Excellent tips for Sadhana

[Ragmaala]

I came across this blog, some good tips which can be applied in our lives.

http://serioussadhana.blogspot.ca/2015/10/sadhana-for-beginners.html#comment-form

 

SADHANA FOR BEGINNERS (plus advice from the Dasbodh)

 

 

The level of simple ignorance about how to practice spiritual discipline seems to have reached almost epidemic proportions. The blogger is overwhelmed by many emails flooding in from desperate people who need mostly material help, and preferably some magic genie of a Guru to appear in a puff of smoke and make their lives easy and full of luck once more. This is not sadhana, this is just swimming in desperation to a life raft in the hope you can escape misery. A Guru or teacher is not a donkey on which you can offload all your problems! But beneath all this noise, there are still very sincere souls who genuinely want to turn their life more to spirituality, but have no idea what to do or how to go about it. 

 

So here are some tips which I hope will be of help. But please do not bombard the blogger with "Guruji plz help" kind of emails as a result! 

 

 

1. Sadhana is not about you getting help for difficult material circumstances. It is not the equivalent of calling a helicopter in a mountain rescue, where you are lifted up and out of your life by another agency.
2. Sadhana is about a wonderful mix of self-effort and grace. Self-effort attracts Divine grace. In turn, Divine grace attracts more self-effort. But sadhana is not simply giving all your nasty problems to someone else to carry for a while.
3. Sadhana involves disciplined and regular practice.
4. Practice of what? The simplest stepping stone is always japa - recitation of a name of God, usually done on a japa mala - a set of 108 beads. This can be done silently, or aloud, your choice. Don't agonise about initiation into a mantra or you will never start, and get diverted into a search for someone who will initiate you (and in this day and age charge money for it most probably). Start with a name, and that name itself will lead you to a teacher who will then help you. But... start! 10 minutes japa every day, then extend the time slowly. Develop a passion for japa, in a quiet space, just you. Japa is a formalised way to call out to God, to fall in love. In India particularly there is this fear that God will be angry at you for calling out this way. The rest of the world has a more sensible approach.
5. Practice of meditation is what really kick-starts japa. In the beginning, the simple but profound process of sitting quietly and focussing on your in breath and out breath really sorts out who will stick in sadhana and who will not. Meditation is a process of stilling the mind. At first, all you experience will be the endless chain of thoughts passing through. But, persist. Those who set up a regular meditation practice are guaranteed ultimate success.
6. For men and young men in particular, a lot of your problems are due to the excessive wasting of seminal fluid. This robs you of vitality, energy, gentleness, and adds anger and impulsive judgement to your life. At some point, if you get serious about a search for God, you will have to restrain your sexual indulgence.
7. Worldly problems are not solved by sadhana in the way you think. But your attitude is what changes. But all too often, people only want to make a brief gesture of sadhana, then sink back into bad habits and self-pity. Many narcissistic personalities enter sadhana in the entirely mistaken assumption that they are wonderful loving individuals, all the while criticising others and blaming everyone but themselves for their woes. So have a bit of humility.
8. Approaching teachers, too, has to be in the right spirit. Don't cavil or argue with a teacher who has experienced reality and who gives you good advice. A whole generation has lost respect for wisdom and experience.
9. There are many simple and obvious preparatory steps to clean up your life that need nothing but your own efforts, such as:

• Go to bed early
• Don't spend excessive time on computers and phones. God is not a phone contact or on Facebook
• Drink water all the time, not soft drinks or stimulants
• Do physical exercise
• Eat sattvic pure food

10. Sadhana involves a wonderful creation of your own routine at your own time, utilising your own pace but done with wisdom and always slightly tightening your routine month after month, year after year. Just like climbing a mountain, you go one step at a time, not one giant leap. A lack of common sense and inability to judge your own strength will have you drop away from sadhana within a few short weeks.

11. Your life will be characterised by complete restlessness, and in sadhana this will manifest too as you restlessly go from teacher to teacher, book to book, sensation after sensation. Sadhana properly done involves steadiness, involves slowly curbing this restlessness once and for all. The analogy often used by the wise is to compare the mind to a bee, flitting from flower to flower etc etc. Now at some point the bee has to stop and sip the nectar it seeks! So, when you find a path that gives you nectar, stick to it. And this does not mean maxing out on worldly thrills - that is the path called "Bhoga" not "Yoga". If you are not convinced that sadhana is worthwhile, then stick to being a  Bhogi like 99.9pc of the population. 

12. There is more than enough material on the internet to teach you everything you know. There are some great resources, especially free e books from Swami Sivananda, who was a great communicator and teacher of wisdom last century. Search out fearlessly and see what comes up.

13. Stuck for really learning? By far the best thing is to get a good version of the Sri Bhagavad Gita (avoid the Hare Krishna version which has some pretty harsh dogmatic commentaries). Read the Bhagavad Gita every day.

14. Sadhana also involves prayer for others. If you do not know how to pray, you do not know how to breathe. Pray for others. Turning your ingrained selfishness to help someone else is worth a whole heap of diamonds in sadhana.

15. You will need a Guru at particular points in sadhana, and a Guru will always manifest for you. But in the beginning, this is not necessary. Nor is a Guru going to be someone to whom you can chat on a daily basis, nor can you try drag a true Guru into your own network, a sort of servant of your every whim and ailment. Most people do not want a real Guru, but a parent. this blogger gets besieged by people who ask for his phone number so they can chat about their problems, as if teachers are a Helpline service and just waiting to pander to troubled egos. A Guru is there pointing the way. Only a very few souls have the grace to live intimately with great ones, and that kind of life can be very fiery!  

16. A lack of love for yourself and others is mostly down to bitterness and anger. These traits take time to remove, bit by bit, but you have to do the heavy lifting. Few even try.

17. Is Sadhana worth it? 100,000 times yes! Sadhana gives you contentment, constant inner joy, dignity, and unveils successive miracles and strange wonderful hapennings. Sadhana is what lights the flame to which the Lord is drawn.
18. There is a famous saying from the Shiva Sutras: Yoga Bhumikah, the path of Yoga is full of wonders. This is absolutely true. Sadhana faithfully and regularly pursued with intensity produces miraculous events so astonishing that they can raise the hair on the back of your head. It's not just visions and lights - no, real miraculous twists and turns in your life. God is ready to draw near the devotee who makes the real effort to draw near to the Divine. Oh, what inexpressible joy is sadhana! This blogger in his life has seen and tasted just about every pleasure the world can produce. But all really is dust compared with the bliss of the dance with the Divine. 

19. A life of vice will never mean success in sadhana.

20. A life of  virtue is the golden ticket to sadhana.

21. Finally: most people feel unloved, victimised, unhappy, stressed, bitter and angry. So what? Only a few brave souls have the ability to persist in sadhana, and yet this persistence brings rewards out of all proportion to the effort made. The key is to begin, off your own volition, not to wait for some authority figure to say "begin". You want to be totally changed by Divine Love? Start the process!

[Guest santrampalji maharaj]

http://www.santrampaljimaharaj.com/