By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

You need a body to be here in this world. This means your body is important.

The condition of your body affects your experience of life. You know this from having had a cold or the flu. Not able to do anything, you can’t even think. Your body’s condition affects your mind.

It works the other way around as well. Your body experiences your thoughts as real events. Thoughts, feelings, and beliefs create chemical and electrical activity in your brain, which directly affect your body. You can think yourself into a panic. You can think yourself into exhaustion.

Does this mean you can think yourself into bliss? And that you can heal your body by thinking different thoughts? Yes. Absolutely yes. This has been extensively researched in the last few decades, though yogis have been saying it for millennia.

The corollary is that you can use your body to change your thoughts. Every yoga class proves this. The changes in your body mean you have to adjust your rear-view mirror before driving home. Better yet, your attitude adjustment has already been accomplished. Your perspective on life is changed.

Exercise is proven to improve your physical health as well as your mental and emotional health. This is because breathing and moving is beneficial. It turns out that slow movement with breathing is better, proven in a recent Harvard Medical School study. Their focus on…

This is why I teach meditation on your own Self.  I don’t teach meditation on your breath, not on your chakras, not on God, or Gods or Goddesses, not on success or happiness. I remember one woman came to Baba and asked for a husband.  Baba told her to meditate on Self for happiness.  So, she went to a different Guru and got…

—  Gurudevi Nirmalananda

From Gurudevi’s full discourse “I Wanted to Know!“

One meditation app boasts of 100 million users worldwide.

But data shows that paid subscriptions began declining a couple of years ago. Since early 2025, internet searches for in-person meditation have increased exponentially.

It is true that the apps give easy access to moments of peace and stress relief.  Yet people are now seeking a deeper meditative experience.

When you become a Svaroopa^® Vidya Meditation Teacher, you can fulfill their profound spiritual longing. You will offer seekers a more lasting and powerful experience. You’ll give them reliable tools to create their own practice and delve deeper inward.

In addition, your Meditation Teacher Training (MTT) gives you even more. You discover your own deep calm and clarity. You explore the source: your own Divine Essence. And you develop the capacity to share this with others.

Learning to teach meditation is now easier and more accessible than ever. Our new MTT format gives you six months of Online classes following your initial On-Site immersion.

Meditation Teacher Training

Begins April 7

On-Site & Online

On-Site, you’ll experience the tools that unravel the knots in your mind. You will discover the deeper dimensions of your own Self and delve into that Beingness. Learning key sutras amplifies your inner experience, especially as you begin putting your own words to these ancient principles.

Experiencing your own Divine Essence is the key part of the process. This is why a Shaktipat Day is included!

Your Online classes begin after you return home. Continuing your sutra studies, you practice giving the teachings in your mentored calls. You also lengthen and deepen your meditations in daily meditations with Gurudevi. Her weekly satsangs (meditation programs) ensure that you continue to marinate in Consciousness.

Your final two-day retreat that culminates your training is also Online. You will be prepared to teach your first series of meditation classes, supported by a Mentor all the way through.

By Annette (Annapurna) Zucco

Interviewed by Lissa (Yogyananda) Fountain, Yogaratna

Even though I’m a trained nutritionist, I signed up for Gurudevi’s “Yogic Nutrition” course.

I was looking for a fresh and different perspective. I wanted to learn new ways to nourish and feed myself and my family. I expected this would also be a great way to come into vegetarianism.

Everyone in the class Zoomed in from their kitchens to the Ashram kitchen. Being in my own kitchen while learning from Gurudevi in the Ashram kitchen was great. We taste-tested new flavors and recipes. Everyone sharing their experiences created a joyful and relaxed atmosphere. It was really fun!

This course took away much of my food anxiety as I learned so much. Regular meal times improve my digestion and metabolism. My body has a chance to rest in between meals. I knew I would be eating at a certain time. I knew I would feel full after I’d eaten.

I was surprised to find how inadequate my protein intake had been. Now that I’m getting the right amount, I am less hungry. I discovered that the six Ayurvedic food tastes make my meals more satisfying. Plus, the herbs and spices are healing.

I feel more satiated and alive. This is the result of a primarily plant-based diet without the density of meat.

Now I understand the difference between a healthy diet and a healing diet. This course has supported my healing process. It was the missing piece.

I am continuing to enjoy flavorful and unusual meals. I am grateful for the gift of this new perspective and direction in my life.

My Baba emphasized the importance of the seated pose. He wrote, “For meditation the most important thing is asana, that your spine be kept straight, upright.” Sit up. Glide your neck and head back so they’re in line with your spine. At the crown of your head, the top of your head, is a thousand-petaled lotus…

— Gurudevi Nirmalananda

From Gurudevi’s full discourse “Sitting for Meditation“

By Swami Satrupananda

When you take a yoga class or get a yoga therapy session, you can’t not change.

This bold guarantee is possible because Svaroopa^® Yoga comes from a long lineage of yoga masters. It has passed the test of time. I see this in action in every yoga class and yoga therapy session.

I taught an introductory class a few weeks ago. The students who came were quite varied. An older Indian couple had been practicing yoga postures from videos online. A younger yoga teacher from a different style had a long litany of back issues. And a quiet, nervous woman, who had never done yoga before, came. They all felt better after their first Svaroopa^® yoga class. This yoga works for everyone.

Students with limited mobility do accessible angles and get changes. Even if a student doubts it will work, they get changes in spite of themselves. Stubborn students melt in the reliable results of the practices. It works every time!

No strain or struggle is needed. Simply soften into the pose and the results are immediate. Don’t know how to soften? No problem! Your teacher or therapist will guide you into effective easy angles. You’ll get props that meet your body where it is at. Then the pose will teach you how to soften.

Your teacher or therapist may even deepen that experience for you with a gentle adjustment. You’ll be delightfully surprised by how great you can feel.

Svaroopa^® Yoga is so reliable because it is based on svaroopa, your inherent Divine Essence. All of the practices are designed to open you up to the bliss of your svaroopa. The experience of your own Divine Essence is profoundly healing, transformative and uplifting. Experience it for yourself. Come to a class — Online or On-Site.

by Gurudevi Nirmalananda

I grew up with this song. I believed in it and did my best to make it happen.

I tried to look perfect and be perfect so I would be loveable. I failed at it again and again.

Then I found how to love. Instead of looking to receive love, I loved with all my love, hoping that all I needed was love. To love without motive, love without need, unconditional love — that’s the love I wanted to give. That’s what I thought Valentine’s Day was about. 

Despite St. Valentine’s life and legend, the day in his honor is actually not about love. It’s about romance. And romance is about desire, even infatuation, with a whole lot of idealism and lust thrown in.

The problem with this is that love makes you desireless. When you experience love, you are overflowing with incredible fullness and joy. There is no space for desire in there. You only experience desire when you feel empty and needy.

Unfortunately, this describes the human condition, anava mala in Sanskrit. When you look inward, you bump into an inner block that hides your own Divine Essence. “Anava” means full of emptiness. It used to wake me up in the middle of the night with an overwhelming loneliness and despair. I’d eat ice cream.

Yoga says there is a better way. Shaktipat gives you freedom from anava mala, so now you can see all the way inward. Finding your own Self, your own Divine Essence, you are filled from within. As you turn inward again and again, your filling gets fuller until it overflows as love.

Now my experience of love is completely different. I started with looking for love from others. I grew into giving love to others, wanting them to reciprocate. Then I found Baba Muktananda, who gave me my own Self.

Now I live in that fullness and revel in the overflowing. And I see the same fullness in you, even when you don’t see your own Self. Yet your Divine light shines through, making you loveable even when you’re not perfect. 

For this Valentine’s Day, give yourself an extra meditation. Dive inward and tap into the source of love. Now let it overflow through your heart, through your eyes, through your actions and words. Do it again the next day, and the next, and the next. It’s a glorious way to live!