I first came across the Hindi word — sadhana (total dedicated effort), when I tried learning Indian music some 40 years ago. My guruji told me that learning music was different from learning lessons from books. “It is a sadhana”, he stated calmly. It is in that effort I failed wholly. That, however, was not the case with our brave hearts at Rio. I happen to watch some of those impressive events on TV. What set me thinking in the midst of that delight was to see on the BBC each medal winner with tears of joy, “I worked very hard for the last four years, sacrificing everything to get here. And it has finally paid”. Suddenly the word “sadhana” popped out of my memory store.
True that all those who competed in Rio were not crowned with a medal but their very selection, representing their respective countries, was proof enough that they had spent tireless days, months and years in a rigorous sadhana. Each participant was aware, what apostle Paul wrote nearly 2000 years ago to the Greeks, where ancient Olympics first took place in 776 BC, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games trains with strict discipline” (sadhana).
A few years after my unsuccessful effort with Indian music, I came across a book titled, Sadhana: A Way to God by Anthony de Mello. Many of my colleagues, with working knowledge of Hindi then began using the word “sadhana” interchangeably with “meditation”. Little did they realise that sadhana, though includes meditation, is much more than just that. It helped me understand that much like sports, music, scientific research, study or indeed love, where sadhana can bring laurels and even medals, it can also help in spiritual life. It can raise one to unimaginable heights.
Besides giving one a deep insight into God’s nature, it can soak individuals in His pure love — a love that seeks nothing in return. Intermittent efforts in a spiritual search, common in our busy world, can hardly take one beyond superficial and passing sense of God. And even if one renounces the world, without intense and long hours spent with the Divine, one can hardly enter into a spiritual sadhana. But when one really gets there one could, like Paul, conclude, “They do it for a crown that is perishable, but we do it for a crown that is imperishable”.
