SADHANA ARADHANA PRABHUPATI – June 2007 Newsletter

SADHANA           ARADHANA           PRABHUPATI
Discipline             Attitude                  Mastery

The literal meaning of Sadhana is “daily practice, discipline”. Sadhana gives you emotional stability and mental balance. It works in your subconscious mind and clears  fears, self limitations, and unwanted patterns of conduct.

“Sadhana gives one a disciplined practice to integrate the body, mind, and spirit.”—Yogi Bhajan, PhD

Sadhana is the first step towards self liberation. Every day you commit to do your practice. There are different practices. The one Yogi Bhajan taught us is a combination of Yoga and meditation comprised of 45 minutes of Yoga and 1 hour of meditation. As in all spiritual paths, practicing at the same time always helps to develop a new habit.

We are sensory humans and we perceive the world around us through our senses: touch (temperature, the contact of our skin with our clothes or with other objects); hearing (music, our voice, others’ voices); eye sight (darkness, light); sense of smell;  and taste (sweet, salty, sour, etc). We have other internal systems that work with or without our permission and also alter our perception, such as elimination, digestion, circulatory systems, respiratory systems, etc. All these affect us. If for any reason one of our receptors is blocked, we will experience the outside world completely differently and this will become our reality. Our reality can exist outside or it can exist in one’s mind. It doesn’t really matter because it is real for us and we experience that reality!

Yoga not only works on the physical body, it also works on the neurological and hormonal systems. It balances them, improves the circulation (the blood carries oxygen and the oxygen allows healing to happen), and clears physical and emotional blocks, thus allowing us to perceive the world around us much more clearly.

Lots of people have asked me how my life has been different because of my Yoga practice. The answer that I think explains it best is that it is like driving a car with the windows dirty, and then driving the same car with the windows crystal clear. I do not see things that I didn’t see before, I just perceive everything much more clearly. And when things are clear in your mind, challenges are easier to overcome.

The best time to do Sadhana the way Yogi Bhajan taught is 2 ½ hours before sunrise.
“Any fool can sleep, but wise is that one who rises before sun” – Sahkti Parwha kaur Khalsa
You commit to wake up this early to spend 10% of your daily time to connect with your unlimited self and clear your mind. There are many explanations why this time is the best. Some of them are as follows:

• Because the angle of the earth and the sun is 60 degrees and that being in a sitting position will balance the pituitary and pineal glands so that you get the maximum results.
• Because the world is quieter with less traffic, fewer machines working, etc.
• Because no one is busy or expecting any phone calls at that time, which will help with concentration.
• Because the stomach is more likely to be empty.

There are probably many more reasons, but the experience is what really counts. In my experience, there is something magical about rising at this time to do Sadhana.

Yogi Bhajan always said that the best time to call God was in the morning because he always picks up the phone.

Of course, life will put some challenges in your way to prevent you from waking up so early and to keep you in bed. But if you overcome all of these challenges, the discipline soon will become an attitude, or Aradhana.

It is said that 60% of our actions are directed by our subconscious mind and that we respond by habit. For some people it only takes 40 days of Sadhana, while for others a year and a half. However, what is started by pure will, commitment, and discipline starts to become effortless. The subconscious is clear and the mind becomes more active.

“If you feel challenged by waking up so early, ask yourself: ‘Are you willing to act and think in your highest consciousness or do you want to hang onto your old identity even longer?'”—Gurucharan Singh Khalsa, PhD

Once you achieve this state of consciousness and self discipline, there will be other challenges waiting for you, which reminds me of an old saying that goes something like this … the higher you are, the harder you will fall.

Some of these new challenges include chanting the mantra in a mechanical way instead of getting inspired by the meaning of the words, falling asleep during the meditation, or losing your motivation.

Your power to relate to the infinite, your strength, and your sense of duty will be your light through this darkness. Once you have made clear the source of energy and light between you and the infinite, you will pass to the last stage called Prabhupati, or mastery.

In Prabhupati, the subconscious mind and the conscious mind work as one. So you will experience everything in complete harmony even in the face of big challenges.
You will develop a neutral mind-mastery of God.

In this stage, compassion and love are the rule (son la norma). It is said that compassion makes you forget the unforgettable. The person in the stage of Prabhupati can forgive a person who just hurt him or robbed him and can even become an inspiration or role model for this person and others.

Now compassion rules their life and they are no longer ruled by the law of polarity (action and reaction). This law creates pain as a consequence of a bad action. For example, if one does a bad action, such as stealing, the consequence will be carried into his/her life by another painful or bad reaction. But when living in Prabhupati, one’s actions are in accordance with the universal law so the law of polarity disappears.

Compassion is considered to be the highest of virtues, and where compassion goes, God follows and assists that consciousness.

Once someone asked yogi Bhajan, ‘Why do you do Sadhana if you are the master?’ And Yogi Bhajan answered, ‘To continue being the master.’

So through the whole process you are passing from an individual mind to a universal mind. There are two main ways to connect the individual mind to the universal mind and build the super mind.

1st method- Pratyahar- contraction process.

• Watch each thought and decide whether the thought takes you to infinity or not.
• Substitute a positive thought for each negative one.
• Act only upon the desires that fulfill the universal mind (not the individual mind).

Once this becomes automatic, you have passed to Pratyahar where the energy goes from the universal mind to the individual mind.

2nd method- Laya- meaning devotion, absorption, and elevation.

• This technique involves the chanting of mantras and a specific breath pattern.

In Laya, the energy passes from the individual mind to the universal mind.

The practice of Sadhana stimulates and changes one’s consciousness. Life becomes meaningful. You discover a new lesson in ordinary things and problems become smaller and easier to overcome.

Sat Nam,

Indra K