Jan 19 2009
Daily Spiritual Practice
Sadhana ,or ‘daily spiritual practice’, is a central part of Kundalini Yoga. It involves 2 1/2 hours of prayer, yoga, and chanting meditation at the ambrosial, sacred hours of 5-7:30 a.m. Yesterday I joined a sadhana session in Brighton with the new Kundalini Yoga teacher trainees.
It was the first group sadhana I’ve attended in a long while. It was raining heavily and very windy, but fortunately I had only a very short walk to do. I took the Pibler along to occasional sadhana’s as a newborn, but yesterday I went alone, the experiment being to see if his dad could manage him between four thirty and eight a.m. He apparently woke up a lot, but was okay, and a bit later we all napped in relays, which was very much needed!
There’s something so special about sadhana. It sounds totally crazy to the un-initiated, but being up at that time of morning, and sharing spiritual practice with other people, brings a sense of peace and belonging that sustains you through the day and keeps you connected to your higher truth. I used to go to daily sadhana at my teacher’s house for a few months, who luckily lived only a couple of streets down from my house. This was in my pre-baby days of course! My sadhana now is obviously a great deal shorter than the full 2 1/2 hours, but the idea is that while full sadhana is ideal, any effort on a daily basis has a beneficial effect.
Here is a quote from Yogi Bhajan, who brought Kundalini Yoga to the West: “Sadhana is a conscious activity. We consciously choose to rise up, to exercise the body , and to meditate. Each day is different. Each day, we are different. every 72 hours all the cells of the body totally change. Sickness comes and goes. Motivation waxes and wanes, but through all the flux of life, through all the variations of the mind and heart, we consciously choose to maintain a constant and regular practice.”
