There are things we know, and then there are things we live.
We might know that meditation changes the way we meet our day. We might recognise a pattern that no longer serves us. We might have a clear sense of the person we want to become or the way we want to live.
And still, knowing something doesn’t necessarily change us.
Within yoga, Sādhanā is concerned with what happens next.
The Sanskrit word sādhanā is often translated as spiritual practice or disciplined practice. Its root is connected with accomplishing, bringing about or reaching a particular aim. Rather than referring to one particular technique, Sādhanā is the consistent application of practice towards transformation.
It is less about what you know and more about what you repeatedly do.
Why did the yogis place so much importance on practice?
Yoga has never assumed that insight alone is enough.
We are shaped by repetition. The ways we think, react, move and direct our attention become familiar pathways, and familiar pathways become patterns.
The yogic traditions developed practices precisely because transformation requires more than understanding an idea intellectually. It requires returning to something often enough that it begins to change the way we experience ourselves and the world.
Meditation. Prāṇāyāma. Āsana. Mantra. Self-inquiry. Ritual. Contemplation.
The practices vary enormously across different yogic traditions, but underneath them is a common understanding: what we practise matters.
Sādhanā is not a single practice
This is an important distinction.
Sādhanā isn’t another word for meditation, and it isn’t necessarily a particular morning routine.
Your Sādhanā is the container.
The practices within it are the means.
Traditionally, a Sādhanā might include meditation, mantra, breath, movement, contemplation or other practices undertaken regularly and with intention.
What makes it Sādhanā is not necessarily what you’re doing. It is the relationship you develop with doing it consistently.
Why daily?
Because something different happens when practice stops being something we occasionally reach for and becomes something we return to.
This is where Abhyāsa, consistent or repeated practice, becomes important.
Instead of asking, Do I feel like practising today?, we practise.
Some days feel profound. Some feel ordinary. Some are uncomfortable. Some feel like nothing happened at all.
And yet we return.
Over time, practice becomes less dependent on mood, motivation or circumstances. We begin to see ourselves more clearly precisely because we keep showing up.
Consistency becomes part of the practice itself.
Sādhanā gives intention somewhere to land
Yoga also gives us the concept of Sankalpa, a deeply held intention or resolve.
We can have beautiful intentions for our lives. But without something that brings those intentions into our choices, attention and behaviour, they can remain ideas.
Sādhanā gives intention a structure.
You don’t simply decide that you want to live differently. You create practices that allow you to rehearse that way of being.
And perhaps this is why Sādhanā remains so relevant.
We live in a culture with extraordinary access to information. Most of us don’t need another piece of advice telling us to meditate, breathe, rest, move or be present.
The question is how we turn what we know into something we live.
Sādhanā is one answer.
21 days of practice
This October, we’re creating a shared container for exactly that.
Our 21 Day Spring Sādhanā moves through three stages:
Vichāra — seeing clearly
Creating enough space to notice what is actually happening within us.
Shodhana — clearing
Beginning to loosen what is no longer useful and create space for something different.
Abhyāsa + Sankalpa — practice + intention
Bringing intention into repeated practice so that what we want to cultivate has somewhere to take root.
Each day includes a rhythm of morning meditation, movement and reflection, with Yoga Nidra in the evening.
Not because 21 days magically changes a life.
But because for 21 days, we can choose to keep returning.
And that is where change begins.
21 Day Spring Sādhanā
Begins Monday 12 October
21 Day Spring Sādhanā
You already know what to practise. Now give it a structure.
Twenty-one days of morning meditation, movement, reflection and evening Yoga Nidra. One shared container, guided by Keenan Crisp and Tobie Say.
Three stages
What’s included
- Guided morning meditations
- Daily yoga or reformer classes
- Evening Yoga Nidra
- Weekly recorded focus talks
- Daily journaling prompts
- 3-day guided cleanse in week two
- Three live check-in sessions
Choose your pathway
Not because 21 days changes a life. Because for 21 days, you keep returning. See full details
The post What is Sādhanā? The practice behind the practice appeared first on Power Living Australia Yoga.
