What is Sadhana ?
Sadhana is a process of progressing spiritually, bringing about a mental discipline into your life and a process which takes you towards the inquiry into “Self” and a process of “Self Realization”. Sadhana is a conscious activity of discovering your soul and realizing self and evolve spiritually or inshort connecting to your own self(supreme). Sadhana is a very broad term and can mean anything be it few minutes of meditation, Chanting of japa or namasmarana, practice of yoga or chanting bhajans or stotras with deep devotion, it can also be visiting temples daily for somebody and sitting their in solitude for some time. The importance of sadhana is neglected today in kaliyuga and people want magic pills or quick results and cannot spare sometime daily for sadhana as they think its futile and does not give any results.
Importance of Sadhana.
In today’s Chaotic World where everybody is so busy in competing each other for success, people have forgotten to live peacefully, there is no mental peace in their lives, invention of machines was meant to reduce work load on human being but with more inventions life has become more busier and stressful. Extreme stress and pressure has taken toll on lives of people by making them more sensitive and aggressive as well. People get agitated and loose cool at the smallest provocation.
Sadhana helps here to keep one self calm and composed on extreme pressure and stressful atmosphere. Meditation or namasmarana if done daily may not change your torn life but it increases your peace of mind and the ability to fight situations and to endure tough times in life. Sadhana is important has it helps one to gain control over mind and 6 senses which otherwise control you. The Picture of Arjuna having the reins of six horses and pulling them is the symbol of control of six senses for self-realization which comes through meditation on self, or sadhana of years. It does not happen overnight, it is a slow and gradual process of getting control over your mind and senses so that you enjoy immense peace and bliss within. The is the true essence of worship or importance of sadhana.
Does sadhana dissolve your miseries or misfortune ?
The Answer is “NO” and “YES”.
How ?
Sadhana, namasmarana or remedies whatever name you call may not change your misfortune or make you a billionaire from a begger but it definitely makes you a person who is full of happiness and the one who experiences inner bliss. It gives strength and endurance to fight against the biggest problems in life, the outer world remains strife-torn yet the person starts becoming cheerful and accepting everything happily which automatically results in happiness and happiness is what we humans search in things and material prosperity. Happiness is within the self actually which can be realized only by sadhana, daily meditation. One should pursue his sadhana daily without fail and be strict with it. Like you work daily for monetary benefits and bunking office or work decreases your income, ditching sadhana decreases your spiritual balance, so it should be done regularly without being lazy. It should be made a habit.
Here are some tangible benefits of sadhana :
- Helps in stilling the mind and thoughts and tensions disappear.
- Keeps away the mind from problems and stress for some moments giving you peace and solitude in form of inner bliss.
- One finds answers to his deepest worries and questions sometimes in meditation or during sadhana.
- One realizes that the worries and tensions one is having is useless and often finds one self relaxed.
- Long term benefits are one starts becoming spiritually inclined slowly and enjoys inner bliss and self-realization <— Reaching this stage may take a lot of time depending on your dedication and hard work.