Sadhana, Nature & Foolishness

3 weeks ago By Yogi Anoop

Sadhana, Nature, and Foolishness

(The insistence on suppressing involuntary tendencies is not Yoga)

Human beings’ oldest desire has been that no one should speak ill of them. Or rather, the hidden motive behind it is that everyone should talk about their greatness and praise them. This desire may appear innocent, but it is filled with a very deep delusion. Because the day a person wants the world to function according to their expectations, that very day they have separated themselves from the world. And from here, the seed of suffering is sown.

People often ask—is there any sadhana by which no one speaks ill of us? In this very question, it is already assumed that the problem lies outside and the solution is not within. I have no such sadhana that teaches how to control others’ vision or mentality. But I have certainly worked at the place from where my pain actually arises—my own volitional tendencies.

Volitional tendencies are those mental inclinations that I myself have given birth to. For example, a thought arises in the mind to eat some snacks. We are sitting idle, the atmosphere is pleasant, so why not have samosas, rasgullas, or ice cream; why not watch a movie for entertainment. Sitting idle, one may even start thinking about others. All these thoughts are produced by me; they are the creations of my imagination, simply because I have too much free time. These are the tendencies that can be restrained, transformed, and, if one wishes, gradually freed from.

The problem begins where a person assumes that they can also control those tendencies which they did not create at all—those in whose arising they have no role whatsoever. The throat dries up and asks for water; the stomach signals for food; hunger turns into headache and irritability; a sneeze is eager to arrive at its own time; and a full bladder seeks its natural outlet. These tendencies are not created by the human mind; they are declarations of bodily nature. They signal on their own. They cannot be eliminated.

Suppressing them is not sadhana. In sadhana, the very nature of nature is understood, and in the process of understanding that nature, the knower comes to self-awareness.

But the problem arises when the mind starts considering the control of involuntary tendencies itself as sadhana. Some people even mistake stopping these involuntary tendencies for Yoga. Someone calls conquering defecation, urination, hunger, and thirst a siddhi; someone else considers twisting the body unnaturally and tricking nature to be knowledge. This is not Yoga; this is foolishness—and foolishness hidden in spiritual attire. Such people do not deceive others; they are the greatest victims of their own delusion.

Yoga, meditation, and spirituality did not arise so that humans could wage war against nature. They arose so that humans could understand where to intervene and where not to. Yoga teaches that what is happening involuntarily—let it happen; understand it, become aware of it. And the tendencies that you have created—understand them and dissolve them. My own experience is that while understanding involuntary nature, such profound peace arises that the ending of volitional tendencies begins to happen very easily.

The logic is simple—what is intrinsic cannot have its nature changed. Fire burns, water flows, and the body gives signals—these are unchangeable. But the mental habits, desires, and imaginations that we have accepted as our nature are not nature at all; they are self-created conditionings and habits. And conditionings can be changed, observed, and let go.

True sadhana is not in suppressing the body, but in recognizing illusion. Yoga does not begin where a person declares victory over nature; it begins where nature is understood. Understanding nature itself is the greatest victory. And the day this understanding dawns, those who speak ill also cease to matter—because there is no one left inside who can be hurt.

This alone is real Yoga. Everything else is just acrobatics.

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