Sādhana – The Benefits of Regular Spiritual Practice

Aum Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya

Haribol.

So as James mentioned this is the final talk in the series that we’ve been doing on well-being. It’s the sixth talk on the subject.

I think one of the things that—a consistent message is there is a great attempt in the materialistic world to address the issue of well-being separately from what is often its root cause. So people will focus, for instance, on mental health and things that you can do to try and feel more at peace and more happy and less disturbed and troubled. Or people feel that they are experiencing some sort of lack of purpose or whatever in their life, and so they take a positive thinking sort of approach to life.

We experience so many different areas of problem and conflict and distress. And I would propose that you humbly consider that many of the ways that are put forward to address them are not permanent solutions. They temporarily remove the distress or the pain or the agitation or the mental disturbance, but they don’t provide permanent shelter and they don’t therefore provide complete well-being.

Any attempt to address well-being without looking at incorporating, at least, a spiritual solution is ill-advised, I would humbly submit. It won’t be a lasting solution.

So in all the different things that we’ve looked at that cause a general sense of dis-ease, uneasiness in life or emptiness or painfulness or disturbance, I’ve mentioned that in the dharmic traditions, they have a fundamental formula. It’s not put this way, but this is what it is in essence: that ignorance equals pain and suffering. And the more pain and suffering you’re feeling, the more you are embracing an idea, an outlook on life, an approach to life that is not true; and the result of that is unhappiness. The result of that is great distress.

And of course, one of the common themes that we’ve shared is this stubbornness of people to not want to embrace the reality that this body is not me. This gross physical form that I am wearing, I’m temporarily occupying, this is not me. This is not my home.

I’m only here in this particular body for a limited amount of time and I will leave. I have to leave. And if I look at the generations before me, everybody has left their body. This is what is called death.

But when I refuse to actually consider the importance of coming to more deeply appreciate my spiritual identity, the more I stubbornly insist on just so-called material solutions, the more it will bring me to unhappiness, to distress.

I know it’s not a pleasant subject. The reality is, I’ve got a friend and she goes and volunteers at an old age home. And it’s just like so sad, where you have all of these old people somewhat abandoned by their family; maybe some of the family visits sometimes, but they’re pretty much just stuck there, waiting for that inevitable time, trying to look at their life and remember all the things that have happened, what were the good times, whatever, but not actually still fully embracing that it’s all going to come to an end.

And any intelligent person would then question, “My God, what was this all for? What was this about, this thing that we call life?” Because this is the way it ends. It doesn’t end any other way. This is the end.

And so, I can try to be blind to that and try to just run out into the world and try to frolic and enjoy and just constant music and activity and scrolling and scrolling and scrolling, just to try and fill up the empty space that we’re all actually feeling.

So when we want to speak about well-being, I know that we must always consider the reality that we are eternal spiritual beings having a temporary material experience. Time will pass, this body will age, I will be forced to leave it, like it or not. And if I want to really consider my well-being, I have to figure out who I am. If I don’t know who I am, how can I really find a solution that really addresses  my well-being? I may be able to do things to stimulate the body and the mind, but that’s not me.

So the need for a spiritual, at least component, if not the main thing in the pursuit of well-being, the need for a spiritual component is paramount.

So in all of the yoga systems, there was a recognition, of course, that we are very deeply conditioned. You know this word, conditioned, to be conditioned? It’s kind of like, you know, a little child, when they first see a flame, what do they want to do? They want to grab it, right? It looks, “Wow…” they want to grab it. And you know that they’re going to get burned. So you hold their hand and let them put their finger out and hold it and just get a little bit closer to it slowly so that they can feel what it is. And they suddenly start going, “Eeeee,” and they want to pull their hand away. They know. And when they actually touch something hot and they get burned, then it’s kind of like you become conditioned. “Ooh, the hot stuff, don’t touch it. That’s a bad trip.” You’re going to have a very bad day if you touch something very, very hot.

And so you become conditioned, especially after experiencing it, so that even if you’re not looking and your hand’s just here somewhere, and maybe there’s, I don’t know, somebody’s cigarette or a candle or whatever, and your hand just gets close to it, as soon as you feel something hot, immediately you pull your hand away and you look, “What is that?” So that idea, that’s conditioning. It’s a conditioned reflex and this can be applied in many different ways.

What I’m talking about here though in relation to being deeply conditioned, the foundational conditioning of the living being in the material world is the false idea that the body is me.

I’m not saying we should deny the body or reject it or pretend. No, you have to accept the reality that I have this material body. This is where I’m dwelling at the moment and I have responsibilities associated with that. But we don’t or should not fall into the trap of thinking that this is me.

So, the false sense of self, of who I am—I mean, the Sanskrit word is so good. The English word that people use for the spiritual content when they say “soul” is sort of like, it’s a little bit vague. It could mean a lot of different things. People don’t really know what that is. But in Sanskrit, this is atma. Atma, it means the self, who I am.

So, the material condition means I become deeply conditioned by the idea that the body is me. And then I will seek happiness, I will seek fulfillment, I will seek perfect love solely through the body. And that always leads to unhappiness.

This false conception of the body as being the self is understood in the yogic tradition as being the platform, the foundation for all unhappiness. If you are experiencing any form of unhappiness in your life, if you look at it deeply, you will find that this foundation, embracing the false idea that the body is me, is the foundation for all unhappiness and suffering.

This unhappiness is due to, or is the result or the product of, or we can say it’s a consciousness problem. One of the things I didn’t like about so-called spiritual discourses and things where people try to use words that are all kind of like, wooow, far out and everything. And whereas in reality, we have to find a real way to understand this.

When I say it’s a consciousness problem, it means I am in the consciousness of accepting the false idea that the body is me. This is a consciousness problem.

And because, then, if I conclude the body is me, then I will think that I need to always give the body different experiences, eat lots of things, hear nice things, see nice things, feel nice things, have material stimulation of the body in order to find complete happiness. But there is no experience that you can give the body and the mind that provide complete fulfillment and full satisfaction. It always leaves you wanting more, looking for more.

In order to find real peace, in order to find great joy, in order to experience what I will describe as spiritual love, then we actually need to adopt a different mode of living. We have to do things that work. You can’t keep doing, repeating the things that don’t work and think it’s going to be different.

I remember one so-called love song, and I can’t remember who it was by, but one of the lines was, “Maybe this time.” Maybe this time. You know, where somebody is feeling some heartbreak or loneliness and then they meet someone and there’s always this anticipation, maybe this time I’m going to find the perfect person and have the perfect relationship, find perfect love.

And of course it doesn’t happen. You may have nice relationships. It can be wonderful and everything to a certain degree. But it’s not the perfection that you’re actually wanting. And after a while, generally speaking, things tend to—they come up very quickly and then they kind of plateau out, then they tend to, you know, go to not such a good place.

You agree with that or not? Or you guys are different. You’re perfectly in love and everything’s absolutely wonderful and?

So if we want this experience of peace and great joy and spiritual love, we’ve got to find another way. We have to adopt a different process. We need a shift in our consciousness. This is absolutely required.

So if we want to seek permanent and positive change, then we need to engage in a spiritual practice. That is absolutely essential.

There’s two words in Sanskrit that are actually very, very nice. One is called sadhya and the other one is sadhana. Sadhya, it literally means the goal. It means the goal. And sadhana is the process by which we can achieve or arrive at or attain the goal. So having an actual spiritual goal, that which is eternal, is foundational, is fundamental. And then engaging in actual activity or a process that will help me to attain the goal, this is called sadhana.

So what I am prescribing—Nobody has to do anything. Everybody is free to live any way that they want, but you have to understand there are consequences to all of your choices. When you make choices that direct your life in a spiritual way, the result is spiritual. This means it will be joyful, there will be happiness, there will be great shelter from this understanding that I am an eternal spiritual being.

It’s absolutely liberating for people who are on their deathbed. And I have had the fortune of being able to assist a number of people at that time.

And when you let people know, the first thing you have to understand, number one, you are not going to die. You never die. You can’t die. Your body will. Definitely. Your body’s going to die, but you are not the body. You will leave the body. You are an eternal spiritual being. You cannot die. You will never die. It’s not even a possibility. When people hear that message, it’s extremely liberating that they can overcome fearfulness.

So, in a spiritual practice or sadhana, we are looking at a process. And if you voluntarily decide, yes, I want to be a little bit more committed to my happiness, to a good spiritual outcome, that I can find something of enormous value, I can begin to awaken and taste the extraordinary experience of spiritual love or prema, then there is need for me to engage in a process to bring me to that goal, to bring me to that experience. So this word sadhana is very important.

In the yogic context, we would define sadhana as being the means by which we can achieve the goal of life.

A lot of people are unsure. They think the goal of life is to earn money and to have a nice home and to have a nice family. And it’s kind of like, oh my gods, that’s so unfortunate because that cannot be your goal of life because that won’t last. There will come a time when you must pass and leave all of that behind. And so if that is your goal, then you are on a journey towards unhappiness, fearfulness, difficulty. It’s just a simple reality. It’s not complicated.

The Vedic teaching is that human life is for the purpose of self-realization and God-realization. This is what sets us apart from animals. Animals don’t ask the question, “Who am I? Why am I here? What should I be doing? What is my higher purpose?” They don’t ask the question. They simply act on desire, on stimulation, from different things. And if human beings are only doing that, then their life is considered, unfortunately, to be more like an animal than a human being.

Human beings have a unique facility or capacity, rather, and that capacity is to ask the questions, the bigger questions. Who am I? Why am I here? What is this for? What should I be doing? How do I discover who I am? Is there anything greater than me? Should I be having a connection with that, whatever I think that might be? These are important questions.

So for us, sadhana means—it is the means by which we can achieve the actual goal of life.

Two things have to be understood. One is the need for some form of regular practice that’s founded primarily on meditation or that’s the real root of it.

Why is it necessary? Because if we don’t do that, then it means we are constantly engaging again and again in the world with everybody else who is absolutely sold on the idea that this world is everything, that I can find perfect happiness here, that this is actually my home, that my relationships are all eternal. And that’s not true. That absolutely is not true.

And the problem is we’ve become so conditioned. I mentioned earlier that about a consciousness problem. I call it a problem.

It’s like, and I’ll use a little bit of a crude example—it’s absolutely so sad that the majority of users of the internet will dedicate some of that time to checking out pornography. And people become, even from young age, quite addicted. But they don’t understand: it’s not like they find any solution or they find any happiness. It’s actually described in the Vedas as being the equivalent of like pouring gasoline on the fire.

You have a fire where you’re feeling emptiness. You want to find happiness, stimulation, joy somehow or other. And so I engage in an activity that instantly stimulates the body and mind, but it doesn’t bring fulfillment. And it is likened to a fire that is burning. And rather than trying to put out the fire, I put gasoline on the fire, so the fire burns hotter.

So that’s a little—it doesn’t apply only to that example. It applies to everything. Some people are endlessly shopping. They’re just going online to buy things.

I have a friend I know. He discovered Temu. And before you knew it, before you know it, like four or five times a week, there’s packages showing up at his doorstep. And then there’s this big excitement. “Oh, package, what is this?” And then soon the house is filling up with all the stuff you’re not using. That doesn’t serve any real purpose. It doesn’t make my life more perfect and happy. But I’ve become like addicted to the next hit, the next buzz, the next stimulation.

And so people sometimes do it with social media scrolling, just looking for the next gossip, the next thing to read about, the next thing to hear, the next thing to experience. And at the time I discover something new, it’s like, ooh, I get a rush from it. But it doesn’t last. And what it’s done is I’ve put gasoline on the fire. Now the fire is, now I’m scrolling faster. I’m looking more. I’m spending more time doing these things.

It’s become so bad in the world. They’ve discovered now that most young people can’t sit down and just watch a movie. They’ve got to have their phone in their hand. And while they’re watching the movie, they’re doing stuff. If you take the phone away, they can’t—“Yaaaah,” can’t just sit and watch a movie. And it’s just like, oh my gods, what’s happened to everybody that we’ve become so distracted and so agitated, we’re moving so far away from peacefulness? And it’s because we’re adopting ideas that are not helping us. They are actually hurting us. They are increasing the suffering.

And so in all yoga systems, as part of the sadhana, there was a need to adopt different ways of living. Now, I’m not going to tell you what you must do. No, that’s not my job or my business. I’m going to read you just a few verses from the Yoga Sutra.

In this ancient process of Astanga Yoga—it means eight, eight limbs, asta, asta is eight. Anga means like a limb, like you have limbs on the body. It’s eight limbs of yoga. So the first two are called yama and niyama. Today, unfortunately, although the word yoga has become so widely embraced, everybody just thinks it’s a form of physical exercise. Actually, the physical exercise is a little tiny part. It’s important, but it’s a tiny part of the yoga process. And the first two things that were foundational to all the other practices were called yama and niyama.

So in this very ancient and traditional approach, I’ll just read you what they advised.

“When impurities are destroyed by practicing the eight limbs of yoga, enlightenment dawns, culminating in full knowledge of the self or the atma.” [Yoga Sutra 2:28]

So this is from the Yoga Sutra, the second pada, 28th sloka. And it lays out what is the purpose of a yoga process. And then it begins to describe the first two of these limbs.

“Control of the senses…”

Control of the senses? You have organs of—sense organs, the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the skin for feeling. These are organs of the senses.

And we are taught in the world in which we live now that you must exercise no control. Whatever you desire, you should just do it. As Nike would tell us, just do it. Go for it. Reach out and grab it. Don’t resist. Don’t think about it. Of course, this is all just to exploit you. This whole system of consumer economics is designed to manipulate and exploit people.

And one of the foundational teachings of yoga, you must exercise control of your senses. Rather than them dragging you everywhere, you should be exercising discrimination. So

“Control of the senses, [these are known as yama] and observance of different rules, [this is niyama] bodily posture or asana, regulation of the breath, pranayama, the withdrawal of the mind from sense objects, [this is called pratyahara], focusing the mind on a chosen object [and it should be a spiritual object] is called dharana, meditation is dhyana, and complete absorption in spiritual trance [this is called samadhi], and these are the eight limbs of yoga.” [Yoga Sūtra 2.29]

Then it describes non-violence. Non-violence is not just physically harming someone, non-violence is also mentally harming someone. And for the yogis, to dress in a manner, to be—to seduce the mind of another person is considered violence. This is how they looked at things, completely different than the way people look at things now.

So:

“Non-violence, truthfulness, not stealing…”

Not stealing here, the Sanskrit word actually also implies coveting things, looking at things and longing to have it, was considered within this category.

“…celibacy…”

Celibacy here didn’t necessarily mean absolute non-engagement in any form of sexual activity. In the confines of a marriage, this was also, provided it is not people going crazy, was considered a form of celibacy.

“…and freedom from possessiveness. These make up the yamas.” [Yoga Sutra 2.30]

And it’s just like, what? This style of living that’s been proposed here, these were considered foundational to tasting happiness, to tasting freedom.

In the next sloka it states,

“These laws are universal and must be practiced without consideration of time, of place, of birth or circumstances.  Together they constitute the “great vow” of life.” [ Yoga Sūtra 2.31]

And then the last verse I’ll read. (These are all continuing one after the other.)

“The niyamas (or observances) are internal and external purity, contentment, acceptance of austerity, the recitation of sacred mantras and the study of Vedic texts, and complete devotion and surrender to God.” [ Yoga Sūtra 2.32]

These constitute the niyamas. So when people talked—before 50 years ago, going back, when people spoke of yoga, they talked about adopting a lifestyle where I move away from greediness, just trying to consume and consume.

Oh my God. All we have to do is look at some videos on landfills. And you’ve just got like massive mountains, thousands of tons of garbage just being pushed by big bulldozers in ground. Just like, what are we doing? We live in a world where we’re just consuming and throwing everything and causing chaos and havoc to the planet, where we cannot become happy doing this.

The need for us to live a life that is not focused on our wants, but focused on primarily what are our actual needs. To learn to live modestly, to not be greedy and hungry and just always chasing things to consume. This is not the pathway to happiness.

So any form of sadhana, it’s not just about taking some spiritual practice and adding it to a life that is crazy. You know, “Oh, I’m all disturbed and everything. Oh, let me do some kirtan or some yoga. Chant ‘Aum, Haribol, Nitai Gaur, Nitai Gaur, Gauranga.’ And then as soon as I calm down, then it’s, “Okay, what am I doing now?” back to doing the same thing over and over again.

Actual spiritual practice means coming to the point of just rethinking. And it’s not for me—there’s no dictation about what you have to do or not do. That’s a choice that you make. But it’s founded on a simple principle. Every choice that you make has a consequence. You cannot escape the consequence. Every action that you make, every speech that comes from your mouth, all the stuff that you are thinking or the action that you engage in has a consequence.

And your life right now and what you’re experiencing in your life right now is the result of your choices, is the result of where you’re letting your mind go. It’s a result of how you are speaking, how you are dealing with this world, with others. And what you see is primarily important.

Sadhana, yes, in the beginning you can just add a meditation practice, but I will just give a warning: If you take up a daily meditation practice, you will come to the point of asking, “What more can I do? I am having a little taste of something that is very nice. Is there more that I can be doing or should be doing to accelerate my spiritual growth, to help with this purification of my heart and of my mind?”

So it’s not by force. And it’s also not required to make big changes in your life. It’s about adding small things, but being consistent. That will bring change.

In one ancient text, the Brahma Samhita, it states,

“The highest state of spiritual devotion or realization is attained by slow degrees by the method of constant endeavour for self-realization with the help of scriptural evidence, theistic conduct and perseverance in practice.” –[Śrī Brahma-saṁhitā 5.59]

That’s a wonderful guiding verse. I’ll read it one more time. I mean, the message is it’s okay, don’t be fanatical, don’t be crazy, don’t just jump into things and think that there’s going to be a sudden change. There is a need for consistency, even if it’s a little bit, but daily to engage in activity and process that will actually bring about change. And that change will be gradual. It’s like the dimmer switch.

You know, some people think realization is like, there’s all kinds of stories. You go to India and there’s crazy stuff. I’ve heard people say that, you know, some so-called guru or somebody just touched someone and suddenly it was like, Bwoooah! there was like a bomb going off or all this light and they were suddenly enlightened.

That’s crap. That’s not true. That’s not the way it happens. Sometimes it can happen that a person is bestowed with great spiritual—but it is so rare and they would have had to engage in extraordinary things.

For almost everyone, it’s a gradual process. It’s like when you have a dimmer switch and you come into a dark room and you click the dimmer switch. You hear it, click, but there’s no light. But there is current moving. You’ve clicked. And now as you turn it, slowly the light bulb gets brighter and brighter and brighter and brighter. The process of self-realization and God-realization is like that. It will be incremental. It will be gradual. It will gradually increase. So I’ll just read this verse again.

“The highest state of spiritual devotion or realization is attained by slow degrees by the method of constant endeavour for self-realization with the help of scriptural evidence, [sastric evidence, also] theistic conduct…” [Śrī Brahma-saṁhitā 5.59]

This is an interesting term, the translation here, theistic conduct. It means to live a life—even if you don’t accept the existence of God—live a life as if God does exist and act accordingly to live a theistic—to embrace theistic conduct, which means to show kindness, to show compassion, to persevere, to accept difficulty without complaint.

“… by perseverance in practice.” [Śrī Brahma-saṁhitā 5.59]

So this is how one will attain this condition.

So, the essential components of sadhana, a spiritual practice, the most essential and foundational is the immersion in transcendental sound, what we are calling a meditation habit. And there are different ways or things or different parts to that.

One immersion can simply be what we call active listening, where maybe you put on a guided meditation. And when I post this, I’ll share some links. Even if you don’t want to actively engage in chanting, but to follow a guided meditation and to listen to spiritual sound, to take it in and to become absorbed in it. We reference this as active listening.

To actively chant, like what we do when we do the Gauranga breath meditation.

Japa. Japa is a process where we use beads. Here they are. I have big one that I keep in my house and small one that I use when we go out. And I use—there is a process where one chants mantra. The process of japa, by holding the beads, I’m engaging in the sense of touch. By softly murmuring the mantra, like Gopala, Govinda Rama, Madana Mahana or Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare… Any of these mantras that we use. So I’m using speech, I’m using hearing, I’m using touch, three of the five senses. And it helps to bring the mind more into focus on the process.

And then of course kirtan, where we chant aloud these spiritual sounds. Sankirtan means when kirtan is performed in a group or in a congregation.

So these are really foundational to sadhana, a spiritual process, to have a daily meditation. On my website, I’ve got some guided meditations, and I’ll put the link in when I post this.

If you want to try just playing something, some of them are only about 18 minutes, some of them are 20 minutes, 25 minutes, where you can do it and just actually follow along. Some people have a hard time getting started and doing things on their own, but just by following along, this is foundational.

And then, of course, what’s important is to hear, sravanam, to hear spiritual subject from a spiritual mentor, from the ancient sages and great teachers, and from the spiritual texts. They are called sastra. This will make it so that we are cultivating some yoga wisdom, some knowledge, some understanding.

How far does it go? Well, for one that is very eager to grow spiritually, one must come to the point where your entire life becomes integrated as part of a spiritual practice. Outwardly, you will not appear to be different than anyone else. You will accept duty, responsibility, you will have good relationships, you will be loving and caring as part of the process.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna speaking to Arjuna, who is called the son of Kunti. Kunti was the name of his mother. She was a great, extraordinary, saintly person, a great queen.

“O son of Kunti, all that you do, all that you eat, and all that you offer and give away, as well as all austerities that you perform, should be done as an offering unto Me.” [Bhagavad-gita 9.27]

And so part of an integration of one’s life as part of a spiritual practice, it’s not so much about changing the activity as the reason and purpose for doing them.

So, this is quite a deep subject and we’ve just dealt with it very briefly and somewhat quickly. I hope that you have found it to be of value.

Let me just say, when it comes to your meditation practice, whether you’re going to put on a kirtan track and just follow along and chant with it, or you yourself are just going to chant, or you’re going to do japa or play an instrument or whatever, before doing it, take a moment to just become centred, to open one’s heart in a feeling of gratitude that I have— somehow this has come into my life and this is actually a key for complete transformation, and for that, I am very grateful. And without arrogance or pride, in a state of great humility, just to express gratitude, just however you want to do that, and then engage in that process of chanting. It becomes more of a conscious meditation. And you will find it is very transformative.

So we will, of course, now engage in some of that activity, some chanting, kirtan. I will chant the Mahamantra and just take a moment to centre yourself and to consider to thoughtfully and in a heartfelt way engage in this wonderful process, this wonderful activity.

And then afterwards, when they serve the meal, if you have questions, I’m very happy to try and answer them.

I’d just like to share something. When we hear about taking up a spiritual practice and maybe in the beginning when we try, there may seem to be challenges and difficulties and it’s like, ah, you know, it seems like it is difficult. But even if you do a little bit, five minutes every day, try to do it at the same time. It is that commitment to a practice that begins to change everything.

The other thing is that spiritual life is not about achieving or attaining something that is outside of you. It is about uncovering your own spiritual nature. You have an eternal spiritual nature that you are somewhat disconnected from. And this activity is about uncovering what is already there within the hearts of all.

So this is—spiritual life is not for special people. It’s about uncovering the natural condition of all living beings, the eternal function of the spiritual being.

Thank you very much. Haribol.