Sādhanā (Sanskrit: साधना; Tibetan: སྒྲུབ་ཐབས་, THL: druptap; Chinese: 修行; pinyin: xiūxíng) is an ego-transcending spiritual practice.[1] It includes a variety of disciplines in Hindu,[2] Buddhist[3] and Jain[4] traditions that are followed in order to achieve various spiritualorritual objectives.
Sadhana is done for attaining detachment from worldly things, which can be a goal of a sadhu. Karma yoga, bhakti yoga and jnana yoga can also be described as sadhana; constant efforts to achieve maximum level of perfection in all streams of day-to-day life can be described as Sadhana.[5]
Sādhanā can also refer to a tantric liturgy or liturgical manual, that is, the instructions to carry out a certain practice.
The historian N. Bhattacharyya provides a working definition of the benefits of sādhanā as follows:
[R]eligious sādhanā, which both prevents an excess of worldliness and molds the mind and disposition (bhāva) into a form which develops the knowledge of dispassion and non-attachment. Sādhanā is a means whereby bondage becomes liberation.[6]
B. K. S. Iyengar (1993: p. 22), in his English translation of and commentary to the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, defines sādhanā in relation to abhyāsa and kriyā:
Sādhanā is a discipline undertaken in the pursuit of a goal. Abhyāsa is repeated practice performed with observation and reflection. Kriyā, or action, also implies perfect execution with study and investigation. Therefore, sādhanā, abhyāsa, and kriyā all mean one and the same thing. A sādhaka, or practitioner, is one who skillfully applies...mind and intelligence in practice towards a spiritual goal.[7]
The term sādhanā means "methodical discipline to attain desired knowledge or goal". Sadhana is also done for attaining detachment from worldly things, which itself can be the goal. A person undertaking such a practice is known in Sanskrit as a sādhu (female sādhvi), sādhaka (female sādhakā) or yogi (Tibetan pawo; feminine yoginiordakini, Tibetan khandroma). The goal of sādhanā is to attain some level of spiritual realization,[8] which can be either enlightenment, pure love of God (prema), liberation (moksha) from the cycle of birth and death (saṃsāra), or a particular goal such as the blessings of a deity as in the Bhakti traditions.
Sādhanā can involve meditation, chanting of mantra sometimes with the help of prayer beads, puja to a deity, yajña, and in very rare cases mortification of the flesh or tantric practices such as performing one's particular sādhanā within a cremation ground.
Traditionally in some Hindu and Buddhist traditions in order to embark on a specific path of sādhanā, a guru may be required to give the necessary instructions. This approach is typified by some Tantric traditions, in which initiation by a guru is sometimes identified as a specific stage of sādhanā.[9] On the other hand, individual renunciates may develop their own spiritual practice without participating in organized groups.[10]
The Yoga Sutras has 196 sūtras with ideas and wisdom that a sādhaka can take for a path towards self-realization. B. K. S. Iyengar (1993: p. 3) notes that:
Kriyāyoga gives us the practical disciplines needed to scale the spiritual heights.....the four padas of the Yoga Sūtras describe different disciplines of practice, the qualities or aspects of which vary according to the development of intelligence and refinement of consciousness of each sādhaka.
In the Yoga Sutras II.1, Patañjali and his commentators write that the Kriyāyoga (action-oriented type of yoga) is to be undertaken by those whose mind is not already fixed. The fixing or "stilling of the changing states of mind" (Yoga Sutras I.2) is the goal of yoga, for which Kriyāyoga is necessary as a first step for a sādhaka.[11] There are three aspects of Kriyāyoga:[11]
Vachaspati Mishra, an influential commentator on the Yoga Sutras, notes that these three aspects of Kriyāyoga are necessary in order to purify the mind, making it more sāttvic than rājasicortāmasic. Such purity of the mind allows one to then cultivate practice (abhyāsa) and dispassion (vairāgya), which are prerequisites for achieving the stilling of the mind.[11]
InVaishnavism, bhakti, or devotional practice, is categorized into two types: the practice itself (sadhana) and the perfectional state of that practice (siddhi). Jiva Goswami uses the terms sadhana-bhakti (bhakti as the means) and sadhya-bhakti (bhakti as the end). Chaitanya Vaishnavas engage in raganuga-sadhana, a meditative practice emulating the spontaneous love of Krishna's close companions. This form of devotion, while potentially reducing the emphasis on ritual practices, still involves the worship of Krishna's image.[12]
InVajrayāna Buddhism and the Nalanda tradition, there are fifteen major tantric sādhanās:[citation needed]
All of these are available in Tibetan form, many are available in Chinese and some are still extant in ancient Sanskrit manuscripts.[13][citation needed]
Kværne (1975: p. 164) in his extended discussion of sahajā, treats the relationship of sādhanā to mandala thus:
[E]xternal ritual and internal sādhanā form an indistinguishable whole, and this unity finds its most pregnant expression in the form of the mandala, the sacred enclosure consisting of concentric squares and circles drawn on the ground and representing that adamantine plane of being on which the aspirant to Buddhahood wishes to establish himself. The unfolding of the tantric ritual depends on the mandala; and where a material mandala is not employed, the adept proceeds to construct one mentally in the course of his meditation.[14]
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