BY K. GURU DUTT, M. A.
The word sadhana is derived from the root Sadh signifying, to succeed, to complete or to conquer. It denotes effort directed towards any desired end, but is used here in the sense of religious endeavour. Sadhana being only a means, its character would entirely depend on the end in view. In the Hindu scheme, the objective was compendiously termed the fourfold purushartha comprising dharma, artha, kama and moksha. There is reason to believe that originally it was considered only as threefold, trivarga, and that moksha was added at some later stage. However, the latest-comer seems to have got the better of the others and moksha has come to be thought of as antithetical to trivarga, and sadhana is being treated almost exclusively as moksha-sadhana, consisting of self-denying observances which regard the senses as the chief obstacles on the path of sadhana. From one particular standpoint, this is not only consistent but inevitable. But the fact remains that the large majority of people are not seekers of moksha, nor are they fit to embark on any such quest. The Hindu dharma is, in its essence, a graded course of self-culture adapted to the stage of development of each individual, holding that it is far better for a man to follow a congenial scale of values albeit of a lower order, than to follow an ostensibly higher scale which goes against his grain. This is the burden of the teaching of the Gita. The question then arises, what is the proper sadhana for the average man? The unequivocal answer of the Veda is that trivarga is a legitimate end, and that its attainment can be facilitated by sukshma or psychological means. Sayana, the great commentator of the Veda, has no hesitation or shame-facedness in defining the Veda itself as a treatise expounding such means for the attainment of desires and the warding off of evils.
The Vedic sadhana was termed yajna.
Even a casual glance at the Veda shows that its objectives were, in the main,
worldly enjoyment and power. As such, they have come in for criticism in the
Gita and Upanishads. It would however be a mistake to think that they have been
altogether decried. The trend of the oldest and most authoritative Upanishads
is far from ascetic, and it is through sadhanas or vidyas identifying
the Vedic deities with the senses that they lead on to the Self in which they
are rooted. The Gita also describes yajna as coeval with humanity, as
the cow of plenty milking all desires, and speaks of yajna as not only
obligatory in its special sense, but also of the need for all actions being
undertaken in the spirit of yajna. But here, yajna is not
sacrifice regarded as an end in itself, but only as the means to the
realization of the fourfold purushartha. It is like an agriculturist
sacrificing a certain quantity of seed at the outset in order that it may yield
a hundred fold by and by. It is attending to the devas in order that in
return they might tend the worshipper.
The function of sadhana is to provide
psychological means for facilitating the attainment of desires, including in
the last limit the desire for release or moksha. It is not a substitute
for specific effort, but operates mainly in the region of the human psyche,
which psychologists nowadays call the Unconscious, but in Hindu terminology is
called the daiva. It is a technique for so mobilising and organising the
daiva that it will reinforce rather than hinder conscious striving. It
does not clash with the sphere of paurusha or activity in the external
world, but is present as its background. As the Mahabharata puts it finely,
when the gods wish to protect a person, they do not act from without like a
herdsman with a stick guarding his cattle, but by stimulating his intelligence.
That this fundamental truth should never be lost sight of, is the reason why
the Gayatri verse, which prays solely for illumination of the
understanding, has been selected as the epitome of the whole Veda, in
preference to all others addressed to Indra, Agni, Soma or any of the popular
and much-lauded gods.
Sadhana then is really applied psychology. Siddhi is success in sadhana
and the acid test of any form of sadhana is not whether it appears
rational, or is in conformity with preconceived ethical, aesthetic or other
standards, but mainly whether it leads to siddhi or not. In essence, sadhana
is an experimental method to be judged by the criterion of success, the
deciding factors being efficiency and cost as in the case of any scientific
process. The testimony of the ancient world was that sadhana did lead to
siddhi, here and now, and not merely in another world. The civilisations
of antiquity were based that on a firm belief in the efficacy of sadhana.
It is this feature which the modern mind is most apt to misunderstand when it
describes them as religion-ridden. It is a pity that modern civilisation should
be hostile to the very idea, and should pride itself on its secular sprit. For
as Douglas Fawcett has put it forcibly, “Bankruptcy and ruin await our
civilisation if a banal secularism shuts out the light.” This state of affairs
had its origin in the dichotomy of life into secular and religious. Thus was
inaugurated the ominous conflict between this world and the next, between
matter and spirit, between religion and science, between God and the Devil. The
unified and harmonious four fold purushartha was split into two warring
halves, dharma and moksha: ethical obligation, and the ideal of
personal salvation being clubbed together under the name of God or religion,
the other two, artha and kama, being dubbed worldly and even
associated with the Devil. The result was that the normal cravings of humanity,
for power and wealth, for enjoyment and the sense life were condemned as
selfishness and sensuality, forgetting that the self-regarding as well as the
self-denying instincts flowed from the same source, the Self. Varying degrees
of repression followed, leading to disturbance of the mental balance. Most of
the psychological plagues which have overtaken society in recent times are
attributable to this denial of the natural instincts in the name of an
impossible ascetic morality. This has reacted on religion itself and been
responsible for its decay. Religion did not and could not succeed in
eradicating artha and kama, but by excommunicating and outlawing
them, as it were, it flung them outside the rounded orbit of disciplined life,
to fly off at a tangent. Man was divided against himself.
The findings of modern psychology throw much light
on this topic. It is significant that those schools of psychology which have dealt
most with the workings of the unconscious have come to the conclusion that most
mental disturbances, the psychoses and neuroses which are so characteristic of
civilised life today, are brought about either by the thwarting of the will to
power, according to Adler, or by the denial of adequate expression to desire or
the libido, as mainly exemplified in sex life, according to the Freudian
school, in other words, to the repression of artha and kama. The
obvious and only remedy lies in the honourable reinstatement of these two
discarded purusharthas within the sanctities of sadhana, thus
resolving the age-old inner conflict. There is much to learn in this direction
from antiquity, but the dead-weight of outworn tradition has to be boldly cast
aside retaining only what is of lasting value, and an altogether fresh approach
made. The mechanical mythologies which science has sought to substitute in
place of the old ones have not filled the void in man’s heart. Like Aladdin in
the story, modern man is discovering that in exchanging the old lamp for the
new he has not been wholly a gainer, and he is again starting on the search for
the old lamp. He will yet be successful, for the old gods and genii are only
lurking beneath the surface, waiting for man to make the approach, and ready to
meet him half-way. These great forces are active in the human psyche and have
never ceased to exist. In the words of the reputed psychologist, C. G. Jung,
they are embodied in “symbols older than historical man, which have been ingrained
in him from the earliest times and eternally living, out-lasting all
generations, which make up the groundwork of the human psyche. It is only
possible to live the fullest life when we are in harmony with these symbols;
wisdom is a return to them.” The true function of sadhana is to pave the
way for such a return.