Practice and all is... Practice.
“I have so many questions. If I am dedicated in sadhana [daily practice], and in the practices that you teach, will all my questions be answered?” When this question came, at the end of a public lecture from the teacher Sadhguru, the teacher smiled with delight. “No,” he chuckled. “None of your questions will be answered. The idea of sadhana is, all the questions will burn, not that you will find answers.”
Practice is a process without conclusion. You may come to practice with questions, goals, or outcomes in mind, but you remain in practice (or return to it) because you recognize the process itself as beneficial, nourishing, joyful. Practice brings you closer to you, and then to the divine spark within. When you revel in the process, you won’t seek its conclusion.
So… what is sadhana exactly?
Though sadhana can refer to specific practices (you’ll find info-graphs and listicles all over the internet describing Tantric Sadhana, Vedic Sadhana, the Twelve Essential Sadhana, etc.), it generally means “devoted practice.” Your sadhana could involve meditation, asana, mantra, writing, walking - anything that you do with awareness that brings you closer to Self with a capital S and closer to what is greater (with a capital G, if you like).
Practice is one thing, “devoted practice” another. That is, the benefits and impacts of practice are more fully realized when you stick with it. Think of maintaining a garden. Without continual care, a garden can quickly become a wild, overgrown tangle, and it will take considerable time and effort to clear away what is extra. But as you continue to offer attention and care to the garden, maintenance becomes more easeful. It’s more pinching tiny weeds from the soil than wrestling with heavy vines and roots. So it is with sadhana. The more you practice, the more natural it becomes, and the more it extends into daily life.
This is your brain on sadhana
The practices of Yoga give you the opportunity to “practice” how your bodymind and spirit will function in daily life - a Harvard Health study described yoga as “weightlifting for the brain.” When you practice quieting your mind or calming your nervous system, you are creating neural pathways to more easily find quiet and calm in stressful situations. By taking deeper breaths in practice, you are training your lungs, diaphragm, and intercostal muscles to allow you to breathe more fully all the time. When you continually return to asana (or mantra or your meditation seat) as ‘a supported place to be and breathe,’ ease becomes a more natural way of being. You start to feel more supported in whatever ‘seat’ you find yourself.
…I could go on!
The point is, slowly but surely, daily practice changes your way of being. If even once a day you have a moment of connection, a moment of awareness, it won’t be “once a day” for long. You’ll find yourself noticing more, more often. Your practice becomes not something you do but a way that you are, all the time. Because the thing about doing something with awareness is that it leads you to do everything with more awareness. As Nischala Joy Devi writes, devoted practice “reminds us to remember,” in the way that wholehearted dedication can remind you of the wholeness of your heart.
Tips for developing daily practice
Be realistic // Maybe it’s five sun salutations and five minutes of meditation. Maybe it’s three mindful breaths when you wake up and three points of gratitude before you go to bed. Start with a simple practice and an amount of time that you can commit to doing tomorrow, and every day after that.
Commit to a ‘trial period,’ like 30 or 90 days, and go from there. You can add to or adjust your sadhana as you get more comfortable and as you begin to prioritize practice in your daily schedule.
Be patient // At the beginning, you’ll have to be disciplined, you’ll have to remind (and sometimes prod) yourself to practice. Eventually, you’ll do it because you know you feel better when you do. I always think of Erich Schiffmann’s example of brushing your teeth. Probably when you were a kid, your parents had to remind, cajole, and/or bribe you to brush your teeth. As an adult, you do it because you know it’s good for you and because you prefer the way your mouth feels when it’s clean. So it is with practice. You’ll recognize that “you feel better at the end of a session than before you began, and life runs more smoothly when you maintain a consistent discipline than when you don’t.”
Be flexible (no pun intended) // One aspect of getting “better” at yoga is developing discernment, the ability to practice according to what is needed today. What do you need to cultivate, to release, to offer? Practice in that way. Your practice may look functionally the same, but take on a different quality, a different way of doing the same thing.
Practice helps us to become intimately familiar with ourselves at “home” - balanced, grounded, centered - so that it’s easier to recognize when we’re a little off and to find a path back to equilibrium.
Be curious // Don’t assume how your sadhana will feel or how it will look from day to day, moment to moment. Practice is self-study. Be fascinated by your own bodymind in process. It may help, especially at the beginning, to keep a journal of the process. Jot down any discoveries or questions that came up, or how you feel after practicing.
Be kind // Remember that sadhana is a development of relationship with Self. The more we can consciously see ourselves as whole, connected, divine, and free in practice, the more that becomes our default identification in any situation. Treat yourself with reverence in practice, so that it becomes easier to act with reverence in daily life.
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p.s. you can read more about developing a home practice and daily ritual elsewhere on the blog 💓