tapas v0.9: Sadhana

I am simplifying my Sadhana again. At this point I realize that I am primarily a Raja-Bhakti as my primary and secondary yoga. My work is my Karma and Jnana but my Sadhana is purely around meditation. I find that path fulfilling and making it the core of my focus my life long goal. The reason is that the yogas are to experience Isvara. While Jnana is said to be the highest and experiential I find that it is in my meditation I have the clarity of experiential vision. I don’t need the Jnana analysis.

As part of this practice I am also simplifying my Sadhana and Svadhyaya. Instead of continuously switching focus I am going to focus on a few things. My svadhyaya practice for the rest of my life is as follows:

• Memorize Hanuman Chalisa
• Memorize Bhaja Govindam
• Memorize Yoga Sutras
• Memorize Bhagavad Gita

This represents a significant simplification of my practice. The goal is to just focus on a few texts forever as opposed to continuously changing focus. This also means going slow. Learn the Devanagari, learn the Sanskrit to understand deeply the texts in the original. But these texts exist to deepen and support my meditation and Sadhana at the end of the day.

Secondarily, if my focus is completely on Raja-Bhakti Yoga the challenge becomes simpler. Stilling the mind becomes the primary goal. The citta-vritti-nirodaha becomes the focus of all my practice. The scriptures and texts exist to complement this. The stilling of the mind and figuring out how to calm it and ensure that it doesn’t deviate and switch often becomes the absolute focus.

A continuous improvement of every limb will become the goal. All of this of course simplifies the practice even further since my goal is to now continually return to one of the scriptures. This also means a big change. I will no longer be studying commentary and such during the meditation period. That is purely for stilling the brain not adding a bunch of new things to it. So commentaries and such are outside exercises not part of the meditation.

I am only reading a single book outside of my Sadhana at a time. So I can dive into a single book and get to completion before moving to the next book. It means that the study is completely separated from the practice. I can focus deeply on it and not have to constantly switch between texts. It will make the concentration better instead of my mind constantly battling for the next text and such.

Narrowing my focus to a few things at a time instead of making things expansive is my new goal. The commentaries are not the goal, they exist to clarify my own misunderstanding. They are to be read and reread sure but to improve my own understanding to achieve the stillness.

The rest of all of this is an exceedingly simplified system. It means I have three main work blocks where I can focus on a single task at a time. The meditation time is focused completely on practice and reciting texts. The morning is for cleaning the body and spending time with son. Lunch is short and sweet. Garden & Dinner is focused on gardening and taking care of cooking. The number of moving pieces reduces completely.

This also means there is more time for work and diving deeply into tasks. Study and Work will deepen.