Articles for Saadhana

I was speaking about the qualities or qualifications of a seeker. Generally this is called sādhanacatuṣṭayam. The word catuṣṭayam means ‘four’, a combination of four, anaggregate of four. sādhanacatuṣṭayam means – sādhana, sādhana. The word sādhana is a striving, an effort, a pursuit, a perseverance which will take you to the goal you want to achieve. I would like you to remember a few words which are all derived from the same root. sādhana, sādhya, sādhaka, siddhi, and siddha.

sādhana is an effort, a dedicated, consistent, wholesome pursuit. Such a pursuit can be taken up only by an individual. So, one who does sādhana is called a sādhaka or sādhikā. sādhikā is the feminine gender, sādhaka is masculine. So, I don’t know whether you willfirst of all pin on sādhana or sādhaka.

For any action there must be an actor. sādhana is an act, but it is in the form of a dedicated, wholesome, consistent, zealous, conscientious effort. So the best word to be used is “It is a pursuit, a pursuit of my life.” All of you have come here to undertake and to be with the pursuit. It is not just an academic study. Everything that you study persuades you to go into your own mind, using the tool of intelligence and bring about whatever transformation is suggested or compelled, by listening to whatever you have listened.

When we discuss purity of the mind, we are not discussing purity of the mind as a picture drawn on the sky. Certainly not! Mind you have, and the mind should become pure. So when we discuss purity, you understand it and when you understand it, you start making an effort to make your mind after that. So try to know the impure elements, examine whether you have, if you have, the very description that it is impure makes it very clear it should have no place in you.

An infection in the body – will it have any place in the body? Our system itself tries to subdue it and throw it away. So infection, by its very nature, is not something very acceptable. Even if you don’t know it, our body will try to fight against it. Similarly, impure elements are such that they have no place in your system. The knowledge that these are impure is more than sufficient to launch a pursuit, a dedicated pursuit to get rid of them.

Suppose we start discussing impurity … impurity … impurity … impurity, and the discussion does not involve your own mind and perseverance to get rid of the impure elements, then is it any discussion? We are not discussing an alien subject. How will the sun or the moon look like? What are the contents of the moon? Is there any moisture or water there? It is not that kind of a discussion! This is an evaluation of your own inner personality. This is how the vedantic or spiritual study instantly becomes a sādhana. sādhana means a dedicated, wholesome, conscientious, zealous effort; a perseverance. Now such a perseverance, whoever takes up, he is called a sādhaka or a sādhikā.

Any sādhana is done by a sādhaka. The question necessarily arises – for what purpose, what is the goal? So the goal is called sādhya. That which is to be attained! To be attained is called sādhya and to be attained by a course or a process of sādhana by a seeker, a sādhaka.

When you pursue the sādhana and you are able to achieve, that achievement is called siddhi. So, sādhaka, sādhana, sādhya and siddhi. Now the one who has got siddhi is called a siddha.

An individual is not a sādhaka, provided he has taken up the sādhana and is pursuing, he is called a sādhaka. I don’t know, in nearly a week you have spent here, all of you, or every one of you has started feeling that I am not a student but I am a sādhaka; a striving soul, a persevering individual. And in my perseverance, I have got some clear goal. The goal part may not be fully clear to you, but you must have the feeling that I have come for this only to become a sādhaka and to do my sādhana and the sādhya should be very clear for you; the attainable or to be attained. What is that? On the one hand it is a wholesome purity and sublimity, serenity of the mind. Just like you would like to be healthy with very good and healthy blood with all the ingredients intact, so that you will have the vigour to work effectively every time. In the same manner, you must have a mind buoyant, buoyant with enthusiasm, fervour, resolve, inspiration. See, that is our goal. The mind should become serene, pure and wholesome. There should be no contamination in it. When the mind becomes so, automatically, as through the senses, it perceives and reflects the objects without the senses – mark my words – without the senses, mind will not reflect. Reflection is only with regard to external objects. The mind will start revealing and radiating – mark the words – revealing and radiating its own, its own essence, namely the self.

Whenever the mind interacts through the senses with the objects – the world is an object, naturally there is a subject. If the world is the circumference, the subject is the centre. So within the body, there is a subject position and that subject is interacting with the objects and it is in that subject that all the reflections of the objects fall. When the mind becomes pure, it becomes serene, it becomes sublime. Then as it is reflecting the objects through the senses, it will also start revealing and radiating the subject within. In other words, it will be a stage, a state where the mind is freed of all object reflections; the mind is freed from all object reflections. When the object reflections are not there, automatically the subject will start revealing and radiating itself. It is the object reflection that conceals the nature of the subject. Now, the sādhya is very clear now.

In one sense it is purity, in another sense, it is the revelation and radiation of the subject and its nature, glory, splendor and what not. We are seeking pleasure, we are seeking joy from the outside objects but we are ourselves joyful. Just like fire is hot and brilliant, our own personality, our own consciousness inside, is both knowledge and delight. So you will start knowing yourself and that knowing will be in the nature of a radiation and a radiance. It is not a brilliance seen or shown by the eyes. It is an inner brilliance where the sensory play is not there.

In your dream, no senses, the bodily senses, or the external objects ever come there. Your mind or consciousness itself produces the entire dream phenomena. And in the dream phenomena, you will find different colourful objects, different types of brilliance and many other items. The one single mind produces all this. What does it mean? The mind is not merely a source to reflect the external objects which are separate from it - the mind also has got the sovereign capacity to produce all objects with all the variety of colours, brilliances and properties by itself.

If our subject is capable of producing all the objects by itself - then what do you think of the subject. It is something very grand, glorious, magnificent - so the magnificence, the glory, the splendor, the brilliance; all these will start revealing and radiating for you. This is that sādhya.

So, I would like you to come to a conclusion yourself. Are you a sādhaka, and will you or are you already doing sādhana? And is the aim or object clear to you, the sādhya? And when are you going to have the siddhi? And when will you, the sādhaka, become a siddha?

These are the questions that you should think and find answers for!