Sādhanā

Paths

The term sādhanā means "methodical discipline to attain desired knowledge or goal". Sadhana is also done for attaining detachment from worldly things, which itself can be the goal. A person undertaking such a practice is known in Sanskrit as a sādhu (female sādhvi), sādhaka (female sādhakā) or yogi (Tibetan pawo; feminine yogini or dakini, Tibetan khandroma). The goal of sādhanā is to attain some level of spiritual realization, which can be either enlightenment, pure love of God (prema), liberation (moksha) from the cycle of birth and death (saṃsāra), or a particular goal such as the blessings of a deity as in the Bhakti traditions.

Sādhanā can involve meditation, chanting of mantra sometimes with the help of prayer beads, puja to a deity, yajña, and in very rare cases mortification of the flesh or tantric practices such as performing one's particular sādhanā within a cremation ground.

Traditionally in some Hindu and Buddhist traditions in order to embark on a specific path of sādhanā, a guru may be required to give the necessary instructions. This approach is typified by some Tantric traditions, in which initiation by a guru is sometimes identified as a specific stage of sādhanā. On the other hand, individual renunciates may develop their own spiritual practice without participating in organized groups.

In Yoga

The Yoga Sutras has 196 sūtras with ideas and wisdom that a sādhaka can take for a path towards self-realization. B. K. S. Iyengar (1993: p. 3) notes that:

Kriyāyoga gives us the practical disciplines needed to scale the spiritual heights.....the four padas of the Yoga Sūtras describe different disciplines of practice, the qualities or aspects of which vary according to the development of intelligence and refinement of consciousness of each sādhaka.

In the Yoga Sutras II.1, Patañjali and his commentators write that the Kriyāyoga (action-oriented type of yoga) is to be undertaken by those whose mind is not already fixed. The fixing or "stilling of the changing states of mind" (Yoga Sutras I.2) is the goal of yoga, for which Kriyāyoga is necessary as a first step for a sādhaka. There are three aspects of Kriyāyoga:

1. Discipline - tapas, comprises the "sāttvicizing" of one's sensual engagements or controlling one's senses and making sure that what they consume is amenable to a sattvic mind.
2. Study - svādhyāya, is taken by Vyāsa, the main commentator on the Yoga Sutras, to refer to the chanting of mantras (an act which is usually termed japa) and the study of scriptures (jñāna).
3. Dedication to God - Īśvara-praṇidhāna, meaning dedicating all of ones actions to God (Īśvara), which the commentators implicitly refer to the bhakti-centered karma-yoga that is described in the second chapter of the Gita.

Vachaspati Mishra, an influential commentator on the Yoga Sutras, notes that these three aspects of Kriyāyoga are necessary in order to purify the mind, making it more sāttvic than rājasic or tāmasic. Such purity of the mind allows one to then cultivate practice (abhyāsa) and dispassion (vairāgya), which are prerequisites for achieving the stilling of the mind.

Bhakti and Sadhana

In Vaishnavism, bhakti, or devotional practice, is categorized into two types: the practice itself (sadhana) and the perfectional state of that practice (siddhi). Jiva Goswami uses the terms sadhana-bhakti (bhakti as the means) and sadhya-bhakti (bhakti as the end). Chaitanya Vaishnavas engage in raganuga-sadhana, a meditative practice emulating the spontaneous love of Krishna's close companions. This form of devotion, while potentially reducing the emphasis on ritual practices, still involves the worship of Krishna's image.

Buddhism

In Vajrayāna Buddhism and the Nalanda tradition, there are many tantric sādhanās. Fifteen major examples are:

1. Śūraṅgama/Sitātapatrā
2. Nīlakaṇṭha
3. Tārā
4. Mahākāla
5. Hayagrīva
6. Amitābha
7. Bhaiṣajyaguru/Akṣobhya
8. Guhyasamāja
9. Vajrayoginī/Vajravārāhī
10. Heruka/Cakrasaṃvara
11. Yamāntaka
12. Kālacakra
13. Hevajra
14. Chöd
15. Vajrapāṇi
16. Avalokiteśvara

All of these are available in Tibetan form, many are available in Chinese and some are still extant in ancient Sanskrit manuscripts.

Kværne (1975: p. 164) in his extended discussion of sahajā, treats the relationship of sādhanā to mandala thus:

[E]xternal ritual and internal sādhanā form an indistinguishable whole, and this unity finds its most pregnant expression in the form of the mandala, the sacred enclosure consisting of concentric squares and circles drawn on the ground and representing that adamantine plane of being on which the aspirant to Buddhahood wishes to establish himself. The unfolding of the tantric ritual depends on the mandala; and where a material mandala is not employed, the adept proceeds to construct one mentally in the course of his meditation.