found some kind of limitation, bondage, and insufficiency which you want to be rid of. For that purpose, you have come to listen to certain methods of practice, by which you will be able to free yourself from the tangles of wrong associations with things in the world. With these clarifications in your mind, gird up your loins for the practice of meditation, which is final yoga. The fundamentals of the practice of meditation have already been mentioned earlier, and their foundation has already been laid. If this foundation is strong, then it is easy to build the superstructure of the further stages of yoga practice.

In the beginning you absolve yourself from all connections, social as well as psychological. Then, take a relaxed position and occupy any posture that is convenient for you. What is suitable to you as a posture is to be chosen, each by oneself; one person's method may not suit another person.

Sthira sukham asanam: easy, comfortable, fixed posture is what is prescribed. It should be easy. Liberation of personal tension in effort, relaxation of the tension of the muscles and the nerves, and an easy mental position is the beginning, the initial step of meditational techniques.

On what do you meditate? Again I dilate upon what I mentioned to you briefly earlier: the object of your meditation is the dearest, nearest, most beloved, incomparable in its beauty, magnificence, and power to fulfil. It may be that you have a chosen form in your mind - an image of a god, an idol, a portrait, a diagram, or a concept. Again answer a question to your own self: is this diagram, this image, this lingam or idol or portrait my dearest object in the world? You will hesitate to say that this is the dearest. How can a portrait be the dearest object in the world? No chosen object of this kind can finally be the dearest thing which you can hug for ever and ever, because you have other dear things in the world. Who can say that they are not there?

Now, prepare yourself for another adventure. Is it true that this ideal that you have chosen, the form that you have selected for your meditation, is certainly the dearest? It cannot equal any other beauty or magnificence in the world because of one central fact: This particular ideal that you have chosen for your meditation is a passage to the widest expanse of infinite fulfilment. This ideal individuality of the chosen object is a representation of infinite forces penetrating it, charging it, connecting it with all creation.

If you tap one object to the deepest core of its being, the topmost level of the universe has been tapped. The whole world will vibrate by the stroke that you have dealt on a little object in your meditation. The stroke is a mental effort of tremendous attention and unsurpassed concentration, a bombardment that you are engaged in upon this object. Bombard it by repeated concentration and attention and prevent any kind of distraction by a repetition of the belief that this is all-in-all for you, because here is a door to the infinite resources of the cosmos. The door may not be the Infinite, but it is a passage leading you to the richest treasure of cosmic attainment. Then, all the dear things in the world will converge into that object.

As the apex of a triangle expands its compass further and further as it advances towards its base, likewise, imagine in your meditation that your chosen object of meditation is the apex of an inverted triangle. Even if it is a pin-point of the apex of the triangle, it has the seed of developing itself into the wider dimensions of the base of the triangle, which can extend itself to infinitude, to all space.

Imagine a triangle which is as big as this whole world – not a little Euclidian geometrical triangle that you draw on your mathematics note-book. This triangle is as big as you can conceive in its widest extent. And, the point in the inverted position is the object of meditation.

Proceed further, for the sake of your satisfaction, that the whole tree of the universe will rise up from this little seed of the apex of the inverted triangle. This will give you great joy. The whole banyan of the cosmic tree is here in front of you in the position of a little dot of the object of concentration. At the very outset it would be difficult for the mind to encompass the whole thing at once.

The choosing of an idol is not a foolish imagination. It is the touching of the cosmos at one point. All the points in the universe are everywhere; therefore, this point that you have chosen for your meditation also is a representation of all the points that are everywhere in the world. So, you have touched the whole creation by touching this little object of your meditation, even if it be a wooden idol, a stone image, or a triangle imaginarily placed before you by your mind, or anything for the matter of that – a portrait of God Himself.

These detailed descriptions of what is going to happen at the beginning of your meditational process will raise your spirits at once to a height. You will not sit for meditation with a brooding, despondent mood. "It may be or may not be," – that question will not arise. "It shall, it must, and it has to come, because I have rightly chosen the method. I have understood the whole process of attuning my mind to my purpose." Thus, concentrate your mind on anything that you have chosen for your ishta devata. It is ishta because you love it incomparably and infinitely; it is a devata, a divinity, because it is the adored god before you. Why is it a god? It is a mini-god who will manifest itself into the Infinite God. It is a little incarnation of the Vishvarupa of the Almighty in the form of this little lingam, this picture, this portrait, this point on the wall, this rose flower, this candle flame – whatever it is.

Thus, anything in the world is good enough for meditation; and if that is the case, any place in the world also is good enough to sit. All things are good enough and, therefore, all places also are equally good enough, but you should not be frightened whether this is so or not. Doubts tempt us like traitors, insinuating themselves into our heart and seeing to it that we do not succeed in our attempt. The whisper of the negative force will be heard continuously, together with our higher aspirations.

Rama and Ravana are inside us, and will be speaking at the same time. The positive and the negative are working together. The daiva-asura sampatti is within our own selves, as described in the sixteenth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita. The pros and cons of every event in the world scintillate within our personality.

The entire history of humanity is shining forth within us. The whole Ramayana, all the epics of the world - the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Mahabharata – are taking place within us. They have taken place, they are taking place, and they will be taking place also, eternally. The epic movement is an eternal process. It is not something that happened earlier in ancient historical times. It is eternally taking place, just now at this very moment also. These stories are eternal descriptions of the cosmic process perpetually taking place in a timeless manner.

You must lecture to your own self, "This is so, this is so, this is so." As you repeat a prayer again, repeat these descriptions to your own self, even if it be through an audio tape. It will be telling you the same thing: "Here it is, here it is, this is so, be careful."

You require a mentor right from the beginning till the end. That mentor is supposed to be your guru, who will take you by the hand from the earth up to the highest heaven. It is not that the guru initiates you and then leaves you in the lurch to take care of yourself. The guiding hand of the real guru, as you should conceive him properly, will follow you wherever you go, telling you secretly, "I am here; I have not left you."