Sadhana – a word that has been mentioned in every mythical ancient Indian text there is to find. From the bright maroon and yellow colored foreheads of Varanasi in India to white clothed Hindu priests of the South. Everyone talks about one thing and one thing only: “Increase your Sadhana”. So what is it? Is it some 
spiritual practice requiring hymns and tongue-twisting Sanskrit pronunciations or it is just a fancy word ‘the yoga community’ throws at the West to confuse them even more about “what the hell is going (wrong) on with my yoga practice”! So I traveled across the length and breath of the country to find out what Sadhana is and here is what I found out or should we say explored.
Yoga ashrams across India focus a lot on Asanas, (yoga postures) however a selected few focus on what they describe as Sadhana, i.e “continuation of mindless activity of composure towards a single goal , until it becomes a habit and a state of being”. Apropos; I had to wait two days just to construct that description. I had to, yoga is no easy Webster dictionary work; its literature requires a certain sense of yogic panache (if there is anything like that which exists). The words that felt most genuine to me (in the above sentence) were ‘continuation’ and ‘composure’.
How many times we lay down our yoga mat and get into Savasana and start/finish our yoga practice without actually knowing the fact that our ‘Sadhana’ has still a long way to go. It outstretches way beyond our mats, studios, ashrams, gyms..right into our daily lives. Its a continuous process of cleansing the mind of composure-less matter; it’s the way we and others around us feel happy. As my journey and thoughts dwindled down to nocturnal sounds of Madurai jungle with dim ashram lamps beside my writing table; I 
knew that my Sadhana has less do to with what I am on the yoga mat but has everything do with what I am, off it.
Namaste
Hi, I am Anant; a yoga instructor, DJ, pursuit oriented traveler, and a clown. I love writing about subjects that speak to my soul and questioning conventional wisdom especially in Indian society and cognizance of yoga.
