By Anna Caldwell - Yoga, Sound Healing & Meditation Online and Mallorca, Spain
Our relationship with spiritual practice often begins with our curiosity. Something in a teaching speaks to us, or an experience leaves us wanting to explore further, or sometimes we simply feel seen at a soul level when we read or encounter a teaching of yoga. We give it our attention, perhaps without knowing quite what we are looking for. As our understanding deepens, that curiosity can grow into trust: we begin to recognize the value of what we are practicing in the way we live.
In the yogic tradition, śraddhā (often written as shraddha) is commonly translated as faith, trust or confidence, and can also convey a sense of inner dedication. It is a quality that gives us the willingness to enter a practice and allow our understanding to develop through it. Patañjali includes it in the Yoga Sūtras as an essential support for the spiritual path - trust in the delivery and process of the yogic path. Faith can be a complicated word to approach, as it is saturated with many different meanings across time and space, many of which tie back to monotheistic religion. For some, it carries a feeling of belonging and devotion. For others, it brings memories of being asked to accept something they could not question. We each arrive at the word with our own history.
What interests me about śraddhā is the relationship it opens between trust and experience. How much do we need to understand before we are willing to begin? To trust the process? And how does the act of beginning change what we are able to understand?
In the Bhagavad Gītā, śraddhā is closely connected with the attainment of spiritual knowledge. This relationship is important because so much of what we seek through spiritual practice takes time to understand, I find this to be very much like the way an experience only makes sense to us often long after it has happened and we have integrated the learning. We can study a teaching, consider its meaning and discuss it at length, but there are aspects of it that become clear only through practice. Śraddhā gives us the willingness to enter that process before we know everything it will ask of us or reveal to us.
Traditionally, this means placing trust in the teachings, in the guidance of a teacher and in the possibility of coming to know the divine (nature, the Great Mystery, or however you relate to this concept). We approach with the understanding that there is something here worth learning, even when it extends beyond our present experience. That trust allows us to be receptive and without some willingness to consider what we do not yet understand, we can find ourselves measuring every teaching against what we already believe, leaving little room for anything to change. I find a beautiful and great humility in this - we acknowledge that our habits, preferences and past experiences influence how we see the world, AND that our familiar way of seeing may be incomplete. A teaching might challenge us precisely where we feel most certain. We may be asked to reconsider what we identify with, what we pursue or what we believe will bring us lasting fulfilment. Śraddhā helps us remain engaged long enough to explore those questions sincerely.
This is also why trust and inquiry need to grow together. We bring our questions into study and practice, seek clarification and pay attention to what we discover - we become scientists of our own yogic practice … we dig, we excavate and we study with an open mind and no preconceived notions. And then, understanding develops through that participation. As a teaching becomes clearer, our confidence in it may deepen; where something remains unresolved, we can continue to investigate. We give ourselves permission to learn without pretending we have already arrived at an answer. I think of this last concept often as a yoga teacher — while I teach others, I am merely a student to share what has deeply touched me in this lifetime. Not because I know anything!
Consider what happens when we begin to explore the relationship between our thoughts and our sense of self. We might encounter the teaching that every thought arising in the mind does not have to define us. At first, this may be an interesting idea that feels far removed from the experience of being caught in worry, anger or self-criticism. Through meditation, however, we begin to observe the mind more closely. We notice a thought arise, absorb our attention and eventually pass. With continued practice, we may start to recognize how readily we accepted a passing thought as a complete account of who we are.
That recognition gives the teaching a meaning we could not gain from reading alone. We have begun to examine it within our own experience. The trust that encouraged us to practise now has a different foundation, because we understand something of what the practice is helping us see. For me, this is where śraddhā becomes especially meaningful …we are giving a teaching enough time and attention to discover its depth. We allow it to move beyond something we agree with and become something that influences our relationship with ourselves and the world. This asks for dedication, particularly when the initial excitement of learning gives way to the slower work of becoming familiar with our own minds and why doing the SAME practice over and over and over again can be so powerful
There will be periods when that work feels difficult or uneventful. We may sit down to meditate and spend much of the time distracted. We may recognise an old pattern and still find ourselves repeating it. In those moments, śraddhā supports our willingness to continue learning. We can remember why we began, draw on what we have understood so far and seek guidance where we need it. Our commitment has room to mature beyond the expectation that every practice should leave us feeling peaceful or every insight should immediately change our behavior. I find it helpful to consider the care we give to anything we deeply value … we make time for it and we become interested in its details. When difficulties arise, we try to understand them, just like our relationships with friends, family and loved one. The same care can enter our spiritual lives. We study the meaning of a mantra we have been repeating, return to a passage that challenges us or bring a question from meditation into conversation with a teacher. Our practice becomes a relationship in which we are actively involved. For this reason, I love reading the same spiritual texts over and over again…each time it is truly like reading the text for the first time, because I am approaching it from a different state of consciousness.
Taking a teaching to heart carries this sense of involvement. We let it matter enough to influence our choices, including the choices that are uncomfortable or inconvenient. If we are studying compassion, we explore it in the relationships where patience is difficult. If we are contemplating truthfulness, we examine the ways we avoid being honest with ourselves. Our daily lives become the place where we discover what we understand and what still needs our attention.
Śraddhā, as I understand it, holds together this willingness to learn and the dedication to live what we are learning … however imperfect that may be. We begin with enough trust to take a teaching seriously and then through study, practice and reflection, that trust can develop into an understanding we have examined for ourselves. What first spoke to us begins to shape how we see, how we respond and what we choose to give our lives to.
“Śraddhā-vīrya-smṛti-samādhi-prajñā-pūrvaka itareṣām”
“For others, samādhi is preceded by śraddhā, energy, mindfulness, samādhi, and wisdom.
Here, śraddhā appears alongside the qualities that support the deepening of meditation: vīrya, the energy and strength we bring to practice; smṛti, remembrance or mindfulness; samādhi, meditative absorption; and prajñā, wisdom or insight.
