TRANSFORM YOUR ACTIONS INTO SADHANA

When I was a very young person, I always used to wonder, how I can find the time to do sadhana. Being a doctor, particularly a junior doctor, we had no time for anything. We were called upon all the time. For example, I would have just sat down for my prayers and the telephone would ring and I would get the message that I should immediately attend a serious patient. All the time I used to grumble that I had no time for sadhana. Absolutely no time! But this completely changed when I came into contact with Swami Sivananda. Gurudev emphasised that sadhana was not confined to the puja room. You may sit in the puja room for a specific period of time, do your prayers, do your meditation, do your yoga or pranayama or whatever you are used to, but once you are out of your puja room, you completely forget all that and come back to your mundane life, which you think is distinct from your sadhana. He told us that sadhana is not distinct from life. Everybody has to do some work. It may be in any field – your office work, or it may be in your house as a husband or a father, as a wife or a mother. It is the role God has given you to perform, and if you do it properly, then it becomes a sadhana. Very often our motive is just to succeed in the thing we are doing. That is all. And very often the means are forgotten for the end. If you want to make your action into a sadhana, then the motive behind it should be one of complete selflessness. And it should not be tainted with things that are not correct. What transforms an ordinary action into a spiritual action, is the motive. It should be pure and unselfish, and it should be directed towards excellence. Whatever God has put in your life, do it as well as you can. You may be a doctor or an engineer or a teacher or a sweeper but if you do your duty to the best of your ability and make it excellent, then that is sadhana. This move towards excellence and unselfish motive will transform all your actions into sadhana.