The art of sadhana
The nature of the mind is such that it always wants to accumulate. When it is gross, it wants to accumulate things, and when it becomes a little more evolved, it wants to accumulate knowledge. When emotion becomes dominant, it wants to accumulate people. But the basic nature remains the same. When a person starts thinking or believing that s/he is on a spiritual path, the mind starts accumulating spiritual wisdom.
It starts gathering guru’s words, but until one goes beyond the need to accumulate — whether it is food, things, people, knowledge or wisdom — there remains a feeling of insufficiency because somewhere you got identified with things that you are not.
One reason behind the need to gather as much as you can is your education. It taught you how to gather more. With what you gather in your mind — whether it is gossip or knowledge or so-called spiritual wisdom — you can make a living and maybe enhance your life. But it can’t liberate you.
A web of bondage is being woven by the way we think and feel. What we call “awareness” is actually a process of creating a distance between ourselves and whatever we think and feel.
Sadhana is an opportunity to raise your energies so that you can rise over these limitations. To bring the necessary awareness and to constantly cleanse your vessel, there is really no substitute for sadhana. With awareness and constant sadhana, slowly the vessel becomes empty. Awareness empties and sadhana cleanses. When the two are sustained and emptiness arises, grace descends upon you.
If you are living with a guru just to gather his words, you are wasting your time. If you do not make yourself receptive to grace, the spiritual path needs to be pursued for many lifetimes. When you are willing to drop all your capabilities and incapabilities, all likes and dislikes, and all that makes you think “this is me”, grace comes to you. If you become empty enough for grace to descend, the ultimate nature is within reach — this goes beyond all dimensions of existence into the exalted state. And this does not happen tomorrow or in another lifetime. It becomes a living reality.
Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev is a visionary, a humanitarian, author, poet and speaker
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