Seeking Sadhana
Maharashtra, India
I’m sitting on a sunbed wearing a white cotton dress in the shady part of a veranda outside the room that will house me for the next three months. Humidity is high, the vegetation before me is lusciously green, and I can smell the spices simmering in a pot filled with oil just below my balcony where the kitchen is. A flowering red hibiscus has caught my eye in the bushes ahead, and just behind it the small rectangular shaped mirror that hangs on the wall one floor below me to my right glimmers the reflection of the healing lake and its subtle whirlpools - seemingly silver-like from this angle …
Seven months have passed since I left Australia and landed in India. I didn’t have any expectations as to when or how often I would share the details of the journey I’ve dived head first into. Now seems like an appropriate time – having arrived in mother India once again just six days ago, the circumstances in which I returned far more different than my initial sojourn. This first reflective piece I am sharing is serving as respite for my heart and minds’ storage limit that has undoubtedly been at full capacity for a while.
The seed of becoming a certified Jivamukti Yoga Teacher sown in my mind and heart over 18 months ago was soon to germinate just under 100 kilometres north from Mumbai, within the confines of the sustainable wellness retreat – Govardhan EcoVillage. During the month of February 2023, this place of embodied integration of Ayurveda, Yoga and Meditation would come to serve as the fertile ground where I would plant my feet to first grow roots for the unforeseeable journey ahead.
The month spent within an environment that values conscious and sustainable living practices, while offering countless opportunities to witness faith and the inspired action followed through by the community of devotees that maintain and preserve the running of Govardhan EcoVillage was like a warm embrace. A comforting environment that supported the process of intense internal unfolding that the Jivamukti Yoga teacher Training had initiated to then inspiringly help navigate thereafter.
After seven months of undertaking experiences that would touch me deeply on many levels – experiences that I could only have imagined yet had not grasped as to how they would unfold in flow, I believe that the intention I made and the seeds of volition I had planted still stands. With a one-way ticket to India I was in search of places and practices that would broaden and challenge my understanding of what lovingly serves me physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. I was seeking sadhana.
Sadhana is a Sanskrit term that can be described as a conscious, consistent and dedicated spiritual practice. Practices that uplift the spirit to remind and encourage one to continue pursuing the path of remembering their true nature. Up until the beginning of 2023, I was cultivating the foundations of what was to be understood as my ‘ spiritual practice.’ Foundations were laid and built atop after discovering the path of Yoga, where after I had decided to commit to a 200 hour teacher training with Sukha Mukha Yoga. I feel it imperative to highlight that a spiritual practice does not have to include a yoga mat. I think about the practices and rituals that can be perceived as mundane routines I had previously engaged in that had nourished me on many levels. Be it through taking action within a sacred space of my choice - where the sense of safety to process mental afflictions and emotions was provided, or spaces that were looked to as a soothing balm for moments when feeling the absence of clarity, where amongst the myriad of emotions felt within the scale of the human experience arose. These courses of action can be seen as expressions of creativity, expressions that live within us all, expressions that are an embodiment of our aliveness that are infinite and destined to evolve. Whether it be through connecting with nature, seated on a meditation cushion, somatic movement, vocalisation of stirrings from the heart, artistry through touch, instrument, pen, brush, tool, kitchen utensil or sport equipment, it is with the awareness and the motive behind the intention brought to the activity at hand that the ability to shift something so that we can come back to our centre can actualise. A form of expression that brings peace within oneself, with the present moment and ultimately a sense of connection with the wider world can be seen as a practice - if that is the intention.
During the month long training, an analogy shared by our teacher had helped me drop the doubt in my abilities in carrying out the intentions made towards my practice when in moments of fatigue and fear of the process arose and was akin to the following ... ‘ the seeds you have planted and that you are continuing to plant here are taking root and are in need of nourishment and protection. Just like placing a fence around a young sapling planted in the earth exposed to animals and the natural elements, the act of removing yourself from once comfortable and familiar surroundings and into a safe place that allows space for training the mind and body, sitting in deep introspection, while connecting with others who have a similar intention, creates a conducive environment where the potential for the seeds roots can grow, deepen and strengthen within the network that lays beneath the surface.’
Adding to this I had pondered whether eventually, the physical boundary of the figurative fence around the sapling would one day no longer be needed. Having faith that when eventually removed, it will make way for the growing plant to expand and rise - secured in its stable foundations that were initially invested with time, attention and care within a strong and healthy support network of grounded and grown trees nearby. This naturally leading to the once seed turned tree in establishing and exploring its capacity to connect, communicate and contribute to the surrounding ecosystem.
After many conversations with friends, family and fellow travellers whose paths I’ve crossed since then, it is clear to me that the first chapter of my travels strengthened my sense of inner security, fostering a new found sense of self-belief and stability so that I could walk the path that awaited, with tools that would aid me in remembering my centre in moments of required resilience as well as circumstances where unbridled feelings of gratitude would fill me.
The first instruction of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra says Atha Yoganusasanam – Now the exposition of Yoga is being made.
It has been said that the path and goal of Yoga as instructed by Patanjali is not here to be understood as a philosophy satisfied through contemplation and reached by thoughts and words alone, but instead it is the practical application of the teachings to the natural world – the realities of life, where the path, the fruits of practice and the transmutative effects of lived experience in itself will reveal the teachings themselves.
KiMaya Journal is the culmination of my curiosities, studies and ongoing learnings actioned through testing and trialling truths and theories read, that have been taught and shared by others – a collation of experiments wholeheartedly carried out and meditated on. Through the development of my sadhana I will share what has been revealed through the reality of first-hand experience as an enthusiastic novice - moving through life as gracefully as I can with my very often stumbling steps whilst navigating the unchartered terrains that reside within, and lands afar, enriched by the encounters with the uniquely precious beings these places so reverently hold.
