सङ्गः सत्सु विधीयतां भगवतो भक्तिर्दृढाऽऽधीयतां

शान्त्यादिः परिचीयतां दृढतरं कर्माशु संत्यज्यताम्।

सविद्वानुपसृप्यतां प्रतिदिनं तत्पादुका सेव्यतां

ब्रह्मैकाक्षरमर्थ्यतां श्रुतिशिरोवाक्यं समाकर्ण्यताम्॥

saṅgaḥ satsu vidhīyatāṁ bhagavato bhaktirdṛḍhā''dhīyatāṁ

śāntyādiḥ paricīyatāṁ dṛḍhataraṁ  karmāśu saṁtyajyatām |

savidvānupasṛpyatāṁ pratidinaṁ tatpādukā sevyatāṁ

brahmaikākṣaramarthyatāṁ śrutiśirovākyaṁ samākarṇyatām ||

Keep company with men of knowledge. Deeply love the Divine. By controlling the mind, remain unflappable. Perform actions without desires. Surrender to a realized Guru. Worship Guru’s pādukā. Remain with OM. Understand the conveyance of Upaniṣad-s.

Every verse in Sādhanā Panchakam has eight conveyances. Thus there are 40 conveyances in Sādhanā Pañcakam.

1. Keep company with men of knowledge. For spiritual evolution and attainment, the company we keep is very important. Human mind is highly fragile and if we have company with negative people, we are bound to be affected. Everyone has to undergo our karma, which may be either good or bad. There are certain people, while undergoing the pains of their karmic accounts, attribute their pains to necromantic effects. Those who repose utmost faith in the Self, will never be affected by necromantical effects. Whether such acts can ever be done is a different topic altogether. A Self-realized Guru will ensure that we are not influenced by such unwanted thoughts. Based on this, in ancient days, students lived along with their Guru in his ashram. During their sojourn in his ashram, a student is protected from all types of evil influences. We should never mingle with those who project themselves as embodiments of knowledge. Many people self-declare that god speaks to them. It is always better to avoid their company and such people should never be accepted as gurus.

2. Deeply love the Divine. Love means a strong positive emotion of regard and affection. Worshipping is different from bhakti or devotion. Worshipping involves various rituals, during which our mind is associated with various requirements and actions. Further, we have to procure various essentials and many of them are expensive. The Self does not require expensive and time consuming pūjā-s. Kṛṣṇa says, “Those who worship gods go to those gods. Those who worship ancestors reach the world of ancestors. Those who worship ghosts, reach those ghosts. But those who worship Me alone, attain Me. Whoever offers Me with utmost devotion and love, a leaf, a flower, a fruit or water, I appear in person and take that offering.  Arjuna, whatever actions you do, whatever you eat, whatever you offer in sacrifice, whatever you give in charity, whatever austerities you perform, offer them all to Me.  If you do this, you will be freed of all your karmas, both good and bad.  With your mind fixed on Me by way of renunciation, you will attain Me.” Whatever we cook at home should be offered to God. We cannot offer plain rice to God, while we enjoy a feast. This concept of offering has to come from the mind and there is no need to offer them physically. This is called Love for Divine and this is the true concept of surrender.

3. By controlling the mind, remain unflappable. The world is filled with both good and bad. Similarly Brahman is both good and bad. There is no separate origin for bad. If we think that bad originates from some other source other than Brahman, then we will be questioning the very basis of Vedanta, that Brahman is omnipresent. Depending upon our karma, we will be experiencing both pleasure and pain. When we are experiencing pleasure, we should not develop ego and while experiencing anguish, we should not be dejected. Kaṭha Upanishad says, “When a person has a discriminating intellect and has that intellect always connected to a mind that is under control, his senses are under control. The one who is not able to discriminate between right and wrong or good and bad, gets caught in the vicious cycle of birth and death.” Kṛṣṇa says, "Nurture no thoughts of material gains and safely and firmly establish your mind on the eternal Self. Perform all your actions forgetting attachments, and considering both success and failure equally. This evenness of mind is called yoga. Actions performed with desire are greatly inferior to this yoga. Take refuge in balanced wisdom, as those who perform actions for the sake of benefits of its fruits are in miserable condition”.

4. Perform actions without desires. When a man relinquishes all the desires of his mind and contented in the Self, he is considered as sthitaprajña (the person who established himself firmly with God-consciousness). He, whose mind is neither shaken at the time of misery, nor attached to happiness, he who is totally free from desires, fear and anger is known as sthitaprajña. The man with self-control, without desires and aversions with subjugated senses and still associated with material objects attains internal calmness.  If internal clarity is attained, all his grief will be annihilated.  His knowledge soon becomes well established in the Supreme Self. That person who relinquishes all his desires, devoid of self-concern and ego and without smallest wants, he alone can realise the Self. This is the stage of Self-realization. After reaching this stage, that person never gets bewildered.  Even at the time of his death, he is steadfast in this stage and attains eternal bliss. Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad says, “The one who is without desires merges into Brahman.” Similarly, Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad says, “When a person has desires, he is reborn in those places driven by his desires. On the other hand, if a person is satisfied with what he has, he becomes one with Brahman in this life itself.” Desires are fine for leading a proper life as per karma yoga. But when the desires transform into craving and attachment, then we are doomed and we have to undergo the pains of transmigration.

Further Readings:

SĀDHANĀ PANCHAKAM - 1

SADHANA PANCHAKAM - 2

SADHANA PANCHAKAM - 3