Sanskrit words are often difficult to translate into English. Simple translations are often made for ease of communication, but often the deep meaning of the Sanskrit word is lost. The English word will lack the true depth.
For example, when the word brahmacharya is translated to ‘celibate’ in English.
The word brahmacharya talks about a deep life transformation – living solitary, cultivating spiritual qualities, walking the path of renunciation and lots more. While the word celibate focuses on the refraining from sexual conduct. The loss in translation in this case is completely jarring for someone like me.
I have written more about the need to think about the fundamental meaning of words in this blog post: https://inspirituality.in/towards-spirituality-meaning-of-the-words-you-speak/
Now the word Sadhana!
What Does the word “Sadhana” Truly Mean?
Etymologically, the word ‘Sadh’ means to reach a goal, to attain, to accomplish.
From this same roots, in common language, we know that the word “Sadhan” means a tool or method to accomplish or attain the goal.
Sadhana – commonly it is said to be the method through which we can accomplish our spiritual goals. But it does not describe properly to me the experience of Sadhana – which is a perpetual experience and not a fragmented one.
Thus, the deeper meaning I have taken… is that it is the state where we keep our mind and body as tools. This happens when we have full mastery over our mind and body.
Our mind and body becomes a tool for us to engage with the world.
When we are in this state – where we have a little distance from our mind and body. And they become tools to engage with the world. That is the state of sadhana.
Towards reaching this state, we can keep doing certain actions and efforts – these can be called specific sadhana practices. In casual language, we can call these actions also as ‘sadhana’ but it is better to keep our deeper meaning in mind. So, we don’t get lost in over-identifying with these specific practices.
Because, the specific practices can be so varied – structured, unstructured and anywhere in between. But the final state of sadhana – where our mind and body become tools – that is similar.
You can contact me for more guidance on this: https://inspirituality.in/sadhana-consultation/
