Many of us have fond memories of our time with Sadhana Devi during the early days of Ananda India. Swami Kriyananda gave her the spiritual name Sadhana Devi, and she lived up to it in inspiring ways and was a quiet yogic powerhouse.
To me, Sadhanaji comes to mind as someone who embodied Master’s phrase, ‘calmly active and actively calm.’ As a teacher, she taught more through silence than through sermons. At her astral ascension ceremony, her friends remembered her as someone who focused on being there for people in practical, reliable ways when it mattered. She was independent and knew how to be with herself, true to the path of yoga. She excelled both at hard labour and fine music. She was deeply committed to the purpose of self-realization from her early youth.
Sadhanaji came to Ananda Village in 1969 as a young college graduate in her twenties. Her membership number at Ananda is said to be ten—a founding member and serious meditator who served in many roles. At Ananda in the early days, she drove trucks, sowed tepees, sawed wood, kept accounts, cooked in the community kitchen, and much more. She was a reliable person to call for help, even at 2 a.m., and she would show up unflustered, which is how people remember her from those times.
Later, Sadhanaji and her husband Jayaji served on the East Coast, in Rhode Island. They then went on to build Ananda Meditation Centers around the world. They came to India in the mid-2000s upon Swamiji’s request. They served across India and lived in Gurgaon and Pune for several years.
A devout meditator – Meditation came easily to Sadhanaji. It must have been the work of other lifetimes. When others complained of how frustrated they were with their restless mind, she offered to meditate for them.
I first met Sadhanaji about two decades ago, at Gurgaon. I was struggling with my meditations, and I asked her, “My mind keeps wandering during meditation; what should I do? Her answer was simple and practical. “Bring it back, bring your mind back to God, every time you notice it’s wandering,” she said. I felt like an idiot in that moment; isn’t that what we are supposed to do in meditation? How could I miss this? I was instead branching away with my monkeying mind. I have hence tried practicing, and her advice never failed me whenever I heeded it. I still struggle on some days with my meditation, till I can remember her counsel and make amends.
In Pune, on Saturday mornings, she used to lead three-hour meditations at her apartment. Each time I went to those meditations, I returned with miraculous solutions to problems that had bothered me for long. Meditating in her presence, I experienced how truly meditation can be a great problem solver.
Once Swamiji bought an Aura Photography camera. Different people got auras scanned and were pleasantly and unpleasantly surprised with their aura images. Sadhanaji’s aura scan image was pure and bright. When presented with the scan image, she smiled humbly, matter-of-factly, leaving another quiet lesson in what it takes to be an even-minded yogi.
Perpetually helpful and patient – No matter what the challenge at hand, Sadhanaji would deal with it without drama, showing abundant patience. In one of our conversations, she said in her deadpan humor, “I am dealing with son karma these days”. It took me a while to get what she meant. She had raised a daughter, Shyama, and had no sons. During her time in Pune, the ashram was far out from the city limits. Several young men (or shall we say boys) from the Watunde monastery and Ananda would hang out at her house in town. They would leave things behind or borrow things and not return them on time, mess up her kitchen, order things to her address without informing her, and the like. She even offered generous financial assistance to several of them and paid their bills. She just accepted it as repaying her ‘son karma’ and was like a mother to them all. It would have taken a great deal of patience to practice loving kindness with the level of absentmindedness in over a dozen new to Ananda, young men at that time.
The first meditation classes I taught were with Sadhanaji and later Jayaji. I was new to the role and learning to teach on the go. They were abundantly patient and encouraging all along. They helped me build confidence to teach meditation and strengthen my own practice. Sometimes there would be just two or three students in those early days. She was not bothered by the numbers of attendees. She meditated for her students and touched their spiritual life in deep and lasting ways.
In the later years, when Sadhanaji’s health deteriorated, she moved back to America. Recently, when I heard that she was shifted to hospice care, I prayed for her.
In praying for her, I could vividly see her joyful face, as if she were returning blessings. One day, her face appeared very clearly, showering rose petals on me like in a kriya ceremony. And soon after, we got news of her passing. Her soul’s joy is palpable even in faraway India as she moves on to another realm.
As the Ananda song goes – Go with love, Sadhanaji, may joyful blessings speed you safely on your way …