Sadhana

Shirdi Saibaba

Sadhana is the efforts one makes towards one's salvation and towards achieving the ever-pure knowledge of Self. It is of four kinds.

1. Wise discrimination of the permanent and the impermanent nature of things.

2. Dispassion

3. Six practices of shama (mental restraint)

• Dama - Control of body and senses
• Titiksha - Forbearance - bearing all with equality
• Uparati - Withdrawal or abstaining from sense objects
• Shraddha - Faith in one's Guru and Vedanta
• Samadhana - Concentration of the mind on scriptural or other elevating truths

4. Mumukshu - Active quest for knowledge.

This is a complicated thing to learn, so listen carefully.

Let me tell you first about the discriminate wisdom of permanence and impermanence. The firming up of the belief that Brahman is the permanent truth and the world is an impermanent lie, until it is a rock-like foundation of all thought is the discriminate wisdom of permanence and impermanence. Many try to talk about this discrimination and the knowledge of permanence and impermanence and make an exhibition of their foolish ignorance. Many go in groups to Pandharpur begging for alms on the way. Not one of these has come to know the Brahman.

Who is Brahman? What does he look like? Where does he stay? Who knows these things? Those who go in groups to Pandharpur merely to boast to others that they too had performed pilgrimage are not true devotees. Some read many books on spirituality. They give instruction to others about morals and right conduct, but they themselves are not pure. As long as one's heart is impure, what is the use of books or of teaching? They are like the frogs in the lake of knowledge, who instead of drinking deeply the nectar of knowledge flowing from the lotus which is Brahman eat instead the mud of barren arguments lying on the bed of the lake. 

Those who speak criticizing others will stay on in the mud. They will not gain wisdom. Those who indulge in barren arguments and those who always criticize others will not gain knowledge of Brahman. He who has no desires for either the worldly or the spiritual is the man of true dispassion. Know this to the truth.

(To be continued)