Talk:Sadhana Path (साधना पथ)

If one cruises around in the Indian audio sites, sooner or later the oddness of Sadhana Path's aggregations becomes evident. There are listings for "Sadhana Path - Antar Yatra," "Sadhana Path - Path Ki Khoj" and "Sadhana Path - Prabhu Ki Pagdandiyan," and have long been. As info about the books becomes more available, the picture becomes clearer.

another edition of first type, click to enlarge

As mentioned on the main page, Sadhana Path's three published book forms (if not more) in Hindi are:

1. As itself, the original book with just the discourses from Ranakpur

2. As a compilation of two books, the original and Path Ki Khoj (पथ की खोज)

3. As a compilation of three books, the original, Antar Yatra (अंतर यात्रा) and Prabhu Ki Pagdandiyan (प्रभु की पगडंडियां).

The first needs not much elaboration. Obviously, this is the form put out by Jeevan Jagruti Kendra, and likely in other editions since. Its chapters are the first fourteen in the combination books.

When we get to English translations, it is a bit more complicated but this does not affect the Hindi versions. The Perfect Way, a later translation, has only ten chapters, and an early note in this wiki suggested that in Path of Self Realization, Ranakpur talks were augmented by talks from "a subsequent camp in Ajol", implying that Sadhana Path might also include material from Ajol. But close examination of the hard copy of the original PoSR has revealed this notion to be unfounded, with the four-chapter difference accounted for by PoSR's eight short evening chapters getting compacted into four in Perfect Way. Way lengthy exploration of all this at PoSR's Talk page.

The second form above is the one put out by Diamond in 2004, and likely in other editions before and after. Its TOC indicates that the first 14 chapters are identical to those of the original. There is only one more chapter and that is titled Path Ki Khoj. That chapter is much longer than any of the others, comprising about a third of the whole book. It appears that its seven chapters have been, at least in this edition, presented as one. Thus, this form could be said to have either 15 or 21 chapters. Path Ki Khoj has its own complicated story, which will be told on its own page. The Diamond edition is quite short, especially considering that 1/3 of it is taken up with Path Ki Khoj, leaving only 112 pages or so for fourteen chapters worth of SP, but this is likely a matter of larger pages and smaller print.

The third form is that of the 2013 OMI and earlier editions, with a full-blown 29 chapters, with original book title names preceding each section:

साधना पथ (Sadhana Path) 1. साधना की भूमिका 2. ध्यान में कैसे होना 3. धर्म, संन्यास, अमूर्च्छा और ध्यान 4. रुको, देखो और होओ 5. नीति नहीं, धर्म-साधना 6. नीति, समाज और धर्म 7. ‘स्व’ की अग्नि परीक्षा 8. सत्य: स्वानुभव की साधना 9. मन का अतिक्रमण 10. ध्यान, जीवन और सत्य 11. निर्विषय-चेतना का जागरण 12. सत्य-अनुभूति में बाधाएं 13. साधक का पाथेय 14. साधना और संकल्प . .

अंतर्यात्रा (Antar Yatra) 1. साधना की पहली सीढ़ी: शरीर 2. मस्तिष्क से हृदय, हृदय से नाभि की ओर 3. नाभि-यात्रा: सम्यक आहार-श्रम-निद्रा 4. मन-साक्षात्कार के सूत्र 5. ज्ञान के भ्रम से छुटकारा 6. विश्वास-मात्र से छुटकारा 7. हृदय-वीणा के सूत्र 8. ‘मैं’ से मुक्ति प्रभु की पगडंडियां (Prabhu Ki Pagdandiyan) 1. वर्तमान में जीएं; मौन, नासाग्र-दृष्टि 2. प्रभु-मंदिर का पहला द्वार: करुणा 3. मौन, उपेक्षा, करुणा और ध्यान 4. प्रभु-मंदिर का दूसरा द्वार: मैत्री 5. हिंसा, अहंकार; प्रेम और ध्यान 6. प्रभु-मंदिर का तीसरा द्वार: मुदिता 7. प्रभु-मंदिर का चौथा द्वार: उपेक्षा